Virtual Multipacks are to make more money from fees, not to help you!
I just read on my dashboard that Amazon will start creating virtual multipacks. This seemed great until you look at the fees! Creating and filling multipacks allows for discounts to customers, more turnover, and technically lower fees as amazon treats the multipack as a single sale. It's more work if you have to repackage your singles into multipacks and ship, but it generally pays off.
The virtual multipack means none of this BUT Amazon will charge fees as a multiple sale, not a single sale! This has always been the issue with offering discount for quantity unit sales, amazon does not discount their fee, so you loose on both ends. Now Amazon is saying, look we can do virtual multipacks! STING! You sells virtual 2 pack, you discount the price, Amazon charges you fees based on 2 x single sale fee.
Lets put my reality numbers to this:
2 x prepack FBA: Selling price $36.95. Amazon Fees: $9.22
2 x Virtual Multipack by Amazon: Selling price $36.95. Amazon Fee: 2 x 1 ($7.12) = $14.24
Amazon pockets an EXTRA $5.02 in fees!
This would actually effectively wipe out the extra income from the 2 pack. This makes no financial benefit to me at all, it would be stupid of me to use virtual multipacks!
Amazon, please revisit this, small businesses are hard enough without you dipping deeper into our pockets!
Virtual Multipacks are to make more money from fees, not to help you!
I just read on my dashboard that Amazon will start creating virtual multipacks. This seemed great until you look at the fees! Creating and filling multipacks allows for discounts to customers, more turnover, and technically lower fees as amazon treats the multipack as a single sale. It's more work if you have to repackage your singles into multipacks and ship, but it generally pays off.
The virtual multipack means none of this BUT Amazon will charge fees as a multiple sale, not a single sale! This has always been the issue with offering discount for quantity unit sales, amazon does not discount their fee, so you loose on both ends. Now Amazon is saying, look we can do virtual multipacks! STING! You sells virtual 2 pack, you discount the price, Amazon charges you fees based on 2 x single sale fee.
Lets put my reality numbers to this:
2 x prepack FBA: Selling price $36.95. Amazon Fees: $9.22
2 x Virtual Multipack by Amazon: Selling price $36.95. Amazon Fee: 2 x 1 ($7.12) = $14.24
Amazon pockets an EXTRA $5.02 in fees!
This would actually effectively wipe out the extra income from the 2 pack. This makes no financial benefit to me at all, it would be stupid of me to use virtual multipacks!
Amazon, please revisit this, small businesses are hard enough without you dipping deeper into our pockets!
5 replies
Seller_3qllv6SY8mdjV
NOT customer centric, not helpful to sellers, ONLY helpful for Amazon getting more fees for no added value to customers.
The entire point of a multipack is that it is more efficient, therefore it can be sold to customers for less $ per item, while still remaining profitable for sellers. A true win-win scenario.
The "virtual multipack" would ONLY be good for customers if the fulfilment fees were discounted to account for the fact that all the items are probably shipping from the same FC in the same box. This would allow sellers to discount the price and pass that along to customers. To not discount those fees is extremely crass on Amazons part. Its just a bald attempt to get more $ in fees without providing value to customers.
Example from my own inventory:
ASIN X is a single unit. Price is $12.99, so 4 of these ordered at once would cost $51.96. Fulfilment fees are $3.90 for the single and $15.60 if ordered seperately or as a "virtual multipack"..
ASIN Y is a 4 pack that I prep. Price is $41.99 (so only $10.49 per unit to the customer). Fulfilment fees are $5.77.
That is a difference of $9.83 in fees for the same exact product!
But wait theres more... The customer is no longer recieving the discount. If they buy my real multipack, they are saving $2.50 per unit, or $10 total. Thats huge.
If they but Amazons fake multipack, they recieve no discount, because I recieve no fee discount that I can pass on and share with them. The ONLY one that benefits here is Amazon, who takes an extra $10 in fees and just pockets it. $10 for the insanely easy task of pulling 4 units out of a stock location as opposed to 1.
Ok lets take a situation where the seller cant or doesnt want to make their own multipack as a seperate ASIN. The virtual multipack might be a good idea, but only if there is a fee discount to account for the fact that 90% of the time the product will be shipping to the customer from the same fulfilment center in the same box! Amazon wont be spending as much on fulfilment (obviously this is the entire point of multipacks!), so they should pass most of that savings down to sellers who will 100% pass most of whats left to customers. Everyone wins.
Amazon has the ability to calculate the exact fulfilment for each virtual multipack order and pass the savings down to the seller when it ships from the same warehouse. Maybe the seller is low on stock and 80% of the orders are having to be pulled from multiple warehouses, and legitimately that creates the need to charge the standard per unit fulfilment fees. OK, tell the seller that, and it will encourage them to be better stocked. Once they are fully stocked with multiple units in most warehouses, then tell them that 90% of their VMP orders are getting a discount. Show them the averaged per unit fulfilment fee over time, and let them see how staying in stock is helping everyone... Amazon, the seller, and customers.
What is sad is how little pushback I see from sellers on this. I think most have just resigned themselves to the fact that Amazon no longer cares about its customers. A cynical cash grab like this that does nothing for customers is just so embarasing.
