ICYMI: Amazon Seller News, Updates, Events, Resources, and More to Help You Sell Better

Since no one can hit their target with their eyes closed, we are here to help eCommerce businesses to stay focused on the hottest Amazon seller news and trends. 

While getting actionable insights from your Amazon Account Health page, you still need a credible and relevant source of information to make your Amazon boat sail in the right direction. 

Every week we muster up the most important updates within Amazon and beyond to keep online entrepreneurs in the loop. From Amazon Terms of Service or recent Brand Registry News to seasonable Amazon Advertising strategies and upcoming Amazon Seller Conferences: we’ve got you covered.
Whether it is a quick catch up on Amazon policies, a golden nugget from Seller Labs experts, or any other news event affecting Amazon sellers, this is a place for you to study up, In Case You Missed It.

Prosper Show 2022 took place on March 14-16 in Las Vegas, NV.

With its main focus on the sellers’ needs, this annual educational conference is a chance for Amazon sellers to enhance their networking opportunities and grow their eCommerce businesses by partnering with reliable service providers.

As avid eCommerce enthusiasts, the Seller Labs team didn’t miss their chance to take part in Prosper Show. If for whatever reason you’ve preferred not to attend the show this year, we are here to help you avoid your FOMO, putting together the main Prosper takeaways.

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Additionally, you can make the most of the Prosper Show with its digital extension – Prosper Remix. Once registered, the participant gains access to all recorded sessions plus six new digital sessions that will be offered live on April 27-28.

The Hottest on Amazon:

👉 Amazon Ads Conference: unBoxed Returns In Person in 2022

• Amazon announced it would be hosting unBoxed 2022 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City on October 25-27. Mark your calendars to discover the latest innovations and trends coming from Amazon Ads that can help your brand reach audiences, measure campaigns, and grow your business.

👉 Attributed Purchases Report Updates

• The new Attributed Purchases Report is now available for Sponsored Brands Video, helping sellers get the info on the product that the customers purchased after clicking on the video ad.

With this report, Amazon merchants can get insights into the product sales driven by their Sponsored Brands ads, discover new advertising opportunities, and see which products engage new-to-brand customers.

👉 Keyword Ranking Within Amazon Metrics

• There is now the ability to see where the search term ranks within the suggestions in the keyword recommendations. This new feature could save a lot of time deciding how much focus and bid allowance to give to each term.

👉 Amazon Prime Day Deadlines

• Amazon finally confirmed that Prime Day 2022 would take place in July. Although the exact date is still unknown, we guess the event will kick off on July 18/19 based on the deadlines and past years’ dates.

Other promotions, coupons, and Prime Member discounts are available to schedule for the Prime Day as per below dates.

Aged Inventory Surcharge

• It looks like Amazon is changing the name of LTS (long-term storage) to Aged Inventory and is introducing a new tier of fees. Starting May 15, 2022, the new Amazon Aged Inventory surcharge will take effect, resulting in the increased storage fees on items that have been in Amazon Fulfillment Centers for 271 to 365 days.

These items will be charged $1.50 per cubic foot during this period, increasing to $6.90 per cubic foot or $0.15 per unit once regular long-term storage fees kick in after 365 days.

This update is impactful to any seller using FBA.  Online Sellers can proactively remove inventory before May 18 to avoid these fees before their units hit the 271-day mark by monitoring the Inventory Dashboard.

Amazon Sales Slow Down

• Online sales have been slowing down for Amazon. After its boost at the pandemic’s onset, the eCommerce industry is now taking a hit since shoppers prefer a more typical, pre-COVID mix of online and in-person spending. However, Amazon’s other two segments (Amazon Web Services and Advertising) don’t show any decrease in profitability.

Amazon Digital Content & Marketing Innovations

• Amazon announced digital content and digital marketing innovations at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) NewFronts held on May 2-5, 2022. During its NewFronts presentation, Amazon unveiled its new content and advertising products, including virtual product placement into Amazon’s original digital content and updates on Amazon Freevee, Thursday Night Football on Prime Video, and Twitch.

