Sellers of books, music, video items, DVDs and gaming consoles haven’t seen much change with their Amazon selling fees and options in years. But recent announcements will usher in a wave of developments they need to adjust to almost overnight. What are they and how will they affect you?
Our Amazon seller’s 2017 calendar is already brimming with deadlines and changes. Media merchants, in particular, will be affected this spring. Various new fees and features were announced in the tenth issue of our Digest. We’ll expand on 3 of these impending changes here for our readers.
March 1, 2017 is the day that many sellers and their customers will experience a very different shopping experience on the Amazon.com Marketplace. Sellers of Media products or BMVD (books, music, video, DVDs and video consoles) will:
Compete for the Buy Box with ‘New’ Books
‘Winning the BuyBox’ is Amazon lingo for being featured as the default buying option for an item, as seen below.
Merchants with new books to sell have never had access to the Buy Box before. But Amazon recently announced that they will be able to compete for it from March 2017 onwards. We don’t anticipate sales to rise sharply this year for third-party sellers, though. Amazon’s prices for many new books are simply too hard to match.
Yet, it’s not yet clear what effect making third-party booksellers eligible for the Buy Box will have on business in the long run. We’ve discussed aspects of Buy Box eligibility, Buy Box rotation and how prices affect your chances before. We expect these principles to apply to booksellers and new books as well.
Pay Higher Selling on Amazon Fees on BMVD
It used to be that Amazon would charge you $1.35 per BMVD item and another 15% of the price you sold it for. But this will all change in March. Selling on Amazon Fees for media items will rise:
The Fixed Closing Fee (CF) replacing the old $1.35/item Variable Closing Fee (VCF) will now be $1.80/item.
The Referral Fee will be a percentage of total sales price (item price + shipping fee + gift wrap charges) at:
- 15% of for BMVD excluding Video Game Consoles
- 8% for Video Game Consoles.
So, what does this mean for you? As the table opposite shows, you would earn less. For a book sold on Amazon after March 1, 2017, you’d earn between $0.45 and $1.05 less. For a book sold on Amazon after March 1, 2017, you’d earn $1.05 less.
To put things into perspective, your earnings for a BMVD product sold on Amazon will look something like this from March 1:
Offer Free Shipping and Personalize Shipping Prices
What does this mean in practice? Say you wanted to sell a book. You’d charge the buyer $3.99 to ship it, which sometimes wouldn’t cover your shipping cost. Starting March, you’ll be able to charge your buyers based on delivery address.
As for the buyers, they’ll see the standard shipping rate on the offers page, so they’ll make their price comparisons on the spot. Needless to say, offering free shipping would gain you some extra attention.
