[HN Gopher] Amazon adds 5% 'fuel and inflation surcharge' to sel...
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Amazon adds 5% 'fuel and inflation surcharge' to seller fees
Author : ProAm
Score : 147 points
Date : 2022-04-14 14:17 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (apnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (apnews.com)
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| At least it's less than inflation is currently running year on
| year.
|
| In the UK mobile phone / broadband companies have taken to adding
| a CPI (customer price index, a measure of inflation) + 3.9% year
| on year increase in to contracts. It's complete bullshit, if for
| no other reason than 3.9% is nearly twice the target inflation
| target without loading that further.
| jdrc wrote:
| Why don't they just increase the fees? Calling it a surcharge
| implies inflation is temporary which it isn't!
|
| Is this a marketing gimmick for the generations who have never
| seen inflation before?
| PlanckMeasure80 wrote:
| It may be when the supply chain gets back into shape
| jdrc wrote:
| It says fuel and inflation surcharge, not supply chain
| croutonwagon wrote:
| right but it could also be temporary and Amazon may remove
| it surcharges when the prices pull back and stabilize.
|
| Not that I agree with Amazon here, but it makes sense not
| to just increase the fee overall and have it itemized if
| its anticipated to be temporary (even if thats temporary on
| the scale of say...1 year)
| jdrc wrote:
| While inflation may go down, it won't turn negative, so
| pretending like it could do so is disingenuous
| croutonwagon wrote:
| There have been periods of negative inflation [1][2].
|
| Though thats not really the point either. Gas prices DO
| fluctuate and recently have done so drastically (48% or
| so YoY). They are a contributor to the overall
| inflationary trend recently. Though aren't the only
| cause, or even primary IMHO, they are probably one of the
| biggest that are noticeable to the common person and one
| that doesn't scale well.
|
| In 2006 after Katrina i was paying well above
| $3.00/gallon for gas. That got better over the years and
| really good in the last year or two. Then its bounced
| back up.
|
| So again, if Amazon sees this as a temporary trend and
| cost to their service, it makes sense to itemize it off
| to allow the option of its removal when it stabilizes
| and/or reverts, rather than lump it in with their
| standard bottom line service charge and have to explain
| not one, but two changes to that down the line (an
| increase and then decrease).
|
| [1] - https://www.macrotrends.net/2497/historical-
| inflation-rate-b...
|
| [2] - https://i.redd.it/zij9zxups3t81.jpg
| munk-a wrote:
| To trick people into thinking things cost less than they do so
| they buy more.
|
| Surcharges exist to allow advertising lower costs and
| attracting more customers while charging the same or more as
| competitors.
| jdlyga wrote:
| I bet we're still paying fuel surcharges added back during the
| last gas price spike 15 years ago.
| dessant wrote:
| Amazon seems to have started to reach even for pennies. I have
| been a light user of AWS services for the past several years, and
| my monthly bill was usually below 0.2 USD. They never bothered to
| take such small amounts from the registered card. Last month's
| 0.14 USD bill was the first one I had to pay. :)
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| This is a side note. I've thought about setting up an AWS
| account just to play around with, what is the likelihood of a
| senior embedded c/c++ programmer really screwing up and end
| running up several thousand-dollar bill just because he put an
| innocuous infinite loop somewhere out of ignorance? :) Is there
| some trigger you can set such that CPU usage/bandwidth usage
| won't do something that you will never financially recover from
| since I won't have any knowledgeable devs to look to.
| smm11 wrote:
| Has there ever been a company or industry that absorbs material
| costs, rather than passing it down to the consumer? This is the
| ONLY trickle-down that is actually a thing.
| rektide wrote:
| This is a huge increase. This reads like the spiritual end to
| Amazon free shipping.
| [deleted]
| paxys wrote:
| "Free shipping" has always just made its way into the product
| price. Similarly stuff you buy will now be 5% more expensive to
| make up for this.
| AnssiH wrote:
| FBA fulfillment of e.g. 1-2 lbs "large standard" item now costs
| $5.40 instead of the previous $5.14. Does not seem _that_ huge
| to me.
|
| Note that the general referral fees are not affected, only the
| FBA fulfillment fees.
