An Easy Way to Estimate FBA Fees — How to Use the FBA Revenue Calculator

Even when you find a product to sell on Amazon and judge from your research that it should sell, you can't tell how much profit you'll make unless you know the fees for selling via FBA. With FBA, besides Amazon's referral fee there are fulfillment fees and others. The fees also change with the product's size and category. FBA fees can be found right away by using the "FBA Revenue Calculator."

Accessing the FBA Revenue Calculator

Anyone with an Amazon Seller account can access the FBA Revenue Calculator. After signing in to Seller Central, go to the "FBA Revenue Calculator" (https://sellercentral.amazon.co.jp/fba/revenuecalculator/index).

Searching for the target product

In the search box, enter the product name or ASIN whose FBA fees you want to check, and click the "Search" button.

Running the simulation

① Enter the item price. You enter the amount you'll sell at on Amazon; enter the lowest price currently offered on Amazon. The price may have fallen by the time you list it yourself, so it's a good idea to look at the price history and enter your planned selling price. ② Click the "Calculate" button and the various results appear. ③ Check the seller's profit, and judge that you'll make a profit if you can source below that amount. Strictly speaking, including the product cost and the shipping cost to Amazon would give a more precise figure, but this gives you a rough benchmark for what price to buy at.

Checking the simulation results

Let's look at the detail of how much you pay Amazon in fees.

Looking at the selling fees, there's a referral fee and a variable closing fee. Separately from the referral fee there's a "per-item fee": with an Individual selling plan, ¥100 is charged for each item sold. With a Professional plan this fee doesn't apply. However, a Professional plan requires a fixed cost of ¥4,900 per month (excluding tax), so if you sell 50 or more items a month, Professional works out better. Referral fees differ by category. For products in some categories a minimum referral fee is set (for example, the seller pays whichever is greater, the referral fee or the minimum referral fee). For media products (books, music, video/DVD, PC software, video games), whichever is greater — the referral fee rate calculated on the item's price, or the minimum referral fee — is deducted.

Variable closing fee: for sales of media products, a variable closing fee must be paid per item on both the Individual and Professional plans.

Next, let's check the FBA fees.

Monthly storage fee: a prorated inventory storage fee is incurred monthly for products stored at Amazon fulfilment centres. Different monthly storage fees apply for January–September and October–December. So FBA charges go up during the year-end shopping season.

Fulfilment fee: the charge is determined based on the product's dimensions and weight.

How was that? When using FBA, Amazon's fees are determined by detailed calculations. Keep them firmly in mind so you don't end up with thin profits or a loss because you didn't account for Amazon's fees. That said, it's impossible to keep every calculation method in your head — so use the calculator to work out Amazon's fees!

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