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Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers

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Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers

#31

Post by binarysolo »

Amazon third party seller (low 8s) here: last time this happened was during COVID and it ended up being a permanent FBA shipping price increase.

Practically speaking shipping accounts for 10-20% of the sale price, so realistically it's the seller who will absorb it and maybe pass on costs to the buyers, but we're talking about 3.5% of 10-20%, which is really a 1% price increase, so a noticeable but not make-or-break issue in the death-by-1000-cuts.

The Andy-led Amazon is less forgiving than the Jeff "your margin is my opportunity"-led Amazon on profitability so price shocks have passed through to sellers much more immediately than prior years where Amazon would just move slowly and stably.

The bigger Amazon news recently is on DD+7 and how Amazon basically increased their float and delayed payments on all sellers, and that's been kinda a pain to navigate.

Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers

#32

Post by mrguyorama »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #10
exabrial wrote: post #3

We could immediately provide relief to fuel prices, while doing the climate a huge favor, by immediately suspending the USPS accepting marketing material through the mail. My mailbox is permanently jammed with paper that useless paper that is both produced and hauled away to a landfill by diesel fuel. No I do not want your credit card offer. No I do not want to switch phone plans. No I do not want an extended warrant…

In FY2022, fuel consumption was 221 million gallons of gasoline equivalent, with gasoline or diesel making up 99%. USPS fleet greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) made up 70% of overall GHGs for federal fleet vehicles in FY2022. 50-60% of all mail is marketing slop

Mail delivery vehicles have to travel roughly the same paths as long as there is most anything to deliver.

That's what makes it a public service.

Junk mail just makes stamps cheaper. That route had to be driven anyway. You have generally what amounts to a right to put a stamped letter in your box at the end of the driveway, put up the flag, and get serviced. The route has to be driven regardless.

We could eliminate all marketing mail, make a large push to make all billing digital, and USPS would still have to drive most routes most days.

A fix would have to reduce service significantly, or introduce a new "Register for pickup" process to signal your need of service.

We could have also made those brand new mail vehicles hybrid or something.

Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers

#34

Post by cogman10 »

djoldman wrote: post #33
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #7

Last year, Amazon backed down from sharing tariff pricing. I assume the same will happen here.

I immediately thought of that move. This time I think the surcharge will stay until the war is concluded.

Yeah, but amazon isn't going to list it as a line item. Which they should.

Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers

#35

Post by ssl-3 »

tshaddox wrote: post #23
ssl-3 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of overall vehicular fuel use does junk mail (from inception to landfill) constitute, might you suppose?

Percentage of mass is probably the wrong metric to look at, because it assumes that the USPS could simply eliminate the X% of mass used by junk mail and save roughly X% on fuel/delivery costs. But of course the issue is that the junk mail is subsidizing the actual mail. There's likely no way the USPS could be financially solvent, at least with the current level of service, if junk mail were eliminated. Personally I'd…

I think the real issue in this context is the 3.5% surcharge that Amazon may add, and whether or not elimination of USPS junk mail could ever make a dent in that 3.5% figure.

(My gut says that it would not; that the fuel use of junk mail constitutes a very small drop in a very large bucket. But I'd love to be wrong about this.)

Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers

#36

Post by kentm »

youarentrightjr wrote: post #29
etiennebausson wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> (generous exemption for those who didn't vote for the orange dildo). Those who could but didn't vote aren't blameless either.

> Those who could but didn't vote aren't blameless either. The harsh reality is that "lesser of two evils" thinking is what got us here. In the 2024 election, the two mainstream party positions on immigration were: - Let's not enforce any immigration law, and subsidize those here illegally - Let's round up illegal aliens, indefinitely detain them without habeas corpus, maybe deport them to a country they aren't from…

> - Let's not enforce any immigration law, and subsidize those here illegally

This isn't an accurate description of the Democrat party's platform and repeating it uncritically is contributing to the problem.

Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers

#37

Post by SoftTalker »

lokar wrote: post #25
exabrial wrote: post #3

We could immediately provide relief to fuel prices, while doing the climate a huge favor, by immediately suspending the USPS accepting marketing material through the mail. My mailbox is permanently jammed with paper that useless paper that is both produced and hauled away to a landfill by diesel fuel. No I do not want your credit card offer. No I do not want to switch phone plans. No I do not want an extended warrant…

A lot of the USPS budget is from delivering bulk mail. They already fail to break even (albeit with absurd retirement funding rules imposed on them). Without the fees from bulk mail they would need to raise prices, and it's not entirely clear they could given they face strong competition.

I don't really understand why we need a US Postal Service in 2026. Yes, the Constitution grants congress the power to establish "post offices and post roads" but it doesn't mandate it AFAIK.

Other countries (Denmark is an example) have completely privatized physical mail delivery. All official mail is electronic. There's some nostalgia for the postman on his red bicycle (or in the USA, walking the neighborhood or driving their funny looking trucks) but are they really necessary?

Edit to add: since running post offices is explicitly a Federal power, a conversion of US Mail to being electronically based would be completely within scope. There would be no arguing over "states rights" that tends to become a logjam for any other national infrastructure or policy changes.

Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers

#38

Post by lokar »

SoftTalker wrote: post #37
lokar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the USPS budget is from delivering bulk mail. They already fail to break even (albeit with absurd retirement funding rules imposed on them). Without the fees from bulk mail they would need to raise prices, and it's not entirely clear they could given they face strong competition.

I don't really understand why we need a US Postal Service in 2026. Yes, the Constitution grants congress the power to establish "post offices and post roads" but it doesn't mandate it AFAIK. Other countries (Denmark is an example) have completely privatized physical mail delivery. All official mail is electronic. There's some nostalgia for the postman on his red bicycle (or in the USA, walking the neighborhood or dri…

I think it's mostly not needed, but there are a lot of edge cases or narrow situations where it's important. They could be fixed, but no one is doing that.

IMO, a better option is to switch to 3 days/week delivery, and where addresses are very spread out, require centralized boxes.

Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers

#39

Post by zobzu »

binarysolo wrote: post #31

Amazon third party seller (low 8s) here: last time this happened was during COVID and it ended up being a permanent FBA shipping price increase. Practically speaking shipping accounts for 10-20% of the sale price, so realistically it's the seller who will absorb it and maybe pass on costs to the buyers, but we're talking about 3.5% of 10-20%, which is really a 1% price increase, so a noticeable but not make-or-break…

i fully expect it yo be permanent. they know its likely to come back down.

Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers

#40

Post by mikestew »

youarentrightjr wrote: post #30
mikestew wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$8, and that all stops for ten years: https://www.dmachoice.org/static/consumer_choice_tools.php I’ve done it (several times, ‘cuz ten years), you’ll notice an almost immediate reduction in junk mail.

Sounds like a racketeering operation (not saying it doesn't work).

It indeed has a fishy smell to it. But as I thought through it, if it were free then some bozo would spam an entire address database and then we can't have nice things anymore. The ten year expiration is sketchy, but I guess someone is hoping you'll let it expire (I've never received a "renewal notice", as it were.) And, yeah, "nice mailbox, shame if it got filled with shit you didn't ask for."

OTOH, for less than a dollar a year, I can go find other clouds to shake my fist at.

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