Something is stirring inside Amazon’s third-party seller ecosystem, and the whispers coming out of Seattle — and from a handful of large aggregator offices in New York and Miami — are getting harder to ignore. According to three sources close to the matter, Amazon has been quietly piloting an internal initiative, allegedly codenamed Project Meridian, that would fundamentally restructure the fee relationship between Amazon and its approximately 2.5 million active third-party sellers on the U.S. marketplace.
The initiative is unconfirmed. Amazon has not made any public announcement. But the chatter among high-volume FBA operators, aggregators, and marketplace consultants has grown loud enough that it’s now a recurring topic on private seller Slack groups and in the back channels of conferences like SellerCon and Prosper Show.
What Is Project Meridian, and Why Are Sellers Nervous?
Sources describe Project Meridian as an AI-driven fulfillment pricing model that would replace Amazon’s current flat-rate FBA fee tiers with a dynamic fee structure — one that adjusts storage, pick-and-pack, and last-mile delivery costs based on real-time inventory velocity, seasonal demand signals, and seller performance metrics including return rates and defect rates.
If accurate, the implications are significant. Under the current FBA fee structure, a seller shipping a standard-size product in the $10–$20 price range pays a relatively predictable fulfillment fee — roughly $3.22 to $4.01 per unit as of mid-2026. A dynamic model would theoretically reward high-velocity, low-return products with lower fees, while penalizing slow-moving or high-return SKUs with surcharges that could reportedly reach 20 to 35 percent above current base rates.
“What we’re hearing is that Amazon wants to use the same demand-forecasting infrastructure it uses internally for its own private label to price third-party fulfillment,” said one marketplace consultant who works with sellers doing between $5 million and $40 million annually on Amazon. “That’s a massive power shift. Sellers lose the ability to model their unit economics with any real certainty.”
Which Seller Categories Are Allegedly Being Targeted First?
According to sources close to the matter, Amazon’s internal teams have reportedly identified several categories as early candidates for the dynamic fee rollout:
- Apparel and footwear — historically high return rates make these SKUs expensive for Amazon to process, and sources say Meridian would apply a “return risk premium” to listings with trailing 90-day return rates above 15 percent
- Home goods and furniture — oversized items are allegedly facing new dimensional weight recalculations that could push effective fulfillment costs up by $1.80 to $3.50 per unit
- Electronics accessories — a category Amazon’s own private label competes in heavily, which has prompted speculation among sellers about whether the fee model is also designed to structurally disadvantage third-party competition
- Consumables and grocery — reportedly under review for new expiration-proximity storage surcharges tied to Amazon’s Frustration-Free Packaging compliance scores
Chris Turney, a former Amazon category manager who now runs the consultancy Flywheel Operator Group in Austin, told sources close to his firm that the signal pattern is consistent with what Amazon did before rolling out the Inventory Performance Index penalties in 2018. “They test it quietly at the category level, see who screams, and then roll it out broadly with six weeks’ notice,” Turney reportedly said in a recent private webinar attended by roughly 200 sellers. “If Meridian is real, you want to be cutting slow-moving SKUs and cleaning up your return rates right now, not when the announcement drops.”
How Are Aggregators Reacting Behind Closed Doors?
The aggregator community — already battered by a rough 2024 and 2025 that saw several high-profile restructurings, including the well-documented difficulties at Thrasio and the quieter portfolio culls at Perch — is reportedly treating Project Meridian as a serious risk scenario in portfolio planning models.
Sources at two mid-size aggregators, both of which asked not to be named, say their finance teams have begun running sensitivity analyses assuming a 12 to 18 percent blended increase in effective FBA costs across their SKU portfolios. One source described internal presentations in which brands with EBITDA margins below 18 percent were flagged as “Meridian vulnerable” — a term apparently coined by a CFO at one of the aggregators.
“We’ve started stress-testing every brand we own against a scenario where FBA costs go up 15 percent and we can’t pass that through to price without losing Buy Box. The math gets ugly fast for anything under a 4x ACOS threshold.” — Senior portfolio director at a mid-size Amazon aggregator, speaking on background
The Thrasio situation remains a cautionary reference point. After its 2024 bankruptcy restructuring, the company has been rebuilding under new leadership with a leaner portfolio, and sources say its operational team has been among the most vocal in private seller forums about the need for FBA cost diversification — specifically accelerating migration of eligible SKUs to Seller Fulfilled Prime and FBM arrangements backed by third-party 3PLs like ShipBob and Ware2Go.