| rektide wrote:
| Ah. I've read a number of articles. Words like, "adding 5% to
| the fees" wasnt clear to me... I tbought they were charging a
| blanket 5% of the purchase price!!
| beeboop wrote:
| Same
| jcadam wrote:
| "inflation" surcharge... one would think inflation would be baked
| into the price already.
| jdrc wrote:
| Inflation of inflation
| jcadam wrote:
| Inflation^2
| missedthecue wrote:
| This is it getting baked into the price.
| chomp wrote:
| I think they were referring to the "end-buyer" price.
|
| I think what GP missed is that this price is likely going to
| get baked into the end-buyer price, but not by Amazon.
|
| The reason it's likely not baked _by Amazon_ is because
| Amazon 's fulfillment has costs that don't get recouped until
| an item is sold. If Amazon moves seller goods back and forth
| through its warehouses, Amazon might never make the money
| back on the fulfillment service if the item never sells.
|
| Sellers will wind up conveying this additional charge back
| into their item's price.
| jcadam wrote:
| Good points. I just wonder why Amazon wouldn't raise the
| base rate they charge sellers rather than tacking on a
| "surcharge." It's not as if inflation is transitory :D
| dragonwriter wrote:
| A surcharge externalizes the blame.
|
| Same reason B2C companies do it all the time. While
| Amazon is notionally B2B, it's got lots of small sellers
| that probably behave more like consumers, and the
| business that don't just won't care how the price is
| characterized.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| No, this is just greed.
|
| Amazon's business model is "skimming off the top."
| Essentially take x% of whatever. If prices rise due to
| external factors and Amazon's x% remains identical then their
| real-term income increase inline with inflation.
|
| This is double-dipping. Prices rise, Amazon makes more, now
| they want "and 5% more" on top because reasons.
|
| PS - Although this argument only applies to inflation
| adjustments, not fuel.
| savant_penguin wrote:
| Funny how businesses weren't greedy a few weeks ago, and
| just after inflation kicks in they all become greedy. It's
| all about greed and nothing to do with money printing
| Someone1234 wrote:
| It is a percentage increase, not a fixed increase. And
| their normal fees are structured as percentages.
| Therefore, their existing fee structure adapted
| automatically to changes like money supply (or more
| specifically differences in exchange rates for their
| suppliers/third parties).
|
| If it was a fixed increase, I'd be a lot less critical.
| But percentages piled on already percentage fee
| structures strikes of profiteering from their market
| position, and using the economic climate as a lazy
| excuse.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Funny how it's all about money printing and not about
| greed. Businesses? Greedy? No way! Couldn't be.
|
| Dude, this is capitalism. Everybody uses every excuse,
| from the most justified to the least justified. Assuming
| it's greed is dumb, but assuming it isn't greed is
| _spectacularly_ dumb.
| jsnell wrote:
| I think the point is that Amazon is already taking a
| percentage cut. If there is inflation, the prices of the good
| would be raised by the seller and that automatically
| increased how much Amazon makes.
|
| Them increasing the size of the percentage-based cut suggests
| that the work Amazon does (logistics, selling access to the
| users' eyeballs) would be more sensitive to inflation than
| what the manufacturers and sellers do. Seems unlikely.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Them increasing the size of the percentage-based cut
| suggests that the work Amazon does (logistics, selling
| access to the users' eyeballs) would be more sensitive to
| inflation than what the manufacturers and sellers do. Seems
| unlikely.
|
| For fulfilment? That's extremely heavily dependent on three
| things: fuel, amortized vehicle costs, and labor. Major
| drivers of inflation before the invasion were tight labor
| market in the post-COVID rebound, vehicle costs, and fuel,
| and the invasion added further pressure on fuel, so, yeah,
| I'm going to say it's perfectly reasonable to expect that
| fulfillment costs have gone up in relation to finished
| consumer goods before fulfillment.
| ericmay wrote:
| > If there is inflation, the prices of the good would be
| raised by the seller and that automatically increased how
| much Amazon makes.
|
| I don't think that this is the case. If I sell XYZ product
| and my costs increased by 4% so I raise prices by 4%. Fuel
| costs for Amazon increased by 18%. The prices of the goods
| wouldn't necessarily offset what Amazon makes. And now you
| have to generalize this across all products they sell and
| all of their global logistical considerations...
