Save even more with 2DTransit after 50+% Amazon fee hike

Effective immediately (June 1, 2021), Amazon is increasing the manual processing fees charged to sellers who send their Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) inventory to an Amazon Fulfillment Center without supplying a box contents list. The 50–100% fee hike means that subscribers who 2D label their inventory with 2D Transit now save 15–30 cents per unit, depending on the time of year.

What is a 2D label, and why is Amazon charging me for not having one?

A 2D label tells Amazon what a package’s contents are. This allows Amazon’s warehouse workers to check in FBA inventory quickly, efficiently, and accurately by scanning the 2D label with a barcode scanner. By contrast, when a package arrives without a box contents list, warehouse workers must check its contents in manually. Manual check-in is slow and error-prone.

Manual processing is a problem for Amazon because of the ecommerce giant’s rising labor costs. On April 28, 2021, Amazon announced that it will raise wages by $.50 – $3 per hour for 500,000 US employees. Implementation of the pay raise began in mid-May and will continue through early June.

Amazon already paid a $15-per-hour minimum wage for all US employees, so the wage hike adds a billion dollars per year to an already considerable labor cost. Manual processing fees incentivize FBA sellers to label their products, saving Amazon the man-hours required to do it themselves.

What is the new fee structure?

Under the new fee structure that went into effect on June 1, 2021, Amazon will charge a fifteen-cents-per-unit manual processing fee during the months from January to October and a thirty-cents-per-unit manual processing fee during the months from November to December.

The fifteen-cent fee is 1.5x, or 50% higher than, the ten-cent fee Amazon previously charged for most of the year. And the thirty-cent fee is 2x, or 100% higher than, the fee Amazon previously charged during November and December. That means that Amazon has doubled its manual processing fee for the busy Christmas months.

Note that the manual processing fee is charged per unit of inventory, not per package. Also note that fees seem to be assessed based on the date that a box is processed, not based on the date it ships. Thus, a box containing ten units of inventory that ships in October but arrives at the Amazon Fulfillment Center in November will be slapped with a $3.00 manual processing fee unless the seller provides box contents by 2D label or file upload.

For high-volume sellers—especially sellers of holiday gifts—those fees could add up fast.

How can 2DTransit save me money?

With 2DTransit label printing software, your warehouse team can create and print 2D shipping labels as fast as they can assemble a box. That means that you can avoid the Amazon manual processing fee with basically no extra effort, saving you $0.15 or $0.30 per unit depending on the time of year. 2D labels also increase the speed and accuracy of inventory check-in at the Amazon warehouse, which helps keep items in stock.

2DTransit also has the capability to auto-print FNSKU labels for each unit of inventory. Your inventory units labeled with FNSKUs will be kept separate from other sellers’ inventory. This protects the reputation of your brand by preventing your inventory from being commingled with counterfeit or low-quality items from other sellers and potentially getting bad customer reviews.

Amazon does not require FNSKU labels or charge a mandatory fee for products without an FNSKU. Should you choose to have Amazon apply FNSKU labels to your inventory at the Fulfillment Center, however, the fee is $.30 per unit. By auto-printing your own FNSKU labels with 2DTransit, you protect your inventory without paying the optional Amazon fee. That brings your savings with 2DTransit to as much as $.60 per unit, and that’s not counting your labor savings and efficiency gains!

With the Amazon fee hike, 2DTransit is more economical than ever. Don’t wait to subscribe to 2DTransit for all your Amazon labeling needs. Try the service that pays for itself free for 7 days!