Platforms Pass Fuel Costs to Sellers

Major online platforms are increasingly using temporary surcharges on shipping/logistics (rather than list prices) to recoup fuel and operational cost spikes, directly raising the effective fees paid by small merchants that rely on platform fulfillment. Those surcharges are applied to platform shipping charges and can be rolled out faster than regulatory or carrier rate changes. — This reframes inflation and small‑business pain as not only a macro energy issue but a platform-policy question about who bears transitory supply‑shock costs and how that shifts bargaining power and market structure.