Amazon India on Monday announced that it has eliminated referral fees or seller fees on more than 1.2 crore products priced below Rs 300 across more than 135 categories on its e-commerce platform. Referral fee, starting at 2 per cent, is a commission Amazon takes from sellers for every product sold via its platform. The zero referral fee will be effective April 7, 2025.
Amazon currently has over 16 lakh sellers selling goods via e-commerce platform in India.
Referral fee varies by product category and is calculated as a percentage of the total selling price of the product. For instance, if a book is sold for Rs 450 and the referral fee for books category is 4 per cent, the referral fees for the book sold would be Rs 450 x 4 per cent = Rs 18.
Importantly, other than referral fees, which is now scrapped, the company also charges closing fees and weight handling or shipping fees. Sellers may also be charged additional fees based on the fulfillment channel, programme or service used by them for example, pick & pack fee, storage fee, and FBA (fulfillment by Amazon) removal fee.
Apart from the referral fee, the company also announced reduced shipping costs to help sellers save more.
Amazon India said it has introduced a flat shipping rate for sellers using external fulfilment channels such as Easy Ship and Seller Flex with national shipping rates now starting at Rs 65, down from the earlier Rs 77.
Amazon Easy Ship is a logistics solution for sellers where Amazon picks up orders from the seller’s location and delivers them to the customers’ doorstep. With Seller Flex, Amazon manages a portion of the seller’s warehouse as an Amazon fulfilment centre.
Moreover, Amazon said it has reduced the weight handling fees for lightweight items under 1 kg by up to Rs 17, lowering the overall fees that sellers pay to Amazon.
The company claimed that sellers shipping more than one product unit at a time is expected to see up to 90 per cent savings in selling fees on the second unit.
“By creating promotions like “Buy 2, Get 10% Off” through the (promotions creation tool), sellers can maximise their savings under the new fee structure,” Amazon said in a statement.
Back in September 2024 also, the company had reduced seller fee – ranging from 3 to 12 per cent for 59 product categories.