Now brands can enjoy enhanced marketing opportunities and reach and engage streaming audiences with more intelligent and straightforward streaming TV campaigns.

Amazon’s Recent Earnings Update

• Check out this excellent summary for anyone interested in the TLDR of Amazon’s recent earnings update.

New Real Estate Space on Amazon’s Buy Box

• Amazon introduced a new section called “Another way to buy” that takes up space between the main offer and the secondary Buy Box (Other Sellers on Amazon). It looks like beta testing as it doesn’t show for every search. The seller under “Another way to buy” is different from the seller in the main Buy Box, even though they can offer the same price, and both are fulfilled by Amazon.

The “Another Way to Buy” section can be beneficial to third-party sellers as it allows them to show their offer to customers even when they are not featured as the main Buy Box winner. 

Also, it will help FBM sellers that don’t normally get the Buy Box because others are offering an FBA deal.

Multi-Channel Fulfillment Fee Updates

• As a result of increased logistics costs, Amazon will be increasing Multi-Channel Fulfillment fees for the off Amazon orders fulfilled using FBA inventory.

Effective May 9, 2022, the fees for the Multi-Channel Fulfillment orders will increase twice across all package types. 

Effective August 1, 2022, Amazon will also be increasing the fees for the packages shipped to non-contiguous U.S. states and territories. Visit the MCF fee page for a break-down of fees before/after the update.

Jessica Wright, Senior Brand Strategist on the Seller Labs Services team, sheds some more light on the Fulfillment Fee Changes in the following video:

Sponsored Brands Follow Button

• The follow button appears to be populating directly on Sponsored Brand ads on the Product Display Page. Apparently, the Customer Engagement tool will be one of the first Amazon tools to benefit from the increased “Follow Button” visibility.

Facebook News: Meta is Opening Its First Brick-and-Mortar Store

• The first Meta Store is set to open early next month in California near Meta’s Reality Labs research facility, where metaverse products are developed. In-store, consumers can try and buy the platform’s three metaverse products: the smart video chat device Portal, smart glasses Ray-Ban Stories and virtual reality headset Meta Quest.

Amazon Shareable Images

• As of now, Amazon is beta-testing “Shareable” Product Images on desktop. Many customers shopping on Amazon are now finding the ability to share product images via email, social, or direct link. This drives home the importance of creating helpful, valuable, and shareable content on your product detail pages.

Amazon Launches Buy With Prime

• As of April 21, 2022, Amazon has unleashed its Buy with Prime program to extend the convenience of Prime shopping to online retailers beyond the Amazon retail platform.

Going by the Amazon press release, Buy with Prime will initially be available by invitation only for merchants using Fulfillment by Amazon and will roll out through 2022 as merchants are invited to participate, including those not selling on Amazon or using FBA.

This newly introduced program allows millions of U.S.-based Prime members to shop directly from merchants’ online stores and help online sellers build customer loyalty and brand credibility while offering conversion-driving benefits like fast and free shipping.

Amazon Small & Light Program Updates

• Effective April 28, 2022, Amazon has updated its Small & Light program to increase the price threshold for qualified items from $8 to $10. This change allows more of your products to become eligible for the program and receive fulfillment discounts, which can be beneficial to the merchants who sell products with less-profit margins, as they can claw back some profitability.

FBA News: Extra Large Storage Type

• As of April 18, 2022, a new Extra Large storage type is available to Amazon sellers, in addition to the Oversize storage type. The new Extra Large category includes:
  • non-TV items sized 96 inches or more
  • TV items sized more than 40 inches
  • any item that measures more than 130 inches in girth
  • any item that weighs over 50 lbs

This change could negatively impact profits for merchants who sell large and heavy products. Since the items already in stock at Amazon Fulfillment Centers will automatically be moved into a new category and charged at this new fee structure, we recommend Sellers take a look at their Fee Preview Report to estimate any changes.

