FBA Inbound API v2024-03-20 - Any way to get the Inbound Placement Fee PER INDIVIDUAL SHIPMENT in left flow?

[MetaMan2023]

When you create a shipment with the left flow (items packed up front), the Inbound Placement Fee (IPF) is provided in the "Placement Options" list and covers ALL shipments... for example if there are 2 shipments on the Placement, the IPF may show $100 in total and covers BOTH shipments.

Let's say we choose that placement option, which results in Amazon creating the two shipments (FBA-1 and FBA-2).

The question: Is there anyway to get the individual IPF being charged PER SHIPMENT? This data does not seem to exist in the "getShipment" call... the only place we can find it so far is in the listPlacementOptions, but again that includes the entire fee, not the broken down fee per shipment.

We could pro-rate it based on units, but this is not accurate as the fee is dynamic based on the size of the item -- it's not a pure per unit fee. So even if the shipments have identical quantities of identical items, the fee won't be, for example $50 each.

We do see the fee per shipment appears in Seller Central -- meaning if you look at an individual shipment it does show the per shipment fee.

Is there any way to get the PER SHIPMENT fee?

If not, it seems that the "getShipment" call should return the fees at a minimum after the shipments are created.

@puppsupr

[MeenaAmz]

We currently have fees displayed for packing option, placement option and prep instructions. getShipment doesn't display a fee right now. If you are able to see fee by shipment in send to amazon workflow, can you please elaborate the use case and impact of this so we can create a feature request with the team.

Thanks
Meena

[MetaMan2023]

• Let's say we create a new plan and generate placement options using the left flow.

• One of those placement options is to send to two centers, A & B

• The plan provides for a combined IP Fee to send to BOTH centers -- let's say $100

This is the where the issue comes in: With the current API, there is no way to tell what the IP Fee is PER SHIPMENT, only PER PLAN.

Since getShipment does not return the IP Fee for that particular shipment, we have to estimate it -- and since the items (and their respective fees) can vary, it's not 100% accurate.

If we visit Seller Central for a given shipment, SC does provide the IP Fee on a shipment by shipment basis, so the whole plan may say "IP Fee = $100" and then the shipments may say "IP Fee for A = $40, IP Fee for B = $60"... but the API does not.

The getShipment call should return the fees associated with that shipment once they are established by choosing a placement option.

For now we are just estimating it by dividing the PLAN IP Fee by the # of units in the plan to get an average "per unit" in the plan then using that to multiply by the # of units in a shipment to get a per shipment "estimate" however it is not 100% accurate, and there are scenarios where it could be way off if the item sizes vary.

We want accurate date to best calculate cost savings when going to various locations, centers, and making decisions on whether to pay an IP Fee or not. Also since we cannot match it up with Seller Central, it's harder to audit if it is accurate or we were mis-charged.

[puppsupr]

HI @MetaMan2023,
Please try using the getShipmentItemsByShipmentId since its not deprecated. Let me know if that works for you.

But if you want to get placement level data you can call listPlacementOptions for a confirmed plan to check for the fee details.

[MetaMan2023]

HI @MetaMan2023, Please try using the getShipmentItemsByShipmentId since its not deprecated. Let me know if that works for you.

But if you want to get placement level data you can call listPlacementOptions for a confirmed plan to check for the fee details.

@puppsupr

Sorry neither of these solve the issue.

Option (A) getShipmentItemsByShipmentId just lists the shipment items -- there are no fees returned in that call.

Option (B) is what I am already doing however that just returns the total inbound Placement Fees on ALL shipments in a plan. For example when I make that call on a workflow (inbound plan) that has 5 shipments -- it may return (paraphrasing):

Inbound Placement Fees (for all shipments) = $150

Shipments = shAAAA, shBBBB, shCCCC, shDDD, shEEE

The inbound Placement Fees are returned in aggregate for ALL 5 shipments within the plan... there is no breakdown of the fees per individual shipment. Since each shipment is not identical (ie: Amazon may send more or less units to a different center) then this is an issue as we cannot get accurate data per shipment. The best we can do is "average" the IPFee per unit (in all 5 shipments) and then estimate it per actual shipment.

We need a way to get the Inbound Placement fee per individual shipment. NOTE: This individual shipment information is available in Seller Central in my example above -- just does not seem available in the API.

[Cw733]

Agree with this, we need this information per shipment so that we have accurate cost information.