Eight Things to Know about Amazon's New FBA Small and Light

by: sasikat9

Oh No Amazon will soon become a Chinese Junk sellers paradise.

Amazon is taking a page from Ebay.

by: Will

Actually, this seems more about hammering the final nail in eBay's coffin.

by: This a joke, right?

I guess I am just stupid. I sell a lot of small & light items but don't see how this will work for me.
I have reached out to the FBA guy who has been harassing me but haven't heard back from him yet.
I am thinking about deleting all of my small items from Amazon since I am making more on them on Etsy and eBay

by: Moonwishes

Am I missing something? Where is the charge for storage of all these goods? I don't see that mingled in with the other charges. Also there is the cost to ship all these items to Kentucky and hope you picked your fast movers so you don't get a call from Amazon because your stuff isn't moving fast enough. Their price charts are confusing as they seem to be comparing oranges to bolts to . Will there be a difference in costs for the professional seller (originally called a pro-merchant) and the none professional? If the professional seller signs up and is making most of his sales through the small and light FBA and has to pay the same fees as the non-professional then Amazon is in a sense 'double-dipping'. I know as seller, I don't want to be charged $39.99/month and then also be charged the fees to S&L. In their nice chart of costs, they seem to have also left out the commission costs which would also have a bearing on what it actually costs to use this program.

Most of the FBA sellers that I see in my travels around Amazon all have the rock bottom prices that if they sell somethings they are barely going to make it worth their while. I haven't heard of any of FBA sellers making good money at what they do. It is like they take the easiest route and then wait for the money to roll in. I prefer to handle all the aspects of my business and make more money that way.

by: littlem1

Moonwishes, A lot of people make great money on FBA. Not trying to sound snobby but your whole comment seems to be bashing Amazon. I make more money on Amazon than I ever made on ebay, but hey it all depends on your business model. Its great that you are successful without Amazon, but for many people it is the most successful platform they sell on  

by: Tula

@Moonwishes: I agree. Worse, is that they also want items priced under $10. By the time you add up all the fees, storage, and shipping costs, there's not much left for profit. FBA works best for higher-priced commodity goods with lots of demand. Most of what I sell is either vintage or unique and tends to be more long-tail, so FBA won't work for me. I do just fine on Amazon doing self-fulfillment.

Smaller goods are also easier and faster to pack and ship yourself, so the FBA advantage isn't as great unless you're selling thousands of the same SKU and making your money on volume (like Amazon does with its own offerings).

by: IDKwhoIare

Let's say I make earrings to sell in this fashion.  Each pair taking 1/2 hour to make including individual packaging. They sell them for $10/pr.  I am paying them 19% S/H, 15% fee/commission, material cost at approx 33%.  Subtract $0.02 per unit for shipping them to Amazon.  Assuming there are no other costs, [ie: storage fees, $39.99 Pro status for selling jewelry, etc] that gets me a $6.58 an hour wage.   Once I factor in the time to purchase & manage supplies, keep on top of Amazon and the paperwork for income taxes,  my wage would be $3.29 an hour.  I smell a loss leader for Amazon and nothing but starvation and boring, repetitive work for me.

Sounds like a great way for cheap Chinese junk to be sold.  If a person could come up with some widget people would be willing to pay $10 for that cost the Seller under $1 and no time investment AND they sold millions of units (no guarantee)...then it might be feasible.

Maybe I am missing something...but I don't think so.

by: askalice59

To quote Amazon in the Terms section of Small & Light, ''Amazon reserves the right to suppress offers that are not competitive.'' That always gives me confidence.

Them saying an item can list for up to $10 only doesn't leave much wiggle room and since we would not be reimbursed for shipping but actually charged for it, there will or should be no one cent sellers, or will there?

I think it might help me in terms of the buyer seeing free shipping instead of shipping that costs as much as the item. The fees aren't much less than regular FBA, for me anyway. What I don't understand is would I have to sign on as a pro seller? No?

My Fisrt Class PKG shipments from home take usually 2-5 days to anywhere in the US. Amazon predicts up to 8 days.

by: AlexParker

It´s not only Amazon vs. eBay, time has come to pay attention to Alibaba! "Operating income at China’s biggest e-commerce operator rose to $1.1 billion in the three months ended June, or 42 percent more than the combined profit of Amazon and EBay for the period. After including one-time gains, Alibaba’s net income was more than double those of its competitors."

by: drewmark

Well team I don't know about you but its time to let go of ebay and amazon and all these other selling sites and time to build our own to suit our needs and thus saving the buyer in shipping by including all fed ex, USPS, UPS, DHL services.  All these other seller sites just don't met my expectations at 100%!

by: ETRUTH

Not sure but what happens to the merchandise when a seller goes out of business does Amazon gain possession and then sell it at extremely low prices disrupting the market