Helium 10 Buzz 12/19/24: Amazon Makes Move That Might Cost Sellers Millions of Dollars!

We’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Chief Brand Evangelist, Bradley Sutton. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, talk about Helium 10’s newest features, and provide a training tip for the week for serious sellers of any level.

Update to the FBA inventory reimbursement policy
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-news/articles/QVRWUERLSUtYMERFUiNHTU4yV1c1M0xMQlNKWlRB

Is Amazon’s new FBA inventory reimbursement policy a game-changer or a nightmare for sellers? Recent changes have sparked a significant uproar, and many sellers feel misled and worried about potential financial losses in the millions. We dissect this contentious shift, highlighting the importance of transparency and fairness in Amazon’s communication while recognizing its right to shape its own policies. The discussion also provides strategic insights into managing these upcoming changes.

TikTok Shop US Sales Surpass Shein, Sephora
https://www.silicon.co.uk/e-marketing/ecommerce/tiktok-shop-us-593031

Return Rate and Star Rating features on Voice of the Customer Dashboard
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-news/articles/QVRWUERLSUtYMERFUiNHWEw1VEZNWTI2WFc0WTdO

Temu Leaves Amazon in E-Commerce Dust, Topping Apple’s Most-Downloaded Apps List
https://www.inc.com/kit-eaton/temu-leaves-amazon-in-e-commerce-dust-topping-apples-most-downloaded-apps-list/91067132

Account vacation settings and support for the holidays
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-news/articles/QVRWUERLSUtYMERFUiNHN0w1UkNRQlZQR0E5SjJW

TikTok asks Supreme Court to temporarily halt a law that would ban the app in the U.S.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-12-16/tiktok-supreme-court-temporarily-halt-ban

Enhanced display placement targeting features on Amazon DSP
https://advertising.amazon.com/en-us/resources/whats-new/enhanced-display-placement-targeting-amazon-dsp/

Join us for a comprehensive exploration of these pivotal shifts, equipping you with the knowledge to thrive in the Amazon space.

In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley covers:

• 00:52 – Amazon Drops Hammer On Reimbursements
• 23:28 – TikTok Shop Passes Shein
• 24:01 – Amazon EU FBA Fee Update
• 27:46 – Voice of the Customer Update
• 28:30 – Temu Most Downloaded
• 29:21 – Amazon Vacation Mode
• 29:52 – TikTok – Supreme Court
• 30:31 – New DSP Features

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Amazon sellers are angrier than I’ve ever seen them before because of this move that Amazon made that could be costing sellers millions. How crazy is that? Pretty crazy, I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you a rundown of all the goings on in the Amazon TikTok shop e-commerce world. We give you training tips of the week and we let you know what new features that Helium 10 has. That’ll give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Actually today I don’t write these scripts out, guys, I just prepare the news articles and take a look at them. But I’m pretty sure I’m not going to have time to do training tip of the week and Helium 10 new features, because I need to go deep into something that has sellers up in arms.

Bradley Sutton:

Announcements by Amazon has pissed off sellers, guys. You know, like the Low Inventory Fee, the inbound placement fees. You know new AWD fees, fees here, fees there. You probably thought that 2024 was like the year of fees and it was crazy, right, guys? It is nothing compared to what Amazon just dropped. As far as how sellers are reacting, now, I know I probably did some kind of clickbaity title to this podcast episode something crazy in order to get you to click on it. But is this a crazy update? It kind of is. But at the same time, I do want to point out some things that I think some sellers might have a little wrong, just to make sure that people know it’s not as bad potentially as you might think. That being said, the way that this announcement was handled, I don’t know. This is kind of like on the level of could somebody lose their job? Kind of like feeling vibes I’m getting. Is Amazon going to walk this back within a couple of days? That’s literally the vibes I’m getting, because this is pretty crazy and I have not seen sellers react this way to any of the crazy announcements. Maybe what added to it is just like what a couple of weeks ago in our weekly buzz Amazon announced that hey, there are no new fees in 2025. So it kind of gave like a false sense of hope. And then Amazon drops this down which, you know, if you were to take it at face value, could cost the totality of sellers tens of millions of dollars. Maybe I’m a little bit exaggerating, I don’t think so let’s go ahead and get into it.