| desiarnezjr wrote:
| This is common practice with most carriers like a FEDEX,
| UPS, post offices, etc. There's the contracted rate (or
| published rate for lower volume shippers) and then a "fuel
| surcharge" that's tacked on to offset the volatility of
| fuel and consumables. _Usually_ it 's lifted as market
| conditions change, though not always immediately as each
| company will often book fuel at a contracted price, even if
| higher to insure some price stability, so the surcharges
| don't match market conditions exactly.
|
| With logistics companies it's typically easier to identify
| the incremental surcharge, as at first glance they've
| blended it as fee increases.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Gas is more expensive. FBA requires Amazon to buy gas to
| run trucks to perform fulfillment.
| AnssiH wrote:
| This is not increasing the percentage-based cut (referral
| fee), this is increasing the fulfillment fee which is
| size/weight based.
| jsnell wrote:
| Thanks! That'd be a lot more reasonable, it just isn't
| how the article reads. Is the official announcement
| somewhere?
|
| (I.e. what you're saying seems to be that for a $100 item
| that they charged $5 to ship previously, they will now be
| charging $5.25. Hard to complain about that.)
| dwringer wrote:
| Good question which had me slightly concerned for a
| moment; there's official documentation of the upcoming
| change here[0]. It does seem that this is only applied to
| "fulfilled by Amazon" products (and will not apply to
| third party sales shipped by the third party), and is an
| additional 5% of the existing fulfillment fee tacked on.
|
| An example they give is of a small, standard 6-oz package
| where the fee will increase from $2.92 to $3.07.
|
| [0]https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/GABB
| X6GZPA...
| coding123 wrote:
| I think we wouldn't be clicking on this story if the
| original title reflected this.
| paxys wrote:
| It's hilarious to me that services like Uber and Lyft, who prided
| themselves on their free market variable pricing, now need to add
| explicit fuel surcharges because of market conditions. Why isn't
| your magical free market accounting for it already in the ride
| price?
| staticassertion wrote:
| I'm not advocating for Uber and Lyft or a free market or
| whatever, but isn't the "free market accounting for it already
| in the ride price" exactly because they adjusted their prices?
| paxys wrote:
| They adjust their prices by the minute depending on ride
| demand and how many drivers on the road in the area. There's
| no reason fuel prices wouldn't already fit into that same
| calculation. Instead there's a new line item added to the
| final bill for the surcharge.
| [deleted]
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Yeah, it's so they have a guaranteed return. If they
| thought the "pure market" was handling things well then
| they should realize after a short time supply and demand
| should stabilize pretty quickly with the new fuel prices.
| No one is going to drive if the fuel makes it unprofitable.
| lost-found wrote:
| So you're complaining about them being more transparent in
| their pricing? Interesting take.
| paxys wrote:
| If fuel cost zero yesterday and costs exactly $1 per ride
| (regardless of length) today then it would be
| transparency. What they are doing now is advertising a
| low up-front price and tacking on random surcharges to
| the final bill.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| I wouldn't call this transparency. It's designed to cause
| confusion. Throwing too much information and too many
| fees to confuse the heck out of you and hope that you'd
| say "whatever" and book it.
| munk-a wrote:
| They're attempting to advertise lower prices than they're
| charging. If they want to advertise real rates and
| provide an itemized break down of fees on demand I'd be
| happy to see the increased transparency. Fees unmentioned
| until the last moment are designed to leverage people's
| sunk cost fallacy and say "Well, I'm already so close to
| booking a ride I might as well."
|
| This is in no way a move to increase transparency and,
| uh, fuel doesn't have a flat per ride cost anyways. If I
| book a three thousand dollar uber to take me from LA to
| NYC it apparently uses just as much fuel as getting an
| Uber to the bus stop down the road from me.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Fuel was always included in the price. Now it's not, at
| least not entirely. They're not moving it out of the
| price out of a desire for transparency; they're trying to
| raise prices without getting yelled at.
|
| There's not a "driver surcharge" and a "working doors
| surcharge" and a "seatbelt surcharge", right?
