Amazon Selling Fees | The Cost of Selling on Amazon

You probably noticed, that some Amazon seller fees are not well described on Seller Central, or even worse - not described at all.

You can bookmark this page as a reference, to come back and look up any fee you were charged and would like to know more about.

Table of Contents

1. Amazon Exclusives Fee
2. Commission
3. Compensated Clawback
4. Coupon Redemption Fee
5. CReturn Wrong Item
6. CS Error Items
7. FBA Customer Return Per Unit Fee
8. FBA Disposal Fee
9. FBA Fee
10. Gift Wrap Charge
11. Gift Wrap Chargeback
12. Gift Wrap Commission
13. Gift Wrap Tax
14. Goodwill
15. High Volume Listing Fees
16. Inbound Carried Damage
17. FBA Inbound Transportation Fee
18. FBA Inbound Transportation Program Fee
19. FBA Inbound Transportation Service Fee
20. Incorrect Fees Items
21. Inventory Placement Fee
22. Labeling Fee
23. FBA Long Term Storage Fee
24. Marketplace Facilitator Tax
25. Multichannel Order Damage
26. Multichannel Order Lost
27. Non-subscription Fee Adjustment
28. Opaque Bagging Fee
29. PrepFee Refund
30. Principal
31. Promotion MetaData Definition Value
32. Referral Fee
33. Refund Admin Fee
34. FBA Removal Fees
35. Removal Order Damaged
36. Removal Order Lost
37. Run Lightning Deal Fee
38. Sales Tax Service Fee
39. Shipping Charge
40. Shipping Chargeback
41. Shipping Holdback Fee
42. Shipping Promo
43. Shipping Tax
44. Sign up for Shopkeeper
45. Subscription
46. FBA Storage Fee
47. Taping Fee
48. Tax
49. Variable Closing Fee & Fixed Closing Fee
50. Vine Fee
51. Warehouse Damage
52. Warehouse Damage Exception
53. Warehouse Lost

Amazon Exclusives Fee

The Amazon Exclusives Fee is a fee charged by Amazon to sellers who want to enroll their products in the Amazon Exclusives program. This program is designed for sellers who have unique and innovative products and want to showcase them exclusively on Amazon.

Commission

Amazon earns a variable sales fee, commonly known as a Commission or referral fee, from your sales on their platform. This fee is a core charge for the privilege of selling on Amazon and is typically 15% of the gross sales, varying by category. While the most common fee is 15%, it can range from 6% for personal computers to 96% for warranties. For example, if you sell a $1000 PC, your commission to Amazon would be $60, and for a $100 warranty, the commission would be $96. It's important to check the official Amazon list of commission fees for accurate and up-to-date information as these fees can change.

Compensated Clawback

Compensated Clawback is when Amazon takes back ("claws back") the money that they paid you as a reimbursement before.

You could just watch this video I recorded about Amazon Clawbacks, instead of reading this section:

Here's a typical clawback event story:

Step 1. Amazon warehouse loses or damages your product, so they issue you a reimbursement to compensate for it. It is called FBA Inventory Reimbursement, and it looks like this in Seller Central:

Step 2: Amazon later rediscovers/finds lost item, so they take back ("claw back") the previously reimbursed amount. The Compensated Clawback is recorded as a negative Inventory Reimbursement event (they charge you):

Most likely you will first stumble upon Step 2 transaction in your Transaction reports, and you won't be able to easily track down what was the original reason for the reimbursement and what date it happened.

To find the original event, you will have to go to your Reimbursements Report on Seller Central:

It becomes clear from Reimbursement Report, that the item was lost by the warehouse and 12 days later found again.

 

Shopkeeper will track both the Reimbursement and the Compensated Clawback, and assign both financial transactions to the affected ASIN:

Shopkeeper will also account for the fact that when you lose a unit, you incur Manufacturing and Shipping costs for it.

Let's say your costs for one unit are these:

When Amazon loses your item and sends you some money for it to reimburse you, then you want to offset that income with your costs for the lost item - manufacturing, shipping, import tax, etc. Otherwise it would just look like you made 12.95 in profit.

Shopkeeper subtracts your costs for the unit, on the day Amazon loses it:

When the clawback is issued and reimbursement gets reversed 12 days later, Shopkeeper puts back the Manufacturing and other custom costs for your product, to your balance.

Because Amazon found your lost unit, it means you don't want to actually show the costs yet - the item is still in your warehouse. Manufacturing and other costs of goods will be applied when the next sale comes in or another unit is lost.

Missing from Inbound Clawback is also a Reversal Reimbursement, but applied specifically in cases where a previous reimbursement was issued due to units missing in the inbound delivery process.

For example, if UPS truck was bringing 300 units to Amazon warehouse, but only 200 arrived - Amazon will issue a Reimbursement for 100 units to you. If they later magically find the missing units, Amazon will "claw back" the reimbursed amount from you:

Coupon Redemption Fee

Amazon charges sellers a fee called the Coupon Redemption Fee when shoppers use coupons during checkout for discounts. This fee covers the costs of managing coupon redemptions. Amazon charges a $0.60 redemption fee per coupon used. The fee varies based on factors like the product type and discount amount. Sellers should consider this fee when planning prices and promotions. Understanding and budgeting for the Coupon Redemption Fee helps sellers manage costs and make the most of their coupon offers to attract customers and boost sales.