Bradley Sutton:

Where does this article come from? Well, first of all, the main articles from seller central, but I’ve got a lot of stuff. We are going to break it down kind of like line by line, and you guys know I have been, and always will be, 100% pro-Amazon. I still think Amazon’s the best way to start a business 2024, 2025. Amazon does amazing things for sellers that we can never get from any other platform, any other platform. But, as you guys always know, this is a BS-free podcast. If Amazon is acting a fool, I’m going to call it out like I see it. All right, I guess. Just the facts, ma’am. That’s all I’m going to talk about here, and we’re going to just go ahead and analyze these, these press releases, all right? So this is on your seller central dashboard as of yesterday. It says we’re updating our FBA fulfillment by Amazon inventory reimbursement policy to help provide you greater transparency and more predictability in how reimbursements are calculated for items are lost.

Bradley Sutton:

First of all, stop. I hate it when any company, including Amazon, who’s notorious for this, phrases something like they’re doing us sellers a favor. Hey, sellers, we’re going to like 3X the amount of money we’re getting out of you. It’s to help you give you more transparency. Screw transparency, amazon. I want my money back, right, like? So please be upfront. Amazon has the right to do whatever they want. It’s their platform. They could just say, hey, everything has a $3 surcharge. We’d hate it as sellers, but guess what? But don’t go and say, hey, we’re going to have a $3 surcharge in order to make sellers happy. Stop wording things like this, because it just like pisses us off a little bit more, right? Anyways, they’re going to help us with greater transparency. Blah, blah, blah. But actually, again, like I said, I’m going to keep it real. I thought that everything was transparent. I thought and I think some sellers actually thought that you’ve always been getting the full sale price when Amazon loses or damage a product, and maybe you thought that too. And then so you’re like, oh man, all of these orders are going away. But actually, again, trying to keep it real, let me just show you the FBA fulfillment reimbursement page. This is a reimbursement that was for one of my large coffin shelves. That average retail is between like $55 and $63. The reimbursement was only $28 from Amazon here. All right. Here’s another one that was $28. So that large coffin shelf. Here’s an egg tray. This one averages about 19 to $20. I got $14 back, so it wasn’t half. Here is one of our coffin shelves. All right, we got $15 and 59 cents back. This is a product that usually retails about 28, 29. So that’s like not the exact same percentage. We have a bat bath mat that we retail for about $24, $23. This one is $14. So, like we got more.

Bradley Sutton:

So, to keep it fair, it is not really predictable, All right. So is Amazon lying here by saying it’s going to be more predictable? Not necessarily. It’s just really poorly worded. So just keep that in mind that historically, amazon only gives the full sale price reimbursed if something happens on their side after the customer orders it. If it’s just something in the warehouse, it’s kind of like willy-nilly. I’m going to get into it a little bit more to show you how Amazon calculated before, but again, let’s continue reading this press release here. Effective March 10, 2025. So again, you’ve heard me say this a million times. I don’t like making predictions, but if I were to make a prediction before March 2025, this is going to be clarified or changed or something, just because, based on what the feedback has been, effective March 20, 2025, we’ll reimburse you based on the product manufacturing costs of the effective inventory. So now you’re like, oh shoot, manufacturing costs. Well, that includes the shipping and the customs and me getting it to Amazon. All that right.

Bradley Sutton:

Well, Amazon continues manufacturing costs means your cost to source a product from a manufacturer, wholesaler, reseller or produce the item. If you are the manufacturer, now watch this. This is the kicker. It excludes costs such as shipping, handling, custom duties or other costs. And that sentence right there, guys is the doozy. All right, because if we were to take this at face value which you know, if you look at the Amazon forms, like the Amazon reps are answering that hey, this is the way you’re supposed to read this. If you were to take this at face value, what does that mean? That means that your cost to get the product from your factoring, China, to the Chinese port that’s not included. Your cost to get from the Chinese port to the US port that’s a huge fee. That’s not included. The cost to get it from the US port to your warehouse that’s not included. The cost to package these, to label them, to send them to FBA via carrier or UPS or whatever. That’s not included. Your FBA storage fees or your warehouse storage fees that’s not included.