| azth wrote:
| "Transitory inflation", isn't that what the fed said?
| cm2187 wrote:
| more than a year ago
| cronix wrote:
| That was before there was an invasion to blame it on.
| naoqj wrote:
| https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1513864692569190403
| maxk42 wrote:
| Many were skeptical and they were right to be skeptical. We're
| now experiencing inflation the likes of which we've not seen
| for decades. And it isn't over. It's not unlikely we'll enter a
| period of hyperinflation soon that breaks all historical
| records for the US.
| memish wrote:
| You're likely right. And much like Cassandra, you're getting
| downvoted for the warning.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > It's not unlikely we'll enter a period of hyperinflation
| soon that breaks all historical records for the US.
|
| I'd say this is pretty unlikely. This is like saying that
| because the weatherman was wrong and it's 10 degrees colder
| today than predicted we should expect a new ice age to hit
| next week.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| Reality is in between your two takes, IMO.
|
| There is a limit to the debt-to-GDP ratio before reality
| takes over. Baked into the assumptions on debt is inherent
| growth in GDP. It's rare, but there are scenarios where you
| may see real contraction in GDP and, frankly the present
| geopolitical and global economic climate is ripe for such
| events. If that happens, then the US entering some
| inflationary spiral to service debt isn't totally 100,000
| year "ice-age" ridiculous. It's more like ~100 year cold
| snap.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I agree, but I would be surprised if it is 8% again for the
| coming year, given job market is still hot, supplies are
| still short, the war in Ukraine will likely last at least
| another year, and the government still want to spend a lot
| of money and is unlikely to raise rates very much more than
| 0.25% per quarter.
| chii wrote:
| transitory likely refers to the fact that supply chains and
| production of "stuffs" halted for an extended period of time
| due to the pandemic.
|
| The Feds made a prediction, where all else being equal, that
| they expected supply chains to free up "soon", and it isn't a
| systemic issue. They guessed wrong, as the world wasn't ready
| to return back to prior productivity levels. This prediction,
| however, isn't supposed to be used as a basis for decision
| making for the common person.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Most of the market called out the Fed for using the term
| "transitory" considering the Government was printing money
| left and right. Now we have had a huge inflation jump as
| predicted.
|
| The Fed had access to the same, if not better, data than
| everyone else. A big part of shortages was a rise in
| demand.
| mc32 wrote:
| The gov was giving out money and the fed was "printing"
| trillions [printer go brrrrt" memes and all] adding to
| national debt. How in the name of any working economic
| theory can they think that WILL NOT lead to inflation? Were
| they in an alternate universe?
| google234123 wrote:
| The Democrat's still want to spend trillions more...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It's not unlikely we'll enter a period of hyperinflation
| soon that breaks all historical records for the US.
|
| Hyperinflation is typically defined as at least 50% _monthly_
| inflation (about 13000% annualized).
|
| The highest monthly inflation since it has been tracked in US
| history is a 23.7% annualized rate in June 1920 (not a
| monthly rate, an annualized rate), the highest estimated
| annual inflation (obviously, pre-regular-tracki g) is just
| under 30% for 1778.
|
| So _any_ hyperinflation would be orders of magnitude beyond
| anything seen in US history, sure.
|
| But I'd like to see your quantification of "not unlikely" and
| the supporting analysis.
| [deleted]
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Turns out, "transitory" actually meant transit costs. Who knew?
| chucksta wrote:
| It is transitory if you skew the scale out long enough to
| manipulate the data :)
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Everything is transitory over a long enough timeline...
| deelowe wrote:
| Transitory RATE. The inflation that has already happened isn't
| going away.
| Vladimof wrote:
| I avoid Amazon whenever I can... unless it is the cheapest source
| (which doesn't happen very often).
| slg wrote:
| >[Amazon] said it had absorbed costs whenever possible, and only
| increased fees to address permanent costs
|
| I wish journalists would stop simply reprinting intentionally
| misleading company spin like this without any attempt to refute
| it. Fuel costs are one of the least sticky price increases
| imaginable and are already decreasing after they peaked last
| once. Plus no one knows what inflation will be like in a year.
| There is nothing close to permanent about these cost increases.
|
| The most charitable interpretation of these comments is that past
| increases were only because of permanent issues and this new
| surcharge represents a change in that policy. However if that is
| the case, this comment should more clearly denote that change and
| explain why this temporary increase is different and requires a
| change in policy.