Virtual Bundle Updates

• A golden nugget from the Seller Labs team: Though it is not officially announced by Amazon, we can confirm there are two new changes that we’ve seen in Seller accounts:
  1. Virtual bundles can now appear as child ASINs on the component item pages. This update keeps buyers in one place to shop, allows bundles to take advantage of component item sales rank/velocity, and ensures that reviews will combine across items.
  2. Virtual bundles can now be advertised using Sponsored Product ad types.

Updates to Amazon’s Dangerous Goods Policy

• Effective April 25, 2022, dangerous goods can no longer be shipped to the U.S. island destinations through FBA, even in limited quantities. Starting on this date, online sellers should turn to third-party shippers to ship dangerous goods to those destinations.

Online sellers who have items categorized as hazmat should review their unfulfillable inventory in conjunction with these updates and ensure they are taking action on any impacted items. You can find more information in the Amazon Dangerous Goods Identification Guide.

Additional Prime Day Deals Deadlines

• Lightning Deals Submission Deadline:
  • April 29 – U.S. and Canada
  • May 13 – France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, and the UK
• FBA Inventory Cutoff Deadline:
  • June 20 – U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Portugal
  • June 29 – Japan
• Coupon Submission Deadline:
  • June 10 – U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, and the UK
• Inbound Shipping Cutoff Deadline:
  • July 8 – the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Mexico, Portugal, Australia, and Japan
  • July 19 – India, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates

FBA Fulfillment Fee Changes

• Effective April 28, 2022, an FBA fee surcharge of 5% will be implemented on each unit sold, including products purchased before that date. Amazon also said that this surcharge is subject to change, as it is still unclear if the inflationary costs will go up or down or for how long they will persist.

As of now, it averages from a $0.15 to a $7.55 increase, depending on product size and category. Since fee updates almost always result in mistakes, it is a good idea for Sellers to review their fulfillment reports for any anomalies.

Amazon Webinars on Brand Registry and A+ Content

• Upcoming Amazon webinars on Brand Registry and A+ Content are open for registration for all Seller Central users. Given that Amazon does not always offer recordings after the sessions, it’s good to pencil the event in if you are interested in any of these topics.

Updates to the Amazon Seller App

• Amazon Seller App now offers the new quick search functionality to its iOS users.

Amazon Advertising Updates

• Amazon is introducing a Suggested Products sort option available to vendors and sellers when creating Sponsored Products campaigns. So, how does it work? Amazon machine-learning models identify the products with a high likelihood of being clicked on if advertised and help online sellers to increase the chance of customer engagement.

Seller Policies Updates for European Marketplaces

• As of March 2022, Amazon introduced significant changes to program policies applicable to Amazon’s European marketplaces:

1. Selling Policies and Seller Code of Conduct. Amazon has updated the Seller Code of Conduct to include language explicitly prohibiting price-fixing and search rank manipulation.
2. Amazon’s Mediation Policy. In the case of mediation, sellers will choose to designate one mediator among a list of two provided by the Center for Effective Dispute Resolution.
3. Amazon Renewed Programme Terms. Negative Review Rate and Product Quality Return Rate are now the primary quality performance metrics, deprecating the Negative Review Rate and Renewed Quality Score.

Amazon’s Home Entry Program Updates

• Under the updated Amazon’s Home Entry program, no one is allowed to enter a customer’s home to deliver an Amazon order unless the order originated via Amazon ShopLocal or is being delivered by Amazon’s delivery network.

New Regulatory Fee Taxes

• As of April 15, 2022, new California tax rules came into force. However, the updates shouldn’t affect the sellers’ filing routines. New regulatory fee taxes will be collected automatically by Amazon to be displayed as a new column on existing Seller Central tax reporting.

Upcoming Changes to Buyer-Initiated Order Cancellations

• Effective May 10, 2022, Amazon is making changes to the process of managing Buyer-Initiated Cancellation requests to make it easier and more efficient.