Bradley Sutton:

So, for example, do you remember how I showed you how I was getting back? Now what? Maybe some of you thought that I was getting back the full sale price for that $55 large coffin shelf. You thought that I was getting back the full sale price for that $55 large coffin shelf. Well, if we take this at face value my manufacturing costs I hope Amazon is not listening for that large coffin shelf I don’t remember what it is. I think it might be like 11 or $12. And then shipping is a doozy because that’s a huge. It’s a huge coffin shelf. You know it might be like another 10 to $15, you know to get it to me. You know custom duties and then me to get it to Amazon. So that means my cost for the whole thing you know could be like 25 bucks or 30 bucks or something like that. Right, I’m currently getting from Amazon $28 back under this new March change. I would have to tell Amazon, if my price was $11, that my manufacturing cost is $11 and that’s all I’m getting back. Do you guys see how big of a deal this is now, especially if you have a lot of product that is lost and damaged.

Bradley Sutton:

So, anyways, let’s continue here. Here we go again with Amazon crazy wording To help provide you greater control and accuracy. You can choose how we determine the manufacturing cost for your product. So, first of all, that’s not true. You can try to do it, but then, at the end of the day, amazon is going to make the decision. So you’re not choosing anything, but again to help provide you greater control and accuracy. Please, amazon, stop with this, this little fluffy language. We’re not idiots. All right, now, here’s the two options. One is they’re going to, or it’s not an option. They’re actually going to do this for all your products. We’re going to provide a manufacturing cost estimate for you. It says this estimate is based on a comprehensive evaluation of comparable products sold by Amazon. Hold on, I’m going to stop right there.

Bradley Sutton:

So, first of all, my suggestion to everybody. I’m going to talk a little bit later about how you’re going to be able to put in your manufacturing costs. I will tell everybody right now do not do it, do not put any manufacturing costs in there until you see what this estimate is right, because, who knows, maybe the estimate’s like crazy and it’s way higher than what you would want to put. So it would be dumb to go ahead and do that. First. Wait till you see what the heck Amazon thinks your product is worth. Then put your manufacturing Okay. So like, if you’re selling a water bottle and Amazon sells a water bottle too, they’re gonna look at how much they have to pay for it and kind of get an idea, but then watch this A comprehensive evaluation of comparable products by other sellers.

Bradley Sutton:

Now think about that for a second, guys. How does Amazon know what other sellers’ costs are? It’s not a requirement to put that in, but there are spaces in Amazon where you can put your product costs, like if their little PNL thing that is in seller central, so that you can calculate your profitability. If you’re using the seller central one, guys, I hope you’re not using that. I’m not. Amazon doesn’t know any of my prices. I’m not using that. Where else could they possibly get this? How about the Amazon profitability calculator, where you can put your ASIN or another competitor’s ASIN and then you put your manufacturing costs? That data is going right to Amazon. They’re going to be looking at that, right. So, guys, what does this mean? You might think this is a selfish comment, but I’m trying to look out for you. You should not be putting your cost in any of those things, guys.

Bradley Sutton:

You guys, everybody who listens to this probably has Helium 10. We’ve got all the same things. We’ve got our profits tool. Put your costs in Helium 10 Profits. We’ve got the profitability calculator that works on the Chrome Extension. That is completely separate outside of Amazon. Let me give you a guarantee, guys Helium 10 does not share your data of your cost. If you have entered that into profits, if you’re doing profitability calculator things, what you entered into the manufacturing, we are not saving that for ourselves, what goes in the Chrome extension, and we are certainly not giving it to Amazon. Now, we had no idea that they would ever do this, but we just value your data, so obviously, helium 10 is not going to share it with anybody, including Amazon. But, man, if you didn’t have reason to use Helium 10 instead of Seller Central for these profitability things, I think you can see what’s going to happen now, because now you know Amazon’s going to see your cost potentially. All right. What else? Let’s keep going on this.

Bradley Sutton:

The second option it says is you can provide your manufacturing costs directly. All right. So that means like uploading invoices says, if you don’t provide your own cost, we’ll automatically apply our estimate, which you can change when you’re ready. All right, so that’s something that you’re going to have to do. Like I said, do not put your cost until you see what Amazon put All right, because you never know. I mean, like what if their estimate is way more than what you actually manufacture for? Well, better, just go with the estimate. But yeah, I don’t know what some of you guys are going to do on this, but I really think it might change soon because, like on my other coffin shelf, I was getting $15 back if Amazon loses it or damages it. $15 on a $28 product, right, my cost on that I hope Amazon’s not listening probably like $5. So I’m going to go from getting $15 back for every lost coffin shelf to $5. That’s not a small change, guys. All right.

