Commercial Advisor to 1P Amazon Vendors // Advanced Profitability & Negotiation Strategies
1P Vendors: Beware of #Amazon's New Provisional Co-op Agreements! 🚨🇺🇸 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴? Amazon just introduced provisional rates for U.S. vendors that affect: 1. Marketing Funds (MDF / CoOp) 2. Damage Allowances 3. Freight Allowances 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗿𝘀? Amazon applies these provisional rates even if you have -not- negotiated these with your Vendor Manager! So if your previous terms have expired Amazon may still charge you a fixed rate instead. 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗜 𝘀𝗲𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝘆 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁? You can access applicable rates and billing details in Vendor Central. Go to Payments > CoOp > Provisional CoOp Rates. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗨.𝗦. 𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗱𝗼? Serve notice on any agreements you wish to renegotiate in your 2025 AVN. If you have been charged a provisional CoOp rate, contact your Vendor Manager to dispute the charge and begin negotiations to have it removed permanently or set at a lower rate. Questions? Leave them in the comments below! 👇
What Holly Byerley experienced is also what we’ve seen. It’s either category driven and/or asins not mapped properly to a standard agreement. Our teams practice is to compare before escalating since provisional rates can be lower than current rates for the same client. Easy to check manually once a month for new provisional agreements or better yet use a service like Reason Automation Andrew Hamada to track new provisional agreements. Martin Heubel makes a good point about one positive outcome of provisional coop - less surprise audits years later.
As it is, I think this page is not available in the latest version! 🤔
I like to think of it as a surprise Christmas present from Amazon that no one wanted, even our VM.
WOW, thats all.
Amanda Kiner
Provisional Co-op rates can catch vendors off guard, especially if agreements have expired. Staying proactive with negotiations and monitoring charges in Vendor Central is key to avoiding unexpected costs.
E-commerce Management Focused on Sales Growth and Strategic Planning
1wTip: Make sure all of your ASINs are linked to your approved Categories. If your approved for Beauty only, anything linked to other categories would be served up under Provisional vs Vendor Agreements. We received a Provisional deduction in NOV for ASIN that was mistakenly linked to Baby, which is outside of our approved Beauty designation. It’s a back-end issue that our SVS is navigating for us. And we didn’t know this was the same ASIN that had this issue in NOV. We had already raised another catalog issue on this same ASIN prior to T5. Good time to check now, may need to request a catalog dump from Support in order to see a missed item.