CReturn Wrong Item

CRETURN_WRONG_ITEM is a reimbursement, issued to you by Amazon on FBA orders, when a customer returns a wrong item to the Amazon warehouse after a refund.

So basically customer buys a 32GB USB Stick from you, files a refund, and then sends back in the wrong item, for example, 10GB USB Stick instead.

This is similar to normal Inventory Reimbursement, when a customer does not return the item back to Amazon in 45 days. With Inventory Reimbursement, when an item is refunded, but not physically returned to the warehouse in 45 days - Amazon charges your customer and gives you a reimbursement for the item.

The same happens with CReturn Wrong Item Reimbursement. When a customer returns the item back to Amazon, but it's not the item he purchased, Amazon assumes that he did not return the item and charges the customer for it, reimbursing you at the same time.

Here is how you will see CRETURN_WRONG_ITEM reimbursement in Shopkeeper:

Instead of showing $-27.20 loss due to a refund, Shopkeeper takes into account Reimbursement for this unit, and shows you total profit of $2.28.

The way Shopkeeper shows it together in one view, lets you see a more complete picture of what happened with this particular order. Now you know that each refunded item which is not returned properly, actually makes you $2.28 USD in profit.

You should be happy when customers are Switcheroos or Forgetfuls. Amazon charges them and you recoup some money from a refund, when normally you would be just losing money.

CReturn Wrong Item reimbursement is only issued automatically on AFN (Amazon-fulfilled) orders. That is, only when Amazon is the one handling the returns.

If your order was MFN (Merchant-fulfilled), then you will have to file a SAFE-T claim, to get a similar reimbursement.

Note: this is an article in Progress, another 49 fees to be added in the next two months.

CS Error Items

This is an error adjustment, related to or performed by customer service department.

Most often it's a positive deposit to your account, made after Amazon overcharges you on something. To correct previous charges, they issue a deposit to you which shows up in Other transactions:

Sometimes an order-id is associated with it, and sometimes it is not.

Shopkeeper shows this adjustment either on a particular order-id, like this:

..or on the ASIN on the day that it was charged:

Even if a product had no sales on that day, Shopkeeper will still show all financial activity that happened during that day and is related to that product. For example, here, Amazon Seller Fees were adjusted in a CS Error Items transaction.

FBA Customer Return Per Unit Fee

When a customer returns an item, sellers are charged a return per unit fee. The seller's account balance is debited for this fee, which is applied on a per-unit basis. It includes a range of expenses associated with handling returned goods, such as inspection, possible repackaging, and restocking. The particular cost of the fee may change based on things like the type of product being returned and how it was in when it got to Amazon's fulfillment center. This charge should be taken into account by sellers when analyzing their total cost of operations and profitability on the marketplace.

FBA Disposal Fee

When Amazon handles the disposal of your FBA goods, you'll be charged a Disposal Fee. This fee includes the costs associated with managing and getting rid of inventory that can't be resold, like damaged, expired, or unsuitable items. The specific fee amount varies based on the size and weight of the item being disposed of.

FBA Fee

FBA stands for Fulfilment by Amazon. You pay an FBA fee if you store your products at Amazon warehouse and Amazon ships them to your customers for you. This includes shipping, refund management & support, inventory pick & pack, stocking, counting, delivering, loading etc.

FBA fee constantly keeps changing, mostly increasing. It's now roughly 2.50-5.50 USD per small item.

You can check current FBA fees here:

FBA Fees for Amazon North America

FBA Fees for Amazon Europe

Gift Wrap Charge

Gift wrap charge is a fee your customers pay to get their purchased products wrapped in gift paper and have a card sent with it as well.

To have the Gift Wrap option enabled on your listings, you have to select these checkboxes in Seller Central:

That way the buyers can see Gift Options when checking out:

You may ask, ok, but who is doing the actual gift wrapping?

If your listing is Amazon-fulfilled (FBA), then Amazon does the gift wrapping and they also keep the gift wrap charge. All you need to do is enable the gift wrap options on your listings like above, and it will just automatically become available for your buyers.

If your listing is Merchant-fulfilled, you will be the one doing the gift wrapping. For this option to be fully enabled, you will need to setup a few extra things in your Seller Central. First, go to Settings->Gift Options:

Then, create Gift Wrap options for your customers and set the gift wrap prices:

Then your buyers will be presented with your Gift Wrap options, and Amazon will send you all collected Gift Wrap Charges along with your payout.

Gift Wrap Chargeback

That is, when your listing is FBA (Amazon-Fulfilled), Amazon is collecting a gift wrap charge from your customers and it appears in your transactions as your revenue. But because it's not you who is doing the gift wrapping, Amazon is also adding in a Gift Wrap Chargeback, to immediately take the collected Gift Wrap Charge away from you.

Unfortunately, this inflates your revenue figure:

If you want to do a financial analysis, or present your numbers to investors/partners, you shouldn't really use inflated Revenue that Amazon shows in their downloadable reports. It is better to use apps like Shopkeeper, which normalize your revenue, still showing all relevant transactions from Amazon:

Using inflated revenue directly from Amazon reports can be good and bad. Higher revenue figure means you can appear to be making more money to investors, potential business buyers, your followers, potential hires, etc.