Bradley Sutton:

It says to help you prepare, you can view and manage manufacturing costs in the inventory, defect and reimbursement portal starting in late January, using our new manage your manufacturing cost page. This is not ready yet. It says here we’re constantly refining our operations to prevent products from being lost or damaged and having to be reimbursed for cases where reimbursement is necessary. We’re focused on ensuring timely compensation. We now offer automatic reimbursements for items, eliminating the need for you to submit a claim.

Bradley Sutton:

I don’t even know why they would say that in writing. That is like just inviting the FTC to say what are you saying, amazon? Are you saying that historically you know you owe sellers money and you purposely hold that money back until they ask for it? Why would it? Whoever wrote this? Why would they like admit that in black and white? I don’t even know, but it’d be interesting to see you know. Like is Refund Genie for you guys finding less money that you’re owed? Remember that window shrunk to 60 days? I’m going to take a look at my account to see is Amazon really reimbursing more? I’m not sure, but I’m not worried about it too much because, whatever Amazon doesn’t reimburse, I still have Helium 10, refund Genie and managed refund services that can go out and look for the money that’s owed.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, let’s keep going here, because there’s other documents that we have and I’ve got a FAQ page too. One important thing here, another reference document from Amazon about this. It says for items that are lost or damaged after a customer order in Amazon store, we will continue to reimburse you for the sales price on the order minus the applicable fees. All right, now one of these documents that came out. Let me just expand this screen a little bit here. This is kind of another doozy. All right, like that’s kind of like hidden in this PDF that wasn’t in the regular documents. But take a look at this, and this is what has a lot of sellers angry too.

Bradley Sutton:

If a reimbursement was made in error, or if a reimbursed item is later found and returned to your inventory, we reserve the right to reverse the reimbursement credit that was applied to your account. It makes sense you lost something, put it back. They’ve always done that. Put it back and go ahead. Take. Take the money you gave me back because I got my product back Right, which is what we should want anyways. But look at this we may dispose of any item for which we reimburse you under this policy, including by selling it. As a result, such items, including lost items that are found after reimbursement, may be listed for sale on Amazon Warehouse or other channels.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, this is it. Why is this a doozy? Because, think about it, Amazon is almost incentivized to say, hey, let’s go ahead and lose your product. I’m not saying Amazon’s going to do this, guys, all right, I don’t speculate wildly here, but I’m just saying that the way this is written is like if this was a company, they’re legally saying hey, they actually have an incentive to say I’m going to lose Bradley’s coffin shelves that he’s selling for $30. We only have to give Bradley $5 each for them, because that’s his manufacturing costs. And now we’re going to go ahead and turn around and sell this on Amazon warehouse for 25 bucks and make a big profit and undercut Bradley’s buy box. That’s, that’s kind of what this says. This is another one of those things that I think maybe would be changed before March, because that just seems super extreme. Well, I mean again, amazon is not going to go out and just steal everybody’s product and return pennies on the dollar and then put it up for sale. No, but just the way this is worded, I would think could get Amazon in a lot of trouble. Anyways, let’s keep going.

Bradley Sutton:

Now for those of you who are like hey, I’m just going to put some random manufacturing invoice or something, here’s some more fine print from Amazon. It says we may decline your manufacturing cost submission for the following reasons. Number one your submission is an outlier compared to similar products or a cost estimate, any documentation is forged, tampered with or illegible, your account is suspected of fraud, significant policy violations or non-compliant selling activities, or you have already submitted and received a decision on a cost update request for the same item within 30 days. All right. So just keep in mind you know. Like you know, some of you might already be scheming some shenanigans. Looks like Amazon’s going to try and police this a little bit.

Bradley Sutton:

Now. Are you wondering how did Amazon previously calculate the reimbursements? As you saw in my account, it was not very consistent. Well, I actually found some documents here. Now, interestingly enough, there’s some strikethrough that I guess was in this one document. That, I guess, is these are policies that are being replaced, but it said post-order lost or damaged events. It says some of the things that they would gauge the price on of how much you would get reimbursed is the median price that you sold a product on Amazon, the median price that other sellers have the same item on Amazon, the current list price and a whole bunch of other things. So I don’t know why all of these things have strikethrough on it.

