HOUSTON — Why could shopping at Amazon get more expensive during this holiday season?
Surcharge for third-party sellers on Amazon
Not everything you buy on Amazon is actually coming from Amazon. According to The Wall Street Journal, more than half of the items sold by the site are from third-party sellers.
The retail behemoth fulfills the orders using its massive network of warehouses and drivers to get the products to your door. The third-party sellers pay a fee to Amazon for those services.
According to reports, Amazon is now upping the cost for those third-party sellers over the holiday shopping season. It told sellers it would impose a 35-cent surcharge on each item coming out of its fulfillment centers between October 15 and January 14.
Smaller sellers hit harder by Amazon surcharge
Amazon says it is making the move to combat the rising costs of fulfilling those orders.
While 35 cents per order doesn’t sound like a lot, it can be a pretty big hit to smaller sellers with less expensive items.
No matter how pricey the product retail experts say you should expect that cost to be passed on to buyers. Amazon is defending the practice by pointing out that FedEx and UPS have charged holiday surcharges in the past.