It's common for people outside of retail to focus on margins and ignore turns/sales velocity when considering retail issues, but it misses a lot of the reasonin

It's common for people outside of retail to focus on margins and ignore turns/sales velocity when considering retail issues, but it misses a lot of the reasoning. Obviously consistently making a loss on a product is a bad idea, but making $1 per sale and selling one per day produces more income than making $5 per sale and selling once per week. On Amazon if you don't "win the buy box" your stuff doesn't sell, or doesn't sell as frequently. What Amazon is trying to do for sellers is ensure that doesn't happen to them, and ultimately is likely to increase their income even if it reduces their margins. Fixing a minimum margin for six months actually seems quite reasonable to me, it gives sellers a chance to make inventory plans on a practical time scale while also ensuring that Amazon doesn't have to absorb any losses indefinitely.