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> It's the fact that Amazon is charging anywhere between 30-45% in fees to the sellers I'm glad this was stated. It is new insight for me. I got in the habit

> It's the fact that Amazon is charging anywhere between 30-45% in fees to the sellers I'm glad this was stated. It is new insight for me. I got in the habit of only buying from the actual manufacturer store on Amazon, thinking it was benefiting the company. For example: buying Bose speakers on the Amazon Bose site, instead of the bose.com. Now I realize that Bose loses a lot of money going through amazon. I should just be going to the bose.com store and cutting out amazon. I never really need anything I buy online "tomorrow". The only thing I've run into is the vendor site saying out of stock, but the vendor -store- on Amazon in stock. E.g., I bought a PixHawk4 flight contgroller from HolyBro. The HolyBro site was out of stock, but Amazon's HolyBro store had it in stock. /bangs head on wall/ I understand why, it's just... weird.

dpwm 5y ago
I would be surprised if Amazon had the same non-negotiable-take-it-or-leave-it terms with Bose as it has with others. Which raises an obvious asymmetry: Amazon makes no guarantee that it is not offering more favourable terms for bigger suppliers – and although mere speculation, I would be surprised if that didn’t go on, because I seem to remember traditional retailers doing similar things. I’m not saying this is good or bad, just pointing out that with all retail there has been almost a phase transition once the supplier is a household name, and the dynamics change almost to the point where retailers would offer their products at cost price or even a loss just to make sure that their customers could buy the household name through them.
- dls2016 5y ago
  > I would be surprised if Amazon had the same non-negotiable-take-it-or-leave-it terms with Bose as it has with others. I'm not sure what, but there's a story on lower end, too. A lot of crap on Amazon is from no-name brands like MAKNO and TURBLEX which don't even exist outside of Amazon. If I sell $19.99 TURBLEX kitchen knives on Amazon and the $11.87 MAKNO version through AliExpress, then I've not violated the policy.
Rapzid 5y ago
I would like more information on that number. It doesn't sound tenable as presented for physical goods.
brnt 5y ago
The rule of thumb is simple: more middlemen equals lower share going to the person actually making the thing. I had this revelation too when I started buying food from farmers direct and was surprised at the low prices. Its kinda obvious, when you think about it.
- nanis 5y ago
  > more middlemen equals lower share going to the person actually making the thing. Most people forget that the transaction might not have taken place were it not for said middleman.
- treis 5y ago
  Eh,that's not entirely true. The farmer has to box up their produce in retail sized bits instead of shipping a truck sized load for someone else to do that. They also have to pay someone to man a store, handle returns, etc. Same deal for online retail. You've gotta have a warehouse, someone to box orders, a website to take orsers, customer service, etc. This all costs money and Amazon has the scale to do it all a lot cheaper than you can.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    That’s why “farmer direct” often has you doing the bulk of the pick work.
    - a9h74j 5y ago
      Or the least practical packaging as with a CSA.
    - brnt 5y ago
      Never heard or seen that here. They still have their pickers (and butcher), they just don't have an intermediary come take it at prenegotiated prices which then sells it to some grocer, they just sell it direct in their own shop. Meat is frozen, the rest fresh and on shelves.
  - bcrosby95 5y ago
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> I never really need anything I buy online "tomorrow". Gifts generally have strict deadlines. Sadly, Amazon has stopped offering any shipping speed guarantees -- there is no longer even an option in the purchase flow. It will get there when it gets there. They won't refund if they miss their own self-imposed shipping deadlines, either.
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  I think that might be regional? Prime customers get pretty much anything delivered in two days. I still haven't figured out how they do it. I ordered two obscure oil filters, and they were delivered within a day. I think they had driver go into a local automotive store, and buy them? Anyhoo, they were cheaper than the store price. (I don't hate Amazon. I'm pretty amazed how effient they are. I never thought I would pay for Prime, but that MGM buy was brilliant. Local retailers need to up their game. I'm getting tired of being quoted a cheaper price online, just to pay more if I go in to buy. Automotive parts stores are notoriorious for this behavior.)
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > Prime customers get pretty much anything delivered in two days. So? That has nothing to do with my comment. Amazon used to let you select a shipping speed! The benefit of Prime was that two-day shipping was free, not that it made anything any faster. You can no longer do this. Amazon will tell you how long they plan to take to deliver the item. Do you want it faster than that? Suck it up. Did it, in fact, take longer? Suck it up.
  - trvr 5y ago
    Amazon has completely abandoned most of the state of Montana as far as "Prime Two-Day Shipping" goes. I've fought with them for over 6 months now, I ended up getting a 125% refund of my Prime Subscription for the year. Still didn't solve anything, so they told me to email "jeff@amazon.com". I did, got a handful of "executives" who gave me the run around about COVID and shipping delays (which is all horse shit, I provided my order history where Amazon switched my shipping method to "UPS Ground" about 20 months ago, and it takes 5-6-7 days to arrive AFTER shipment. Used to be "UPS 2-Day". They literally told me they wouldn't reply to my emails anymore. It's total crap, they are using the Prime subs of rural customers to pay for same-day delivery in the cities, and hoping we won't notice. So, yes, it is regional, but I have not even seen the words "Prime Two-Day" on any Amazon checkout in well over a year.
