Amazon FBA and FBM Fees in 2021

Introduction

Amazon - which houses the world's top-class products, brings all shopaholics under one roof. Inescapably, it is a one-stop-shop that deals with multiple services or products and is always ready to go the extra mile to live up to its potential customers' unmatched yet valuable demands. Therefore, selling on Amazon always seems to be an intelligent decision.

But before you start selling on Amazon, do you know all the details about Amazon’s selling fee structure, how does it cost to sell on Amazon or selling on Amazon fee schedule, etc.? Have a look at the fees you will pay as an Amazon seller moving into the year 2021.

Fees all Amazon sellers pay

Every seller pays the referral fees on Amazon while selling their products. Now let’s understand what the referral fee is.

Referral Fees

For every item sold, the sellers would have to pay Amazon a percentage of the total price—including item price, shipping cost, and any gift-wrapping charges. It is the commission a seller is going to pay to Amazon for every sold item. These fees are not paid upfront, but they are collected from the seller’s account after the sale is made.

The referral fee percentage (RFP) and referral fee minimum (RFM) value vary for various products under fixed referral fees. Let’s have a look at the fees for different categories:

If you wonder why we are not talking about the referral fee minimum in detail, let us tell you that the referral fee minimum or RFM mostly remains the same, i.e., $0.30. And the list goes on like this...

Now that we have given you a good idea about referral fees. Let’s learn about selling plans and fulfillment fees.

Selling plans

The selling plans on Amazon gives you the freedom to pay. There are two types of seller accounts: individual and professional. Individual sellers pay a flat $0.99 for every sales transaction, while professional sellers pay a monthly subscription fee of $39.99

It is important to note that the professional selling plan on Amazon can only work for you if:

• You sell more than 40 items a month.
• You want to advertise your products.
• You want to qualify for top placement.
• ​You want to use advanced selling tools, like APIs and reports.
• ​You want to sell products in restricted categories.

Fulfillment Fees

The cost to ship your orders depends on how you want to fulfill your orders. The fulfillment fees depend upon whether merchants plan to shop products by themselves (FBM) or want to use Amazon for their logistics (FBA) and offer prime shipping for their products.

Some sellers are likely to incur additional fees (such as long-term storage fees) or pay for optional programs like advertising or premium account services.

Fees FBA sellers pay

As an FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) seller, Amazon’s fulfillment employees pick, pack, and ship your products. You don’t have to think about all these hassles, and in return for this, Amazon charges you an FBA fee.

Based on the product's weights and dimensions, this fee includes picking and packing the orders, shipping and handling, customer service, and product returns.

Standard-size product tiers

Moreover, there is an additional charge of $0.11 per unit for items with lithium batteries.

FBA storage fees

To maintain your inventory, Amazon charges storage fees for your products. Inventory storage fees are charged either monthly or long-term. A monthly storage fee is given when you have inventory in an Amazon warehouse at the end of the month. The long-term storage fee is for the items that have been kept in their fulfillment centers for 180 days or longer.

Both of these storage fees are deducted on the same date each month from your Amazon seller account balance.

Fees FBM sellers pay

When you fulfill orders yourself (Fulfillment By Merchant), Amazon charges shipping rates based on the product category and shipping service selected by the customer, which you receive as shipping credit. Unlike FBA sellers, you have to pick, pack, and ship your products by yourself and handle customer service.

Sellers with the Professional plan get the option to set their shipping rates (except for books, music, video, and DVD products). Sellers with the Individual plan have to use Amazon’s set shipping rates for all products. The price ranges from $3.99 - $46.50, depending on the category, type of shipping, and product weight.

Please note that the cost of labor is an important factor to keep in mind when you are choosing the fulfillment method for your business. Also, to compare the two costs, Seller Assistant App has an FBA revenue calculator for your ease.

Other fees

There are some additional selling expenses you may incur, so it is crucial to have a look at them:

Closing fees

Sellers selling media products like books, DVDs, CDs, and Blu-Ray, have to pay a flat $1.80 fee per sale. You don’t have to pay this fee in advance as it will be deducted from the sale's proceeds.

High-volume listing fee

If you have more than 100,000 products listed, then only you have to deal with this type of fee. The fee is $0.005 for every listing above that threshold of 100,000. It is paid at the same time as FBA storage fees and deducted from your Amazon account balance.

Rental book service fees

Sellers providing rental book services are need to pay a fee for that, which is $5.00 for each textbook rental. They are deducted at the time of a sale.

Refund administration fees

If you have been paid for a product and the customer asks for a refund, then Amazon issues the refund and charges a fee for that. It is either $5.00 or 20% of the refunded charge, whichever is minimum. The refund administration fees are immediately paid through your Amazon account balance.

Conclusion

So, here we gave you an overview of Amazon fees for the year 2021. We hope that this will help you in your selling at Amazon. You might also get an idea of which product you can choose to sell if you are new to the online business.

Disclaimer: The 2021 Amazon fees and costs have been mentioned in this blog post are subject to change. So, please carry out your own inquires before selling on Amazon.

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