Operator-written · every figure sourced
Marketplace selling, read from the invoice up.
Operational guides for Amazon, Walmart, eBay, TikTok Shop and Etsy sellers. Every fee, threshold and date is cited to its source and carries the day it was checked.
Every fee and tariff change since May 2025, dated and sourced. Open the log →
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Amazon is removing the seller-eligibility gate on the Featured Offer. The price gate stays.
Amazon's July 6, 2026 announcement removes the first step in Featured Offer selection — the seller-performance screen — in every store by the end of 2026. The ranking step, and the pricing rules that suppress offers, are unchanged. What the announcement says, what it does not say, and what to check in your account.
10 minPricing Health: the two tabs, the three offer states, and the order to fix them when the Featured Offer disappears
Every price-driven Featured Offer loss lands in one of three Pricing Health rows: deactivated for a suspected pricing error, ineligible against the Competitive External Price, or eligible within 5% and not winning. What each row means in Amazon's words, the fix that clears it, and the margin check to run first.
Eligible-and-close band: within 5% of the Featured Offer price — Amazon
5 minAmazon's first $200 billion quarter — and the 26% number that matters more to sellers
Q2 2026: net sales up 20% to $200.6 billion, advertising up 26% to $19.8 billion. Demand is accelerating — and so is the pay-to-play pressure on organic visibility. The seller read, plus what to watch at Accelerate on 22-September 24.
5 mineBay closes the $1.4B Depop deal — and Etsy cuts 200 jobs six days after banking it
The Depop acquisition completed with eBay pledging to run the resale platform intact; Etsy announced 200 layoffs days after receiving the cash. What the reshuffle signals for sellers on both platforms — and why fee structures are the thing to watch next.
6 minLabor Day week: the short-week trap in your inbound plan
September 7 removes a working day from carriers, ports and receiving docks in the same week your Q4 freight is supposed to move. What a holiday week actually does to transit and check-in times, and the two adjustments that cost nothing this week and save a scramble next week.
5 minNew rule: AI-generated people in your images must now carry a metadata tag
Amazon now requires product images and A+ Content featuring photorealistic AI-generated people to include 'contains-synthetic-performer' in the image file's XMP metadata before upload — with real people, AI-edited real people and non-photorealistic figures reported exempt.
8 minThe free Rufus research most brands never open
Two data sources already inside Seller Central tell you what Amazon's AI wants to know about your product: the Search Query Performance dashboard and the questions Rufus itself displays on your listing. How to read both, and turn them into listing edits — without buying a single tool.
5 minTikTok Shop is testing a Prime of its own: Shop Plus at $6, $10 and $15 a month
TikTok Shop is testing a paid membership bundling free shipping, discounts and coupons at three monthly tiers — a deliberate shift from impulse buying toward repeat purchasing. What a loyalty layer would mean for sellers still digesting the 8% fee.
8 minFrom day 181 to month 15: the sell-down, liquidate or remove decision at every step of the aged-inventory ladder
The storage guide explains the aged-inventory surcharge. This one decides. At each band from day 181 to the new 15-month tier, here is the monthly cost of holding one unit, the cost of removing it, and the discount at which selling it down beats both.
Decision points: day 150, day 240, day 330, month 12
7 minFBT's fixed-dollar problem: why cheap products lose on TikTok Shop
Fulfilled by TikTok prices per unit in dollars while every other cost scales in percentages — at roughly $2.86-$4.28 per unit, that flat fee is ~9% of a $40 sale and about a quarter of a $15 one. The SKU-selection rule that falls out of the arithmetic, sharpened by August's move to 8%.
~$2.86–$4.28 per unit (seller-tool estimate)Start here
Which selling model fits you
Capital, contacts, time and downside tolerance decide this far more than enthusiasm does. Scored in your browser, nothing stored.
What it actually costs to start
Published ranges by model, with the disagreements left visible. Private label estimates vary by a factor of ten, and the reason is worth knowing.
What nobody puts in the sales video
Cash flow timing, the rising fee floor, account risk — and why so many paid courses transfer money rather than skill.
The five models, and what each rules out
Retail arbitrage, online arbitrage, wholesale, private label, handmade. Each closes doors as well as opening them.
Fee and policy log
Full log →2026-10-15 Upcoming
Holiday peak fulfillment fee window opens
Peak fulfillment fees apply from October 15, 2026 to January 14, 2027 across FBA, Remote Fulfillment, MCF and Buy with Prime, averaging $0.32 per unit over non-peak rates in the US, with the 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge applied on top. Announced by Amazon on July 7, 2026.
2026-09-22 Upcoming
CBP Entry Type 13 voluntary test begins
A voluntary electronic test for international mail shipments valued at $2,500 or less begins, per the Federal Register notice of June 24, 2026 (91 FR 38007). Participation is voluntary; the postal informal entry requirement continues.
2026-08-04 In force
TikTok Shop US referral fee raised to 8%
Trade reports date an increase in the standard US referral fee from 6% to 8% for most non-food categories to August 4, 2026, with beauty and some electronics sub-categories above that. TikTok has issued no press release; the referral line in your own settlement statement is the record.
2026-07-06 In force
Featured Offer: seller-eligibility step removed
Amazon is removing the seller-performance eligibility screen from Featured Offer selection, rolling out across all stores from July 2026 and completing by the end of 2026. The ranking step and its criteria — competitive pricing, delivery speed, performance — are unchanged, as are the price-based reasons an offer becomes ineligible. Announced in Seller Central on July 6, 2026.
Method
Every figure carries either a period or a source.
Every rate here is linked to its source and stamped with the day it was checked. Where two published sources disagree — and on marketplace fees they routinely do — both figures appear and the reader is sent to the primary document, rather than one being quietly picked. Where a figure comes from operations the author worked on directly, it is labeled first-party and the period is stated.
The two routes a number can take onto this site. There is no third. Editorial standards →
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