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In 2024, Amazon’s two new warehousing fees will weigh like a Five Finger Mountain on sellers’ profits. It is learned that since the warehouse configuration fee officially took effect on March 1, 2024, there has been endless discussion from the industry. Most sellers believe that this sudden new fee not only increases the cost burden, but also has a profound impact on operations. To make matters worse, according to feedback from the industry, in extreme cases, the warehousing configuration fee may also produce a "chemical reaction" with another warehousing-related fee - the warehousing defect fee, which will deal a heavy blow to the already tight profits of Amazon US sellers. It is understood that Amazon's warehouse defect fee will officially take effect on February 1, 2024. According to the notice, if the seller's shipment does not meet Amazon's requirements or is different from the warehouse plan, Amazon will refuse to accept the shipment and charge the seller a warehouse defect fee. [ To do global business and create a differentiated logic for going overseas , please register for the 2024 Brand Globalization Summit Forum here] Specifically, shipments that are delivered to the wrong location, deleted, or abandoned may result in shipment rejection or additional charges. One of these situations is when other shipments are not delivered within 30 days of the first shipment in a multi-destination shipment plan, or when a shipment is created as a multi-destination shipment, only some of them are sent and the rest are deleted (deletion). In other words, if the seller's warehouse shipments are not delivered for more than 30 days, Amazon may charge both the warehouse configuration fee and the warehouse defect fee, resulting in huge logistics costs. Recently, a seller reported that due to customs inspection, one of the four shipments that were originally optimized and split up had arrived at the warehouse more than 30 days after the first shipment. As a result, the four shipments that originally had a warehousing configuration fee of 0 were subsequently charged a high warehousing configuration fee of several hundred dollars on top of the warehousing defect fee. ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan At the same time, we learned that there are many Amazon sellers in the industry who have the same experience: "The normal split shipments were shipped at the same time, but because the warehouse randomly accepted the shipments, these shipments could not arrive within 30 days. Amazon not only fined us the warehouse defect fee, but also directly charged the highest warehouse configuration fee for the randomly accepted shipments." "It's the same for us. We were deducted thousands of dollars at once." ▲ The picture comes from the seller’s disclosure Based on seller feedback, the reasons for delayed delivery of warehouse shipments include but are not limited to customs inspection, warehouse receiving errors and other issues. However, Amazon almost always determines that it is necessary to charge warehouse configuration fees and warehouse defect fees. Therefore, the news has once again sparked heated discussions. Some sellers believe that Amazon is promoting its official logistics plan, but others say that Amazon may just be trying to transfer the delivery costs after the surge in cargo volume. As it stands, there seems to be no foolproof way to waive the warehousing configuration fee except participating in Amazon's official logistics AMP. ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan However, regarding the warehousing defect fees and warehousing configuration fees caused by the overdue delivery of the warehouse goods, some senior sellers pointed out that excluding extremely special circumstances, these additional costs can be avoided to a large extent , and they also gave their own suggestions: 1. Pay attention to the time it takes for shipping companies to arrive at the five major cargo collection and delivery ports in North America; 2. At the end of customs clearance and delivery, we focus on the overall operational efficiency of the cooperative freight forwarder, including customs clearance, container pickup, etc. 3. Pay attention to the distance between the warehouses in the West Coast, Central Coast, and East Coast of the United States and the ports, as well as the delivery time at the end during peak and non-peak seasons. Overall, with the constant changes in platform policies, Amazon sellers need to pay more attention to the entire logistics chain and be aware of every node to avoid being caught off guard by various emergencies. [ To do global business and create a differentiated logic for going overseas , please sign up for the 2024 Brand Globalization Summit Forum here] It is also worth mentioning that in terms of logistics, in addition to adjusting various expenses, Amazon is also further expanding its warehousing capacity and taking a series of actions such as adding new warehouses to improve its logistics efficiency. According to feedback from the industry, sellers on Amazon’s US site have recently started to experience the new warehouse mode . It is learned that following the recent launch of warehouses such as ABQ2, PCS2 and TMB8, Amazon added two new warehouses, MIT2 and GEU3 , at the beginning of this month. ▲ The picture comes from the seller’s disclosure According to industry sources, the two new warehouses are located in Shafter and Buckeye, near the Port of Los Angeles, and both are US West Coast warehouses . Currently, some freight forwarders have begun to support new warehouse card dispatch , and the delivery time is generally between 22 and 28 days. From a platform perspective, the opening of new warehouses is expected to help Amazon expand its market coverage, cope with peak demand during peak seasons, and consolidate and enhance its competitiveness in the logistics field. However, from the seller's perspective, although the new warehouse has the potential to improve warehousing time, optimize inventory management, and improve delivery efficiency, it also has certain risks, such as increased logistics costs, long reserved time affecting inventory replenishment , etc. In mid-August, after the launch of the two new warehouses in the western United States, ABQ2 and PSC2, a large number of sellers’ shipments were assigned to these two warehouses. Most sellers complained that the new warehouses were “expensive and far away”, and some sellers were charged configuration fees and defect fees by Amazon. ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan However, it is worth mentioning that some sellers have observed that the newly added MIT2 and GEU3 warehouses are located closer to the west coast of the United States than the previous warehouses, and are less likely to be passively "delivered from a distant warehouse to a nearby warehouse". Therefore, sellers who have been assigned to these two new warehouses do not need to worry too much for the time being. Have you been assigned to the new warehouse recently? How is the logistics efficiency of the new warehouse? Welcome to discuss in the comment area~
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