But it can also be bad if you get charged for some things based on revenue. It also adds up to complexity of bookkeeping, and confusion whether you should show gift wrap chargeback as costs, or simply ignore all this math and declare revenue without showing gift wrap activity at all. I recommend showing all like Shopkeeper does, simply because then it’s much easier to follow the numbers from Amazon reports if you keep track of all the same transactions that they do.

In the end, if you’re just a small company, these details don’t matter so much. Just do what is the easiest for you.

Gift Wrap Commission

Gift Wrap Commission is basically a referral fee, charged on all gift wrap services that were provided by you, the seller. If Amazon is the one gift-wrapping it, you don't get charged a commission.

Here is how the normal gift wrap commission charge appears in Shopkeeper, when it's fulfilled by you, the Merchant (MFN):

There is one more non-obvious situation, where Amazon charges you Gift Wrap Commission.

If you are running a promo, and offer your customer 100% off (so that the final price that the customer pays is 0.00) - then Amazon charges you a Gift Wrap Commission. AND also a small Referral Fee and Shipping Holdback Fee.

Amazon cannot charge you more than minimum Referral Fee because Referral Fee is based on sales revenue. Now the revenue is 0.00. So they also charge you two other small minimum amounts - Shipping Holdback Fee and Gift Wrap Commission Fee. This is their way to make money out of the zero-amount-sale that happened on their platform:

Special case where Amazon charges you 3 kinds of fees to offset your 100% promos.

Gift Wrap Tax

Gift Wrap Tax is collected on Gift Wrap Charges. The exact amount collected will depend on your tax settings in Seller Central:

You may not know this, but you are liable to remit collected Tax on Gift Wrap, EVEN if Amazon is the one doing the actual gift-wrapping, and keeping the Gift Wrap charges.

So when you remit your collected sales tax at the end of the year for VAT for example, don't forget to add the amounts for collected Gift Wrap Tax. Consult your accountant for more info on this, but just be aware Amazon does not remit collected Tax for Gift Wrap services that they performed - YOU have to do it.

Amazon leaves you to remit collected sales tax on the gift wrap charges, EVEN if they are the ones doing the gift wrapping.

The Gift Wrap Tax will appear on your Order Transaction as income.

Here’s how Shopkeeper will show it:

And that makes you see the actual profit you made, minus the sales tax collected.

You can double check it on your Seller Central:

If you sell in USA, Gift Wrap Tax can be either collected or not collected, based on state-specific rules and regulations. You as a seller will have to research and decide whether to collect sales tax on gift wrap or not, in each specific state.

State by State Gift Wrap Tax Guide - Taxjar

For some states, Amazon is automatically collecting sales tax and remitting it on your behalf. Alabama, Connecticut, Iowa, Washington and many others. In that case, you don't need to worry about collected Gift Wrap Tax.

When Amazon auto-collects taxes on your behalf, your Seller central transaction shows a chargeback for Gift Wrap Tax, called MarketplaceFacilitatorTax-Other:

Note that according to Amazon, your Sales Proceeds (Revenue) is $32.12. This is inflated, because in the same transaction they are showing chargebacks as expenses. You may not want inflated revenue figures, if you are to present your numbers to potential investors, partners, etc.

This is how Shopkeeper will organize it for you:

Shopkeeper does not inflate your revenues, like Amazon does. Both Gift Wrap charge and all chargebacks are summed up in Revenue amount, instead of showing chargebacks as expenses. This normalizes your revenues and you don't appear like you are making more money when you aren't.

Goodwill

Goodwill is an amount issued to your customer by Amazon, when the customer is not entitled for this amount of refund. Most often, Goodwill concession is granted to compensate for negative customer service experience, late deliveries, lost packages and similar situations.

Amazon takes responsibility for Goodwill charge - so even though you will see it being deducted from your account, you will later see your account being credited for it (within 45 days).

Initially, the Goodwill amount which Amazon issues to your customer, appears as a charge to you, on Seller Central:

Within 45 days of this transaction, you will see an Inventory Reimbursement - Customer Return transaction, associated with the same order.

Here is the full sequence of financial events that happen when the product is refunded and extra goodwill amount is issued to your customer:

1. Order is placed - normal order transaction.

2. Refund is issued - normal refund transaction

3. Goodwill is issued to the customer - you get charged the amount they gave customer as a "bonus refund".

4. Goodwill is reimbursed to you - you get back the money you "paid" to your customer for being dissatisfied with Amazon experience.

5. Customer does not return the item to the warehouse in 45 days, so Amazon charges the customer and reimburses you for the unit.

... ooops, that step 5 has probably made this customer extra angry, as he was likely not aware he had to return the item to not get charged for it.. So he called, he complained, he got his refund and 45 dollars on top of it, and then - BAH - another unexpected charge, when he did not send in the item. Maybe he didn't even have the unit anymore. Pretty unfortunate situation.

Amazon does not have a special Goodwill Amount Reimbursement tag, so they reimburse you using a confusing Inventory Reimbursement tag.

This can make you think that you actually received the refunded item back in stock (as is the normal reason for Inventory Reimbursements). The confusing part is Quantity: 1. It may seem as if one unit was reimbursed, when in fact in this transaction it was not. Reimbursement was only for giving you back the Goodwill amount.