Bradley Sutton:

I thought that this part wasn’t changing about how post-order. You know reimbursements are happening, but there you have it. Now I’ve got some additional information that Amazon kindly provided to us in order to give the information out. And again, hats off to Amazon for trying to be as transparent as possible. Like I said, I think some of this stuff they’re being a little bit too transparent. They’re going to get themselves into trouble. I don’t want that to happen. If Amazon ever does get in trouble, we might end up paying even more fees. Who knows? I mean, if Amazon ever does get in trouble, we might end up paying even more fees, who knows?

Bradley Sutton:

But I got this cool FAQ document here that has frequently asked questions about this, and one of them says what if I don’t want to provide my manufacturing costs? Will I still receive a reimbursement? Yes, you will Remember it’s going to be based on, then, the Amazon estimate if you do not provide a manufacturing cost. Another question that people are saying is what if I don’t trust your estimate? Well, manufacturing cost. Another question that people are saying is what if I don’t trust your estimate? Well, you know they say, hey, we average it based on this, that and the other thing. We understand that this may not reflect your true costs and so we have given you the ability to provide your own manufacturing costs for your reimbursements. It says will I have enough time to review and update my costs before the policy becomes effective? It says yes, absolutely, and update my costs before the policy becomes effective. It says yes, absolutely, because the manage your manufacturing cost page is going to be live by the end of January and these new fees don’t go into place until March 10. So you do have time.

Bradley Sutton:

Now here’s one that I didn’t understand at all. It says how will this impact change my business? And their answer was when we lose or damage your inventory, we always try to provide you with a replacement product. Says who, if you lost one of my coffin shelves, where the heck are you going to pull another coffin shelf out of Like? I don’t. I think that might’ve been a misprint. I don’t understand how in the world they’re replacing Like. Maybe they mean if it’s an arbitrage product and Amazon and sellers are selling the same product, but that that that seems weird. But it says hey, if we can’t provide you with a replacement, we’re going to provide you a reimbursement. It says why is Amazon changing the policy? We know Amazon’s not going to say hey, we didn’t raise fees, so we need more money. But I don’t know why they answered Then this way. It says, as consistent with many of the logistics and fulfillment providers, we’ll you the manufacturing cost value.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, see, I have to do some research. Maybe amazon is telling the complete truth here and that’s standard. But in my experience, though, like, like, if eBay loses, you know something, the, the invoice I supply, it also includes the shipping. You know, like, if I’m reselling something and I have an invoice, it includes the shipping to me, it includes the shipping to eBay. I don’t know, maybe this is standard. We’re spoiled by Amazon, but yeah, they say that this is kind of like industry standard. Here’s another important one how does Amazon protect and use my cost? All right, so for those of you who are like you know what, I’ll go ahead and provide my cost to Amazon. But what the heck is Amazon going to do with this? Well, it says hey, the protection of your information is top priority. Your cost data is not shared with any other seller in Amazon store, even in Amazon retail. It’s not being, it’s not shared. It’s used only to calculate your potential reimbursement and just in case it wasn’t clear and this is the part that I think is going to get updated. Watch this question Are you going to reimburse my shipping costs and the inbound placement service fee I paid? Amazon answers no. Under the updated policy, we won’t reimburse you for shipping, handling, customs duties or any additional costs. I incur additional costs. Why are you not going to reimburse?

Bradley Sutton:

Now here’s again where Amazon shouldn’t have said anything but it says to track and validate these costs manually would require substantial effort for the shipping and reduce our ability to issue timely reimbursements. Come on, it takes as much time to make whatever algorithm it is to have a estimate for manufacturing. But Amazon knows where our products are manufactured. We have to put made in USA, made in China. Even in Helium 10, we just have a standard shipping where we put $400 per cubic meter or something like that. They can just put a standard thing and say, oh, if it comes from China, this might be how much it costs. That wouldn’t delay the process at all. But again, like Amazon should have just said sorry, we’re just doing what we’re doing. So but again, like I said, I really believe that that part might change down the road.

Bradley Sutton:

Another question is can I submit different costs for the same product, FNSKU based on supplier batch variations. No, you can only accept a single cost per FNSKU. However, you can update the value as needed to reflect your current manufacturing costs. But what it doesn’t say is, I think, that other thing member said yeah, you can only do it once per 30 days, so that might be something to look out to. So there you have it. I’m sure there’s going to be more information coming out on this. I went into a lot of detail on this because I think a lot of sellers are rightfully concerned about what this could mean.