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| > I wish journalists would stop simply reprinting intentionally
| misleading company spin like this without any attempt to refute
| it.
|
| I agree that it's annoying to see outlets printing company spin
| but they would need evidence to refute such claims, especially
| nowadays where everyone is being accused of spreading
| misinformation and having an agenda.
|
| How could they go about that on a per-statement basis and what
| would such a refutation look like?
| ryathal wrote:
| Make it clear this is an un-substantiated claim by the
| company. This isn't print media another sentence costs
| nothing. "Amazon refused to comment on specific costs," "no
| details of absorbed costs were provided," or just use
| language like "Amazon claims X." This would require thinking
| about press releases instead of regurgitating them though.
| bombcar wrote:
| Once the airlines discovered the "fees" trick every company has
| been salivating to get onboard.
|
| I hate it - I don't CARE where the money is going, just charge
| me the price and don't try to pretend that various "fees" are
| affecting it. It's bad enough with listing various taxes, but
| made up "surcharges" are just accounting trickery.
| H1Supreme wrote:
| I was trying to book a cabin over the Christmas holiday last
| year. They would list the cabin at $200 a night, and then add
| $100 "service fee" and $50 "cleaning fee" for my 3 day stay.
| What?! Surprised I didn't get an electric bill with it. I was
| so pissed off, I said forget it.
|
| If you want $250 a night, then list $250 a night. Don't try
| and pull a fast one with some bullshit fees at the checkout.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| They do it because it works, so you must be in the
| minority.
|
| People often lament the lack of practical training for
| things like personal finance and media literacy in schools.
| We should add consumer awareness to that list. We are
| raising kids to become obedient little consumers.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| Why bother with an already lost war like "consumer
| education"? Fuel charges, cleaning costs, etc. are all
| the cost of doing business. Require companies to list the
| out the door price. If your distributor switches from
| fuel to electric they can lower their prices and do more
| business.
|
| This just sets up Amazon to charge a flat fee while they
| lower their costs and reap all the benefits.
| munk-a wrote:
| Alternatively, we could, as a country, ban the display of
| partial charges on advertisement. In Europe it's standard
| for sales taxes and other charges to be included in
| prices displayed to consumers. We just don't do that over
| here because... I guess we like charging a stupid tax?
| That's what it is in the end, if you think the broom for
| 19.95 actually costs 19.95 and budget for that we'll
| punish you for not properly doing advanced mathematics.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| Breaking out the tax is usually a way to make your
| customers feel the pain of paying that tax.
|
| The goal isn't to dupe them by falsely advertising lower
| prices, it's to get them to support lower taxes on your
| business.
|
| Likewise, it's anti-big-government politicians that want
| to keep sales tax separate in America.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| This happened to me a bunch of times as a child visiting
| US from Chile where they don't break out the tax, saying
| Oh I can get this 4.95 thing at the BullshMart, then you
| take $5 and you get there and oh you need to come up with
| 38 cents in tax, sorry, waste of a trip. I get it if you
| live in USA you can adapt, but if you're coming from a
| different country it's a burden and it's wrong.
|
| And weirdly it's the same right-wing guys in each country
| including the tax in Chile and breaking it out in US. In
| USA of course they want the citizens to hate taxes
| because taxes in USA support democracy, and they figure
| by making it a painful hidden cost they will get me, for
| instance, to hate taxes instead of putting them first.
| And I did in fact hate them when I visited, the trick
| worked on me, despite being an excellent math student.
|
| In Chile, it's because the state needs money from
| somewhere for concrete, courts and cops (the three things
| right-wing guys actually think taxes are good for) and
| also for incredibly shitty orphanages and "albergues"
| whose purpose is be able to construct arguments around
| that there are in fact already orphanages and "albergues"
| to deny real assistance...So they have regressive taxes,
| mostly paid for by VAT. So poor people and to a lesser
| extent the middle class don't protest that they're the
| tax base, they hide the tax. And in fact if you look at
| fancy magazines like Ed, an interior design magazine in
| Chile, they do break out the tax to communicate that you
| can get out of paying it, tee hee, or split it with the
| seller, on a $4000 USD Ottoman.
