Amazon’s price hike spree continues, thanks to rising operating costs!
Starting April 7, 2023, Amazon will introduce major fee updates to multi-channel fulfillment (MCF) orders.
Depending on shipping destination (local or cross border), delivery option (standard or expedited) and size tier, you may see a slight decrease or significant increase in your MCF fees. In some cases, you may see no fee change at all.
For instance, if you review the policy you’ll see that Amazon dropped the rate for shipping an envelop package within the UK by an average of £0.04, while some fees remain unchanged. Other parcel size tiers experience an increase.
However, things can get substantially expensive for you if fulfilling cross-border shipments due to a massive fee hike that will take effect on April 7th.
Take standard shipping for example. From smallest to largest, the expected fee increase ranges between £0.77 (80g small envelope) and £7.32 (31.5kg large oversize) per single unit order.
Standard Shipping: Cross-Border Shipments (1 Unit Per Order)
Moreover, fulfilling expedited cross-border shipments this year will leave you with even slimmer profit margins.
On average, Amazon has raised the MCF fees for envelopes to a little over £1, standard parcels between £1 to £5, and standard oversize £6 to £9, and roughly £10 for large oversize.
Expedited Shipping: Cross-Border Shipments (1 Unit Per Order)
Note: These fees already include the 4.3% fuel and inflation surcharge.
Reduce MCF Fees with Multi-Unit Discounts
Given how steep the fee increases are, be sure to take advantage of Amazon’s multi-unit discounts to get lower fulfillment rates.
Check out the table of fees below to see the difference between local shipping fees for one-unit and multi-unit orders.
With multi-unit discounts, you could save up to 40% on fees! Try to increase your multi-unit sales by:
- Offering coupons for minimum purchase amounts. For example, get 15% off with a min purchase of 3 items or buy 2 get the third one at 25% off.
- Creating add-ons to your products, e.g., if selling women’s swimwear, provide customers with an option to add sun hats, flip-flops, aqua shoes, and more.
It is not clear to us at this time whether a virtual bundle will be counted as a multi-unit order but, given what is known about how Amazon counts SKUs in those orders, this seems likely. If that is the case, promoting virtual bundles could be a good way to capitalize on these reduced shipping rates. Testing this theory by reviewing the shipping charges tied to these orders would be smart.
Related:Master Carton Calculator to Optimize Packaging and Reduce Shipping Costs
Aside from multi-unit discounts, Amazon also made significant improvements on the following areas to help you grow your business.
- If you’re selling on the UK marketplace, you may now opt to ship your MCF orders in blank packaging at no extra cost. This is helpful when you are sending items from other sales channels such as your own website, and don’t want Amazon’s logo featured on your deliveries.
- Providing you with ISO-certified IT security systems so you can safely and securely conduct business on Amazon. This means Amazon’s systems meet a global standard approved by the International Organization for Standardization.
- Maintaining their 98% on-time delivery rate to consistently meet Amazon customer delivery expectations.
Go to 2023 UK MCF Fee Updates for more information.
Related: Attack of the Fee Stack White Paper, Prepare for these 6 Major Changes to 2023 Amazon UK and EU FBA Fees, How to Increase Profit Margins for Amazon Sellers
