Ecommerce News Roundup: August Recap
Discover Amazon’s August highlights! Though summer has faded, Amazon was buzzing with activity. Catch up on all the noteworthy Amazon news from August in this recap!
August 1, 2024
Review updated bullet point requirements to optimize your listings
Effective August 15, 2024, Amazon has updated its existing product bullet point requirements to simplify and enhance product detail pages for customers.
Key changes include the following:
Restriction of special characters, emojis, and some phrases, such as refund-related guarantees.
These updates will help customers quickly compare products and determine whether an item meets their needs. Standardized bullet points enable customers to easily find and assess the key features and benefits, and they empower customers to make informed purchase decisions.
In addition to its existing review processes, Amazon will use generative artificial intelligence (AI) to help optimize listing quality. Amazon will remove non-compliant content and use AI to generate compliant, high-quality bullet points. It will share any AI-generated quality-related improvements with you for review before Amazon publishes them to your listings.
For more information about the updated requirements and content guidelines, go to Product bullet point requirements.
August 8, 2024
Give returns a second life with FBA Grade and Resell
You can now use FBA Grade and Resell, an efficient service that grades and relists your returned products, allowing you to recover value and give them a second life.
With FBA Grade and Resell, you can do the following:
Recover value: Turn customer returns into sales.
Set and forget it: Streamline customer returns management so that you can focus on your operations.
Support sustainability: Promote environmental responsibility and enhance your reputation by offering pre-owned products.
The FBA Grade and Resell program is an optional fee-based service, with the flexibility to unenroll at any time.
To learn more, go to FBA Grade and Resell.
August 8, 2024
2024 Holiday Peak Fulfillment Fees for Fulfillment by Amazon
In 2023, your partnership helped make Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the overall holiday shopping season the biggest one yet. As Amazon prepares its supply chain for another great peak season in 2024, Amazon wanted to share the annual holiday peak fulfillment fees that will apply from October 15, 2024, through January 14, 2025. This seasonal fee is similar to those charged by other major carriers and covers increased fulfillment and transportation operating costs during the busy holiday shopping season.
The 2024 holiday peak fulfillment fee will apply to all products. The fee amount will be the same for all items within a specific size-band for each store and will apply to US Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), Canada FBA, North America Remote Fulfillment, US Multi-Channel Fulfillment, and Buy with Prime. The average holiday peak fulfillment fee will remain the same as last year, except for products priced under USD 10 in US FBA for which the peak fee is new in 2024. Amazon’s average FBA fulfillment fees continue to be 70% less expensive than comparable two-day shipping methods offered by other major third-party logistics providers.
To determine how the holiday peak fulfillment fee may affect your business, you can review detailed rates by size and weight on the following help pages:
US Fulfillment by Amazon fee rates
Canada Fulfillment by Amazon fee rates
Remote fulfillment with FBA fee rates–Mexico, Canada
US Multi-Channel Fulfillment rates
August 10, 2024
Select your preferred carrier when shipping to Amazon
Amazon heard your feedback that you would like the option to select a preferred carrier when sending less-than-truckload and full-truckload (LTL/FTL) shipments to US fulfillment centers. To meet this demand, Amazon added the option to select a preferred carrier in the Send to Amazon shipment creation workflow. Now, you can choose from a list of Amazon partnered carriers that will ship your inventory to Amazon.
Here’s how it works:
As you go through the Send to Amazon workflow, step 4 is called Confirm carrier and pallet information.
Within this step, choose Amazon partnered carrier and you can select for each of your shipments via the Change carrier button.
Select a preferred carrier from the list of options and click Confirm to proceed with the workflow.
Once you make your selection, Amazon will show you the estimated capacity-backed pickup dates that are available for each carrier and the associated transportation cost. If you decide not to select a new carrier, your choice will default to the lowest-cost carrier provided by Amazon.
For more information, visit the following help pages:
Create shipments with Send to Amazon
Amazon Partnered Carrier program
August 14, 2024
Streamline returns with Returnless Resolutions
Amazon has launched FBA Returnless Resolutions, a new program that helps you streamline returns by offering customers a full refund without having to return the item.
When you enroll in FBA Returnless Resolutions, you’ll benefit from the following:
Lower fees associated with returns and increased convenience for customers.