| nanidin wrote:
| FTC/FCC are supposed to protect people from misleading
| stuff like this and level the playing field so that
| companies can remain competitive without resorting to
| dark patterns because their competitors are.
| adolph wrote:
| I see your point and also the other side. If the fees are
| based on costs based on the changeover (i.e. cleaning up
| before you arrive, after you leave), then a fixed $250
| would cost someone staying 6 nights $75 more than $200
| nightly +$150 fees (n=6; totalNightly=200+($150/n);).
| bombcar wrote:
| The solution to be honest and fair would be $350 first
| night, $200 each additional or something.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| In the context of short term lettings, it is actually a
| fairly logical thing, because there's a fairly constant
| overhead per new letting (admin of a new customer plus the
| cleaning).
|
| It also incentivises longer stays, which is obviously in
| they interests to make it disproportionate, so I'm not
| saying that there's no ulterior motive, but it's not
| axiomatically unfair to reward longer lets (or penalise
| shorter lets) that don't incur so many one-off costs.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| I have no problem with per-stay fees, and agree they make
| total sense.
|
| My qualm is that they sometimes aren't included in the
| advertised price of the listing, which makes comparing
| listings much more difficult, and incentivizes owners to
| create huge cleaning fees to artificially lower their
| advertised price-per-night.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Yeah that's exactly why they do it, so you can't sort by
| actual price.
| ezfe wrote:
| At least on Airbnb, they do show the total alongside the
| nightly rate. The nightly rate is emphasized, for no
| reason other than that it's smaller - but the total is
| shown right next to it.
| munk-a wrote:
| I have here a UPS bill for customs, the total charge comes to
| 44.45, the GST + PST (taxes, for the non-Canadians) due on
| the package was 4.98 + 6.97 the charges are as follows:
|
| Entry Prep Fee: 19.95 (Basically shipping and handling
| through the port, even though UPS has an automated system for
| this)
|
| Bond Fee: 6.00 (A surcharge to get more money in case
| charging all these BS fees causes you to not want to pay the
| fees)
|
| COD/Online Fee: 5.00 (An additional surcharge to try and
| cover the risk of charging you so many surcharges)
|
| Customs GST: 4.98 (the real number)
|
| CA BC PST: 6.97 (the other half of the real number)
|
| Brokerage GST/HST: 1.30 (taxes on the majority of their BS
| fees)
|
| COD GST: .25 (taxes on their COD surcharge)
|
| When I'm being asked to pay taxes on BS charges your company
| isn't actually paying... that's when I get truly irate. (Just
| a PSA for anyone shipping to Canada, please send packages via
| USPS not a fancy package carrier, CanadaPost is amazing
| compared to all the private companies up here)
| WalterBright wrote:
| Sales tax is added at the register, not as part of the price
| tag. This is a good system, as it lets people be aware of
| what voting for sales taxes costs them.
| mbesto wrote:
| C'mon - do people _really_ vote with sales tax in mind? I
| 'd take the EU system any day of the week. If prices for
| <insert regular thing I buy> go up substantially and i find
| out that VAT went up then I have a reasonable claim that
| the government is responsible for affordability.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > do people really vote with sales tax in mind?
|
| I certainly do.
| jdmichal wrote:
| Are you kidding? They even come up with cute names for
| them, like "Penny for Pinellas":
|
| http://www.pinellascounty.org/penny/
| DamnYuppie wrote:
| Las Vegas hotels are horrible at this. You now have resort
| fees which sometimes are as much as the stated room rate! Pay
| attention to those fees when booking resorts!
