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Former Amazonian here. When i was there, they made us take this antitrust training course that had things like "don't use terms like 'market share' in internal communications", but all along there were people doing this? I mean...
Source: have played word games to maintain standing in society
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It sounded to me like the problem part was where Amazon sold competing products, then used the agreement to price-fix between their own products and the third party's. Example: Amazon sells a dongle for $20, the competitors sell them for $20. Amazon makes a deal with each competitor, then raises all the prices to $25. (edit) I think this kind of example also: The competitor's dongle is priced at $24 on Best Buy. Amaz…
Well, the competitor did agree to sell the items to Amazon. Nobody forced them. They did it for economic benefit. So I don't understand the problem here.
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It would be the same, except - Kroger isn't 50% of all grocery stores on earth - Kroger paid money up front for your potato chips - Kroger isn't charging you for storing your potato chips
>Kroger isn't charging you for storing your potato chips Well, slotting fees seem pretty close to that: https://qz.com/807723/inside-the-secret-backroom-deals-big-b...
"There are about 2.3 million third-party sellers on Amazon worldwide, according to information from a 2018 Amazon letter to its shareholders" That number is pretty amazing. I never would've guessed over 2 million, and that number must be higher by now.
In 2014/2015, I would buy insurance cargo from truck accidents: I had the space and the ability to grab and store the items until I could resell them via secondary means: This usually meant working with buyers at stores like BigLots and other discount stores, but, occasionally I'd get electronics (which isn't something that those stores really wanted).
I came across a huge lot of LG monitors that were involved in some fender-bender. Out of the lot of approximately 24 per pallet, only two were visibly damaged, and I had 12 pallets worth of monitors and the cost per-pound evened out to approximately $35/monitor.
I would sell these monitors, which were retailing for right around $200/each new, for approximately $150 in "Open Box" condition on Amazon, and would consistently sell anywhere between 8-10 of them a week.
Amazon charged me:
Cost for getting my items to Amazon (Usually around 9-11/each, depending on season and how busy UPS is), Cost for storing my item in their warehouse (usually around $2-4/month, depending on season), cost for picking and shipping my item (around $30 because it was considered oversize), and the constant reminder that these weren't my customers, they were amazon's customers (customers would "return" items, so, I'd get the entire cost of the item removed from my seller account, because, Amazon wouldn't eat their own fees here, and then have to fight them to get my money back when that customer wouldn't return the item). Amazon also fiercely competed with me on these monitors -- they'd knock down the cost of their "new" items down to what my refurbished cost would be...cutting me out of the 'buy box,' but, losing what I can only assume is about $30+ per monitor wasn't something that they did for long, as after a week or so, the price would be set back at MAP until I'd go and build a new shipment of items into Amazon, set a price lower than theirs, and then they'd automatically bring down their pricing to meet mine.
Amazon's profit to me would be around 40% -- around 80 dollars.
In 2016, Amazon changed the rules so I couldn't sell the items as "Open Box" and would have to sell them as "Used" because I didn't qualify under the rules as a refurbisher.
(admittedly, by that time, I transitioned away from selling items on Amazon and use a different channel for the sales of these items).
There are a lot of snake oil salesman selling "how to make money on FBA" videos and courses online, but, the reality is that the only entity who makes money selling new items on Amazon is Amazon.
I'm confused why this is anti-trust. Isn't this how all wholesale vendor deals work? Regular wholesale: "We'll buy 200 units from you at $20 each. I'll sell them for some other amount, you don't need to care about it". Amazon in this example: "We'll buy 1 units from you at $20 each. I'll sell them for some other amount, you don't need to care about it. Finally, don't worry about the wholesale rate for a single unit,…
I think there are a few differences. 1) Amazon has the kind of market power that triggers anti-trust concerns. You can't get anti-trust concerns when you're a small player. 2) It sounds like Amazon is not offering to buy units at a set price. They're offering to give the supplier $X if they sell the item. That means that Amazon can decide whether or not they want to sell the item - and the supplier has agreed not to…
I feel mixed about this because "sold by Amazon" meant that if there was a problem I got to deal with Amazon customer service rather than trying to get service from some Joe with a mailbox 3rd-party reseller. Yes, I often knew I was paying more and explicitly chose the SBA option as a loss-risk reduction strategy.
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I'm extra confused, as I'd interpreted "Ships from and sold by Amazon" as "Amazon supplied the goods and will vouch for their validity", whereas "Sold by ISL" would have meant that ISL was on the ultimate hook should the goods prove to be counterfeit. Learn something new (and important) every day.
Sold by Amazon and Fulfilled by Amazon seem to come out of the same box at the warehouse. Unfortunately if you really need genuine products you simply cannot buy things off Amazon anymore.
Former Amazonian here. When i was there, they made us take this antitrust training course that had things like "don't use terms like 'market share' in internal communications", but all along there were people doing this? I mean...
In case others were as confused as i was about this "While they’re often confused, Sold by Amazon and Fulfilled by Amazon are two different things. With SBA, Amazon prices your products and owns any transactions that take place. When an item sells, they pass the proceeds on to you for allowing them to sell your product. With FBA, you price your products and own the transactions. It is a service where Amazon handles t…
I would strike that from the description. You never really own the transaction when it comes to Amazon. FBA customers are not your customers. You cannot communicate with them and have the kind of relationship you would have with your customers if you "owned" the transaction.
Case in point: Amazon can shut down your FBA account next Monday and you'd have no way to reach "your" customers unless you included some kind of a registration form with your product and they registered on your site.
Source: My wife used to sell on Amazon. Fucking nightmare.