Amazon to Impose 2% Fee on Third-Party Sellers Who Ship Products Themselves | Hacker News Reader

Amazon to Impose 2% Fee on Third-Party Sellers Who Ship Products Themselves

bloomberg.com

So this isn't a fee on shipping products yourself, it's a 2% fee to get the Prime label and let you just ship it yourself anyway?

I guess it depends on how much the "filter by Prime" is actually used. When I buy a couch from Amazon, do I care about it being delivered next day because of Prime?

Considering that Prime items for me can sometimes be same day, sometimes next day, sometimes a few days, it isn't something that I look for any more.

It started being so inconsistent and randomly delayed that I just realized I'm still planning ahead and don't really need prime.

Also, if it needs bundling bs I don't want to seem attractive, then I feel I'm forced to pay for stuff I don't care about.

I filter by prime more for a consistent return policy. Considering there is so much fake crap on Amazon, buying non-Prime items that don't follow the normal return policy can be risky.

Does the Prime but shipped yourself get to distort any other policies?

Hopefully not, if this really is just a programme to allow bulky items to fall under the same sort of policies as Amazon, including shipping and returns, then I guess I don't really have a problem with it.

They are just paying a 2% fee to get the Prime badge.

Why do you assume bulky items? Right now anyone can get the Prime label as long as they meet certain shipping guidelines.

Because that's what the article says?

> These merchants often sell bulkier items such as furniture that don’t mesh well with Amazon’s highly automated warehouses, which are designed to mostly handle smaller products.

> Amazon launched Seller Fulfilled Prime in 2015 as a way to expand inventory without overloading its fulfillment centers.

> often sell

So it sounds like they sell a range of stuff and bulky stuff is sold "often". I don't see the point of bringing this up in the article or limiting the comment to it.

Personally, I would like an Amazon-only version of the store. I don't want to deal with third parties.

I only consider Prime items anymore, so for me that filter is always switched on.

I exclusively shop using the prime label. even then, I still never get my stuff on time and half of it is junk / not what I bought. I think MAYBE 1/5 packages come within 2 days. it's also frustrating because Amazons estimated delivery is always 2 days, and some times it arrives on day 3 or day 4 or day 5, and they never tell me or update the estimated date. when I buy 200$ worth of stuff, I want to make sure it isn't out in the rain and sun getting destroyed, but they can't even tell me when it arrives.

I expect this change will only make it worse.

https://archive.ph/XUN5y

They're trying to pressure more sellers to consign their inventory at Amazon warehouses. They have two home court advantages: 1. With the 2% hike they are leveraging the power of that 'price rank lowest to highest' display where people pick from the top or close to the top. 2. Consigned items say nebulously 'shipped from Amazon' and the others give a specific location of origin.

I don't play favorites and I've found Amazon consignment to be a reasonable source of high reliability delivery, but I've been burned before as I watch things cross from the far side of the country slowly to arrive at the edge of the date window. When it arrives past the window Amazon is always good and quick on refunds, that is good MIS.

But I will also scan down list and choose a 3rd party seller that is a little more expensive IF it is close to me geographically and promises to ship small items by USPS. USPS has always done right by me, probably because I avoid living in or near big cities.

> USPS has always done right by me, probably because I avoid living in or near big cities.

Tangential comment: It amazes me the number of places in the US that won't ship via USPS. In rural places it's literally the only game in town. Same thing goes with places that won't ship to PO boxes. Some places don't have mail delivery, every home gets a PO box. Oh and that messes with address validation on a lot of forms, because most places look up whether or not a house is in USPS's database.

Shipping and address validation are a few of those rare things, like names, where software folks shouldn't even bother validating.

> Shipping and address validation are a few of those rare things, like names, where software folks shouldn't even bother validating.

I dunno. I think the common practice of offer a "corrected" name but allow them to override with the entered one is pretty fair. Typically I just see it adding the last 4 of a zipcode but I mean one could mispell an address as well as addresses for a permitted structure should be enumeratable.

> I think the common practice of offer a "corrected" name but allow them to override with the entered one is pretty fair.

Yeah, I'd agree that's pretty sane behavior. But as someone with one of those rural addresses I can say that most of the time you're not able to override it.

I forget where but I was once trapped in software hell where it would autocorrect my address to a correct-looking address but actually was a different structure on the property. You had to submit the corrected version. Phone support couldn't help and just redirected me back online. It was a mess.

I’ve ordered something (flipper zero) from west coast to east coast recently, and was shipped with “usps ground advantage”. Item was received by usps Jul 31st, left a depot in west coast on Aug 1st, and radio silence since then on the tracking, it’s “in transit to next facility”.

I don’t know if usps has gotten worse recently, but I never had this kind of issue with Amazon shipping (whichever carrier they use, even usps).

lol, here on the Big Island almost everything arrives via USPS. True, UPS and FedEx have local delivery but it rarely gets used on Amazon deliveries. Supposedly Amazon are building a new facility by the Kona airport, will be interesting to see if that changes delivery times/last mile method.

Maybe this will drive out some of the very low margin/very low quality drop shippers and scammers.

There are a few reason why 3rd party sellers don't want to go through Amazon. Can someone audit Amazon's warehouses, on behalf of 3rd party sellers, to investigate the proliferation of fake goods (bought by Amazon, not 3rd party sellers)?

Well, Amazon makes good money selling conterfeit stuff under genuine labels. Sellers who ship stuff themselves deprive Amazon from this profit. Looks like 2% is what Amazon is being deprived of.

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