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it's a good thing in the short term, but it also feels like an exercise of monopoly power by Amazon, which is going to be bad for consumers in the long run. can
by currymj 9y ago
it's a good thing in the short term, but it also feels like an exercise of monopoly power by Amazon, which is going to be bad for consumers in the long run. can a business afford not to be listed on Amazon? in the long term, does Amazon have any interest in listing third parties?
at some point I think the answer to both of these questions will be no, and then I'd expect the good customer experience to erode pretty quickly as Amazon realizes they can squeeze as much profit as they want out of customers and retailers.
- komali2 9y agoI would expect that if Amazon stopped listing third party stuff, other sites would pick up the slack there, perhaps sites like Etsy?
- settsu 9y agoEbay.
- komali2 9y agoAnother good example, but I've definitely heard sellers complaining about ebay as well.
- olyjohn 9y agoOne of my friends listed 3 pocket knives on eBay. After waiting a week for the auctions to close, 2 out of the 3 buyers said "Cancel my order, I'm not interested." So his auctions were totally screwed over, and he had to wait another week by setting up another auction. One of those re-posts had the EXACT same thing happen. Turns out that eBay won't do anything unless a user has failed to pay for 3 transactions within something like 90 days. That means you can go bid on an item once a month, not pay the seller, and have no repercussions. Because the transaction never completes, you can't leave feedback on the buyer.
- petra 9y agoAmazon is interested in listing 3rd parties: it's useful to have someone else take all of the product risk , while you offer the ideal store for your customers and do all the more low-risk parts like logistics, managing a site, selling low-risk products directly while someone else supply excess demand.
- jasonlaramburu 9y agoFrankly I don't see the benefit in this program for Amazon. 3rd party sellers often charge less, meaning less revenue for Amazon. The highly variable customer service also degrades Amazon's brand. Finally, Amazon still has to front the cost of any return/refund from a 3rd party seller, so there is still risk.
- freeone3000 9y agoMonopoly power? Please. They're far from the only online retailer; it's not as if online retail has some huge capital barrier to entry. You don't like Amazon? List on ebay, or etsy, or craigslist, or kijiji, or... Or set up your own store and handle payments through Paypal or if you don't like Paypal then Stripe or Moneybookers or... ecommerce is too large a field, with too easy entry, to be a monopoly.