Does Amazon FBA inadvertantly double charge customers postage for orders under £35 where seller has priced in free postage?
I'm trying to understand the impact on customers of products that are sent to FBA which are priced and marked as free postage, and that are under £35.
As a seller we're told that Amazon prefers customers to see free postage, so for example I have a product that normally retails at £20, but say I know the FBA postage fee is for example £5, so as a seller I price the product at £25 which then includes the postage.
But, as the total price is under £35, Amazon will then charge the customer a further postage fee at checkout of lets say £5 for ease of this example.
The customer gets their product, we as the seller get what is due to us, BUT, Amazon gets the FBA fee that we factored into our pricing and then on top of that another postage fee which they charged as the total is under £35, i.e. they get our £5 FBA postage and then on top of that another £5.
The customer is surely losing out here.
I am missing something or just not getting it...??
8 replies
Seller_RlZVPg3d6ZUGP
i'm slightly confused, you cant price in free postage on an fba item as Amazon will always charge it if the customer isnt on prime so surely its your extra £5 thats making the customer lose out not what Amazon charge?
Seller_d8YGbIjNqwFxn
Yes orders under £35 require the customer to pay an additional postage fee if they are not a prime member. If they are a prime member then there is no additional postage fee.
It is one reason people spend money on an Amazon Prime subscription so they get unlimited free deliveries on low price items.
I don't think it is unfair to the customer. They have the choice to be an Amazon Prime Member or pay the additional postage cost. If they are just ordering one thing every month it would work out cheaper for them
Seller_76AUwmqvSyRIM
I disagree.
The cost of postage has already been factored in the price of the item so Amazon are getting a second amount of postage. In fact, when non-prime buyers customers pay the additional amount, they get a worse service than Prime members.
The Prime subscription pays for the higher cost of prime fulfilment which is often next day delivery, same day delivery, really late ordering time for next day delivery etc etc. Prime is really good, there is no denying it but customers pay for it via their subscription.
I understand that it is their choice whether to pay for a prime subscription so that they don't pay the postage charge but my point is that postage has already been factored into the item price.
Seller_LwTXNUY9wyKmj
So, to conclude, if a customer isn’t Prime, then yes, they will inadvertently be paying postage twice. I have to say I’m not sure this would go down too well if widely known.
And from a Prime aspect, yes, you pay a subscription, but importantly this is for next day / same day delivery. This isn’t the same though as standard delivery, which I believe the customer shouldn’t have to pay twice for.
Seller_uPuf4V7GDz2aH
You're basically right in everything you say and it's something that I have previously pondered upon and like you I feel it doesn't sit quite right. However if a customer doesn't have Prime it's up to Amazon if they offer free delivery to the customer or charge them for it.
I guess Amazon's defence would be that the per-unit cost to them to deliver a single low-value item is much higher than a higher quantity (which would often take the order to above £35) and that this is somewhat offset if someone is paying the prime membership.
Also it's not always £5, some of my FBA orders have a postage charge of £1.99 or £2.99.
Personally I wouldn't overthink it as it won't realistically be something they will change.
