Like other marketplaces, Amazon allows sellers to purchase discounted shipping labels on its platform, known as Buy Shipping. Amazon offers certain protections to sellers who use it, since it gives the marketplace greater visibility into the sellers’ fulfillment of orders.
On Tuesday, Amazon added an option to Buy Shipping that allows some sellers to save more when using the service – sellers can now link one or more accounts for each shipping carrier with Amazon Buy Shipping so they can get their own negotiated FedEx and UPS rates:
“Use your own negotiated shipping rates, access account health benefits, and avoid “Package didn’t arrive” claims through Amazon Buy Shipping. Streamline your fulfillment process when you link your carrier accounts to Amazon Buy Shipping and assign them to each of your warehouses. Use your preferred channels, including Seller Central, API, and multichannel integrators.”
A seller asked if Amazon discounted rates would be displayed when they were better than sellers’ rates, asking: “If we link our UPS and FedEx and Amazon offers lower rates than our accounts, will we still be able to see and purchase Amazon’s lower Buy Shipping rates?”
An Amazon moderator responded to the question, and even though the answer was not what the seller was hoping for, it was no doubt helpful to have a clear response:
“Buy Shipping does include Amazon-negotiated discounted shipping rates that are over 31% lower on average compared to retail ground rates for UPS, FedEx, and USPS. However, Buy Shipping rates will not be displayed if you have linked your FedEx and-or UPS carrier account. Sellers would need to link/unlink their own carrier account to compare and select options.”