Is Walmart Marketplace Positioning to Capitalize on Seller Anxiety?
The timing of the Project Meridian rumors has not gone unnoticed at Walmart’s Marketplace division, which has been aggressively courting Amazon sellers since the launch of its enhanced WFS (Walmart Fulfillment Services) seller incentive program in early 2026. Sources say Walmart’s marketplace seller acquisition team has been using Project Meridian in outreach conversations — framing Walmart’s flat-rate WFS fees as a stability advantage.
“We’ve had two calls in the last month where Walmart’s rep specifically mentioned Amazon fee uncertainty as a reason to diversify,” said one seven-figure Amazon seller in the pet supplies category. “They’re clearly listening to the same conversations we are.”
Walmart’s WFS fees, as of July 2026, remain structured on a flat per-unit model with no dynamic pricing components — a contrast that Walmart’s category managers have reportedly been instructed to emphasize in seller recruitment pitches. Whether that gap persists if Project Meridian proves real and successful remains an open question.
What Are Amazon PPC and Listing Experts Advising Right Now?
The ripple effects of the Project Meridian rumors are already showing up in how Amazon PPC and listing optimization agencies are counseling clients. Several agency operators reached for this story described a notable shift in the conversations they’re having with sellers over the past 60 days.
“Every brand we work with is asking the same question: if our FBA margins compress, what’s the ACOS ceiling we can sustain? We’re rebuilding targeting strategies around tighter break-even assumptions. It’s changing how we think about top-of-search bids entirely.” — Megan Corrado, founder of Cascadia Seller Solutions, speaking to sources familiar with her firm’s advisory work
The tools most sellers are reportedly turning to for scenario modeling include Helium 10’s Profitability Calculator (which several operators say they’re running with manually inflated FBA cost inputs to simulate Meridian conditions), Jungle Scout’s Sales Analytics dashboard, and spreadsheet-based unit economics models shared widely in communities like Amazon Seller Central’s official forums and the private FBA Masterminds Facebook group.
Listing optimization is also reportedly shifting in response. Sources say several top-ranked listing agencies — including Ranking Coach and independent consultants who work within the Canopy Management network — are advising clients to front-load conversion rate optimization work now, before any fee changes take effect. The logic: higher conversion rates mean better organic ranking, which reduces dependence on paid placement at a time when TACoS targets may need to compress.
When Could Project Meridian Actually Launch, and What Should Sellers Do Now?
Multiple sources place any formal announcement, if one comes, no earlier than Q4 2026, with a potential implementation window beginning in Q1 or Q2 2027. Amazon typically provides 30 to 60 days’ notice for fee structure changes, a timeline sellers have historically described as inadequate for operational restructuring.
The practical advice circulating in seller communities right now, sourced from operators and consultants who have navigated previous Amazon fee overhauls, clusters around several themes:
- Audit your full SKU portfolio for return rate and inventory velocity metrics using Helium 10’s Market Tracker or Jungle Scout’s Inventory Manager, and flag any ASIN with a 90-day return rate above 12 percent
- Model your unit economics at 15 percent and 25 percent higher FBA costs for each active SKU, and identify which products would flip negative before any price adjustment
- Evaluate Seller Fulfilled Prime eligibility for top-revenue SKUs — SFP volumes have reportedly increased 34 percent year-over-year among sellers in the $1M–$10M annual revenue band, according to anecdotal aggregator data
- Begin conversations with 3PL partners about hybrid fulfillment capacity, particularly for slow-moving or seasonal SKUs that would be most exposed to dynamic storage surcharges
- Diversify marketplace presence now rather than reactively — Walmart WFS, TikTok Shop fulfillment integrations, and direct-to-consumer channels all represent margin buffers if Amazon FBA economics deteriorate
Amazon declined to comment for this story. The company has not confirmed the existence of Project Meridian, and it is possible the initiative is narrower in scope than seller community rumors suggest — or that it remains in early internal testing with no committed launch timeline. But for sellers who lived through the 2018 IPI penalties, the 2023 inbound placement fee rollout, and the 2024 low-inventory-level fee additions, the pattern of quiet internal development followed by abrupt implementation is familiar enough to take seriously.
As one veteran FBA seller with over a decade on the platform put it in a widely-shared post in the Seller’s Summit private community: “Amazon doesn’t warn you. They announce. Build your operation like the fee change is already live.”
