Helium 10 Weekly Buzz 12.8.2023

Welcome to the fourth issue of our weekly newsletter of the Helium 10 Weekly Buzz. Every Friday we publish a new article that gives you a rundown of the news articles of the goings on in the Amazon, Walmart, & TikTok Shop world, new feature alerts from Helium 10, a training strategy of the week that will give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the E-Commerce World. Now lets see whats buzzing!

Amazon Announces New Seller Fees

Amazon announcing new fees is nothing new, but rarely have these announcements met such backlash from the community. If these new fees are truly as impactful as the reaction is yet to be determined, however, it is true that the kinds of fees that have been announced are very unique. In the full video we go more into detail, but some of the main points are:

1. Inbound Fees if you choose to send to only one location. In some circumstances you will get a per unit surcharge if you choose to have your inventory sent to only one location. If you send to multiple locations this is waived. This is to help Amazon get inventory across their distribution networks. This one has really riled up many sellers.
2. Decreases in outbound fees. In a rare move, there are a number of fees that sellers will see decreases on, to help offset some of the above new fees. In addition, Amazon is slashing commission on low priced clothing, going from 17% down to 3%!
3. Increased MCF fees. Many MCF orders will see increases of around 3% with costs.
4. Low Inventory Surcharge: This one also has caused a lot of confusion and reactions in the community. If you have a trailing history of less than 28 days of inventory you will get a surcharge per order of under one dollar. This is to help push customers to keep over one month of inventory in stock, which will allow Amazon to be able to keep inventory distributed across different geographical regions more easily. The confusion is how Amazon will calculate inventory and sales, such as, "is inventory that has not fully been checked in count as daily inventory?"

Since we published the Buzz, Amazon came out with more information on all, and we review that in this post.

Walmart Sellers Sold More Than Ever!

We know that the Walmart third party marketplace has been growing at a fast pace. Just how fast? Per a release from Walmart, sales coming from WFS were DOUBLE what they were last year!

Amazon Takes Legal Action Against Scammers

How many of you have had buyers ask Amazon for a refund, but when you dive into it, they never returned the product. There are actual groups who do this in a coordinated way and per this article, Amazon has sued them, so hopefully this will disuade even slightly, this kind of thin in the future.

Sponsored Display Bid Recommendations

In the past, "bid recommendations were only customized for campaigns with static images." However today, Amazon announced that "with this launch, advertisers will receive relevant bid recommendations to ensure their video campaigns have improved inputs to help them reach their audiences."

Shopify BFCM Results

Do you sell on Shopify? How was your BFCM? They announced that they had record numbers....just how much? 9.3 BILLION dollars! On Black Friday, they were actually moving after midnight, 4.1 million dollars PER MINUTE! Over 55,000 Shopify sellers had their best sales day ever during BFCM, Were you one of them?

Amazon LOWERS Fees

We have been talking a lot about the increase in fees, but did you know that Amazon is actually making a huge DECREASE in fees? Yahoo speculates that they are doing this in response to websites like Shein. "Amazon announced it would reduce seller fees on clothing products priced below $15 to 5% beginning in January. The rates on clothing priced from $15 to $20 will drop to 10%. The commissions on both categories had previously been 17%."

This has been flying under the radar a little since most are up in arms on the fee increases, but I don't think Amazon has EVER so drastically lowered (nor raised for that matter), its commission on any category like this. Very interesting news indeed.

MCF Increases Fees

Next year, if you use Amazon multi channel fulfillment, the fees for this will go up by about 3%. Check your seller central dashboard for more details, but this is something that is commonplace at least once a year.

Check Demand in Europe and Japan

With the Similar Products Dashboard in seller central, you now "can compare the prices of up to five similar products to help you determine your pricing strategy. (For Amazon Europe and Japan) The dashboard also provides data insights pertaining to sales and performance trends."

Amazon Grocery Subscription Beta Test

Theres a new fee, but its not for sellers, its for customers. CNBC is reporting that Amazon is testing a $9.99 subscription pricepoint in a few cities to see if there will be adoption for delivery from Fresh and Whole Foods. Amazon has always lagged behind Walmart for this Grocery business and this represents their latest effort to see if they might be able to bridge the gap.

No More Venmo

In what I think is a first, we have a news story about something that is being discontinued, which is something that we first announced here on the Weekly Buzz last year! Customers will no longer be able to use Venmo to check out on Amazon per Yahoo. This is not that big of a deal, I didn't even reremember that they were on Amazon, which is probably why Amazon killed it....not enough were using it.

Ships in own Packaging

I want to avoid the "Ships in Packaging" program as much as possible. The last thing I want is my product packaging getting damaged while its in transit because Amazon just ships it out without putting it in another package. Many sellers are opposite. If you are wondering how products even quality to be part of this program, check out this article from Amazon.

Temu Vs. Dollar Stores

Temu is not really putting a dent into Amazon sales, but it is putting a dent into US based dollar stores, per Reuters. "As of last month, Temu accounted for nearly 17% of market share in the United States within the discount stores categories, according to data analytics firm Earnest Analytics. That compares to 8% for the dollar chain Five Below (FIVE.O), 43% for Dollar General (DG.N) and 28% for Dollar Tree."

Just another L that Brick and Mortar is taking in the battle vs. Ecommerce.

Rom Com x Shopping?

Walmart has released a TV show where there are over 300 links to buy things from the series online! This Wall Street Journal Video might point to a future where TV and commerce join hands and watchers will be able to buy things that they see characters have on their favorite shows!

Well, that's it for this weeks buzz! Hope you learned a thing or two. Make sure to share this newsletter if you think others can benefit from being up to date with whats going on in the E-Commerce World.

For the complete video recap of the above, watch below!

I'll catch you next Friday so we can see what's buzzing!