Why are Amazon fees eating my margin?

Amazon fees eat margin when several charges grow at once: referral and fulfillment fees, plus storage, inbound placement, low-inventory and aged inventory fees that depend on how you ship and stock. Prime Team Agency, an Amazon agency that manages Seller Central accounts for brands, checks these fees by SKU before they add up.

Contact Us to talk to our team about it.

Sales are up, the payout is not

Your sales report looks healthy. Then the payout lands and it is smaller than last month, again. Nothing in your pricing changed, but the gap between what customers pay and what reaches your bank keeps widening.

You are not imagining it. Fees are the most common complaint Amazon sellers raise, and a good Amazon agency starts there before touching ads or listings, because a margin problem looks like a sales problem until you read the fee lines.

Where the margin goes

• Fees that come with every sale. The referral fee and the FBA fulfillment fee. A product measured or weighed into a bigger size tier pays more on every unit.
• Fees that come from how you ship. Inbound placement fees depend on how you split shipments across fulfillment centers.
• Fees that come from how much you stock. Too little stock can trigger a low-inventory fee; too much, held too long, brings storage and aged inventory fees.
• Fees that come after the sale. Returns processing and removal or disposal of stock that does not sell.
• Fees no one checks. Wrong dimensions, duplicate charges and reimbursements that were owed but never claimed.

What you can do

1. Pull the fee lines by SKU, not the account total, and find the three SKUs losing the most.
2. Check each product's size tier and measurements against the real package.
3. Plan inventory so stock never runs too low or sits too long.
4. Compare inbound placement options before you create the next shipment.
5. Audit reimbursements for lost or damaged units and file what is owed.

When to get help

If you cannot tell which fees changed, or your margin keeps falling while sales hold, a fee review by SKU usually shows where the money goes. We can run that review with you. Contact our team to talk it through.

Related questions

• Why did my Amazon listing get suppressed or lose the Buy Box?
• Why does Amazon Seller Support keep closing my case?
• All seller and brand questions

Related reading

• Why your Amazon revenue is declining
• Risks of Amazon 1P pricing strategy