A streamlined return management process that removes the need to handle returns of physical items.
Eligibility for FBA Returnless Resolutions is subject to legal, safety, and regulatory guidelines. Products such as dangerous goods, heavy and bulky items, and those with an average sales price greater than $75 are not eligible.
For more information, and to learn about enrollment, go to FBA Returnless Resolutions..
You can also recover value on your returned inventory with FBA Grade and Resell, a program that assigns your eligible returns a grade and, if eligible, relists them.
August 20, 2024
Prepare your FBA inventory now to maximize holiday sales
To stay in stock this peak season and guarantee your products are Prime badge-ready during holiday deal events, your FBA inventory must arrive at US fulfillment centers by the following dates:
Prime Big Deal Days: September 13
Black Friday and Cyber Monday: October 19
To help optimize your holiday inventory strategy, you can use Amazon Warehousing and Distribution (AWD) as a low-cost bulk storage solution with pay-as-you-go pricing. With AWD, Amazon will automatically replenish your products to fulfillment centers based on demand signals to help you maintain the right FBA inventory levels. There are no additional fees for AWD during peak times, and inventory that’s auto replenished from AWD doesn’t count toward your FBA capacity limits.
For Black Friday and Cyber Monday specifically, your inventory must arrive at AWD distribution centers by October 19. You can also use AWD to stay in stock for Prime Big Deal Days. Just be sure your inventory arrives by September 13 per FBA guidelines for that deal event.
Additionally, for a limited time you’ll receive 25% off the base rate for AWD storage fees and 15% off the base rate for both AWD processing and transportation fees. Discounts will automatically appear on your monthly fee report in Seller Central. Terms and conditions apply.
To learn more, go to Amazon Warehousing and Distribution.
For recommendations and best practices to grow your business during the holidays, check out Amazon’s peak readiness playbook.
August 20, 2024
Update to international returns
Effective September 16, 2024, the policy for seller-fulfilled, international returns will be updated.This update will require international sellers (those without a default US return address in Seller Central) to issue a returnless refund or provide a prepaid international return shipping label within two days of a return request.
Currently, Amazon return policy states that Amazon may refund the customer on your behalf and charge the amount to your seller account if you don’t offer any of the above return resolutions within five days of a return request. Amazon will update this window from five days to two days to improve the customer experience.
When this refund happens, you’ll receive an email notification. You can upload a return label on the Manage returns page in Seller Central when you click Authorize request for the return request for which you want to provide a label.
For more information on Amazon international returns policies, go to Customer returns for international sales.
August 29, 2024
Changes to handling and transit time settings for orders shipped to the US
Fast and accurate delivery is essential for customers and often determines where they choose to shop. Over time, Amazon learned that the best way to ensure reliable on-time delivery for customers is to set accurate handling and transit times, and to choose reliable shipping services.
To ensure the accuracy of Amazon promised delivery dates, Amazon is making the following changes:
Transit time settings: Starting October 25, 2024, the transit time settings for shipping from China to the continental US (all states in the contiguous US, excluding Hawaii, Alaska, and US protectorates) will change. You’ll have more transit time ranges to choose from on your shipping templates, with options ranging from 2-4 days to 14-20 days.
The maximum transit time will be reduced from 28 days to 20 days. If you currently have 14-28 days as your manually set transit time, it will automatically be updated to 14-20 days as a part of this change.
Handling time settings: Automated handling time will now automatically set a more accurate handling time for SKUs sold on Amazon.com and shipped from warehouses outside the US. Automated handling time sets a handling time for each SKU based on how long it has historically taken you to process orders and hand them to carriers. If you have no shipping history for a SKU, your manually set handling time will be used.
Starting October 25, to help improve accuracy, Amazon willenable automated handling time if your manually configured handling time is two or more days slower than your actual handling time (known as a handling time gap). If automated handling time is enabled for this reason, you won’t be able to disable it.
If needed, you can request a manual handling time override for custom-made, media, and heavy and bulky SKUs. Any exempted SKU won’t receive on-time delivery rate (OTDR) protection from late deliveries.
To help you keep in good standing with other account health metrics related to handling time, your late shipment rate will be protected from late shipments if you have automated handling time enabled.
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