“Elevated costs in fuel and logistics have increased the cost of operating across the industry. We have absorbed these increased costs so far. However, similar to other major carriers, when costs remain elevated, we implement temporary surcharges on fulfillment fees to recover a portion of the actual cost increases we are experiencing,” says an “Amazon Seller Central” notice posted Thursday.
“Starting April 17, 2026, a 3.5 percent fuel and logistics-related surcharge will be applied to fulfillment fees across Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) in the US and Canada as well as to Remote Fulfillment with FBA from the US into Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. Starting May 2, 2026, this surcharge will take effect for Buy with Prime in the US and Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) in the US and Canada. Due to the work we have already done together to lower costs, this surcharge is meaningfully lower than other major carriers. The surcharge will be calculated on your fulfillment fees, not on the sale price of your items,” and blah blah blah, the post continued.
Somewhat hilariously, it’s not a blog post, but a topic entry on a message board site the company stood up for its seller community to trade knowledge with each other, and as such the post by moderator “News_Amazon” got one upvote to 42 downvotes. Unlike Disqus you can’t see who upvoted by hovering the cursor over the little thumbs up icon, which is a shame because if it isn’t a mistake by a regular user or the “News_Amazon” account self-upvoting then it’s definitely some dickhead exec with a stake in this division’s earnings simply rubbing it in for the sellers. Maybe outside chance it’s an actual seller who also happens to own a decent amount of Amazon stock too.
Whatever happened, the upvoter’s lucky they’re anonymous as the sellers who responded are fucking pissed. The top reply reads “These fees are never temporary. Please advise how long we should plan them to be part of our cost structure,” to which the “This surcharge will be in place until further notice, and we’ll reassess as conditions evolve.” You already guessed what the sellers then said and that there was no further response from “Dougal_Amazon” in that part of the thread.
Anyway, Amazon claims the surcharge will add an average of 17 cents per package’s shipping cost, cuntishly shifting the burden of deciding whether to pass it along to the consumer or just eat it onto the seller, rather than having the sand to simply add it to the price at checkout – where few if any are ever going to notice if it really is just cents on the dollar added. Because God forbid the company show some leadership and risk the White House noticing – like they did last year when Krazy Karoline responded to reports that Jeff Bozo’s megacorporation would begin informing customers of tariff surcharges by calling such notices a “hostile political act” (when all along it was only meant to apply to an internal B2B partner situation like the above, not regular Amazon retail). Why waste all the crony capital banked by setting about $60 million on fire for that bullshit Melania “documentary” directed by a credibly accused rapist when there are thousands of poor schmucks hawking clothes and kitchenwares and other stuff on the platform who can be collectively burned much more easily?
But if you can set a watch to Amazon taking the path of least #Resistance while still fucking over the digital flea market stall proprietors under their roof then even more reliably you can count on this new surcharge being ignored by the very same actors that used to LOVE this kind of shit:
Did you notice higher prices for food, fuel, the list goes on…
That's called the Biden Surcharge! pic.twitter.com/hEAYfIhk05
— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) May 17, 2021
Just about everything in Joe Biden’s America is more expensive. His agenda is to blame. #Bidenflationhttps://t.co/pt1KWwb0Sr
— GOP (@GOP) March 13, 2022
Biden’s Build Back Better.
Red Lobster abruptly closes at least 50 restaurants, including 14 in NY and NJ. 56 year old restaurant chain considers filing for bankruptcy due to rising costs.
Yet, Democrats want you to think that Biden is doing a great job! pic.twitter.com/IdQHNFBsOI
— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) May 14, 2024
Because now it’s just regular market forces the president has no control over. Fuel just got more expensive on its own. It’s a challenging environment out there. Learn how business works, libs.