91–100 of 203 posts
Does it add any value? Seems like pure middleman profiteering without positive output.
Lower price for consumers. Increased competition in the market. Increased product turnover for Walmart, meaning he helps those stores remain open. He has filled a gap in the market.
They found out pretty quickly that many customers preferentially buy Prime listed items over non-Prime items, and specifically purchase items they can quickly resell for a profit.
Is it possible this is just a bit of PR spin by Wallmart to position themselves as being cheaper than Amazon or have I been working in marketing for too long?
Remember, FBA charges you money to use it beyond the cut Amazon seller already pay to sell in the platform.
(Neat thing: a friend of mine was one of the devs on the Amazon FBA seller app that lets you scan barcodes at other stores and see how much you'll make selling it on Amazon)
This is cool. It reminds me of another three person team I’m familiar with that works on Amazon Prime arbitrage full time. They have a warehouse and an employee responsible for overseeing shipments in and shipments out. The entire business revolves around algorithmically identifying non-Prime merchandise that is undersold because it lacks the Prime label, purchasing the inventory, then reselling it under the Prime la…
Does it add any value? Seems like pure middleman profiteering without positive output.
And? A gas station convenience store clerk gets a salary in part from selling sugar water that promotes tooth decay and cancer. What's the difference? Everyone has to make a living, and our economy is not structured to prefer "positive" output, it only cares about profit. If you call this guy into question, you should be looking at the larger picture.
Additionally, he does use price tracking and discovery tools to try and find the deals with bigger amounts of arbitrage between Amazon and WalMart. Because pricing is so dynamic and changing all the time, occasionally an item just barely breaks even as Amazon will sometimes magically update prices for its own goods to match or beat what might have been available at WalMart in their store. But it all depends and varies a lot.
My friend does exactly this between IKEA and Ebay. Here in Australia, IKEA does not ship (not sure if they do else where) so she buys a heap of items at the Ikea stores and flips them online. She's been doing it for years and does pretty well at it. Here in Australia, IKEA stores are few and far between so her arbitrage is a huge value add for a lot of her customers since IKEA cannot (won't?) ship and traveling X KM'…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And? A gas station convenience store clerk gets a salary in part from selling sugar water that promotes tooth decay and cancer. What's the difference? Everyone has to make a living, and our economy is not structured to prefer "positive" output, it only cares about profit. If you call this guy into question, you should be looking at the larger picture.
Sure, I agree with you, it's not an unusual thing. Still, the question remains.
My friend does exactly this between IKEA and Ebay. Here in Australia, IKEA does not ship (not sure if they do else where) so she buys a heap of items at the Ikea stores and flips them online. She's been doing it for years and does pretty well at it. Here in Australia, IKEA stores are few and far between so her arbitrage is a huge value add for a lot of her customers since IKEA cannot (won't?) ship and traveling X KM'…
Here in US people are doing that with IKEA. The closest IKEA is about 2.5 hours way and you can put in a order through them and they make a weekly trip to buy your item and you can pickup it up locally.
Paying some one else for the luxury and buying it through an online medium like eBay is a pretty decent alternative to a 2.5 hour drive.