Heaneyland!

It's short for "outsourcing fee"; it's to compensate Costello and Toussaint for the cost of having to fly to Bangalore to do the recording. Sadly, most U.S. session musician jobs have been offshored to low-wage "session centers" springing up all over Asia.

I was intrigued and asked Amazon what that was. The (explanatory part of the) response:

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I have looked for the item "River in Reverse" and found that there is $1.00 sourcing fee.

We add a sourcing fee for special order titles and other selected items because of the additional costs associated with processing these orders.

It is always important for us to hear how customers react to all aspects of our service, and we appreciate the time you took to write to us.
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This doesn't say much, but I imagine that it's warehoused overseas, or something. Whoever Amazon's MBA-grad analyst is who put that on there needs a lesson in vernacular.

(As many of you readers know, yours truly is also an MBA-grad analyst, but would never put a phrase like "Sourcing fee" anywhere it would see the light of day to an end-user...)

Interesting. And odd; I don't think this CD is an import or anything.

(A few Googles later:) Yeah, it's going to be released on Verve Forecast, and other CDs from that label don't have any extra charge from Amazon. I expect the fee is due to some error and will be corrected later, but in any case, I agree that "sourcing fee" is way too corporate a phrase to let the customers see.

They open it for you and take the stickers off.

Fitzcarraldo Frames DC sourcing fee 16.98 + $21.92 sourcing fee....I have no idea what this is. I (yes me) listed this item on Amazon for a nickel below everyone else. I have it listed for the 38.90 in my system. It sold and then I noticed the sourcing fee after. I don't know what it is and I am selling the product. I am located in the US and I have about 1500 items listed with Amazon (mostly electronics) My guess is amazon is going to take that 21.92 as a selling fee and deduct it from my payment. I won't know until monday when I get my weekly financial statement from Amazon. They usually take 15% from the total as a commission.

I was looking at this again. The list price for the CD is 16.98 and I am listing it above the list price; maybe they can't list items for more than list price so they call the additional amount a sourcing fee.

OK. So Amazon slaps a $131 fee onto a List Price of $29.95. Is someone growing the papyrus and pressing the ink, and then hand-copying and binding the finished product? C'mon, now. Will someone pul-leeze give me an answer that makes sense?