Hundreds of Amazon sellers are boycotting the company’s advertising platform to protest recent policy changes. The company recently changed how it pays out seller earnings and collects payments for its advertising services, saying it would start charging merchants a 3.5% fuel surcharge to offset surging oil prices from the Iran war.
This change has not gone over well for many sellers. “We’re running out of f—ing margin,” said Michael Patrón, who runs an eight-figure Amazon business and frequently criticizes the company’s policies on his X account. “I think that’s why it keeps getting more and more frustrating.”
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Patrón is among the Amazon sellers who are boycotting the platform for the changes, which come at an already tough time. The 24-hour advertising boycott is being organized by Million Dollar Sellers, a community of more than 700 members that collectively generate about $14 billion in revenue.
“Sellers have complained for years, but this feels different,” MDS co-founder Eugene Khayman said in a post on X about the boycott. “The reason is simple: this is no longer just about irritation. It is about cash extraction.”
Amazon Spokesperson Ashley Vanicek said the recent changes to advertising payment methods and disbursements align “a small subset of sellers” with practices already used by most of its merchants. The company also said it introduced the fuel surcharge to partially recover costs that have been driven higher by rising oil and logistics prices.
Amazon’s third-party marketplace was launched in 2000, and hosts millions of sellers. It has grown to be an important part of the company’s retail strategy. Seller services revenue, which includes commissions, fulfillment, advertising and customer service support, has surged more than 400% since 2017.
Several sellers said that they expect to raise prices as a result of the temporary fuel surcharge, which takes effect April 17. The other policy changes threaten to tie up their cash, which could have more damaging consequences, according to CNBC. Khayman said that this move will leave merchants unable to make payroll or pay suppliers, and push them to take on more debt.
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“The majority of sellers, it’s, you know, husband and wife teams, one employee, one assistant, kind of a thing where they get 3% cash back on their ad spend, which is probably their third-largest expense,” Khayman said in an interview. “So you’re getting a large amount of money back on this, and they’re taking away that ability.”
Khayman added that many sellers, especially smaller businesses, “live off of their credit card points” earned from purchases on Amazon ads.