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Amazon Is Poised to Unleash a Purge of Small Wholesale Suppliers

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Re: Amazon Is Poised to Unleash a Purge of Small Wholesale Suppliers

#41

Post by cannonedhamster »

corndoge wrote: post #33
Goronmon wrote: post #27

So Amazon is going harder into the marketplace side of things, turning Amazon from an online retailer into another version of eBay? This doesn't sound like a positive move for me, but I guess that doesn't necessarily means its bad for Amazon's profitability if other people don't mind rolling the dice on random products by relatively unknown sellers and manufacturers.

Doesn't this article say the exact opposite of what you just said?

No. Amazon is pushing smaller sellers into their marketplace platform which is ride with counterfeits, thieves, and garbage products with fake reviews purchased on Facebook. My wife and I stopped going to Amazon because product quality started getting so bad. It's to the point that I trust Alibaba or eBay over Amazon, which is a shame. I suspect there's a lot of less vocal people in the same boat who've started exploring other merchants.

Re: Amazon Is Poised to Unleash a Purge of Small Wholesale Suppliers

#42

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

_red wrote: post #39

No one ever talks about eBay anymore....but when are we going to collectively realize that they are the best of the "big tech" companies? They've stayed remarkable true to their mission, haven't entered politics (ironic given previous CEO), and continued to offer a good service. Since the commingling of inventory is now so prevalent at Amazon, I find myself using eBay more and more.

I've had nothing but good experiences with ebay over the past few years, and I'm a very heavy user (buying and selling). I've been a member since 2002, FWIW.

Re: Amazon Is Poised to Unleash a Purge of Small Wholesale Suppliers

#43

Post by JohnFen »

mdorazio wrote: post #9

To bypass the pay/nag wall: https://outline.com/9mHK5d Important to note that this "purge" is only for wholesale suppliers, not for marketplace sellers like the title implies. Amazon is basically only going to purchase products for resale from large suppliers, and will shove the rest into the normal marketplace operations where they have to compete with everyone else on actually selling and shipping their products di…

> Important to note that this "purge" is only for wholesale suppliers, not for marketplace sellers like the title implies.

Yes, but I avoid the marketplace sellers. I've been burned too often with those -- if I'm going to roll the dice on that sort of thing, I'm better off with eBay.

Re: Amazon Is Poised to Unleash a Purge of Small Wholesale Suppliers

#44

Post by walterbell »

_red wrote: post #39

No one ever talks about eBay anymore....but when are we going to collectively realize that they are the best of the "big tech" companies? They've stayed remarkable true to their mission, haven't entered politics (ironic given previous CEO), and continued to offer a good service. Since the commingling of inventory is now so prevalent at Amazon, I find myself using eBay more and more.

Even NewEgg sells on eBay, and they have their own website!

There is something to be said for the stability of marketplace rules and ecosystem. No rules are perfect, but if the rules are stable, people eventually learn how to interpret signals and assess risk. If the rules are constantly changing, all that hard-earned customer knowledge is discarded at random intervals, because the platform vendor has silently forked/rebooted the economy into a parallel universe. Now you have sellers in the new universe and buyers in the old universe.

In a sane regulatory environment, platforms would be forced to put a version number on both the UX and ToS, so people would at least know the universe/rules have changed. As with other mandatory reporting, metrics on public notification would reduce "universe churn" and make it part of the marketing/competitive landscape.

Re: Amazon Is Poised to Unleash a Purge of Small Wholesale Suppliers

#45

Post by par »

_red wrote: post #39

No one ever talks about eBay anymore....but when are we going to collectively realize that they are the best of the "big tech" companies? They've stayed remarkable true to their mission, haven't entered politics (ironic given previous CEO), and continued to offer a good service. Since the commingling of inventory is now so prevalent at Amazon, I find myself using eBay more and more.

agreed, since Amazon product quality has become more suspect, I've found myself going to eBay for lots of various types of goods. I'm usually more pleased with my eBay experience than my Amazon experience, though I do use Amazon more frequently.