Bradley Sutton:

Let’s get into other news Now. Next up, we’ve got an article from silicon.co.uk entitled TikTok shop US sales surpass Shein and Sephora. All right, so TikTok shop started in only September 2023, and it has now overtaken Sheen and Sephora. All right, so TikTok shop started in only September 2023, and it has now overtaken Shein, Sephora and Quarte retail group uh, which is the owner of QVC and other uh brands. So we all know TikTok shop is coming up strong. We just did a webinar about it. I I’m going to be learning all about TikTok shop uh soon as to start like ramping up, um up what I’m going to be doing.

Bradley Sutton:

Going back to Amazon. Now guess what guys? More fees, All right, but this is for Amazon EU. So I’m just going to summarize this. Some of this is in your seller central dashboard for those of you who are selling in EU. But here is basically what this document that Amazon put out says. It says hey, in 2025, we want to simplify our rates and lower your costs while continuing to work together to delight customers and drive growth for your business. This doesn’t make any sense. I’m reading this word for word, so there might be a typo here, but it says we will not increase or will lower FBA fulfillment fees for parcels and we will lower the minimum referral fee for special oversized items. We’re also going to provide additional benefits to support new selection growth. So what are the line items that is changing for those of you who sell in UK, et cetera? All right, here we go. It says we will lower the average fulfillment fees for parcel and oversized tiers in UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain stores. Oversized tiers in UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain stores. We will simplify our oversized rate by reducing the product tier weight size bands from 28 to 17 and introducing a new base rate with incremental per kilogram flat rates. We will adjust FBA fulfillment fees for envelopes and low price FBA in UK and the EU5 and all FBA fees. I think that means we’re going to raise. They said we’re going to adjust. That means raise, I’m pretty sure. So the the parcels which I think is how Europeans call boxes is going to lower, but then the envelopes and low price FBA is going to go up. If I’m not mistaken, and it says we will create a new small envelopes sized here based on weight to reduce variation and make fees more predictable.

Bradley Sutton:

It says we will lower the minimum referral fee for heavy non-sortable items through FBA from 25 pounds or 25 euros to 20 pounds or 20 euros. We will make updates to better align fees with our operational costs. I think that’s also code for we’re raising fees For monthly storage fee, storage utilization surcharge, low inventory cost coverage, pan EU fee, PanEU, FBA, oversize surcharge, preparation fees, return to seller, order disposal and liquidation processing fees across all our stores in Europe. You’re going to want to click on this, guys, because that’s a lot of potential fee increases. We will extend the aged inventory surcharge to inventory stored between 241 and 270 days across all of our stores. We will delay the introduction of returns processing fee for high return rate products to February 1, 2025. That’s what we got in USA last year, or this year, I should say. So that’s coming to EU.

Bradley Sutton:

Those of you in EU who sometimes fret about missing out on the stuff that we US sellers have well, here’s some fees for you that we’ve been dealing with for a while. This article also goes on to say how there’s going to be new seller incentives and an FBA new selection program that that’s going to have more feet discounts Good positive thing right there Going to be starting on January 15th, so make sure to check the seller benefits page to get more information on that. So, again, in those of you selling an EU, to get more information on this stuff, go to the 2025 EU fee changes summary and the 2025 EU fulfillment by Amazon fee changes. This is all in your seller central. You should be able to see it. It actually sounds like there are some things going down, but there’s a number of things, if I’m reading this correctly, that are actually going up for those of you in the EU. We didn’t have price increases here in the US for FBA, but, as you saw from the first 20 minutes of this buzz, we had another surprise waiting for us, but sounds like EU went a little bit different path. All right, that is it for fees.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, that is it for fees. Let’s just get to some other news here. All right, next up Seller Central Dashboard return rate and star rating features on Voice of the Customer Dashboard. Voice of the Customer Dashboard’s a pretty cool thing made by Amazon, and now you’ve got a couple new things that you can see there. Here’s the project X voice of the customer page. You can see how many products you have on there Excellent, how many are good. You can see the star rating and check it out the return rate of all of your products. It looks like people are returning my egg tray for some weird, unknown reason, but everybody seems to love my coffin shelf that only has a return rate of 1.7. So yay, on my products. Uh, right there, but go ahead, guys. Uh, just type in seller central voice of the customer and you’ll be able to go ahead and uh, check that out.

