Amazon.com is making changes to its fee structure for third-party sellers. Effective August 1, 2006, Amazon will change the variable closing fees and shipping credits for Books, Music, Video, DVD, Software and Video Game sales.

The changes are difficult to understand even for those familiar with Amazon fees. For example, Amazon is giving sellers an extra 50 cents in shipping credits for books sent domestic expedited, but those sellers will pay an extra 76 cents in variable commission fees, meaning the seller pays a net 26 cents extra in fees to Amazon. But a seller sending music items gets 40 cents less in shipping credits for Domestic Expedited delivery, but pays 44 cents less in variable costs, making it a net fee decrease of 4 cents.

Each shipping method has its own Shipping Credit and Variable Commission Fee rates, different for each type of item (Books, Music, Video, DVD, Video Games, and Software and Computer Games).

The confusion stems in part from changes Amazon instituted last October when it changed the way it reimburses sellers for shipping charges paid by buyers. Previously, it would forward to its Marketplace sellers only a portion of the shipping fees buyers pay for purchases, and called the difference between what the buyer pays and the seller receives for shipping costs a "shipping holdback fee." Starting last October, however, Amazon now credits the full shipping to the seller, but then charges a variable commission fee. Sellers complained because buyers are unaware that, in effect, Amazon is not reimbursing them the full shipping charge the buyers are paying (http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y05/m09/i13/s01).

The forthcoming changes can be found in charts on Amazon's announcement page.

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