Amazon Seasonal Restrictions on Meltable Inventory

• Starting April 15, any meltable products in stock at Amazon FCs will be destroyed at the seller’s expense. Any product with the “Is this Item Heat Sensitive” attribute selected as “TRUE”, and a meltable temperature set below 155 is subject to this deadline. So, the best practice is to schedule removals 24 hours before the deadline to ensure timely processing.

Online sellers that are unsure of meltable status on their items can review their category listing for meltable attributes to confirm.

New USPS Fees And Surcharges in 2022

• Effective April 3, 2022, the additional USPS surcharges were added for incorrect and non-standard package dimensions. This will impact the bottom profits for all FBM sellers whether they use Buy Shipping on Amazon or not.

Dimensional Non-Compliance Fee:  A $1.50 fee will be applied to any packages when manifested dimensions are either incorrect or are not provided. 
USPS Non-Standard Fee: The packages that exceed a certain dimensional threshold will incur an additional fee in addition to the postage:

• Parcels that are longer than 22 inches but less than 30 inches will see a $4.00 surcharge.
• Packages that exceed 30 inches in length will incur a $15.00 surcharge.
• Parcels that measure greater than 2 cubic (3456 cubic inches) feet will also see a $15.00 fee added.

Amazon Reporting Update

• As of March 29, 2022, Amazon expanded the available information in the Business Reports tool to include Amazon Mobile App data. Amazon sellers now have more visibility and access to mobile vs. browser sessions data, which helps them to quantify the importance of optimizing your product listings for the mobile shoppers.

New Features in Amazon Search Analytics Dashboards

• The Search Catalog Performance and Search Query Performance Dashboard is rolled out for all Brand Registered Sellers in Brand Analytics. With this new dashboard brand owners gain a powerful insight into how customers are interacting with their products with an emphasis on search performance.

Brands can now access their products’ search engagement metrics, including impressions, clicks, cart adds, and purchases. These metric values only include organic and sponsored products from search results, and are not related to external traffic.

March 2022 SP-API Release Announcement

• Collecting data from Seller Central Business Reports and Vendor Central Sales Diagnostics now got a whole lot easier. Amazon released an update to the selling partner API to provide access to business reports.

New Addition to the Amazon Product Opportunity Explorer Dashboard

• Amazon Product Opportunity Explorer is a helpful feature that provides data and insights to help sellers gain a better understanding of customer demand for new product ideas. As of now, trends dashboard allows you to see the niche trend for the Sales volume, Product Count, Average Price and Search Conversion Rate over the past 7 days.

Automated Fulfillable Inventory Removal

• Rather than simply bill clients a higher storage rate for inventory on hand at its fulfillment centers, Amazon is going to return those units to sellers automatically on April 15, 2022. This will also apply to ASINs on hand with no sales in the proceeding six months. Please, check to ensure you have a return address on file, otherwise units will be disposed of.

Online sellers who opt out will be charged increased long term storage fees.

Multi-Channel Fulfillment Fee Updates

• As a result of increased logistics costs, Amazon will be increasing Multi-Channel Fulfillment fees on May 9, 2022, and some supplemental fees for areas outside of the continental US on August 1, 2022. Check out the link above for additional updates to the MCF program that have happened or will be happening this year.

New Fee Category Guidelines

• Given that fee categories are changing, we recommend all Amazon sellers to take a look at the fee preview report to anticipate any updates and be prepared to dispute any mistakes.

Please note: fee categories reflect the category a product falls into for referral fees, not necessarily the category reflected on the Product Detail Page of the item. Thus, items will not be recategorized for display purposes as a result of these updates.

Another BRAND NEW Real Estate in Amazon Advertising

• Now you can see “Brands you might like” below the product listings in between “4 Stars & Above” and “Products related to this item.”

Sponsored Display Launches Bid Recommendations

• Suggested bids are now available for Sponsored Display Ads (SD) campaigns. This will help get some idea on what bids to keep, especially when setting up new campaigns.

Sponsored Display Launches Matched Target Reporting in the Amazon Ads API

• Amazon just released a statement announcing that sellers and vendors can access the brand-new Matched Target Report! With this report, you can dive deep into the performance of the product detail pages where your Sponsored Display ads were delivered at.

