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I have a buddy who sells some custom widget on his own personal website and when we were snowboarding in whistler in March of this year, he complained about thi

I have a buddy who sells some custom widget on his own personal website and when we were snowboarding in whistler in March of this year, he complained about this. He was saying that if his widget is $5 on Amazon, he can't sell it for $4 on his site or Amazon will take his product down. He also does 2 day shipping, but unless he pays Amazon for a prime badge, he can't advertise that through Amazon.

themagician 7y ago
That's both not true and not the issue here. If he sells some custom widget he can do whatever he wants with it. Amazon won't even know and/or care about what happens off Amazon. The Amazon.com Retail team probably won't be interested in buying it and selling it for $5 if he's selling it for $4 on his own site, but the marketplace/FBA side of things doesn't care at all… assuming it's actually a custom widget. You don't explicitly pay for the Prime badge. You need a Professional account to sign up for Seller Fulfilled Prime, but your eligibility is based on volume and performance.
- ikeboy 7y ago
  >Amazon won't even know and/or care about what happens off Amazon Incorrect. They used to ban it, now it's officially allowed but they will actively monitor and block the buybox if your price is cheaper elsewhere. I've spoken to many sellers caught by this.
- joeblau 7y ago
  > That's both not true and not the issue here. It was true when he told me, Amazon reversed its decision on this in March[1]. > The Amazon.com Retail team probably won't be interested in buying it and selling it for $5 if he's selling it for $4 on his own site, but the marketplace/FBA side of things doesn't care at all… assuming it's actually a custom widget. His widget doesn't actually cost $5, it's more. I'm just using the price as an example because he was extremely concerned about competitors stealing his product. He doesn't want Amazon anywhere near it because this profit margins are really high on his product. If Amazon.com's "Retail team" found out what it was, they would probably find his supplier or a knock off and try and make a low quality "Basics" version of it. > You don't explicitly pay for the Prime badge. You need a Professional account to sign up for Seller Fulfilled Prime, but your eligibility is based on volume and performance. He doesn't want to be fulfilled by prime, he manages his own shipping pipeline just a good as Amazon's. Amazon places rules on its merchants so that there is no way to compete without fully capitulating to Amazon's shipping policies. Oh and I used to work at Amazon so these practices are not surprising. [1] - https://www.inc.com/guadalupe-gonzalez/amazon-removes-price-parity-not-fair-price-rule-third-party-sellers-antitrust-violations.html https://www.inc.com/guadalupe-gonzalez/amazon-removes-price-...
  - aianus 7y ago
    > He doesn't want to be fulfilled by prime, he manages his own shipping pipeline just a good as Amazon's. As a consumer if I see a prime logo and it's not Fulfilled by Amazon I would feel scammed. Amazon Logistics is the only courier where I live that is reliable and on-time and I have little interest in buying anything on Amazon that is fulfilled a different way.
    - lightedman 7y ago
      In that case, enjoy your fraudulent/counterfeit products. https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/31/fulfilled-by-amazon-counterfeit-fake/ https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/31/fulfilled-by-amazon-coun...
binarysolo 7y ago
(Amazon seller/manufacturer here) What happens is that Amazon suppresses your listing from search so you don't get exposure. Think about it this way, Amazon is customer-centric, so when it delivers search results it's implicitly saying "hey this is the relevant item at the best price per your search term". If it can't back that up then it'll often give a product substitute that is the best price. IIRC, they got in trouble for this earlier this year for outright suppressing listings and had to back down a bit from this - instead of suppressing the listing wholesale you just get low traffic instead.
- theturtletalks 7y ago
  Amazon was built on the backs of 3rd party sellers. Amazon used them and these sellers are finally migrating to their own backends like Shopify or Woocommerce to build their business, not help Amazon build theirs. It's atrocious how Amazon is punishing them for this.
  - binarysolo 7y ago
    That was the whole game they played though, by design -- 3P sellers were partially meant as a prospecting tool for long tail product coverage in the marketplace, and when they found a product good enough now Amazon dips their toes in the pool and competes with them. Some of the unfairness lies in that with the same-ish offerings, Amazon's search will favor the Amazon offerings - FBA instead of 3P shipping, Amazon.com as seller vs third party when the price/shipping is same, etc., but otherwise I think a lot of other things people complain about (cloning products and approaching manufacturers to cut off middlemen) are reasonably OK features meant to benefit customers. As a manufacturer and 3P vendor I kinda made my peace with Amazon on that I guess...
    - theturtletalks 7y ago
      Yep, Amazon didn't do anything wrong, but when sellers catch on and want to own their actionable data and build their own operations, Amazon should let them. Locking them in further is not right. I was one of those sellers and now I'm working on an opensource solution to help sellers migrate and not be dependent on Amazon FBA alone.
ThrustVectoring 7y ago
Suggestion: make two technically-different widget models, sell the more expensive one on amazon and the cheaper one on own website. The differences don't have to be much, but as long as they're different products you're compliant with Amazon's terms.
- iamtheworstdev 7y ago
  Technically all they really need is different UPCs. Appliance and electronics manufacturers have been doing this for decades so Walmart or Target can have "exclusive" items.
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    Or different companies selling the exact same UPC. Just don't let Amazon know it's owned by the same company.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
crb002 7y ago
Use a shade to list on FBA, give them wholesale pricing on the up and up for what your Amazon juice would be.
delfinom 7y ago
But Amazon isn't the only one that does this. Walmart and co have the same rules.Sell at MSRP everywhere or they will drop you like a rock. Only the retailer gets the privilege of discounting. Sadly nobody will care about breaking up the physical retailers.