So if you rely solely on Seller Central reports for your accounting, you may use the Goodwill Reimbursement amount in your books incorrectly.

Shopkeeper helps you clarify this event by separating actual Inventory Reimbursements from Goodwill Reimbursements.

You can clearly see which reimbursement event was refunding you the Goodwill amount, and which reimbursement was for the unreturned unit to inventory.

High Volume Listing Fees

High Volume Listing Fee applies mostly to dropshippers, or any sellers that have more than 100,000 active but dead listings on Amazon. For every extra listing above the first 100,000 listings without sales in the last 12 months, Amazon charges a monthly fee of $0.005.

There are three rules which Amazon uses to count the ‘dead’ listings. It has to satisfy the following:

You have an active offer for that asin, meaning there is at least 1 unit in stock that is available for sale.

AND

This is not a new listing, and this ASIN was created more than 12 months ago.

AND

This ASIN did not have any sale from any seller in the last 12 months.

You see, the good thing is, that you share this burden with other sellers. If any of you have had sales in the last 12 months, then this listing will not count as ‘dead’.

For exact up to date fee amount, see this page on Amazon:

High Volume Listing Fee - Amazon Seller Central USA

In Amazon Europe, HighVolumeListingFee also exists, but different rules apply:

If you exceed 2 million SKUs in a given month, you will be charged. For example, for each active non-media SKU over 2 million, a fee of €0.0004 per SKU will apply. See the most recent fees on Amazon page:

High Volume Listing Fee - Amazon Seller Central Europe

Inbound Carried Damage

Inbound Carried Damage on Amazon refers to refunds you receive when your goods are damaged during shipment to Amazon. However, it's important to note that the reimbursement is not automatic. To ensure you receive the proper amount, you must provide necessary documentation such as the Bill of Lading (BOL) and other proofs like insurance details. This process ensures a fair reimbursement for any damages incurred during the transportation of your shipments.

FBA Inbound Transportation Fee

Inbound fees refers to the fees that the seller must pay to Amazon for having their products shipped to Amazon for fulfillment. Most often, this refers to the cost of buying shipping labels for your products that are shipped to Amazon for fulfillment. You have the option to ship these items to Amazon directly for fulfillment, which means you can skip this fee and pay for your own labels. However, through Amazon’s partner shipping programs it can be much more cost effective to pay the inbound fee and in turn pay the Amazon Inbound Transportation. This helps for convenience and can get your inventory replenished faster!

FBA Inbound Transportation Program Fee

The FBA Inbound Transportation Program Fee is a special fee that applies when you work with UPS for shipping your products to Amazon's FBA warehouses. This fee covers the cost of using Amazon's partnered shipping services, which usually involves purchasing UPS shipping labels when creating a shipment to restock inventory.

FBA Inbound Transportation Service Fee

When using Amazon’s inbound transportation to replenish inventory, it’s critical to report that inbound inventory accurately to Amazon. Amazon will charge the Inbound Transportation fee based on the information that you provide (number of boxes, sizes, weights etc.) but if Amazon receives the shipment and finds that information to be inaccurate, you will be hit with a service fee to make up for the difference. Not a huge deal, but just something to be aware of if you get hit with a service fee on your inbound shipments and find yourself asking “What is this?”.

So do your best to accurately report your inbound packages to Amazon. This will help you avoid these additional service fees that you may or may not have accounted for!

Incorrect Fees Items

This fee is exactly what it says - Amazon adjustments for incorrect fees.

Distinction between items and non-itemized is Amazon specific - they use the term item to mean an individual SKU, a separate product.

When the adjustment is non-itemized, no SKU is associated with that transaction. This means that incorrect charges were for a service that does not specify one SKU or had more than one SKU affected.

When the adjustment is IncorrectFeesItems - it means that Amazon has indicated which SKU and how many units of that SKU are affected by the adjustment. For example, they had incorrect measurements of your product, and you complained. Then Amazon will add in an adjustment, depositing you the difference that you overpaid, showing in the transaction on Seller Central, as 279 units of SKU KR-FG78-54R, calling it adjustment INCORRECT_FEES_ITEMS.

Shopkeeper shows Incorrect Fee adjustment on a particular date when it gets posted by Amazon. Even if there are no sales of that product on that day:

On June 26, in this example, Amazon posted an adjustment for Incorrect Fees in multiple EU countries at the same time. Shopkeeper shows these financial transactions, even though there were no sales of this product on June 26. That way you get the most complete financial picture of that day.

If Amazon does not specify which SKU was affected, Shopkeeper shows the adjustment amount in the Totals row on adjustment posted date:

Inventory Placement Fee

As stated by Amazon Seller Central, all quantities of a single seller SKU will be assigned to a single fulfillment center determined by Amazon during the shipment creation process. A per-unit service fee applies. 

The Inventory Placement Fee is a charge by Amazon for its Inventory Placement Service, facilitating inventory distribution. This service incurs a per-item fee based on weight and size. While the standard Distributed Inventory Placement Program is free of charge, companies who sell large or heavy goods may have to pay significant additional fees. There are several exceptions, such as jewelry, clothing, and dangerous products, which would need to be handled separately.

Fees for standard-size items range from $0.30 to $0.40 per unit, with additional charges for heavier items. Oversize items incur a flat fee of $1.30, plus extra charges per pound over 5 pounds.

