Fulfillment by Amazon is changing again. Barely a month after enacting fee changes for fulfillment and weight calculation, we are now looking at changes in their storage fees. Amazon tells us that these changes will help streamline inventory management and the improved organization will speed along the shipping process. All good things for your business, right?
As before, Amazon plans to stagger the price changes to help you plan for it throughout the year. Look for these changes ahead:
Monthly Inventory Storage Fees:
Effective Date: April 1, 2018
Price Change: 5¢ per cubic foot increase
For What Items: All standard and oversized items
Seen: In your May invoice for storage charges.
See the table below and Monthly Inventory Storage Fees for more details.
Long-Term Storage Fees:
Effective Date: September 15, 2018
Price Change: fees assessed on a monthly basis rather than semi-annual.
See the table below and Monthly Inventory Storage Fees for more details.
Minimum Long-Term Storage Fees:
Effective Date: August 15, 2018
Price Change: 50¢ per unit per month
For What Items: All items in a storage facility for a year or more.
See the table below and Monthly Inventory Storage Fees for more details.
Other Changes to Storage Availability:
If you have a Professional selling plan:
Amazon is also setting up a system for rewarding those items to work most efficiently through their selling system in order to benefit customers, sellers, and Amazon. In order to best judge the efficiency of items sold, an Inventory Performance Index will be set in place July 1, 2018. Storage access may be limited to sellers with items that score an index under 350. After July 1st, the indexes will be updated weekly. Sellers who maintain a score of 350 or above will be granted unlimited storage access (with incurred monthly fees.)
If you have a Professional selling plan, but do not maintain an Inventory Performance Index score of at least 350:
As of July 1st, 2018, a quarterly analysis will be conducted on storage limits. A notification will be sent to you if your Performance Index is less than 350 with 6 weeks left in a quarter to indicate your storage limits. If your index does not improve to 350, storage limits will be set for the next quarter. At that time, you will not be able to begin a new shipment until you are under your storage limits.
If your inventory exceeds your storage limits, an overage fee of $10 per cubic foot will be incurred.
More details to the guidelines mentioned above can be found here:
