Changes in Referral Fees from 5 June 2019

From 5 June 2019, changes come into force regarding the Referral Fee, which is the percentage fee that Amazon charges from sales made through its platforms.

The most significant changes are:

Reduction of fees in the Grocery category (excluding beer, wine, and alcoholic beverages), Beauty, Health & Personal Care, and Baby category products (excluding children's clothing) from 15% to 8% for items with a total sale price (including shipping and gift wrapping costs) below 10 EUR/10 GBP. The 15% rate will still apply to items with a total sale price greater than 10 EUR/10 GBP.

We will reduce the Referral Fee for Furniture category items from 15% to 10% on the portion of the total sale price exceeding 200 EUR/175 GBP. This does not apply to mattresses. The fee for mattresses will remain at 15%.

We will reduce the Referral Fee for Jewellery category from 20% (25% in the UK) to 5% for the portion of the total sale price exceeding 250 EUR/225 GBP.

The selling fee in the Watches category will be reduced from 15% to 5% for the portion of the total sale price above 250 EUR/225 GBP.

A minimum sales fee of 0.30 EUR/0.25 GBP will be introduced across all categories, except for Grocery and Media category which include books, music, video games, DVDs, and software.

The Referral Fee for televisions, laptops, and computers in France will increase from 5% to 7%.

In summary, there are more reductions than increases. The trend shows that Amazon is systematically implementing changes that favour more expensive products and high-turnover categories.