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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

#51

Post by CorpOverreach »

bdcravens wrote: post #13
lostmymind66 wrote: post #3

This is why I would never base my business on a marketplace like Amazon. You are always beholden to them and the reality is you aren't really independent.

Many small-time businesses are pretty much FBA only. That's why there's so many similar products with little more than branding differences: this is done in China and shipped to Amazon. There's probably not a small percentage of 4-hour-workweek types who are very unlikely to go from working from home to staffing a warehouse and performing fulfillment, running an e-commerce store and trying to figure out discoverabili…

I come across these very often. I find these "businesses" to be adding very little value.

From a customer point of view, I have no issue shafting those 4-hour-workweek-types.

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

#52

Post by knd775 »

JohnFen wrote: post #14

> Amazon’s aim is to cut costs and focus wholesale purchasing on major brands like Procter & Gamble, Sony and Lego, the people said. That will ensure the company has adequate supplies of must-have merchandise and help it compete with the likes of Walmart, Target and Best Buy. That would cut out most of my purchases from Amazon. It makes no sense to buy stuff from Amazon that I can get from my local big-box retailer,…

Did you read the full article? They aren't dropping other brands/sellers from the platform. They just aren't going to buying from them anymore. Currently, they buy from some high volume brands directly and then sell the products themselves. They are going to stop doing this with smaller brands, who will now need act as sellers on the platform.

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

#53

Post by notatoad »

_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.

is ebay considered one of the "big tech" companies? maybe they were at one point, but their market cap is at least an order of magnitude smaller than any of the FAANG companies

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

#54

Post by yazboo »

_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.

Looks to me like they've donated quite a bit of money to conservative democrats and republicans so I wouldn't exactly say they haven't entered politics.

https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cycle=2018&cmte=...

Their CEO also sent a somewhat political all office email after the last presidential election: https://www.vox.com/2016/11/9/13576446/ebay-ceo-memo-us-elec...

My point is just to say that "market liberalism" is a stance, not the absence of a stance.

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

#55

Post by rootusrootus »

theturtletalks wrote: post #46
JohnFen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I find a lot of things these days are actually slightly more expensive on eBay. I also see a lot of duplicate listings by the same (or apparently the same) seller with wildly varying prices. I still buy stuff on eBay once in a while, but it's not the place to go anymore for the best deal. And after you're accustomed to 1-2 day shipping from Amazon, waiting a couple weeks for an eBay shipment is a non-starter.

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

#56

Post by JohnFen »

knd775 wrote: post #52
JohnFen wrote: post #14

> Amazon’s aim is to cut costs and focus wholesale purchasing on major brands like Procter & Gamble, Sony and Lego, the people said. That will ensure the company has adequate supplies of must-have merchandise and help it compete with the likes of Walmart, Target and Best Buy. That would cut out most of my purchases from Amazon. It makes no sense to buy stuff from Amazon that I can get from my local big-box retailer,…

Did you read the full article? They aren't dropping other brands/sellers from the platform. They just aren't going to buying from them anymore. Currently, they buy from some high volume brands directly and then sell the products themselves. They are going to stop doing this with smaller brands, who will now need act as sellers on the platform.

Yes, I read and understood the full article. The thing is that I won't do business with Marketplace sellers -- that place is a snake pit full of badness.

I only buy items from Amazon that are fulfilled by Amazon. If Amazon isn't holding the inventory and fulfilling the order themselves, then I'm not interested. I'll be going to eBay instead.

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

#57

Post by rootusrootus »

_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 still use eBay once in a while, but many times they're more expensive than Amazon and the shipping is much slower. I'm not totally sold.

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

#58

Post by notatoad »

trufflepig wrote: post #17

would this just push the minor-large brands (aukey, anker, etc) into marketplace? Or are these minor-large brands already in the marketplace?

a quick spot check of a bunch of anker products shows they're already a marketplace seller

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

#59

Post by dymk »

notatoad wrote: post #53
_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.

is ebay considered one of the "big tech" companies? maybe they were at one point, but their market cap is at least an order of magnitude smaller than any of the FAANG companies

yes, ebay is a big tech company by almost any measure

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

#60

Post by ikeboy »

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…

>they have to compete with everyone else on actually selling and shipping their products direct to consumers

Incorrect, that would entail shutting down FBA which they aren't doing.

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