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Amazon recently announced yet another fee increase, this time targeting sellers with low inventory levels. The new fees, taking effect April 2024, will charge sellers maintaining less than a 28-day supply of inventory. According to Amazon, low seller inventories “inhibit our ability to distribute products across our network, degrading delivery speed and increasing our shipping costs.” But that explanation fails to convince many resellers already feeling burdened by mounting financial pressures. This comes as Amazon faces growing antitrust probes over alleged anti-competitive actions. Critics argue Amazon abuses its marketplace gatekeeper power to undermine fair competition and impose restrictive policies that disproportionately hurt sellers and consumers. Despite lawsuits and backlash, Amazon shows no signs of backing off its measures to extract always more revenue from resellers already feeling the platform stacks the deck against them in favor of Amazon’s interests. 

What Exactly is the Low Inventory Fee? 

According to Amazon: 

“Effective April 1, 2024, a low-inventory-level fee will apply to standard-sized products with consistently low inventory relative to customer demand. When sellers carry low inventory relative to unit sales, it inhibits our ability to distribute products across our network, degrading delivery speed and increasing our shipping costs. The low-inventory-level fee will only apply if a product’s inventory levels relative to historical demand (known as historical days of supply) are below 28 days (about 4 weeks).  

We will only charge the low-inventory-level fee when both the long-term historical days of supply (last 90 days) and short-term historical days of supply (last 30 days) are below 28 days (4 weeks). For example, if a product’s short-term historical days of supply is above 28 days (about 4 weeks) but long-term…