So, October 2025 just wrapped up, and if you're like most of us running an Amazon business, your inbox probably looked like a crime scene of "Policy Update" notifications. It’s a lot. Honestly, keeping up with the firehose of amazon seller central news october 2025 feels like a full-time job on top of actually, you know, selling things. Between the holiday peak fees kicking in and some pretty aggressive AI changes, the platform felt different this month.
If you felt a sudden dip in your margins or noticed your storage limits acting weird, you aren't imagining it. Amazon made some quiet but heavy moves in October that are going to dictate how we play the game through the rest of the Q4 rush and into 2026.
The 60-Day Clock is Ticking (Hard)
Let’s talk about the change that actually hurts your wallet: the FBA reimbursement window. For the longest time, we had a massive 18-month cushion to find lost or damaged inventory and tell Amazon, "Hey, you owe me for this."
That’s gone.
As of the latest updates, that window has been slashed to 60 days for most claims. If a box of your premium coffee makers disappears into the abyss of a warehouse in Kentucky, you have two months to catch it. Miss that window? That’s just "donated" money to Jeff’s rocket fund. I’ve talked to a few sellers who already got burned because they only do deep audits once a quarter. You basically have to move to a monthly, or even bi-weekly, reconciliation schedule now just to stay whole.
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To make matters more "fun," Amazon is moving toward a manufacturing cost model for these payouts. They aren't just going to give you the retail price minus fees anymore. If you haven't filled out the new "Manage Your Manufacturing Cost" section in the Inventory Defect portal, they’ll just guess what it cost you to make the product. And spoiler alert: their guess is never going to be in your favor.
Holiday Peak Fees Are Officially Here
On October 15, the annual "tax" on holiday success kicked in. The holiday peak fulfillment fees are in full effect and will stay with us until January 14, 2026.
It’s a tiered system, but for most standard-sized items, you’re looking at an extra $0.20 to $0.35 per unit. It doesn't sound like much until you’re moving 5,000 units a month, and suddenly your "great" October looks a lot leaner on the bottom line.
- Small Standard (under 2oz): Jumped to around $2.48.
- Large Standard (1lb range): Sitting at roughly $3.15 to $3.39 depending on the exact weight.
- The Heavy Stuff: If you’re selling monitors or furniture (50-70 lbs), you’re getting smacked with a peak fee that can push fulfillment over $54.
The "Low-Price FBA" threshold is still a thing, thankfully. If your items are under $10, you get a break, but even those saw a tiny bump this month. If you haven't adjusted your pricing to account for these October 15 hikes, you're effectively paying Amazon to let people buy your stuff.
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Rufus and "Help Me Decide": The AI Takeover
If you opened the Amazon app lately, you noticed Rufus (the AI assistant) is everywhere. In October, Amazon rolled out "Help Me Decide." This isn't just a chatbot; it’s an active recommender that tells shoppers why they should buy one product over another based on their specific history.
This is a double-edged sword. If your listing has "thin" content or bad reviews, Rufus is going to tell the customer exactly why they should skip you. On the flip side, the amazon seller central news october 2025 highlights a new "Product Performance Spotlight" tool. It’s basically an AI coach in your dashboard that benchmarks your launch against competitors in real-time. It tells you if your conversion is lagging because your images suck or if you’re running out of inventory too fast.
The Return of the "Inbound Defect" Hammer
Remember when you could mess up a shipping label and it was just a small "oops"? Those days are ending. Amazon is getting incredibly strict about how inventory arrives at the fulfillment centers.
They’ve unified the "Inbound Defect Fee." If you misroute a shipment, delete a shipment after you've already "shipped" it in the system, or send boxes that don't match your manifest, the penalties have skyrocketed. For standard-size products, these fees used to be a few cents. Now, they can go up to $1.74 per unit. Imagine sending a shipment of 200 units with the wrong labels—that's a $348 mistake before you've even sold a single item.
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Prime Big Deal Days: A Weird October Vibe
The Prime Big Deal Days (October 7–8) were... interesting. While the volume was there, the "discount fatigue" was real. Sellers who succeeded weren't the ones doing 50% off everything; it was the ones using the new "Subscribe & Save" incentives.
Amazon pushed hard for sellers to offer higher discounts for first-time subscribers. It costs more upfront, but with the new storage utilization surcharges (which kick in at 26 weeks now), getting that predictable, recurring volume is the only way to keep your IPI score from cratering.
What You Should Actually Do Now
Look, the platform is getting more expensive and more automated. You can't just "set it and forget it" in 2025. Here is the move-forward plan based on everything that happened this month:
- Audit your costs immediately. If you haven't updated your manufacturing costs in the Inventory Defect portal, do it tonight. It’s the difference between getting $15 back for a lost item or $5.
- Shorten your reconciliation cycle. Set a recurring calendar invite for the 15th of every month to run your "Lost/Damaged" reports. You only have 60 days. If you wait for your quarterly tax prep, you’re leaving money on the table.
- Optimize for Rufus. Go through your A+ content and your Q&A section. The AI is scraping those to answer customer questions. If the answer isn't there, the AI will guess, or worse, tell the customer to look elsewhere.
- Watch your "Low Inventory" fees. Amazon is now dinging sellers who let stock fall below 28 days of supply. It’s a weird balance—don't have too much (storage fees) and don't have too little (low stock fees). Aim for that 30-45 day "sweet spot."
October was a wake-up call that the "hand-holding" era of Amazon is over. The sellers who win the rest of Q4 are going to be the ones who treat their Seller Central dashboard like a cockpit, not a hobby. Stay on top of those "Account Health" notifications, because the bots are getting faster at suppressing listings that don't meet the new October standards.