Amazon Pricing & Margin Insights
Marketplace prices set the ceiling. Landed cost sets the floor. Freight is the part of the floor most sellers still guess at.
The Amazon price illusion
Shoppers routinely find the same product cheaper on Amazon than on the brand's own store. That is rarely a coincidence and rarely pure generosity. It is the product of Buy Box competition, price-parity expectations, algorithmic repricers, and the sheer volume of sellers listing against the same ASIN.
The effect on a seller is one-directional: the market price drifts down, and everything you do to protect margin has to happen on the cost side.
Further reading: The Amazon price illusion: why products are often cheaper there
Where the margin actually goes
Referral and FBA fees
Published, predictable, and largely outside your control—model them exactly, then move on.
Buy Box pressure
Repricers compress the selling price toward the lowest credible offer on the listing.
Landed cost
Unit cost plus freight, duty, and last-mile delivery. This is where estimates quietly eat your margin.
Storage and aging
Slow sell-through turns into long-term storage fees and forces markdowns.
Returns
A category-dependent cost that has to be priced in before the launch, not after.
Stockouts
The most expensive line item never shown on a report—lost rank you have to buy back.
One total price makes landed cost real
If your freight input is a per-CBM or per-kilogram figure, your landed cost is an estimate. Chargeable weight, pickup, clearance, deconsolidation, and delivery to each fulfillment center all land afterward, and the true number only appears on the invoice.
Linktrans quotes one shipment total for a whole FBA plan covering five or more FC destinations, with China pickup included. Divide that total by the units in the shipment and you have a per-unit freight cost you can defend in a pricing model—before you commit the purchase order.
Price your next shipment before you price the SKU
One total, five or more FC destinations, under 60 seconds.