Important Amazon Weekly News #12

 Amazon has announced new FBA and Referral Fee rates for U.S. sellers, effective January 15, 2026. The company claims the average increase will be just $0.08 per unit — less than 0.5% of the typical product price (though how this figure was calculated remains unclear). However, analysts at Carbon6 note that behind these “small numbers” lies a gradual shift toward a more complex cost structure.

The update introduces deeper segmentation: fees will now vary by size, weight, and storage region — with AWD storage in Western U.S. seeing the largest increases. Additional adjustments include higher Inbound Defect Fees, Low-Inventory-Level Fees, and revised Returns Processing Fees for categories with high return rates.

Why it matters
Amazon’s fee system is becoming more flexible — but also more intricate. The growing number of sub-fees tied to errors, storage, and returns means sellers must re-evaluate their cost structure and logistics strategies.

To offset complexity, Amazon is expanding its analytics toolkit: the Revenue Calculator, Fee Preview Report, and Profit Analytics have all been updated to help sellers model the impact of new fees on SKU-level margins.

What it means for sellers
Even a minor rate change can add up across large inventories. Sellers should audit their cost of goods, optimize packaging, certify under SIPP, and run simulations in Profit Analytics to adjust pricing and logistics before the new rates take effect.

Takeaway
2026 won’t bring a massive price hike — but rather a structural reform of Amazon’s commission model. The marketplace aims for more precision and transparency in its fee system, while shifting greater responsibility to sellers for operational efficiency and profitability.

 Amazon has confirmed a new round of layoffs tied to its internal restructuring toward artificial intelligence. According to MSN and Reuters, the cuts affect several hundred corporate positions across departments such as HR, operations, and communications.

Why it matters
This move is part of Amazon’s broader “AI-first” strategy — a shift toward automating manual processes and embedding AI across its operations. While the reductions are not massive, they signal a clear transition to self-learning systems and AI-driven workflows.
The company stated that the reorganization aims to speed up AI adoption across planning, logistics, recruiting, and seller support.

What it means for sellers
In the short term, the changes won’t directly affect sellers. But over time, Amazon’s increasing reliance on automation could bring faster moderation and listing analysis, while also raising the role of algorithms in decision-making — from listing suspensions to account reviews.
Experts predict that throughout 2026, Amazon will continue optimizing non-core departments and delegating more functions to AI systems. This could mean fewer “human” interactions with Seller Support, though many sellers would argue those are already rare.

Takeaway
Amazon’s restructuring shows a clear pivot toward an AI-driven infrastructure, where machine intelligence plays a central role in every process — efficient, data-driven, but increasingly opaque for sellers navigating the platform’s evolving rules.

 On the night of October 20, 2025, Amazon Web Services (AWS) suffered a large-scale outage that began at 00:10 GMT in the US-East-1 (Northern Virginia) region — one of its most critical data hubs. The disruption caused widespread server launch failures and database errors.

According to the AWS Health Dashboard, the root cause was a DNS resolution error, which triggered cascading failures across key services including EC2, DynamoDB, Lambda, and RDS. The outage affected dozens of major companies — among them Snapchat, Duolingo, Roblox, and Lloyds Bank. Services that relied on launching new virtual servers were hit the hardest.

Why it matters
The US-East-1 region is central to AWS’s global operations, hosting many of its security and authorization systems. After engineers resolved the DNS issue, they faced further delays restarting new server instances and scaling infrastructure — extending recovery time across dependent services worldwide.

What it means for Amazon sellers
Amazon confirmed that Seller Central and FBA experienced temporary disruptions lasting several hours, including order processing delays and inventory update lags. All systems have since stabilized, though sellers may still see short-term data delays in CloudTrail and EventBridge logs.

What’s next
Amazon has completed service restoration and launched an internal audit of the US-East-1 infrastructure. This marks the largest AWS incident since 2023 — a sharp reminder of the risks of cloud centralization, where a single regional failure can ripple across the entire internet, affecting millions of users and Amazon sellers alike.

What’s new for the holiday season?  Amazon has introduced several updates ahead of the 2025 holiday rush:

First, as in previous years, the company is extending the return window. All items purchased between November 1 and December 31, 2025, can be returned until January 31, 2026 — except for Apple products, which must be returned by January 15. The policy applies to both FBA and FBM sellers, encouraging early holiday purchases without the fear of return delays.

Second, Amazon has improved FBA inbound logistics. Sellers now see a real-time list of fulfillment centers with live warehouse load indicators and available delivery slots. This allows them to plan inbound shipments more efficiently, reduce check-in times, and avoid bottlenecks — especially critical in the peak pre-holiday period.

Finally, Amazon has launched a new AI Video Generator for Sponsored Ads. The tool automatically creates promotional videos from product listing data in just minutes — no production team or third-party software required. Sellers can customize the videos by editing text, fonts, and logos, giving Private Label brands an easy way to scale visual content on demand.

What it means for sellers
For brands using FBA, the new inbound visibility tool offers a way to better predict warehouse processing times and maintain strong delivery metrics. Meanwhile, the AI Video Generator empowers sellers to quickly produce and adapt short videos for deals, holidays, and seasonal campaigns — a major win for agility in Amazon advertising.

As for the extended returns policy, it remains a double-edged sword: great for shoppers, but another layer of complexity for sellers navigating Q4.

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