Title could really use "for third-party sellers who use fulfillment services" (this is not a 3.5% surcharge on AWS, Prime, or Amazon orders)
It was pretty clear to me. AWS is Web Services after all
Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers
41–50 of 120 posts
Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers
#42Earlier 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…
Traditionally, the state has certain duties it needs to perform for every member of the population.
Passports, driving licenses, polling cards, draft registration, pensions, company registrations, patents, copyrights, court summons, speeding fines, inheritance, tax paperwork, census, etc etc.
It’s much simpler to perform these duties if you have a means of communication that can reliably reach every citizen.
Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers
#43Amazon 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…
Do you buy off Temu and re-sell on amazon?
Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers
#44Earlier 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…
Practically speaking, USPS does a lot of last mile package delivery that no one else wants to do, including Amazon. If USPS wasn't delivering to those locations no one would be. And we're not talking middle-of-no-where-Wyoming locations, plenty of places east of the Mississippi have only USPS too.
There's all sorts of philosophical arguments as well: government services shouldn't need to turn a profit, all citizens need to be able to interact with the State and the post office provides a way to do that, mail-in voting, Post Offices can offer stuff like general delivery for those without permanent addresses, etc.
Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers
#45We 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…
Reducing the frequency of mail delivery would have a much larger impact, since most of fuel is probably consumed by last mile delivery. Delivering less mail each day doesn't really make much difference if the mail carrier still has to come to my neighborhood 6 times a week.
Fewer mail carriers could hit twice as many places in a given time-frame and reduce overall gas usage.
Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers
#46Sometimes I wonder if we just do these wars so that companies can raise prices and when the war ends, not lower them. Do we ever see "oil prices are down 3.5%, we are lowering our prices by 3.5%"? Never. "But the free market will force someone to do this to gain marketshare." But Amazon is the only Amazon, so I doubt that will happen.
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Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers
#47Earlier 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…
You need a non-electronic way to bill land owners for property taxes. That's it. Physical snail-mail is the de-facto way for the government to legally serve property taxes and other bills to private citizens. Yes we live in 2026 and everyone has email, but there's no legal requirement to give the government your email address, or even have one. You are however, legally required to provide a mailing address for your property tax bill to be sent to.
Sure, by that standard we could probably reduce to weekly or even monthly mail service. It's been suggested since at least 2008 we drop Tuesday mail service as almost nobody sends mail on Saturdays and there's no mail service on Sundays.
Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Traditionally, the state has certain duties it needs to perform for every member of the population. Passports, driving licenses, polling cards, draft registration, pensions, company registrations, patents, copyrights, court summons, speeding fines, inheritance, tax paperwork, census, etc etc. It’s much simpler to perform these duties if you have a means of communication that can reliably reach every citizen.
I'm not sure I'd put "reliable" in any description of the USPS. I get my neighbors mail in my box often. I can only assume some of my mail gets delivered to them as well.
Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers
#49Sometimes I wonder if we just do these wars so that companies can raise prices and when the war ends, not lower them. Do we ever see "oil prices are down 3.5%, we are lowering our prices by 3.5%"? Never. "But the free market will force someone to do this to gain marketshare." But Amazon is the only Amazon, so I doubt that will happen.
> Do we ever see "oil prices are down 3.5%, we are lowering our prices by 3.5%"? Never. Companies lower prices all the time . It's the competitive market at work. They just don't tend to say why, because nobody cares about the reason, so it's not necessary. E.g. snack prices are coming down, to pick one recent example: https://www.npr.org/2026/02/03/nx-s1-5697941/pepsi-prices-ch... But it's human bias to notice when…
Absolutely in a competitive market.
There’s an argument to be made that Amazon has so much of the online buying market that’s it’s not competitive and can likely get away with increasing price. And I tend to agree with that
Re: Amazon is adding a fuel surcharge to fees it collects from third-party sellers
#50I made a living selling on Amazon about 15 years ago. It all came crashing down when they held all of my money (around $50,000) and had to 'investigate'.
Nothing ever came of it and they released my money, but banned my seller account for 10 years.
It was actually a good thing. I started my own site and made a good living for a decade. Covid shutdown the business.
Building a business on Amazon is a mistake.