While the service streamlines distribution, it's not free, and businesses should weigh its benefits against costs. For instance, shipping 1,000 units of sub-1-pound inventory incurs a $500 fee. Businesses must carefully assess whether the convenience of centralized shipping outweighs the additional expense.

Labeling Fee

When you opt for Amazon to generate barcodes or labels for your products, you incur a Labeling Fee. If you specifically request Amazon to label your items with ASIN/FNSKU barcodes, they charge a fee per label. As of now, the fee is $0.20 per label.

FBA Long Term Storage Fee

Amazon imposes an annual FBA Long-Term Storage Fee on items stored in their warehouse for more than 12 months. The intention is to discourage using fulfillment centers as long-term storage and to maintain an efficient inventory flow. The fees increase for items stored beyond 365 days, calculated per cubic foot. Sellers are advised to keep track of their inventory and, if necessary, remove or dispose of slow-moving items to avoid incurring these long-term storage charges, which fluctuate based on peak and off-peak seasons.

Marketplace Facilitator Tax

Marketplace Facilitator Tax is a tax collected & remitted by Amazon on your behalf, due to agreements with the specific states in USA. Eventually all states will have such agreements and sales tax will be collected & remitted for you automatically in all of USA.

You don't have to do anything, and there is no extra cost to you. But Marketplace Facilitator Tax will show up in your Seller Central transactions, so you need to understand what they are:

There is a bit of grey area in how Amazon sellers currently handle sales tax in those USA states that do not have agreements with Amazon. Here is a video explaining it:

In short, you are liable to collect sales tax in any USA state where your business has a nexus. Having inventory in a state is one way to be considered having a nexus. And as you know, Amazon stores your inventory all over USA, so you have nexus in basically all of the states.

That means you are in fact liable to register for remitting sales tax in each state in USA.

Most sellers are not collecting sales tax in all states. It's huge overhead and extra costs to register and do remittances, which often would be higher costs than actual sales tax collected. So most sellers now are just standing in a 'grey area', waiting for Marketplace Facilitator Agreements between Amazon and all the states to be signed.

Here is an up-to-date list of agreements with the states that are currently signed by Amazon:

Marketplace Facilitator Tax Collection - Amazon Seller Central

Shopkeeper will normalize your revenue, so that collected tax does not leave you with inflated revenue. Amazon inflates your revenue by showing collected tax as income, and tax chargeback as expenses. You don't want to appear as if you're making more money when you aren't:

There are other kinds of Marketplace Facilitator Tax Chargebacks: that you may see in your transactions:

  MarketplaceFacilitatorTax-Shipping
    MarketplaceFacilitatorTax-Other
    MarketplaceFacilitatorTax-RestockingFee

MarketplaceFacilitatorTax-Shipping is a chargeback on the Shipping Tax, which Amazon collects and remits on your behalf. It is also called Facilitator Shipping Tax Chargeback.

Here is an example Amazon order you would see via Shopkeeper:

Normally you are the one liable for Shipping Tax - meaning you are the one who has to remit it, EVEN if Amazon is the one doing the shipping. But in this case, the buyer is from one of the states that has automatic tax collection / facilitator agreement with Amazon, so Amazon does not send you the Shipping tax as they normally would - instead, they are keeping it and will remit it on your behalf.

MarketplaceFacilitatorTax-Other is any other type of tax chargeback, which Amazon collects and remits on your behalf. For example, Amazon collects Gift Wrap Tax for you. Then, in the same transaction, you see MarketplaceFacilitatorTax-Other amount:

As you see, it is starting to get quite messy and confusing if you try to analyze Seller Central numbers via Order page.

Shopkeeper displays it more organized and does not inflate your revenue with items that have chargebacks in the same Amazon Order:

MarketplaceFacilitatorTax-RestockingFee appears in Refunds, which have Restocking Fees.

Seller Central support explains MarketplaceFacilitatorTax-RestockingFee as:

This tax would be charged for an order that a restocking fee was charged on, but not for all Marketplace Facilitator States.

Here is how such situation looks like:

When there is a Restocking Fee charged (with Refund), for some facilitator states instead of full tax refund to buyer, refunded tax is split into two parts, to account for tax on Restocking Fee.

According to Seller Central support, only some states collect tax on Restocking Fee, as per individual state Facilitator Tax agreements between state and Amazon.

Multichannel Order Damage

Multichannel Order Damaged on Amazon pertains to a refund situation where, if you use Amazon's Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) to send a shipment, and it gets damaged during shipping, you will receive a reimbursement. This process mirrors the refund system for FBA but specifically applies to multi-channel fulfillment. In this scenario, Amazon's logistics system is utilized to fulfill orders from other channels, such as your own website.

Multichannel Order Lost

MULTICHANNEL_ORDER_LOST is a refund category that applies when you use Amazon's Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) to send a shipment, and it gets lost during shipping. This process is similar to the refund system for FBA but specifically pertains to MCF.

Non-subscription Fee Adjustment

NonSubscriptionFeeAdjustment means that Amazon has either overpaid you for something or didn't charge you what they should have, and now they are correcting it.

