As you know, starting April 15, 2024 Amazon has begun to charge inbound placement services fees in US marketplace. This blog post will be discussing what is FBA placement fee, and how to reduce or avoid it.

FBA Inbound Placement Service Options

When sellers create a shipping plan, they are able to pick one of the following inventory inbound placement options:

•  Minimal shipment splits: Sellers can ship their inventory to the fewest number of inbound locations—typically just one—and Amazon will handle deciding how to distribute it throughout their network. In that case, an FBA inbound placement fee will occur. The fee may differ depending on the destination of the shipment; for instance, shipments to the West cost may incur more fees than shipments to other regions of the US.
• Partial shipment splits: Sellers can ship their inventory to multiple inbound locations—usually two or three—for a reduced fee. The reduced fees will depend on the number of shipments and inbound locations that you seller send their inventory to.
• Amazon-optimized shipment splits: In this option sellers send their inventory to four or more inbound locations with no FBA placement fee.

A number of variables affect the availability of these inbound placement options, including as the product types and quantities sellers have in their shipment plan, the current inventory levels sellers have across Amazon’s network, and the location of customer demand.

What is FBA Placement Fee?

FBA placement fee is one of the Amazon’s recently introduced seller fees applied in US marketplace. Amazon applies this fee to place your inventory closer to customers in multiple fulfillment centres across the US. In this way Amazon aims to delivering products faster and at a lower cost. The FBA inbound placement service fee reflects the cost of distributing inventory to fulfillment centres close to customers.

Seller will obtain an estimate of the cost for each possible inbound placement option when they create a shipment plan. Sellers will be charged the FBA inbound placement service fee 45 days after their shipment is received by Amazon, which is determined by the inbound location and the quantities received.

How Is FBA Placement Fee Calculated?

The fee will vary based on the following criteria:

•  Item size: Whether the item is small standard, large standard, or large bulky.
• Weight: Unit weight for small standard. The greater of dimensional weight or unit weight for large standard and large bulky.
• Number of locations tier: Minimal, Partial, or Amazon-optimized shipment splits.
• Inbound location: The fee range will vary by inbound location (that is, the location of the fulfillment centre).

The table below outlines the per-unit FBA inbound placement service fees.