11–15 of 15 posts
Most people would be surprised at the retail margins for many products (e.g. insurance) and don't realise how much bargaining power those that own the customer relationship (Walmart, Amazon, Booking.com, DoorDash etc.) have.
They deliver tens of millions of customers with pre-verified payment methods, ready to purchase.
There are a lot of new and ignorant programmers now, more than there ever were. They will agree to terms that are "not balanced in their favour." Programming is being commoditized by a limited number of managers and the like. This is the result. They reap the largest profits. Look for yourself.
As a programmer distributing on these platforms you get all of the above for free in addition to billions of existing users. That's the reason I think 30% is justified.
For many brick & mortar retail segments, fees can be much higher than 30%. Supermarkets can charge easily 50% of final price as fee (i.e. they buy the product from manufacturer at 50% of final price), and for some categories in some countries it can be much higher still. This then pays for their operations (warehousing, inventory, labour, rent of spaces in attractive areas...).
Yes, consumers pay this fee ultimately, but they are happy to do so in exchange of elimination of the search friction (a vast choice available under one roof). In fact today we have largely moved away from going to the baker for bread, then butcher for meat, the local market for veggies, the hardware store for nails etc. Even dedicated stores (like clothing stores on the High Street) offer choice of sizes, opportunity to try the garments on etc.) and are in areas of high foot traffic that enable searching for the right product by browsing in nearby stores. Ultimately, though, retail remains a low margin (in % terms) business, a proof that those fees are not that absurd.