Here's an example email you may receive along with the Non-subscription Fee Adjustment appearing in your reports:

The type of charge that they didn't charge you on time will be different in every case, and often they correct those with appropriately named Adjustments, like PostageRefund_PostageAdjustment, TaxCertificationAdjustment, DebtAdjustment and so on.

But if the disbursement/your payment date has already passed, and they are correcting it after that settlement date, it will appear as Non-subscription Fee Adjustment.

Mostly.

Hehe. Those adjustments are always a bit messy. Each Amazon agent enters them a little differently, so you may have a wide range of all kinds of adjustments during your career as an Amazon seller. Something like this:

Opaque Bagging Fee

The Opaque Bagging Fee on Amazon is charged when sellers opt for Amazon to handle the preparation of their products. If, for instance, items are packed in an opaque bag, this fee will be applied. It covers the additional cost associated with specific packaging requirements to meet product guidelines.

PrepFee Refund

A PrepFee Refund on Amazon involves refunds related to shipment preparation. Sellers may opt for Amazon to handle the preparation of their products, which can include tasks such as bubble wrapping fragile items, applying barcode labels, adding warning stickers or extra labels, and repackaging adult products discreetly. If any issues arise in this preparation process, a refund may be provided.

Principal

Principal Amount is what Amazon calls the main bulk part of the price that customer pays for your product, before shipping and taxes. Most often this amount is the same as the price your customer paid.

When your price includes sales tax (such as VAT), then your Principal is Price minus the Sales Tax. Amazon separates the two to later show Sales Tax as a separate item in your transaction details:

Principal + Tax = Your Sales Price

Promotion MetaData Definition Value

PromotionMetaDataDefinitionValue displays buyer discounts and the corresponding discount action name, making it clear which promotions are applied during the transaction.

Referral Fee

Referral fee is a core fee, charged to all 3rd party sellers selling on Amazon. Amazon charges you a percentage of sales, and in exchange they allow you to use their online marketplace.

For example, if you sell a pet supplies item for 10 USD, Amazon will charge you 1.50 USD referral fee (which is 15% for Pet Supplies). You are essentially paying for the privilege of being listed on Amazon Marketplace, getting traffic and exposure, while you do almost nothing, apart from listing your item to sell. It’s like Amazon is your affiliate, and you pay them a commission on every sale that they bring you.

Referral Fee percentage can vary. Most product categories are charged 15%, but it can be as low as 6% or as high as 45% in some categories.

A few examples:

You can find most up to date referral fees for each category here:

Seller Central North America - Referral Fees

Seller Central Europe - Referral Fees

Refund Admin Fee

When merchants give refunds to customers, Amazon charges an administrative fee known as the Amazon Refund Administration Fee. This charge compensates Amazon for the administrative expenses related to managing the refund procedure. It varies according to the type of goods and the portion of the item's cost that is reimbursed. There is no fee for 100% refunds on books, music, video, and DVD products; however, for other categories, the maximum return amount is $5 or 20% of the referral income. Because this cost affects their revenue and profitability on the platform, sellers should be aware of it.

FBA Removal Fees

The FBA removal fee is the charge for removing slow moving inventory from the Amazon FBA warehouse and sending it back to you. The SUS marketplace fee schema can be found here.

Removal Order Damaged

REMOVAL_ORDER_DAMAGED is provided when Amazon causes damage to your items during the processing of a removal order request.

Removal Order Lost

If you request Amazon to return FBA goods to you and they get lost in the process, Amazon will reimburse you with a credit note. To ensure reimbursement, check that the quantity you requested matches what you receive. Amazon often sends units in separate boxes from different fulfillment centers, so wait for the "removal order complete" email before counting and requesting reimbursement if needed. This ensures you are compensated for any lost items during the removal process.

Run Lightning Deal Fee

The Run Lightning Deal Fee covers the expenses of participating in a blitzdeal. To run a lightning deal, you pay $150 for a 6-hour promotion of your product. If you cancel before the sale period, there's no charge, but cancelling during the sale incurs the full fee.

While the usual cost is $150, it can vary based on the country and chosen week. Running a deal in high-traffic countries during holidays may increase the fee. For instance, hosting a lightning deal during the busy week of Black Friday and Cyber Monday costs $300 due to higher demand. During this period, the promotion window has also extended to 12 hours, providing more value for the fee.

Sales Tax Service Fee

Sales Tax Service Fee is charged when Amazon collects sales tax on behalf of you, the seller - but does not remit it. Instead, they send it to you together with payment and you are the one who will be remitting it to the authorities.

This fee is normally 2.9% of collected sales tax amount. See up to date fees here.

Here is how you will see Sales Tax Collection Fee displayed on Amazon Seller Central:

For Amazon to know that you want them to collect sales tax for you, you need to indicate this in your settings:

And then indicate what % of sales tax you want to be collecting, for which regions - all depending on your individual situation. If you are incorporated in Canada, you will have to collect HST from all Canadian buyers. If you have an LLC in Idaho, you will have to collect sales tax from all Idaho customers, and so on.

Shopkeeper will show you Sales Tax Collection Fee like this:

So if the tax amount collected in Canada for HST was $7.03, Amazon will charge you $0.20 Sales Tax Collection Fee, and will send you $7.03 together with your payment. At the end of your fiscal year (or maybe sooner if you do quarterly HST payments), you will need to remit this amount to the CRA.

