Amazon Waives Seller Fee in Hunt for Urgent Supplies

Amazon is waiving seller referral fees of certain medical supplies that are in high demand due to the coronavirus pandemic, part of an effort to encourage sellers to make additional inventory of the items available “at competitive prices to these customers with the greatest need.”

It told sellers who participate in its FBA fulfillment service this week:

“As part of our continued response to COVID-19, Amazon is prioritizing the supply of key medical supplies to hospitals and government organizations.

“You may have offers on one or more products (ASINs) that will now be available exclusively to hospitals and government organizations, which are in urgent need of high-demand medical products like N95 masks, surgical masks, facial shields, surgical gowns, surgical gloves, and large-volume sanitizers. Select ASINs of these product types will no longer be available to the broader public on Amazon.com and AmazonBusiness.com.

“For ASINs subject to this change, we have eliminated our standard referral fees through June 30, 2020, to encourage our selling partners to make additional inventory of these products available at competitive prices to these customers with the greatest need.”

In early March, Amazon had required third-party sellers to stop listing face masks and certain other medical supplies related to the coronavirus outbreak and offered to reimburse merchants for FBA Removal Order fees for the return of such inventory from Amazon fulfillment warehouses.

In a blog post on Thursday, Amazon Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations Dave Clark had announced that as the face masks it had ordered became available, it would distribute them to its fulfillment teams, and said it would donate all N-95 masks it received to healthcare workers on the front lines or would make them available at cost to healthcare and government organizations through its Amazon Business portal.

Clark also addressed in Thursday’s blog post how Amazon was keeping its employees safe.

Amazon created a portal for suppliers of COVID-19 related products that invites business suppliers with large inventory of critical products to fill out a form to apply.

Hospitals and government agencies can fill out a form on this page to request approval to purchase such supplies through Amazon Business.

On the main portal page, Amazon states it will not make a profit from the service.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.