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The Frog Doesn’t Notice

"Knowing everything I know today... every fee, every policy, every restriction... would I start selling on Amazon from scratch?"

Sit with that for a second.

Because there's a name for this exercise. It's called zero-based thinking. And it might be the most important thing you do today.

Because here's what "today" actually looks like...

Your cash is locked up for nearing a month thanks to DD+7. A 3.5% fuel surcharge just dropped. Amazon killed their own prep services... They're decoupling reviews across variations. Inbound defect fees jumped from pennies to dollars. PPC costs keep climbing. And that’s just this year.

And every single one of these changes got announced the same way. "This is just a small adjustment."

$0.08 here. 3.5% there. Seven more days before you see your money.

The frog doesn't notice the water getting hotter. But he’s being boiled alive. Zero-based thinking forces you to feel the full temperature all at once.

Not "is this new change survivable?" That answer is always yes. Of course you can survive another $0.08. The real question is... would you jump into this water voluntarily today?

If yes... great. You've made a conscious decision. You're not trapped. You're choosing.

If no... that's information. Doesn't mean you quit tomorrow. But it means you should probably stop doubling down and start building your exit ramp. A second channel. A DTC play. A plan that doesn't assume Amazon gets better from here (because it won’t).

The pattern seems pretty clear: Amazon doesn't reverse these things. The 2022 and 2026 fuel surcharge? Folded into the base fees. DD+7? No opt-out. Every "small adjustment" becomes the new floor.

The danger isn't any single change. The danger is never stopping to ask the question. So ask it. Today. Out loud if you have to: "Would I start this... knowing what I know now?"

The IVS

Big thanks to Andrew Erickson for supplying this week’s IVS. Andrew lives in San Diego with two “little” entrepreneurs & loves to run. He grew and sold two 7-figure PL Amazon businesses, and now runs InventoryHero.ai, an inventory and demand planning app for Amazon Sellers.

Amazon MCF $11. TikTok Fulfillment Wants $5.
Here's the Calculator!

Hey Selling from the Beach! I created a calculator to help you estimate Amazon fees for your ASINs, especially when selling on TikTok. I found that using MCF for fulfillment can be quite expensive, costing around $11 per unit compared to just $5 for TikTok fulfillment.

I encourage you to input your own ASIN to see how it affects your costs!

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Life Lately in Costa Rica….

We’re into the second week of the boys being off school for Easter and it always lines up with the busiest stretch of tax season. Lots of work, long days, and you can’t help but notice other families off on trips while you’re thinking we’ll make it up later…….

This weekend I spent about an hour learning a Roblox game called Slap Battles with the boys. Grinding for different items, figuring out quests, and apparently there’s even a whole side of it where you’re in Discord trying to find people to help you complete things faster. Not exactly what I thought I’d be doing, but they were into it and kept going on and on describing in detail about the game, items, etc.

I remember reading once that when your kids are talking about something they care about, even if it seems weird or small to us, you should slow down and actually listen. Ask the questions. Stay in it a bit longer than you normally would. Because to them, those games or shows are the big things at that moment to them. If they feel like you care about the small stuff now (to us it is), they’re more likely to come to you later when it’s not so small.

We’ll take the trip later. For now, I’m learning Slap Battles and the shady trading world the happens in Discord.

DD+7 But… Daily Payouts Finally?

You might have missed this from last month: Effective March 12, 2026, Amazon holds your funds until 7 days AFTER delivery confirmation. Not after the order. Not after shipment. After the package hits the customer's doorstep.

Sounds minor. It's not.

Most sellers are on 14-day payouts. That's the part people keep glossing over. Under the old system, funds became available quickly after shipment and went out with your next biweekly disbursement. Under DD+7, funds don't even start becoming available until 7 days post-delivery. Then they still wait for your next payout window.

That means a sale that would have caught one disbursement cycle now can get bumped to the next one. 

The real math:

Old system... roughly 14 days of revenue sitting with Amazon at any time. New system... more like 21 to 24 days.

At $5K/day, that's an extra $35K to $50K permanently locked up. At $10K/day, $70K to $100K. At $20K/day... you do the math.

The transition was the gut punch. You effectively skip a disbursement cycle while PPC, inventory, and payroll keep hitting. If you had less than 3 weeks of cash reserves, you felt it.

What to do now:

1. Know your real float. Multiply average daily revenue by 21-24 (not 10). That's your actual capital sitting with Amazon. The difference from your old ~14 day float is your new cash gap.

2. Check if you have access to daily payouts. Amazon has been rolling out daily disbursement options to more and more accounts. We just got it on all of our accounts. If you see it in Seller Central, you may want to switch now. It won't eliminate the DD+7 hold, but it cuts your total float roughly in half compared to biweekly payouts. Instead of 21-24 days of revenue locked up, you're looking at closer to 10.

3. Shift your reorder triggers earlier. If you reorder when cash lands in your account, that trigger is now 1-2 weeks later than it used to be. Adjust or you'll stockout.

4. FBM sellers: audit your tracking. No valid delivery scan? Amazon holds funds for 7 days past the maximum estimated delivery date. That's weeks of trapped capital.

Amazon called this fraud prevention. Maybe. But the practical effect is billions in permanent, interest-free float... funded entirely by sellers.

The $3 Pharmacy Visit That Replaces a $190 Doctor Trip

Most people don't realize that the medications locked behind a doctor's visit back home are sitting on open shelves in pharmacies across Mexico, Central America, Southeast Asia… Costa Rica… Antibiotics, anti-nausea meds, altitude sickness pills, muscle relaxants. Walk in, tell the pharmacist what you need, walk out. $2 to $5 for the same drug that costs you a lot more back home.

This isn't sketchy. This is how healthcare works for the majority of the planet. The US is the outlier, not the standard.

Costa Rica is the perfect example. There are literally more pharmacies than churches. You'll pass three Farmacias before you see a single McDonald's. Need Azithromycin for traveler's stomach? Ciprofloxacin? Dramamine? Point, pay, done.

How to do this the smart way:

• Know the generic name of what you need before you go. Brand names differ by country.

• Verify the dosage matches what you'd take at home. Same drug, same mg.

• Check expiration dates on the box. Turnover is usually fast, but look anyway.

Stock up on travel essentials while you're there. Bring extras home. It's not illegal to carry personal-use quantities of non-controlled medications across borders (But use at your own risk, we’re not lawyers… shocker!)

To your success,

Rob & Max