Re: Amazon Is Poised to Unleash a Purge of Small Wholesale Suppliers

#46

Post by theturtletalks »

JohnFen wrote: post #43
mdorazio wrote: post #9

To bypass the pay/nag wall: https://outline.com/9mHK5d Important to note that this "purge" is only for wholesale suppliers, not for marketplace sellers like the title implies. Amazon is basically only going to purchase products for resale from large suppliers, and will shove the rest into the normal marketplace operations where they have to compete with everyone else on actually selling and shipping their products di…

> Important to note that this "purge" is only for wholesale suppliers, not for marketplace sellers like the title implies. Yes, but I avoid the marketplace sellers. I've been burned too often with those -- if I'm going to roll the dice on that sort of thing, I'm better off with eBay.

What most people don't realize is that Amazon fees are 15% and most suppliers do FBA which tacks on a more expensive shipping charge than you would have otherwise with USPS.

eBay on the other hand charges 10% and sellers can ship items the cheapest way. Those same suppliers on Amazon list the their items on eBay for cheaper since they net the same after fees.

Re: Amazon Is Poised to Unleash a Purge of Small Wholesale Suppliers

#47

Post by baybal2 »

partiallypro wrote: post #28
baybal2 wrote: post #10

Alibaba tried the same thing. It did not go well The result is well known. It quickly became apparent that very few people went online to buy "upscale brand stuff," and it overloaded their logistics big time

Have any more information on this? And do you think there is not more market elasticity in the US? It also seems this only effects wholesalers, not the traditional resalers.

You know that Alibaba have T-mall?

It was their original take on "direct upscale retail brands" online mall.

They were a late comes after JD had some early success, and followed by countless clones.

T-mall was losing money big time, and none of bigger Taobao merchants wanted to move, moreover new Taobao brand stores were beginning to eat into T-mall.

So, at around 2016 Alibaba decided to "give them a nudge" with racking up their fees, putting arbitrary limits on their accounts, and blatant "first dose free" offers to switch to T-mall.

In the end, only few did, and one who did really did not manage to get full advantage of the platform.

Most "upscale" brand suppliers valued control given by having their Taobao store too much to switch to being banal wholesalers.

Lately, they reversed their stance on Taobao brand stores. But yeah, they definitely shot themselves in the foot with that move.

Re: Amazon Is Poised to Unleash a Purge of Small Wholesale Suppliers

#48

Post by pgrote »

_red wrote: post #39

No one ever talks about eBay anymore....but when are we going to collectively realize that they are the best of the "big tech" companies? They've stayed remarkable true to their mission, haven't entered politics (ironic given previous CEO), and continued to offer a good service. Since the commingling of inventory is now so prevalent at Amazon, I find myself using eBay more and more.

Me, too.

Unsure if they are the best, but they have maintained their core business. Yes, they lost to amazon in the overall race, but the niche they have carved maintains itself well. I was growing concerned in the last few years they were racing to be amazon, but in the last year they have pulled back on it.

They need to update their app and website, but overall, I like their pro buyer stance on transactions. Incredibly, most of the time I am looking for something specific, ebay sellers have lower prices than amazon.

Re: Amazon Is Poised to Unleash a Purge of Small Wholesale Suppliers

#49

Post by dang »

mdorazio wrote: post #9

To bypass the pay/nag wall: https://outline.com/9mHK5d Important to note that this "purge" is only for wholesale suppliers, not for marketplace sellers like the title implies. Amazon is basically only going to purchase products for resale from large suppliers, and will shove the rest into the normal marketplace operations where they have to compete with everyone else on actually selling and shipping their products di…

Ok, we can get wholesale for you in the title above.

Re: Amazon Is Poised to Unleash a Purge of Small Wholesale Suppliers

#50

Post by JohnFen »

_red wrote: post #39

No one ever talks about eBay anymore....but when are we going to collectively realize that they are the best of the "big tech" companies? They've stayed remarkable true to their mission, haven't entered politics (ironic given previous CEO), and continued to offer a good service. Since the commingling of inventory is now so prevalent at Amazon, I find myself using eBay more and more.

> I find myself using eBay more and more.

The irony is that what attracted me to Amazon in the first place was that they could mostly supply the things I used to go to eBay for, but did it better -- because Amazon held the inventory and handled returns.

If Amazon no longer does that for the things I buy, then there's no advantage to using them. It sounds like eBay will be getting more of my business back.

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