Amazon is adding a 5 per cent surcharge to its delivery fees in response to rising fuel costs and inflation, the company told its third-party sellers on Wednesday.
The fee, which takes effect April 28, will be applied to US sellers using Amazon’s logistics network to deliver products, known as Fulfillment By Amazon. It is not intended to be permanent, nor will it be passed on to consumers directly.
The fee will be added to the per-unit delivery cost, not the overall product price, a spokesperson said. For instance, the cost to deliver a T-shirt would rise from $5.07 to $5.32. The average rise will be 24 cents per package.
While the company does not disclose how many packages it ships, an estimate from logistics consultancy MWPVL suggested 3.25bn packages from third-party sellers were sent to US customers via Fulfillment By Amazon in 2021.
The surcharge does not apply to deliveries made by other companies, such as the US Postal Service or UPS.
In a message sent to sellers on Wednesday, Amazon said it had, until now, absorbed some of the increased costs of doing business, such as adding more than 750,000 new workers, increasing wages and rapidly increasing its warehousing footprint.
“In 2022, we expected a return to normalcy as Covid-19 restrictions around the world eased, but fuel prices and inflation have presented further challenges,” the statement read.
“It’s still unclear if these inflationary costs will go up or down, or for how long they will persist.”
Read more on Amazon’s seller surcharge here
