Operations
01 June 2022
Amazon FBA to raise fees for US sellers shipping to Mexico, Canada
The fee increase for Remote Fulfillment with FBA takes effect June 30.

An Amazon package (Photo by ANIRUDH on Unsplash)
The fee increase for Remote Fulfillment with FBA takes effect June 30.
An Amazon package (Photo by ANIRUDH on Unsplash)
Citing rising costs, Amazon is increasing fulfillment fees for sellers who use a Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service to send orders to the countries that border the US. At the same time, FBA said it is automatically enrolling eligible sellers in the program, unless they opt out.
In a Tuesday posting on Seller Central, Amazon said it is increasing fees for Remote Fulfillment with FBA, which is a service that allows sellers to ship inventory that is stored in the US to customers based in Mexico and Canada. The increase is effective June 30.
Under the changes, the fulfillment fees for a 6-ounce-or-less package heading to Canada will increase from $7.22 Canadian dollars to $7.58 Canada.
For a package of the same size heading to Mexico, the fee will increase from $102.39 MXN to $122.87 MXN.
The fees are dependent on the weight of a package, and increases are applied to each weight class. See a full schedule here.
Launched in 2018, Remote Fulfillment with FBA is designed to make it easier to sell outside the US – namely, to the countries with which the US shares a border. In turn, it provides shoppers in Mexico and Canada with access to more selection on Amazon's marketplaces in those countries. The service provides free shipping to Prime members in those countries.
In its announcement, Amazon said it improved the service as part of a wider fulfillment network buildout, but noted that the costs of operating it are now rising.
“Remote Fulfillment with FBA leverages both US and international fulfillment operations. Over the course of the pandemic, we have made significant investments in these operations to better serve you and our customers,” Amazon wrote. “We’ve nearly doubled fulfillment capacity and added over 750,000 full- and part-time roles, and our average hourly wage in the US has climbed from $15 to $18. These investments have enabled tremendous growth for sellers, who have increased sales in our store by more than 70% during this time.”
Amazon added that it is implementing the fee increases in order to reflect “the changing costs of fulfillment, transportation, storage, and customer service across North America.”
“These increases are in line with or below industry-average increases for fulfillment services,” the company added.
The coming change to the Remote Fulfillment with FBA program could reach beyond the sellers who are already using the service.
As EcommerceBytes flagged, Amazon also stated on a help page that eligible sellers will be automatically enrolled in the program, and have until July 1 to opt out. Here’s the language from Amazon:
Starting July 1, 2022, eligible sellers for Remote Fulfillment in Canada or Mexico or both will be automatically enrolled, unless they have unenrolled from the program prior to that date. You will receive an alert on your Seller Central homepage notifying you of your upcoming automatic enrollment in one or more of your eligible stores at least 30 days prior to the enrollment date. The notification will also provide you with access to a landing page where you can choose to opt out of one or more of the stores that you don’t want to be enrolled in at any point during the 30-day period.
You also have the option to manually enroll or unenroll from Remote Fulfillment in one or more of the stores that you are eligible for at any time.
This means sellers who have been identified as eligible for the service must take the extra step of opting out before July 1.
So far, 2022 has brought a series of fee increases and changes to Amazon’s FBA program, which allows third-party sellers to tap Amazon's network for storage, fulfillment and shipping to send goods to customers. In January, it increased permanent fees across the entire program by an average of 5.2%. Then, on April 30, the company added a 5% fuel surcharge to account for inflation. The company said the latter surcharge would be a temporary measure. In April, the company also made inventory-related changes to expand a program for small items and create a new XL storage category within FBA.
On the whole, the company is seeking to tame costs associated with its network that stores, packs and ships orders. For the first quarter of 2022, the company reported $2 billion in incremental costs as a result of having “overcapacity” in fulfillment and transportation. After making massive investments in its fulfillment network over the two years of the pandemic ecommerce boom, the company ended up having excess space as demand started to level off. CFO Brian Olsavsky said on the company’s earnings call that Amazon will aim to grow into the space it built, and added that it will be glad to have capacity for July's Prime Day and the holiday season. The company’s recently-announced Buy With Prime service, which will enable sellers to offer Amazon Prime fulfillment and delivery on any website, figures to help fill this capacity further. But Olsavsky added that costs would persist over the next several quarters.