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| LV pioneered this for what's essentially just a hotel room,
| but now I'm seeing it everywhere. A three-star hotel in
| RandoCity will tack on a resort fee.
| dhimes wrote:
| Colleges too.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Or, you know, call it a shipping charge. If offering free
| shipping is too expensive, don't offer free shipping.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| Free shipping plus additional fees for fuel, vehicle
| maintenance and driver salaries. Love it.
| chihuahua wrote:
| At one point, Eddie Bauer (the clothing company) offered
| free shipping, but there was a _handling_ fee of $3 per
| item. But woohoo, free shipping!
| bombcar wrote:
| This is the entire business model of Shutterfly.
| doubled112 wrote:
| This does sound like shipping fees with extra steps.
| jjeaff wrote:
| Kind of like how Door Dash and others show free delivery,
| or $1.99 delivery. Then when you checkout, you have a
| "service" charge as well as a request to tip (i.e.
| actually pay because we aren't paying them anything) the
| delivery driver.
| lobocinza wrote:
| Kind of what MercadoLivre does. The seller pay extra to
| offer "free shipping", the product is listed as free
| shipping but depending on what it will cost MercadoLivre
| they add a surcharge during checkout.
| coding123 wrote:
| Have you noticed that gas prices generally just sit there at
| the same price for YEARS at a time. They take various excuses
| (like this one) and do their 5-10 year bump. We'll be talking
| about gas being JUST $6 in 2030 and then the next crisis will
| bring it to $12 and it will, stay there for many years.
| slg wrote:
| >Have you noticed that gas prices generally just sit there at
| the same price for YEARS at a time. They take various excuses
| (like this one) and do their 5-10 year bump.
|
| This simply is not true. For example, gas was generally
| cheaper in the stretch from 2015-2021 than it was from
| 2011-2014[1].
|
| [1] - [https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=p
| et&s=e...]
| jacquesm wrote:
| Gas prices always shoot up on the news but very, very slowly
| come back down when that reason goes away. I've never seen a
| gas price drop on news.
| mohanmcgeek wrote:
| > I wish journalists would stop simply reprinting intentionally
| misleading company spin like this without any attempt to refute
| it.
|
| That's exactly what reporters _should not_ do. Why would i want
| them to mix their opinions in when reporting an actual statment
| from the company.
|
| People are perfectly capable of forming their own opinions.
| ballenf wrote:
| You report that "Amazon 'claims to absorb costs' but gave no
| specifics when asked". Or something to the effect.
|
| Don't print a company claim without doing some digging to
| back up or refute it.
|
| Or if you do make it clear that you (the reporter) made no
| effort to back up the claim.
| slg wrote:
| Exactly. I am not asking for the reporters' opinion. I am
| asking for the reporter to try to reveal the truth to the
| reader. That is their job. Their job isn't to reprint press
| releases. They should ask for clarification and evidence.
|
| There needs to be a greater degree of skepticism in the way
| the media covers powerful people, companies, and
| organizations. Amazon saying something doesn't mean that
| statement is true. It is the reporter's job to determine if
| it is true before passing that statement along to the
| reader. When the reporter is unable to confirm it as truth,
| the reporter should denote that lack of confirmation before
| repeating the statement. When the reporter can confirm
| something is false, such as the implication that fuel price
| increases are permanent, the reporter should note that as a
| lie.
| UglyToad wrote:
| Flat Earth News is a good book that digs into why news
| outlets pushing PR statements verbatim (alongside other
| problems) became a thing.
|
| Basically fewer journalists with more column inches to
| fill using syndicated pieces and barely editing them mean
| the same company release can appear across all the
| platforms with minimal contextualisation.
| novotionworepr wrote:
| I read this differently. It sounds like Amazon is saying that
| they consider recent inflation of >=5% to be permanent.
|
| Our actual YoY inflation is significantly higher than 5%, so
| this does not sound like an excuse to pass off a temporary
| increase to my ears.
| slg wrote:
| They are specifically calling it a "fuel and inflation
| surcharge" and not an "inflation and fuel surcharge" or even
| simply an "inflation surcharge." Fuel costs are at least 50%
| of the public explanation for this fee and there is no reason
| to believe that fuel prices will be this high next month let
| alone permanently.
| jasonpeacock wrote:
| brb, asking my manager for 5% raise to match...
| qiskit wrote:
| Amazon is so gigantic at this point that the surcharge is like a
| tax. Amazon's market cap has fluctuated between the GDP of canada
| and south korea. Might as well view it as a country.