Amazon Helps Its Prospective Clients with a Perfect Launch

• New Seller Incentives are great tools that Amazon provides to its brand-new seller accounts. Within a Perfect Launch program, the newly-emerged Amazon sellers are offered free Amazon Vine items, free Transparency labels, credits to try cost-per click (CPC) advertising, discounted Amazon Prime shipping, and more with Fulfillment by Amazon. Additionally, Amazon has updated its Perfect Launch Playbook to include all these details.

Amazon Transparency Program Updates

• Here come some recent updates to the Amazon Transparency App. The consumers can now see instructional videos, product promotion, and current deals when they scan Transparency barcodes on the products they purchase.

Amazon Offers Sellers New Discounts on Shipping

• Amazon is passing along their discounted shipping rates! Amazon Sponsored Discount is now available on some buy shipping options for Seller Fulfilled orders, discounted rates can be identified by a blue “discount” badge on the Buy Shipping page in Seller Central.

Amazon FBA Recent Updates

• Similar to the New Seller Incentives, FBA New Selection now offers incentives for new items on the platform, available to any seller regardless of their Amazon seller experience. The new perks include  5% rebate on sales, Global enrollment, and Free Liquidation.
• Have you heard about the recent updates to Amazon US referral and FBA fees? Amazon’s making some adjustments to the current year’s fee structure.
• Amazon is raising the annual price of its Prime shipping club to compensate for the increased pandemic costs. Effective February 18, the new pricing jumps $20 to $139 per year.

Amazon Seller Central Updates

• Amazon is making many improvements in how they communicate with sellers. You can now schedule a call to talk to Amazon support.
• Amazon sellers that have enrolled in the Brand Registry can now communicate directly with buyers that left their brand a critical review. This update was released in June 2021 on Customer Reviews on the Brand Dashboard.
• Marketplace Appstore and Service Provider Network are now combined in the ASCPN (Amazon Seller Central Partner Network), where sellers can discover over 5,000 third-party software and service partners.
• Say hello to a new Competitive Price feature on the Manage Inventory Dashboard. You’ll be able to see the relevant data in the Price + Shipping column. This information refers to OFF AMAZON pricing for the item and allows Amazon sellers to gain deeper insights and make healthy decisions while setting prices.

New from Seller Labs & X-Cart

Live

• While the Buy Now Pay Later approach is gaining momentum, online business owners are trying to match the buyers’ needs by delivering a more personalized and seamless checkout experience. In our article we are breaking down what Buy Now Pay Later is, which installment loan solution fits your eCommerce goals, and why installment payments are the key to customer loyalty.
• Amazon Transparency Program. A significant jump in eCommerce popularity led to a surge of fake products on the big marketplaces driving brand owners to take urgent steps to keep counterfeits at bay. And this is where anti-counterfeiting programs come into the picture. In our post, we’ll be covering what the Amazon Transparency Program is and how it can help you protect your brand against knockoffs.
• How Does PayPal Work with Your eCommerce Platform? Being a credible and well-established payment service provider (PSP), PayPal gives online merchants an array of undeniable benefits, being put together in our new article. Read on as we break down what PayPal is to an online seller and describe the functionality of its main eCommerce integrations.

Coming Soon

• Despite being a relatively new payment model, Buy Now Pay Later is quickly becoming one of the most prominent eCommerce payment trends. At X-Cart, we’ve seen firsthand how big the demand for Buy Now Pay Later options is among online merchants. Therefore, we are unleashing a new installment payment feature for your eCommerce checkout in solid partnership with Affirm.

Resonate 2021 – Still Helping You Grow in 2022!

With a nurtured hope to host Resonate Conference in person soon, we’ve taken the time to curate an impressive digital content series with expert opinions on such hot topics as how to optimize product listings, improve tax returns performance, perfect customer experience and more. 
With the Resonate Digital Content Series’ setup, you can consume the content on your terms by tuning into any of our sessions whenever you’d like

Seller Labs PRO: The Tool You Can Trust

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