"Many of the build decisions were made 18 to 24 months ago, so there are limitations on what we can adjust mid-year,” he said.
Amazon cited the pandemic-era investment it made in its fulfillment network in its announcement on the latest fee increases. Around the time of the inflation surcharge, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told CNBC that the company worked to balance making improvements to meet increased demand for ecommerce, while trying to avoid raising fees. This followed Amazon’s yearslong pattern of seeking to keep seller fees down in order to make FBA as attractive as possible to sellers. But with inflation, a pandemic and war in Ukraine bringing continued swings in the economy, the company reached a limit.
“At a certain point, you can’t keep absorbing all those costs and run a business that’s economic,” Jassy told CNBC.
Italy topped NewStore's audit of global omnichannel adoption across Europe and Australia.
For brands and retailers, omnichannel is no longer optional.
That’s a big learning from the pandemic, when demand for online shopping surged, and retailers built up capabilities to extend the shopping experience across digital and physical stores.
While ecommerce sales growth may slow from its breakneck pace to move back to its previous trajectory, the capabilities built by brands to serve shoppers wherever they happen to be aren’t going to be taken away anytime soon.
It has reoriented how brands think about the elements that are necessary to put in place for success in retail.
“Brands have to be all in on omnichannel, so there is no one tool that is more important than the rest,” said Phil Granof, CMO of NewStore. “Capabilities like BOPIS, BORIS, endless aisle, and store fulfillment have become table stakes for every brand. Going forward, retailers should focus on building seamless, omnichannel experiences that meet the needs of their customers, regardless of where they are located. That means offering solutions that best meet the individual needs of their business.”
However, the parts of those experiences will be adjusted as technology develops, and consumer behavior shifts. Retailers will still have to act quickly to respond to shifts in demand, Granof said. That has been evident in the years since 2020. While the pandemic lockdown phase has passed, the macroeconomic environment driven by inflation and interest rates is now upending day-to-day processes, and reshaping priorities and budgets.
What was built to meet the last moment can be refined in this one.
“Today, it’s important for these businesses to take stock of what’s working and what isn’t — especially when it comes to the quick fixes implemented to meet an immediate need a few years ago,” Granof said. “Now is the time for brands to invest in a tech stack built for the long haul vs. patching together solutions that simply fill a gap. At the end of the day, successful brands are defined not by resiliency but by their adaptability, and omnichannel is the best safeguard against the unpredictable nature of retail.”
With benchmarking in mind, NewStore set out to identify the leaders in omnichannel around the world, and compiled results in the first-ever global edition of the Omnichannel Leadership Report. The software company recently conducted an audit of 275 retail brands across six markets including Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K.
Leveraging third-party mystery shoppers, NewStore found the following brands were the leaders:
For North America, there are lessons to be learned from other regions. NewStore found that Italy topped the U.S. in omnichannel maturity to achieve the #1 ranking, with a score of 40% overall adoption to 36% for the second-place America. Plus, many of the markets surveyed in this report were among the leaders.
North America remains the overall regional leader, but there are still international trends that provide lessons for brands here. Granof shared the following two areas where Europe shines:
Mobile shopping apps are becoming increasingly popular in Europe. In Spain and the UK, more than 40% of retailers have shopping apps, while only 33% of brands in the U.S. and Canada have one. There could be massive opportunities here, as retail sales from mobile apps are expected to grow 50% this year, Granof said.
Payment innovation. This is an area where the U.S. is lagging behind Europe. Only 76% of retailers accept contactless payments in the U.S., while the adoption rate sits at 96% in Europe. However, there could be room for the U.S. to make gains. Features like Tap to Pay on iPhone allow retailers to accept contactless payments without a terminal, providing room to catch up without the need for a hardware installation. It underscores how the latest technology can help brands leap ahead.