Changes in the Amazon Fulfillment Center 2023
The Amazon marketplace is an important sales channel for online sellers. Just like Google, it is important for Amazon to offer the best user experience for end customers. This is why Amazon also makes regular adjustments to optimize the entire process. Amazon will also be changing a lot in 2023, which is important for sellers.
New fees in the Amazon Fulfillment Center
On January 17, 2023, new fees will be introduced in Fulfillment by Amazon(FBA) in the USA. The sales fee remains unchanged. However, some fee categories will be removed and the ASINs assigned to new categories. The fees may be lower or higher as a result.
The separate charges for “fuel and inflation surcharge” no longer apply. In return, the fees for shipping by Amazon will increase.
The storage fee increases by $0.04 per 1 cubic foot = 0.028 m³. In the event of a poor stock index, a price premium of approx. 7.5% is applied. Goods that are stored at Amazon for 271 to 365 days receive further price surcharges. Old stocks between 180 and 270 days also receive surcharges. The stock check will take place on 15.04.2023. Bis dahin sollten Händler ihre alte Ware lieber aus den Amazon Logistikzentren, wie zum Beispiel in Bad Hersfeld, Rheinberg oder Brieselang auslagern.
Outgoing goods increased on average to 0.22 $. The fees for returns and disposal will also increase.
Für das Versandgewicht bei Bekleidungen wird das höhere Stückgewicht oder Volumengewicht benutzt.
Handling fees for returns of apparel or footwear will be reduced to an average of $0.20 per return.
Inventory index(LBI) becomes more important
Amazon is paying more attention to the LBI in its logistics centers. For goods that are slow-moving items in the warehouse, the fees are more expensive or even outsourced. Amazon sellers should therefore pay more attention to their LBI and improve it.
One measure to improve the LBI is to store articles that are sold infrequently or seasonal articles in an external distribution warehouse. The external warehouse can then send partial quantities to various Amazon warehouse locations, such as Winsen or Hamburg, as required. This service is called pre FBA service.
New shipping platform Veeqo
But Amazon also wants to help sellers reduce costs. Amazon has built the multi-shipping platform Veeqo, which is currently available for the USA. In the future, Amazon wants to help retailers reduce shipping fees with its shipping network. It remains to be seen whether Veeqo will also be available for Germany this year.
Amazon wants to abolish barcodes
The Amazon Fulfillment Center uses many automated robots that pick the goods and bring them to the packing point. However, the robots have difficulty finding the barcodes. In order to improve this, the “multi-modal” camera system should be used. The camera system identifies the items during incoming and outgoing goods. The system is already being used in Amazon fulfillment centers in Spain and the Netherlands.
Amazon introduces new metric for evaluating product pages
Amazon is introducing a new metric to re-rank product pages from Amazon sellers.
The Potential Sales Increase metric shows the seller missing key attributes and how sales can improve with the change.
The Potential Sales Increase metric is located on the sellers’ Listing Quality dashboard.
Here’s how Amazon explains the new metric: “With the potential increase in sales, you can prioritize the improvements to your listings that will bring you the most value.“
The new metric will be introduced gradually and is not yet available to all Amazon sellers. It can be observed that brands are already correcting their detail pages and taking advantage of this metric.
For more announcement and seller response, visit Amazon Seller Central.
Of course, compliance with the seller’s mandatory information on the product pages is still very relevant and should always be up to date.
Which products will be in demand on Amazon in 2023?
Of course we don’t know exactly, it will only become apparent in the end. But we can take a look into the future based on the fourth quarter of 2022.
As a percentage of consumer categories in Q4 2022
Source: JungleScout Consumer Trends 2022