Bradley Sutton:

Switching to a different marketplace news inc.com says Temu leaves Amazon and e-commerce dust topping Apple’s most downloaded apps list. Now, this is the second year in a row Temu has been the most downloaded app and I believe Amazon’s not in the top 10. This does not mean that sales on Temu are more than Amazon. Obviously, almost everybody has an Amazon app on their phone. Not everybody has Temu. So it just makes sense that more people are downloading Temu because there’s more people that are new to that platform. And you know, let me know, is anybody any of you guys selling on Temu yet? Let me know in the comments below. I’m trying to get my account started on Temu just to see how the platform works. Let us know if you want Helium 10 to make some kind of tools in our suite for you guys.

Bradley Sutton:

Another reminder by Amazon Seller Central is account vacation settings and support for holidays. All right, so if you’re going to be taking off and you’re not going to be able to reply to messages in Seller Central, you’re not going to be able to ship orders and stuff. You should turn on your store status and vacation settings and it’s going to take away your listing and take away your product from the search results. All right, so read this article in your seller central to find out more information about what this vacation status means. But some of you, if you’re going to be like disconnecting, might need to go ahead and turn that on.

Bradley Sutton:

Back to TikTok news. TikTok now took their case to the Supreme Court to temporarily halt the law that would ban the app in the US. Now, I personally don’t think it’s going to get banned. But I don’t know anything. I don’t have any special insights or knowledge about this kind of thing. I’m just my gut feeling is that it’s not going to get banned. I’m not sure. Is it going to be because the Supreme Court’s going to put a temporary stop to it? Are they going to sell the company? I’m not too worried. I’m full speed ahead on TikTok shop. And then if on January 19 or whenever, all of a sudden there’s no more TikTok shop or something happens, ok, I’ll pivot at that time, but I just really, really don’t think that it’s going to be gone forever.

Bradley Sutton:

Last bit of news this week is from Amazon Advertising. It says enhanced display placement targeting features on Amazon DSP. DSP launched two new targeting capabilities to help advertisers control ad placements across display and native. So now advertisers can target specific fold positions. That means like above the fold or below the fold for display and online video campaigns, and native content placements in feed, in article or recommendation widgets for native advertising campaigns. That’s pretty cool how now DSP advertisers are going to be able to have that granularity, uh, control over things that you know, those of us who are doing sponsored products, you know we can’t say, hey, I want my video to show up at the top, I want my video to only show, you know, below the folder, et cetera. So that’s pretty cool. Make sure to check out the links that we have in the description below to get the article on it. All right.

Bradley Sutton:

Like I said, guys, I had a feeling that there was no way I was going to have time for new feature alerts or training tip of the week because of this new reimbursement fee thing, but I hope I presented it in an honest way. Again, I’m not trying to throw Amazon under the bus. I’m not trying to throw the sellers who are confused under the bus. I think there’s good on both sides of the argument that people are making. There’s some bad that I think Amazon should maybe re-look at what might be fair to sellers. But also we sellers need to also remember that we were not getting. I don’t think we were like, if you were getting full reimbursements at the sale price for your product that Amazon lost, not the ones that were bought by customers. Let me know, because that’s a pretty cool hack, because, as you guys saw from my account, I wasn’t getting that. But anyways, my reimbursements on some of my products is going to go down by like 66% 70%. So take a look at your products and let me know.

Bradley Sutton:

What do you think is going to happen. What do you think of all these new fees and reimbursement changes? Let me know in the comments below. Positive, negative, neutral, I don’t care. We’re just having a conversation about the facts, all right. Anyways, guys, I will probably not be here next week. I’m not sure who’s going to do the Weekly Buzz. Maybe it’ll be me, we’ll see. I’ll be in our China office at Helium 10. Anyways, if I don’t see you before the end of the year, I wish you a great 2025. May it be the best year that you guys crush it on Amazon. I’m going to try and make it my best year and I’ll see you next year, guys. Bye-bye now.

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• Freedom Ticket: Taught by Amazon thought leader Kevin King, get A-Z Amazon strategies and techniques for establishing and solidifying your business.
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