Discounts on EU/UK Amazon Partner Carrier Fees

Possibly some good news for UK/EU sellers… 🇬🇧🇪🇺

From July 2022 to April 12, 2023, you can take advantage of the following fee reductions:

• Average 20% decrease on partner carrier fees for Small Parcel Delivery (SPD) and pallet shipments in the UK. For instance, shipping parcels with a partner carrier like UPS from a local address in the UK to a UK fulfillment center.
• Average 50% discount on partner carrier fees for pallet shipments and SPDs sent to FBA in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy.

The fee reductions sure sound attractive, especially with the recent increases in shipping and FBA fulfillment costs.

🤔 Why the sudden generosity? This move might be Amazon’s attempt to:

• Encourage sellers to use partner carriers versus non-partner carriers to recover the money they sunk into infrastructure following the logistics dumpster fire that was 2020. Amazon reportedly suffered a massive US$3.8 billion loss in Q1, which was partially driven by US$6 billion in added warehouses and transportation costs. This is the first down quarter Amazon has reported since 2015.
• In addition, based on the discounts more sellers who were fulfilling by FBM may be enticed to sign up for the partner carrier program due to the savings discounts, which may also help Amazon to fill underused warehouse space in Q3 and Q4.
• It could also help soften the impact of fee hikes on sellers, and in return, prevent them from raising their product prices too quickly, something that Amazon may be mindful of based on the slower sales growth in 2022.

All this aside, however, UK sellers who have done mock shipments tell a different story. Instead of getting a lower shipping fee, they saw a considerable price increase due to the high fuel surcharge.

To cover their bases, Amazon did mention that the final fee may vary depending on the shipment quantity, packaging weight and dimensions, and other applicable rates, and that rates are subject to change. So, I guess the sellers complaining about increased prices fall under the “subject to change” category then. 🤷‍♀️ Essentially, the conclusion becomes that your shipping fee could still stay the same as before, could go down, or unfortunately, go up substantially from the last time you used the program. 🤦‍♀️

Read the Amazon Partnered Carrier Program Overview to learn more.

💡 If you need to reduce shipping costs to stay profitable, try to keep your packaging compact by removing excess air from your products, minimizing their cubic dimensions, using lighter materials, avoiding excessive amounts of internal packaging materials, and more.

Lastly, use our Master Carton and Pallet Calculator to determine your optimal carton/pallet load capacity and reduce your total cartons and pallets per order.