Shipping Charge

Shipping Charge is the amount customer pays for shipping, to get the purchased item shipped to his house. This charge is named the same, no matter if it's you or Amazon doing the shipping.

If it’s the Amazon that does the shipping, then you will also see a Shipping Chargeback entry on the same order.

Normally if you do Merchant Fulfilled (MFN) and ship products to customers yourself, this Shipping Charge amount will be paid out to you by Amazon, together with your sales income.

Shipping Chargeback

Your customer pays Amazon for shipping, so Amazon shows it as income on your transactions. But because you're not the one doing the actual shipping, they also show a Shipping Chargeback in the same transaction. Meaning, Amazon takes back the shipping income that they just gave you.

Unfortunately, having Shipping charge added in to revenue, where you're not even doing the shipping yourself, inflates your revenue figures:

Inflated revenue is something you may want to avoid, especially if presenting your numbers to potential partners or performing any type of financial analysis. Therefore, it's better not to use Amazon reports to pull your revenue figures.

Shopkeeper normalizes your revenue, while still showing you all shipping related transactions on a specific order. It displays your revenue normally - just as you would in your own financial statements:

Shopkeeper does not inflate your revenue figures like Amazon does. Shopkeeper includes Shipping Chargeback into your Revenue calculation, instead of showing it in Expenses.

Shipping Holdback Fee

Shipping Holdback fee is basically a referral fee, charged on the Shipping that is completed by you, the seller (MFN). If Amazon is the one doing the shipping, then Shipping Holdback Fee is not charged.

In the old times Amazon used to charge only one referral fee, based on the item price - and sellers were abusing it. Some sellers were charging like $0.50 for the product and an inflated amount for shipping (say, $18). This is how they were avoiding Amazon referral fees, and were only getting charged a minimum referral fee of $0.15 based on the product price.

Eventually Amazon caught up with it, and implemented a fee similar to referral fee for all Shipping that is Merchant-Fulfilled.

Here is how the numbers look like in Shopkeeper, when you do the shipping yourself:

There is another, less obvious situation, where Amazon charges you Shipping Holdback fee, even if there is no Shipping involved.

If you offer a 100% promo to your customer, and they pay $0.00 at the end of their purchase, Amazon then charges you 3 kinds of minimum fees, to offset the cost of you using their marketplace.

Those 3 fees are:

• Minimum Referral Fee

• Minimum Gift Wrap Commission

• Minimum Shipping Holdback Fee

Here is an example:

3 kinds of fees charged by Amazon, when you do 100% off promo.

Shipping Promo

For example, a customer has no Prime membership, so he has to pay for shipping. He may be reluctant to do shopping on Amazon, because of that. So Amazon incentivizes customers to shop more, offering them special shipping Promos.

There are many different kinds of Shipping Promos that Amazon runs. But in general, none of them affect you as a seller, except for the inflated revenue. Same like with Shipping Charge & Shipping Chargeback.

Here's an example order with Amazon Shipping Promo, displayed via Shopkeeper:

If you click on the plus icon to expand it for more info, you will see a specific Amazon Promo name that was used:

Here is a list of a few random Amazon Promo IDs, for you to see what they usually look like. These Amazon Promo IDs appear in apps like Shopkeeper, because apps can read in more detailed data via Amazon API.

• UK Core Free Delivery 2015/04/08 23-59-11-975

• US Core Free Shipping

• Amazon PLCC Free-Financing Universal Merchant Next Day Promotion

• MX Core Free Shipping 2015/06/08 16-42-41-775

• UK Core Free Delivery 2015/04/08 23-59-11-975

• Amazon PLCC Free-Financing Universal Merchant-2565117

• Amazon PLCC Free-Financing Universal Merchant Prime-Free-SameDay 2018

• US Core Free Shipping Promotion A3JU1FCINF5SD0

• JP Core Free Shipping 2016/03/29 6-38-40-593

And here is how it appears on Seller Central:

As you see, in Seller Central, you will often not even see a specific Amazon Promo ID. It will just have Shipping Charge and Shipping Promo Rebate.

Shipping Tax

Shipping Tax is an amount Amazon charges your customers, based on your tax settings on Amazon Seller central:

Shipping Tax settings on Amazon Seller Central

One crappy thing about Shipping Tax is that you have to remit collected amount to the government yourself - EVEN if Amazon is the one doing the shipping. This is strange, right?

Here is an example how Amazon charges Shipping Tax to a buyer, but then never adds in a Shipping Chargeback for the seller. This means that the seller will need to remit this collected Shipping Tax amount in their own VAT remittance:

It's best to consult your accountant about this, but just know that this is a standard practice with Shipping Tax on Amazon.

Shopkeeper handles this situation by including the collected Shipping Tax amount in your Tax Payable. That way you see your true profit, and exact amount that you will have to remit at the end of the year:

Shopkeeper includes Shipping Tax into your Tax Payable, and subtracts it from your Profit.

 

If you sell on Amazon USA, shipping tax can be either collected or not collected, based on state-specific rules and regulations. You as a seller will have to decide whether to collect sales tax on shipping or not.

