Here is your midweek jetpack of Amazon seller news, updates, and other useful clicks for your e-commerce business…
Storage Wars? Amazon to Allow Bids for Extra Storage Space
Amazon has announced that starting March 1, 2023, it will be replacing the weekly restock and quarterly limits for FBA storage with a more streamlined monthly capacity limit. The capacity limit for each upcoming month will be announced in the third week of month via the Capacity Monitor in Seller Central and through email notification.
This new capacity management system also features:
- Estimated capacity limits for up to three months in advance
- Capacity limits calculated by volume of product size, not number of units. If you sell larger items, you’ll be able to stock fewer units.
- Additional “bidding” for extra storage space
Amazon will grant extra storage to sellers with the highest bid first and will continue selling extra storage to the succeeding bids until all allocated capacity has been granted.
To incentivize sellers to only use extra storage for items that are actually selling, Amazon announced that sellers will earn a $0.15 performance credit for every dollar of sales generated using the additional capacity.
This credit will help offset the cost of the additional storage.
Read the full story here.
Did You Enter the Giveaway Yet?
We are giving away two month-long subscriptions to our online arbitrage leads lists.
You can enter the giveaway here.
Each winner will receive:
- 10+ Daily Online Arbitrage Product Leads / 200+ leads per month! ($185 value)
- 50-80% ROI Average (40% Minimum)
- $6-15 Net Profit Average, Min $4 / Max $60+
- 10+ Sales Per Month Min / Top 1.5% Rank
All leads are manually sourced by our team. We have 20+ people on our team and we take sourcing very seriously.
Good luck! Enter here.
End of an Era: Amazon to Shutter AmazonSmile
Sad news: AmazonSmile, an Amazon program which allowed customers to support their favorite charities every time they shopped on Amazon at no additional cost, will be ending on February 20, 2023.
Despite having successfully raised roughly $400 million for US charities and $499 million globally, Amazon says that AmazonSmile was simply not able to make the impact they hoped it would when they launched the program in 2013.
“With so many eligible organizations—more than 1 million globally—our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin.”
The elephant in the room says “yea… but isn’t $499 million better than nothing?…”
Instead, Amazon will “continue supporting a wide range of other programs that help thousands of charities and communities across the U.S.”
You can read the full story here and see a breakdown of the $billions that they are investing and donating to other various causes such as the Housing Equity Fund and Community Delivery Program.
10 Retail and Ecomm Predictions for 2023
Adweek recently announced 10 “familiar and unexpected predictions” for retail and ecommerce in 2023—from industry experts.
The highlighted predictions are:
- The first six months will be a transition year, which means reduction in budgets and headcounts and doing more with less.
- Retail media will continue to flourish.
- Given the abundance of first-party data, networks, retailers, agencies and brands will emphasize creative experiences and storytelling.
- Retail media giants Amazon and Walmart will continue to get bigger.
- Brands will demand more than ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) from retailers.
- Live commerce will continue to mature in 2023.
- Marketplaces for second-hand items will grow larger.
- The metaverse goes commercial.
- AI content generation will infiltrate ecommerce.
- Instacart’s grocery delivery dominance will be challenged by Amazon, Walmart and many others.
Read about these predictions in depth.
February Sales Tax Due Dates
Click here to find your state/states to see your upcoming sales tax due date.
Make sure that you stay tax-compliant by checking out TaxJar’s 2023 Sales Tax Preparedness Guide.
Amazon Still Blowing Away Competition on Delivery Speed
From 2020 through 2022, Amazon is delivering orders about 3 days faster than other retailers on average.
Check out this chart:
This is one of the massive reasons why customers continue to return to Amazon for purchases over and over again. Good news for us sellers. 🙂
Read more about this chart here.
Will Amazon’s Robots Outnumber Human Workers?
There is rising number of robots in the Amazon workplace, including the Proteus— a fully autonomous mobile warehouse robot.
These robots have been helping humans optimize efficiency and reduce manual labor so far, but is it likely they will outnumber humans in the near future?
Read the full story here.
Learning Opportunities This Week
We’ve collated some of the best learning resources for your Amazon business this week. Check them out!
Blog Posts:
- 10 Ways to Avoid Account Suspensions by ecommerceChris
- How to Read a Keepa Chart – 2023 Update by Chris Grant
Podcast:
- Amazon Seller Account Security by Seller Performance Solutions
Other Quick Clicks
- Amazon wants to help community colleges, HBCUs teach AI
- Ava Labs and Amazon’s partnership could “expand the pie” for blockchain
- How are Amazon’s new features enhancing the shopping experience
- What is Amazon Inspire?
Thank you for reading. If you have any questions, comments or violent reactions, let us know below!
Get Your Quick Biweekly Update on News and Resources for Amazon Sellers!
Delivered to your inbox every other week.
Need-to-know seller content only. No spam. Unsubscribe at any time.
About The Authors
