Amazon Shipping is preparing to increase peak season surges: How should sellers respond?
As the holiday shopping season approaches, Amazon Shipping has announced that it will once again impose temporary peak season surcharges. This is similar to the practices of traditional carriers such as FedEx and UPS, aimed at addressing the additional operational costs caused by the surge in package volume.Amazon states on its website:
In order to maintain reliability during peak demand periods, we must make operational adjustments. Peak surcharges help support these updates and ensure that our services meet expectations
This means that during the 2025 holiday season, merchants using Amazon Logistics and third-party seller delivery services will face a similar increase in delivery costs as last year.
Logistics pressure continues to rise during peak season
During peak order periods, Amazon not only increases fees, but also actively attracts more merchants to join its delivery network. Recently, subscription based pet supplies company BarkBox and children's subscription box company KiwiCo have shifted from other carriers to Amazon Logistics. According to executives from both companies, switching to Amazon Shipping has resulted in faster delivery speeds and more cost-effective shipping costs.
However, overall, in the face of the continuous increase in peak season surcharges, sellers' profit margins will be further squeezed.
According to the Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index, Amazon Logistics' package shipping volume in the United States increased by 7.3% year-on-year in 2024, surpassing the growth rate of USPS, UPS, and FedEx. However, at the same time, the overall freight rates in the industry have risen, and the cost pressure borne by sellers during the peak season is still increasing.
The Challenge of Cross border Sellers
For cross-border e-commerce sellers, the combination of peak season and holiday promotions (such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, Boxing Day, etc.) is itself the most critical sales window of the year. However, high logistics costs and complex surcharge structures often erode the profits that should belong to the seller.
How to maintain fast performance while reducing peak season costs has become a problem that sellers must solve in the North American market.