Ecommerce news: Amazon minimum fee change and eBay product identifier updates

In the news this week: Amazon has changed their seller fees and eBay updates its product identifier requirements.

Amazon.co.uk minimum fee waived from 1 September

Amazon has informed sellers that from 1 September, they are removing the minimum fee for items sold on Amazon.co.uk.

Currently, sellers pay a referral fee on each item that they sell which is a percentage of the total sales price with a minimum fee of 40p.

Starting from September, sellers will only have to pay the applicable referral fee as a percentage of the total amount paid by the buyer (including any shipping or gift wrap charges), but with no minimum amount to be paid. However, you will still have to pay the ‘Closing Fee’ for items sold in media categories.

Find out more about changes to Amazon.co.uk’s fees.

Changes to product identifier requirements on eBay

Further changes to eBay’s requirements for product identifiers are coming into effect from September 2017, which will affect all Good ‘Til Cancelled listings and seller refurbished items.

Product identifiers are unique codes used to identify a specific product. They should help buyers to find the exact item that they’re looking for, and also will help listings to appear in search engine results outside of eBay. The main product identifiers are:

• Brand
  
• Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) 
  - European Article Numbers (EANs) 
  -International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs)
• Manufacturer Part Number (MPN)
  

Key dates for product identifier changes on eBay are:

• September 2017: Product identifiers are required for all Good ‘Til Cancelled listings
  
• October 2017: Product identifiers are required for all seller refurbished items.
  

eBay had previously said that sellers would be able to add new types of product identifiers such as Amazon, Google and self-created product identifiers and that they would be removing the ‘Does not apply’ option. However, eBay has now announced that this is no longer the case.

Find out more about adding product identifiers to your eBay listings here. 

US State Sales Tax Amnesty applies to UK and EU sellers

A tax amnesty from 17 August til 17 October 2017 for Amazon (and other marketplace) sellers in the US will also cover UK and EU sellers. Sellers that operate from a premises in a US state (which covers holding stock in your own warehouse or in an Amazon FBA warehouse), are considered to have a ‘nexus’ in that state and are therefore liable to pay sales tax in that State.

The amnesty offers sellers a chance to start paying any Sales Tax that you should be paying; as long as the state hasn’t already started to request Sales Tax from you then you won’t have to pay back tax or any penalties.

15 US states are participating in the amnesty: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin.

Find out more about the amnesty here.