AMZTools #8: Amazon inflation surcharge: more than a 5?, Amazon Pet Day extravangaza and more

Check the last news on Amazon and other US marketplaces

First of all, let me welcome the new members.
We have already 218 subscribers and a +40% open rate.
Mind blowing, so thank you all!

📰 What you need to know

• On April the 28th, Amazon started charging sellers a 5% fuel and inflation surcharge based on fulfillment fees (not your sale price) but, wait, is it just a 5%? Read Michael Patron’s breakdown:

Michael Patrón @michaelpatron0

Email sent to sellers with more details. Just because I am nitpicking today, notice all fees increasing are being rounded so some actually higher than 5%. lol. So they increase a fee from 0.30 to 0.32, it's actually 6.66%. Below is one of the charts.

Michael Patrón @michaelpatron0

Amazon is raising FBA fees 5% with just 2 weeks notice. Not only are they raising them but they also decided not to show this on the announcement page - it instead only shows when you click "help". I think every seller should be enraged about this. I truly believed Amazon... https://t.co/6R9IyCWLcC

• FBA small and light threshold increases to $10. Looks like a great time to do the math again on your P&L

• Prime Day deal submissions are open

  • Amazon US: Lightning Deal submissions will close on April 29

  • Amazon UK: Lightning Deal submissions closing on May 13

• According to our friend Jon Elder (aka Black Label Advisor), Amazon is hosting a 24 hour extravaganza for the Pet category called Amazon Pet Day

• Lockdowns in Shanghai are creating a massive clusterf—k, check this 2 tweets:

Dan Collins @DanCollins2011

Very possible over the next weeks we will get a trial run on what happens if/when they China boats don’t show up. Get prepared for a supply shock the likes you have never seen.

Ryan Petersen (CEO at Flexport) filtered their data with just container ships, which looks a better, tbh:

Ryan Petersen @typesfast

Filtered for just container ships. Flexport loadings out of Shanghai are down 35% since start of the lockdowns there. But loadings in Ningbo (next door) are up about the same. Watching this closely. If factories stay closed for extended period this will create issues for sure. https://t.co/eShYAsopuJ

Dan Collins @DanCollins2011

Very possible over the next weeks we will get a trial run on what happens if/when they China boats don’t show up. Get prepared for a supply shock the likes you have never seen. https://t.co/QCU7HvCzMO

• Amazon is adding and average of 2,000 new sellers every day

• Chinese Sellers Don't Want to Rely on Amazon

• Sellics signs agreement with Ascential, the company behind Perpetua.io, Flywheel, RetailWeek or the World Retail Congress

• Marketplace startups combined raised $22.8B in Q1 2022, a slowdown with a 34% decrease from Q4 2021 ($34.6B) and a 28% decrease from Q1 2021 ($31.5B), according to Adevinta’s Dealroom.co

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🎒Summit time!

• Helium 10 is hosting the Sell + Scale Summit on 20-22 September, 2022 in Las Vegas. Speakers include:

  • Kevin King: are you kidding? the man needs no intro!

  • Jana Krekic: founder of 7-figure Amazon dedicated translations agency - YLT

  • Bradley Sutton: Director of Training & Chief Evangelist at Helium 10

And they have a 25% discount for you:

• Sellers Summit, Ft Lauderdale, Florida - 5.4.2022 - 5.6.2022. Check some of the speakers:

  • Eric Bandholz Founder BeardBrand.com

  • Toni Anderson Founder The Oil Collection

  • Mike Jackness CEO EcomCrew.com

  • Brad Moss Former Head Of Seller Central at Amazon

  • Steve Chou Founder MyWifeQuitHerJob.com

  • And more.

• Seller Velocity conference 2022 is taking place in Bend, Oregon, April 28 & 29. Awesome speakers featuring:

  • Chris Berry Strategic and Emerging Brands team at Amazon

  • Krystel Abi Assi CEO at Amazon Sellers Society and Sellers Society

  • And more.

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👀Recommended reads

• Pacvue’s Q1 2022 CPC Report

• Will Amazon have to ground its drone program?

• Amazon is a "chokehold" on China's cross-border e-commerce: People's Daily overseas edition

• Making a Pet Supplies Brand Competitive and Profitable

• Trying to buy a microSD card proved to me that Amazon is becoming a scammers' paradise

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🧐 Recommended tools

Last week I had the pleasure to record a video demo with Ian Kaneshiro at Seller Snap, an awesome repricer based on the game-theory featuring an AI-Powered Repricer, lots of custom repricing strategies and a Seller Analytics dashboard.

You can get a 30% discount during the first month using our code “Jordi30%“

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ZonGuru has developed 4 key metrics to help sellers quickly decide whether to dig deeper into a product or move on to the next. These 4 important metrics are:

• Buyer Demand  →  How in demand the product is

• Investment sweet spot  →  How much sellers need to invest to stay competitive 

• Revenue potential  →  How much sellers stand to earn

• Competition opportunity  →  How fierce the competition is

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Last week I was in a meeting with Matt Browne, Managing Director at Ackrite International and he showed me a spectacular and totally under-the-radar tool: Scale Insights.

I have tried dozens of tools for advertising but, man, check this. This is insane!

For as low as $29 you can have:

• An analytics tool: SalesTrends, Orders & Returns

• P&L tool: ProductsROI, Inventory Value, COGS

• Forecasting tool: Forecasting, Inventory Restock & Management

• Ads insights: Performance & Actionable Insights

• The Ads tool: Automate Ads Optimization (7 goals and 11 custom rules) + Mass Campaign editor + Create Bulk Campaigns

I’m actually messing around with the trial and it looks awesome.

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See you in 15 days!

Best,
Jordi Ordóñez at jordiob.com