Amazon Slaps a 3.5% Surcharge on US Sellers Over Rising Fuel Costs

Prices on Amazon are going up thanks to the rising fuel costs. This thanks to a 3.5% surcharge on sellers.

It’s yet another price Americans paying over Trumps latest fuck up. Trump initiated a massive bombing operation on Iran for the reason that appears to be what amounts to “I have a feeling about this”. There was no known imminent threat that necessitated, however, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been pushing for this military invasion for some time now. One rumour was that the Trump administration was told by Israel that Iran was plotting to blow up Mar-a-Lago even.

At any rate, Trump made the unilateral decision to invade Iran. This with the excuse that Iran was building a nuclear weapon – an excuse that doesn’t seem to be backed by much evidence that this was imminently happening. The problem was that the middle east region has long been a tinderbox for violence and once a match was lit, many countries were at risk of being sucked into this. That’s ultimately what happened once the bombing began. Obviously, Israel was getting involved since they appear to be a source egging this conflict on and Iran was the target, but other countries found themselves either getting involved or in the cross hairs. This includes Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Turkiye, and others. In fact, more recently, the Houthi rebels have also joined in on the fighting which further complicates things.

Ultimately, the whole region of the middle east is experiencing military violence. Not only does it show no signs of slowing down, but it appears as though violence is only escalating. This despite promises by Trump that the war is practically over.

Complicating things is, of course, the Strait of Hormuz which is conveniently placed in the midst of all of this. As many would eventually know, this strait has a good portion of shipped oil shipped out of it. According to the IEA, around 34% of the global oil supply was shipped through this one strait in 2025. Considering how much oil is shipped around the world, that is by no means a small number.

So, when the conflict broke out, Iran halted the shipping of oil – essentially grabbing the world economy by the gonads in the process. Trump, at least initially, was unfazed by all off this. He and his officials were arguing that the war will go on for as long as it needs to take. The Trump administration argued that they have practically unlimited supplies and are not at all worried about a long protracted war. That’s a good thing because as many people are slowly realizing, the US seems to be in the process of getting into a forever war.

With a huge chunk of the global oil supply getting choked off, the fun little thing called “supply and demand” took over. With a lack of supply and continued demand, prices had only one way to go: up… and up it went. For a brief moment in the opening parts of the conflict, I watched oil prices spike to as high as $117.51. This led to widespread panic of oil price shocks that could very easily crater the economy as a whole. Trump, in response, immediately went into panic mode and said that the war is “very complete“. Because there really are idiotic stock market investors out there, they… believed Trump and the markets calmed down. This along with oil prices settling back down to below $100 a barrel.

As the conflict continued to drag on, the Trump administration argued that the war would be over in 4 weeks, claiming all of Iran’s military was totally decimated. As we would later find out, these claims seemingly stem from Trump receiving briefings that consist of a highlight reel of stuff blowing up. As any logical person would know, just because one thing is blowing up doesn’t mean that this is the story for a whole military. Still, it adds some clarity as to how Trump came to such a conclusion.

Of course, the talking point about how the military operation being almost complete only goes so far. Investors started realizing that this Trump fellow might not be on the up and up. As a result, there were stock market crashes. This was met with reassurances that the war is practically over. This was eventually followed up by another stock market crash which… the Trump administration continued to insist would only be temporary because the war would be over soon. After stringing a number of investors along for weeks, Trump argued that they are negotiating a deal with Iran and that this whole thing would be over. Like so many other times, a number of the investors… fell for it again. Despite rumours of the possibility of American troops being on the ground, Israeli troops already having boots on the ground, battles intensifying, the downing of an F-15 fighter jet, and missiles and drones flying back and forth, hey, if Trump said the war is coming to an end, then that MUST be true!

While some investors seem to be fooled by whatever Trump is saying, not everyone is apparently buying it. After hitting a peak of Pam Bondi’s famous “50,000!” level, it seems that the investment is gradually leaking out.

So, while some might be gullible, not everyone is fooled by Trumps constant promises of how the war is almost over. Of course, there is a very good reason why overall stock markets are cratering. Oil isn’t just a single commodity to be traded. Oil is used for fuel to not only power gas powered vehicles, but also to ship goods around the world. If oil prices go up, then so does the price of fuel. If fuel prices go up, then it becomes more expensive to ship things (partly, because society has sadly not completed the transition to renewables still due in large part to politics). With oil, as of this writing, sitting at over $111 per barrel (it was trading just over $50 a barrel in December of last year), things are simply getting more expensive.

This leads us to the reports we recently saw with Amazon announcing that US sellers can start seeing a 3.5% surcharge to pay for the transportation of goods. From the CBC:

Amazon is applying a fuel surcharge to fulfillment fees for sellers in Canada and the U.S., a spokesperson for the e-commerce giant confirmed to CBC News on Thursday.

The 3.5 per cent surcharge will first apply to those using the Fulfillment by Amazon program, through which sellers can outsource packing and shipping to the company’s fulfillment warehouses. This surcharge, meant for those with an online Amazon storefront operating in the United States and Canada, will be imposed beginning on April 17.

Sellers who use the company’s Multi-Channel Fulfillment program — which can be used by those who have a non-Amazon sales channel, like a personal website — will see a surcharge starting on May 2.

“Elevated costs in fuel and logistics have increased the cost of operating across the industry,” the spokesperson said in a statement, saying the company has “absorbed these increases” so far.

“But similar to other major carriers, when costs remain elevated we implement temporary surcharges to partially recover these costs,” the spokesperson wrote. “We remain committed to our selling partners’ success and to maintaining broad selection and low prices for customers.”

To be fair to Amazon, even though I’m not exactly a fan of that company, the price of everything is going up because of this stupid conflict. As anyone who has to pay for gas these days knows, the price at the pump has been going up over the last month and a half. In some parts of Canada (i.e. Vancouver, BC), gas has shot up to over $2 a litre. In some places in the US (i.e. Los Angeles), gas prices hit $6 per gallon. I think it’s safe to say that people on both sides of the Canada/US border are looking at the gas prices and saying, “Yeouch!”

Still, the question in my mind for Amazon is if the price is justified. Specifically, is the 3.5% surcharge really going to just cover the cost of fuel or is Amazon setting that percentage and anything that gets collected over top of that gets put into Amazon’s bank account? Is there anything stopping amazon from pushing up that percentage further? I’m honestly not sure if there is anything there stopping such an action. It would be great if there was an audit of some sort so the public can see if that specific percentage was, in fact, justified, but I have my doubts we’d ever actually see that.

Warranted percentage or not, though, one thing is certain: the price of things is going up. Given that Amazon does have a lot of market value, but not actually a monopoly per-se, it’s a bit difficult to judge if this would even be in Amazon’s interest to raise the costs. That is something that I don’t think even Amazon necessarily knows until sales figures start coming in post surcharge. With a lot of question marks surrounding this, it seems that things for the consumer is only going from bad to worse.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.