Amazon India Rolls Out INR 5 Marketplace Fee For All Users

SUMMARY

The fee will be levied on all orders, except specific product categories like gift cards and digital services

This fee is inclusive of all taxes and will apply to all users, including the Amazon Prime members

Amazon’s rival Flipkart also charges INR 3 as platform fee on its ecommerce platform

Toeing its competitors on the ecommerce turf, Amazon India has slapped a marketplace fee of INR 5 on each order.

“The marketplace fee, a common industry practice, supports Amazon’s commitment to offer millions of products from diverse sellers with reliable doorstep delivery,” Amazon India said in a blog post on May 19.

This marketplace fee is inclusive of all the applicable taxes and will apply to all users, including the Amazon Prime members. It will be levied on all orders with some exceptions such as digital or physical gift cards, orders made on Amazon Business (B2B), Bazaar, Amazon Now and Amazon Fresh, digital purchases or payments such as mobile recharges, bill payments, travel/movie ticket bookings and so on.

For payment on delivery (POD) or prepaid orders, with any other processing fee, marketplace fee will not be charged as a separate line item.

Rival Flipkart had last year introduced a platform fee of INR 3 on its ecommerce platform and a fee of INR 5 on its quick commerce arm, Flipkart Minutes.

The Platform Fee Bandwagon

With the growing popularity and dependence on ecommerce and quick commerce, there has been a rapid change in the amount of extra fee charged on every order.

For instance, Zomato started charging a platform fee of INR 2 in 2023 and, within one year, the company hiked it four times. Zomato’s platform fee now stands at INR 10 per order. Swiggy too raised its platform fees on rapid intervals, currently being at par with rival Zomato.

Quick commerce giants like Blinkit, Instamart and Zepto also made headlines for levying hefty fees. While Zomato has started charging a ‘long distance service fee’ for orders delivered beyond 4 km, Swiggy Instamart chipped in with the festive handling charge for orders placed in the Holi week.

Users have often flagged concerns regarding these platforms putting several charges like handling fee, platform fee and small cart fee, which ends up inflating the price of the total order.

In fact, it has become a norm for these platforms to charge innovative fees whenever they wish, said a petition filed by the All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation (AICPDF) with the Competition Commission of India (CCI) against these quick commerce players. It accused the new-age businesses of unfair pricing practices and monopolising the market.