At a FreshDirect checkout in a Manhattan apartment Tuesday night, the total on a repeat grocery order was unchanged from last week. The same held at Walmart.com, Target.com, and a half-dozen Shopify storefronts sampled in the afternoon. Amazon's 3.5% fuel-and-logistics surcharge on Fulfillment by Amazon fees took effect Friday, April 17, adding roughly $0.17 per unit to the seller's fulfillment bill on a standard parcel. [1] Six days in, no other retailer has matched the line item, and the consumer has not yet been told anything has changed.

The paper's Tuesday brief ran the architecture: Amazon solo on the surcharge, with USPS's 8% temporary increase on Ground Advantage and Parcel Select arriving April 26 as the only follower in the carrier stack. [2] The extension to Buy with Prime and Multi-Channel Fulfillment kicks in May 2. Wednesday Day 6 holds that architecture and adds a sharper consumer-facing reading. Amazon cited "elevated costs in fuel and logistics" tied to the Iran war — Brent closed at $98.48 Tuesday, off the $107 mark that accompanied the April 2 announcement — and called the charge temporary, a word Amazon also used in 2022 before folding that surcharge into base fees in 2023. [3]

What has not happened in six days is what tells the story. The third-party seller sitting on the Amazon marketplace eats the $0.17 first; the retailer across the aisle has not moved. If a shopper in Brooklyn is going to see the Iran-war surcharge in a ring total rather than in a press release, it is going to arrive as the next quiet round of price resets, not as a line item. That round has not started. [1]

-- MAYA CALLOWAY, New York