Amazon & eCommerce Weekly News Roundup — Week 13

A seller called us last Tuesday. She’d just gotten hit with $1,847 in unplanned prep fees on a 3,500-unit shipment — because roughly 700 units arrived at the FC without poly bags. Each bag costs her about $0.04. Amazon charged $0.52 per unit to bag them. That’s a $336 problem that turned into a $364 Amazon bill, plus the original $1,483 on the rest of the shipment for various other compliance misses. Week 13 brought a handful of stories that connect directly to situations like that one.

Amazon Raised Its FBA Inbound Defect Fees — What’s Actually Changing

Amazon updated its inbound defect fee structure this quarter, and the increases are not small. Barcode issues, missing prep, and wrong item quantities each carry their own per-unit charge now, and some categories saw rates climb 15–20% over last year’s schedule. According to Amazon’s own fee documentation, inbound defect fees can reach up to $1.00 per unit depending on the violation type and shipment size.

We see this weekly at our warehouse — sellers who prepped their own inventory at home, then shipped directly, and had no idea their FNSKU labels were printing at 72 DPI instead of 300 DPI. The scanner can’t read it. Amazon charges the fee. That’s a solvable problem that shouldn’t cost you a dollar per unit.

Is the Tariff Situation Actually Hitting Seller Margins This Quarter?

Short answer: yes, and faster than most sellers expected. Section 301 tariffs on China-origin goods remain in place, and several categories — including electronics accessories, kitchen goods, and storage products — are seeing landed costs run 18–25% higher than Q1 2023 benchmarks. Some sellers are absorbing it. Others are repricing. A few are quietly moving sourcing to Vietnam or India.

The margin squeeze is real. And when margins tighten, prep costs get scrutinized harder. Paying $1.75/unit for quality prep starts looking expensive — until you compare it to a $0.52 unplanned fee on half your shipment.

TikTok Shop Logistics: What Amazon Sellers Are Actually Doing

More of our clients are selling on TikTok Shop now than they were six months ago. Not abandoning Amazon — running it alongside. The fulfillment model is different. TikTok Shop orders are typically FBM-style, with the seller or a 3PL shipping direct to consumer within 2 business days. No FC, no inbound shipment plan, no FNSKU.

Honestly, the pick-and-pack side is straightforward. The complexity is in inventory management — keeping stock allocated correctly between an FBA shipment queue and daily TikTok Shop orders. We handle that split for several clients out of our Lebanon, Ohio warehouse, and the main thing that breaks it is sellers undersending FBA inventory because TikTok demand spiked unexpectedly.

Walmart Marketplace Keeps Gaining Ground — Should You Care?

Walmart’s third-party seller count has grown over 180% since 2021. Their fulfillment program, WFS, is expanding fulfillment center capacity and offering faster onboarding for established Amazon sellers. The pitch is simple: lower referral fees in some categories and less competition per listing.

We’re not saying jump ship. But sellers doing $500K+ on Amazon should at minimum be stress-testing Walmart with a subset of their catalog. The prep requirements for WFS are similar to FBA in structure but different enough in the details to cause problems if you assume they’re identical.

Amazon’s New Listing Compliance Crackdowns Are Real

Multiple sellers reported listing suppressions in Week 13 tied to image compliance — specifically, main images with text overlays, lifestyle backgrounds, or props that Amazon now flags automatically. The AI-based enforcement system Amazon rolled out earlier this year is catching things that a human reviewer might have let slide for months.

One of our clients learned this the hard way on a 200-SKU catalog. Fourteen listings suppressed in one sweep. Zero sales on those ASINs until images were corrected and resubmitted. Plan for a 48–72 hour turnaround minimum when this happens.

What Sellers Are Getting Wrong on Hazmat and Lithium Battery Prep

Amazon’s dangerous goods compliance team has been auditing more shipments. Products with lithium batteries — even small ones, like earbuds or LED remotes — require SDS documentation and specific labeling. Missing paperwork means the shipment gets quarantined. Sometimes it gets destroyed. We’ve seen it happen on fully prepped pallets sitting at the FC with no resolution path except a removal order.

If your ASIN has any battery component, pull the current ASIN detail page and verify the hazmat review status before your next shipment. Don’t assume prior approval carries forward when you update a listing.

365PrepCenter handles hazmat-classified prep regularly and stays current on Amazon’s documentation requirements — it’s one of the higher-stakes prep categories where using a qualified 3PL actually pays for itself.

If any of this week’s news is affecting your shipments, get a free quote from 365PrepCenter in Lebanon, Ohio and find out what a consistent prep process actually costs versus what Amazon’s charging you to fix your misses.