| downrightmike wrote:
| The only thing stopping them from meeting the monopoly definition
| and being required to break up, is the low prices to consumers.
| That's it, that's the only thing protecting them and this has
| been being questioned in the last few years.
| sfe22 wrote:
| Maybe they are a "monopoly" because of the cheap and good
| services they provide. The only bad monopolies are the ones
| using violence to hold on to it. Examples include mafia,
| terrorists, talibans, governments etc.
| nimbius wrote:
| seems like amazon is trying to have their cake and eat it too.
| Fuel surcharges only make sense if you own a fleet, but amazon
| drivers are independent contractors. Similarly, an "inflation"
| surcharge doesnt make a lot of sense when every other industry
| just raises prices. Do Amazon sellers see any of this 5% when
| they have already likely raised their prices in response to
| inflation? i suspect not. inflation has been unbearable for
| nearly a year now, so why 5% now?
|
| It might be a tentative connection, but i think this has to do
| more with the unionization of an Amazon warehouse. Jeff knows
| tides are turning, and 5% would help to bolster quarterly
| earnings reports if and when healthcare, retirement, and a living
| wage is offered to union warehouse workers during contract
| negotiation. It would also help weather the storm if workers did
| choose to strike. This parlour trick only pans out if organized
| labor remains restricted to a single warehouse; its not scalable
| or repeatable. If the union boss is to be believed, then Amazon
| is looking at massive unionization across its warehouses and a
| potential precipitous decline in revenue in the coming years.
| bombcar wrote:
| Amazon does own a fleet:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-double-delivery-fleet...
| - but they should just raise prices and not pretend they're
| not.
| tyrfing wrote:
| The arrangement described there is convoluted, but it's
| misleading to say they own the fleet. They (or an affiliate)
| do own the vehicles, but lease them to "independent
| contractors" who happen to exclusively work with Amazon and
| drive Amazon branded vehicles, but are responsible for things
| like paying for gas. Of course, Amazon won't let them
| maintain any sort of margins, so they certainly don't have
| much room to absorb additional costs.
| noasaservice wrote:
| Whatever.
|
| I use Scamazon as a replacement plan to replace (for free) broken
| goods that I have bought previously. And since I can return
| broken crap to Kohls, makes doing this easy.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| First, regarding inflation surcharge, well that's the norm in
| business contracts. I can't recall ever reading a business
| contract that didn't have an indexation clause.
|
| Regarding other surcharges e.g. fuel, I would say, to be fair to
| Amazon, that they are coming late to a game that has been going
| for a while now.
|
| Once in a while, I get a phone call from
| $well_known_international_shipping_company trying to lure my
| business away from their competitors.
|
| Shipping salesdroid sends me a nice Excel spreadsheet showing the
| breakdown of all the nice cheap shipping rates for various
| weights and destinations. All designed to make you think "that
| looks awesome, where do I sign".
|
| But for the last few years or so, the spreasheet has changed to
| include some small-print at the bottom "A fuel surcharge will
| apply to the Rates, calculated in accordance with the methodology
| at $url unless otherwise specified in the Rates, $shippingCo may
| from time to time elect to revise its fuel surcharge table".
| spookthesunset wrote:
| It does make a bit of sense to break a (relatively) wildly
| changing cost like fuel out of the fixed portion of the
| contract.
|
| No way does the vendor want to assume the risk of fuel prices
| going through the roof and being forced to eat into their
| margin. At most they should share that risk with the customer--
| it isn't like the vendor or the customer has much control over
| fuel prices.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| > It does make a bit of sense to break a (relatively) wildly
| changing cost like fuel out of the fixed portion of the
| contract.
|
| Totally agree. Interestingly as a consumer, the only time
| I've seen this is on my garbage collection when I moved to a
| new city.
|
| I've seen contracts arranged as "Market index price per pound
| of $commodity plus _x_ per pound for processing". If you're
| worried about costs varying significantly, you can go hedge
| the commodity.
|
| I've also heard of "transportation costs paid by supplier up
| to _x_, with all costs in excess split 50/50 with the
| customer" as a way of keeping incentives aligned but sharing
| risk.
| willis936 wrote:
| Profit margin hike surcharge*.
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