themagician 7y ago

That's both not true and not the issue here. If he sells some custom widget he can do whatever he wants with it. Amazon won't even know and/or care about what happens off Amazon. The Amazon.com Retail team probably won't be interested in buying it and selling it for $5 if he's selling it for $4 on his own site, but the marketplace/FBA side of things doesn't care at all… assuming it's actually a custom widget. You don't explicitly pay for the Prime badge. You need a Professional account to sign up for Seller Fulfilled Prime, but your eligibility is based on volume and performance.

ikeboy 7y ago
>Amazon won't even know and/or care about what happens off Amazon Incorrect. They used to ban it, now it's officially allowed but they will actively monitor and block the buybox if your price is cheaper elsewhere. I've spoken to many sellers caught by this.
joeblau 7y ago
> That's both not true and not the issue here. It was true when he told me, Amazon reversed its decision on this in March[1]. > The Amazon.com Retail team probably won't be interested in buying it and selling it for $5 if he's selling it for $4 on his own site, but the marketplace/FBA side of things doesn't care at all… assuming it's actually a custom widget. His widget doesn't actually cost $5, it's more. I'm just using the price as an example because he was extremely concerned about competitors stealing his product. He doesn't want Amazon anywhere near it because this profit margins are really high on his product. If Amazon.com's "Retail team" found out what it was, they would probably find his supplier or a knock off and try and make a low quality "Basics" version of it. > You don't explicitly pay for the Prime badge. You need a Professional account to sign up for Seller Fulfilled Prime, but your eligibility is based on volume and performance. He doesn't want to be fulfilled by prime, he manages his own shipping pipeline just a good as Amazon's. Amazon places rules on its merchants so that there is no way to compete without fully capitulating to Amazon's shipping policies. Oh and I used to work at Amazon so these practices are not surprising. [1] - https://www.inc.com/guadalupe-gonzalez/amazon-removes-price-parity-not-fair-price-rule-third-party-sellers-antitrust-violations.html https://www.inc.com/guadalupe-gonzalez/amazon-removes-price-...
- aianus 7y ago
  > He doesn't want to be fulfilled by prime, he manages his own shipping pipeline just a good as Amazon's. As a consumer if I see a prime logo and it's not Fulfilled by Amazon I would feel scammed. Amazon Logistics is the only courier where I live that is reliable and on-time and I have little interest in buying anything on Amazon that is fulfilled a different way.
  - lightedman 7y ago
    In that case, enjoy your fraudulent/counterfeit products. https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/31/fulfilled-by-amazon-counterfeit-fake/ https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/31/fulfilled-by-amazon-coun...

binarysolo 7y ago

(Amazon seller/manufacturer here) What happens is that Amazon suppresses your listing from search so you don't get exposure. Think about it this way, Amazon is customer-centric, so when it delivers search results it's implicitly saying "hey this is the relevant item at the best price per your search term". If it can't back that up then it'll often give a product substitute that is the best price. IIRC, they got in trouble for this earlier this year for outright suppressing listings and had to back down a bit from this - instead of suppressing the listing wholesale you just get low traffic instead.

theturtletalks 7y ago
Amazon was built on the backs of 3rd party sellers. Amazon used them and these sellers are finally migrating to their own backends like Shopify or Woocommerce to build their business, not help Amazon build theirs. It's atrocious how Amazon is punishing them for this.
- binarysolo 7y ago
  That was the whole game they played though, by design -- 3P sellers were partially meant as a prospecting tool for long tail product coverage in the marketplace, and when they found a product good enough now Amazon dips their toes in the pool and competes with them. Some of the unfairness lies in that with the same-ish offerings, Amazon's search will favor the Amazon offerings - FBA instead of 3P shipping, Amazon.com as seller vs third party when the price/shipping is same, etc., but otherwise I think a lot of other things people complain about (cloning products and approaching manufacturers to cut off middlemen) are reasonably OK features meant to benefit customers. As a manufacturer and 3P vendor I kinda made my peace with Amazon on that I guess...
  - theturtletalks 7y ago
    Yep, Amazon didn't do anything wrong, but when sellers catch on and want to own their actionable data and build their own operations, Amazon should let them. Locking them in further is not right. I was one of those sellers and now I'm working on an opensource solution to help sellers migrate and not be dependent on Amazon FBA alone.

ThrustVectoring 7y ago

Suggestion: make two technically-different widget models, sell the more expensive one on amazon and the cheaper one on own website. The differences don't have to be much, but as long as they're different products you're compliant with Amazon's terms.

iamtheworstdev 7y ago
Technically all they really need is different UPCs. Appliance and electronics manufacturers have been doing this for decades so Walmart or Target can have "exclusive" items.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  Or different companies selling the exact same UPC. Just don't let Amazon know it's owned by the same company.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

crb002 7y ago

Use a shade to list on FBA, give them wholesale pricing on the up and up for what your Amazon juice would be.

delfinom 7y ago

But Amazon isn't the only one that does this. Walmart and co have the same rules.Sell at MSRP everywhere or they will drop you like a rock. Only the retailer gets the privilege of discounting. Sadly nobody will care about breaking up the physical retailers.