Amazon Seller Central USA Shipping Tax settings for states where Amazon does not automatically collect & remit tax for you

In Amazon USA Seller Central, for those states that Amazon does not have agreements yet to collect sales tax on your behalf automatically, you will need to manually indicate whether you want to collect Shipping Tax or not. I recommend referring to this guide first:

State by State Shipping Tax Guide - Avalara

Sign up for Shopkeeper

We hope that you liked this comprehensive breakdown of all Amazon seller fees. Make sure to bookmark this page for future reference and sign up for Shopkeeper so that you will never have to worry about complicated or inaccurate fees displays!

Subscription

The Subscription fee is what you pay for your Amazon seller account, usually 39 EUR in Germany. Amazon has two types of sellers: individual and professional.

Individual sellers, selling 40 units or fewer monthly, don't pay a subscription fee but have a $1.00 per unit fee for each sale.

Professional sellers, dealing with their products, pay a $40 monthly fee, giving full access to Amazon's platform without the extra $1 per unit cost for each sale.

FBA Storage Fee

The FBA Storage Fee is a monthly charge by Amazon for storing sellers' inventory in their fulfillment centers. Calculated based on the volume (cubic footage) occupied by the products, this fee considers the average volume throughout the month. The tiered fee structure means rates may vary depending on the time of year and the size of the products.

Taping Fee

The Taping Fee on Amazon is applied when your products require additional taping during the consolidation process into one container. This fee is necessary for items that might need extra taping to prevent them from falling out of their packaging, leaking, or to ensure complete sealing within the container. It covers the cost of securing products beyond the typical taping used to seal boxes, poly bags, or secure bubble wrap around an item.

Tax

Tax is the amount of tax that Amazon customers are charged on their orders. Tax amount is directly dependant on your tax settings on Seller Central.

For example, if you collect Sales Tax VAT from your buyers in UK, you include VAT in your price.

Your tax settings in Seller Central will look something like this:

and VAT defaults page will look similar to this:

VAT settings on Amazon Seller Central

So if your product price is £15.31, then the VAT amount is £2.55:

When the order is Shipped, Amazon will show you tax breakdown on Seller Central Order page:

In apps like Shopkeeper, you will see the £12.76 amount being called Principal, and Product Tax will be called Tax - because that is how they appear in your data feed via the Amazon API:

Variable Closing Fee & Fixed Closing Fee

Closing Fee is essentially an additional Amazon Referral Fee, charged on Media items like books, DVDs, Video Games and Music.

Books, Games, DVDs have an additional referral fee, called Closing Fee

There are two kinds of closing fees:

• Variable Closing Fee

• Fixed Closing Fee

Amazon keeps changing the way they charge closing fees, it used to be based on percentage of the price, later it had minimums and maximums, then it became only one fixed charge.. So they sometimes call it Variable, sometimes Fixed - but it’s all about the same thing, a Closing Fee.

Whatever the calculation formula Amazon uses, Closing Fee is just an extra Referral Fee that they charge for media items.

I am not so sure why Amazon is charging additional fee for all Media items. Maybe it’s because they originally started as an online bookstore, and feel that they are the best place for selling books and video games, so therefore charge a premium for that category?

For example, if you sell a book for $9.99, you will get charged a flat $1.80 Closing Fee, in addition to Referral and FBA fee:

It's very hard to make money with Media items priced under $10. Amazon Seller Fees, Shipping costs and Storage fees basically eat up all your profit margins and there is not much left for you at the end.

Tip: Avoid selling low priced items on Amazon, as your dreams may not come true...

Vine Fee

Sellers who take part in the Vine program on Amazon are required to pay a fee known as the Vine fee. Through this initiative, they can give out free products to verified reviewers on Amazon called Vine Voices. Vine Voices provides independent, truthful reviews of the things they receive in return. The administrative costs of running the program, guaranteeing adherence to Amazon's review guidelines, and streamlining the review procedure are all covered by the Vine fee. When choosing to be a part of the Vine program, suppliers should take this price into account because it adds to the total expense of getting positive product ratings on the Amazon marketplace. 

As of October 19, 2023, Amazon implemented changes to the Vine enrollment fee rates. Under this updated fee structure, vendors are charged a one-time enrollment fee per parent ASIN based on the number of units enrolled. This fee is invoiced seven days after the publication of the first review. The fee rates are as follows:

• For 1 to 2 units enrolled, there is no Vine enrollment fee.

• For 3 to 10 units enrolled, the Vine enrollment fee is $75.

• For 11 to 30 units enrolled, the Vine enrollment fee is $200.

Warehouse Damage

If your items get damaged in Amazon's warehouse, they will automatically reimburse you without the need for you to initiate anything. Amazon usually sells damaged items at a lower price or disposes of them. If you notice damage, you can request a manual reimbursement, but this falls into the exception category and is not the usual process.

Warehouse Damage Exception

The Warehouse Damage Exception Fee on Amazon involves compensating sellers for damaged goods in the warehouse. If a seller identifies an item as damaged in the warehouse, they can initiate a reimbursement request through an investigation. Manual reimbursements, particularly for damaged items, fall within the exception category. This fee ensures sellers receive proper compensation for any damage incurred during the fulfillment process.

Warehouse Lost

If your items are lost in the Amazon warehouse, they will reimburse you for the loss. Amazon's policy has changed, and they may pay a reduced amount for lost or damaged goods. The reimbursement criteria include factors like the average market price, and the final decision rests with Amazon.