Amazon's response

As you'll see below, Amazon's response to my complaint about a recent sale was disappointing to say the least.

Greetings from Amazon.com.

My name is Laura, and I am an Escalation Specialist with the Amazon.com Seller Support team. Your message to Jeff Bezos was forwarded to me for my review and reply. I will include Jeff's office with this correspondence.

I am sorry to hear of your concerns with our selling fees. Since the fees taken for order #XXX-XXXXXXX-XXXXXX were correct, we will not be crediting you any additional shipping credit.

As Cassandra stated, the cost of shipping may be greater than the shipping credit you received. The shipping credit for a category will cover the cost of shipping most items in that category.

Also, Amazon.com collects a commission of 6-15% of the item cost, a variable closing fee (which is determined by what shipping option a buyer has selected) and a per transaction fee for non-Pro Merchant sellers (this is currently $0.99). These are the fees we assess for each transaction for all of our sellers.

You may wish to take these seller fees as well as the shipping credit you will receive into consideration when pricing your items.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

Best regards,

Laura H.
Amazon.com Seller Support

So Amazon guesses at the shipping cost and prevents sellers from covering the true shipping cost to the buyer without hiding that cost in the selling price which will make that seller look more expensive than the competition.

Again, I have always hated eBay sellers who undercut their sale price to win auctions and make up the difference on shipping, but Amazon's approach has the opposite effect.