Every year, Amazon raises its fees; in some special years, we get newly invented fees. A recent report on the history of Amazon fee increases shows that some of these fees started as small and have increased by 200%. The United States economy faced record inflation in 2022. By 2024 inflation has slowed down to normal rates, but prices have increased on Amazon. So, how have these affected Amazon's prices? With over 10 million ASINs analyzed on the US Marketplace, we generated these charts based on weekly price changes.
Prices bottomed out in 2022 as the e-commerce growth softened and the supply chain caught up, creating an inventory glut. After the summer of 2022, a steady rise occurred throughout 2023 while growing dramatically in 2024. The 2024 increase is a reaction to the inbound placement fees and low inventory fees affecting sellers. These two fees were new introductions to sellers and forced them to make awkward shipping decisions in order to avoid 50-cent per unit placement fees. Many opt just to pay the fee and increase their price.
Amazon Vendors do not see the same fee structure. Their products do not get charged a standard FBA fee and are often negotiated one by one with a brand and their Vendor Manager. Additionally, Amazon is more competitive with pricing in order to combat external competition. There have been noticeable dips in Cyber Monday over the previous two years.
Amazon's third-party sellers comprise over 2/3rds of the top 10 million ASINs. Their price fluctuations affect the marketplace more than Amazon Vendors. They follow the general curve experienced by all ASINs. In early 2024, there was significant pressure to increase prices to account for the new structural fees.
Chinese sellers experienced a similar increase in prices. Chinese sellers have prices 10% lower than the rest of the marketplace. Even so, the price to sell on Amazon has been felt by Chinese sellers.
SmartScout analyzed the top 10 million ASINs selling on Amazon. Every ASIN is weighted equally whether it sells 10,000 units a month or 10. Our process for determining Chinese sellers is based on the country of origin of the dominant seller on an ASIN. Some Chinese sellers have US-based shell companies; we do not account for those, but the Chinese ASINs comprise more than 1/3rd of the reported ASINs.
SmartScout specializes in Amazon Marketplace research with an emphasis on the 3P seller dynamics. With millions of data points daily, we display data to uncover market trends and market share across leading categories.