victor106 5y ago
> I should just be going to the bose.com store and cutting out amazon. I never really need anything I buy online "tomorrow". That’s another point of the article. Amazon forces Bose not to sell at a lower price anywhere else. So the price you pay at Bose is also the 30-40% Prime premium that Amazon charges. Although you are right that premium goes to the manufacturer as opposed to Amazon but overall a significant loss to all customers prime or non-prime
- dtnewman 5y ago
  In this specific example it’s probably the opposite. Bose is very good at locking down their supply chain to make sure no one is selling their headphones below list. They always have been. They probably imposed this restriction on Amazon even if now Amazon wants it too.
  - davey48016 5y ago
    Seems like it's both. Bose wouldn't let Amazon sell below list, and Amazon won't let Bose charge an Amazon premium.
  - robocat 5y ago
    Supply chain is the wrong word here… Retail prices? What is the generic word for the same practice which is used by other global brands too.
  - hedora 5y ago
    The fact that Bose has to set their retail prices to include the Amazon surcharge makes it an even better example. If you buy the headphones at a brick and mortar store, you’re still forced to pay the Amazon shipping surcharge, even if the money is not going to Amazon. This puts brick and mortar stores at an unfair disadvantage, and it is directly traceable to Amazon’s anticompetitive behavior.
    - chub500 5y ago
      Reading the article it wasn't clear to me why exactly they couldn't sell elsewhere cheaper. That seems to be an important detail. Is there some fine print stating if you're 'caught' selling cheaper elsewhere you lose the buy button? This wasn't clear to me from the article.
cosmodisk 5y ago
What you get by shopping at Amazon isn't just the pricing, it's the convenience not to enter your details again and again and again for the sake of getting a single item. I'd love if someone could solve it and instead of 'sign up here' I'd get 'pay with superDuperSingleSolutionForAllECommerce' and it's done. Maybe I should ask for VC money and start working on it?..
- willj 5y ago
  Isn’t this the same as “pay with PayPal/Amazon pay/etc”?
  - nanis 5y ago
    > Isn’t this the same as “pay with PayPal/Amazon pay/etc”? There is always the issue of how well the integration performs. It is not uncommon for merchants software to get confused in the process and ship your order to the billing address or for other things to go wrong. When that happens, you now have to deal with customer service of varying quality. In most cases, the purchase decision is easier for me to make on Amazon than anywhere else. I've been a customer since almost the first days and while I can count a lot of minor irritations, there isn't anything better.
- mdaniel 5y ago
  The very problem that PayPal solves, and why Elon now builds rockets (and Google Pay, and Pay with Amazon, to come full circle). However, inevitably the vendor wants your details in their own database and now you're back to having to interact with their terrible UX, just with the benefit of a breach no longer exfiltrating your credit card info That's not even mentioning the network effect, where a service has to have enough adoption or demand to "force" other merchants to accept it
  - cosmodisk 5y ago
    I understand the vendor wants my details,I'd want it too, but the reality is that the buyer is voting for convenience and going to Amazon instead. Paypal kind of does it,but only to a degree-I'd love wider spectrum of payment methods+ some flexibility on what the vendor can/can't do with my data,similar to how app permissions work on Android. If it's some 'local brooms and stick', they only get my address for delivery,but if it's some specialist store with fountains of knowledge,then yes,sure,send me texts,emails and so on.
dheera 5y ago
> I should just be going to the bose.com store and cutting out amazon I'll do that if these websites will stop assaulting me with GDPR popups 5 seconds into the site and then newsletter popups 10 seconds into the site, require me to search 10 different coupon websites to find 49 fake "no coupon needed" coupons and 1 real coupon that actually gets me the same price as listed Amazon, and then requiring me to register an account with email (or in some cases $#$*& SMS verification before making a purchase, and then unsubscribe from the goddamn newsletter after making the purchase. Until they can learn to not annoy me, I'll buy from Amazon, and they will pay the price. Oh and also, pay for return shipping. Amazon does.
gkanai 5y ago
> I should just be going to the bose.com store and cutting out amazon. There is one significant negative with going direct, which is the fact that online stores are often hacked. Amazon has yet to be hacked (afaik) so leaving your data with Bose is a higher risk than with Amazon.

dpwm 5y ago

I would be surprised if Amazon had the same non-negotiable-take-it-or-leave-it terms with Bose as it has with others. Which raises an obvious asymmetry: Amazon makes no guarantee that it is not offering more favourable terms for bigger suppliers – and although mere speculation, I would be surprised if that didn’t go on, because I seem to remember traditional retailers doing similar things. I’m not saying this is good or bad, just pointing out that with all retail there has been almost a phase transition once the supplier is a household name, and the dynamics change almost to the point where retailers would offer their products at cost price or even a loss just to make sure that their customers could buy the household name through them.

dls2016 5y ago
> I would be surprised if Amazon had the same non-negotiable-take-it-or-leave-it terms with Bose as it has with others. I'm not sure what, but there's a story on lower end, too. A lot of crap on Amazon is from no-name brands like MAKNO and TURBLEX which don't even exist outside of Amazon. If I sell $19.99 TURBLEX kitchen knives on Amazon and the $11.87 MAKNO version through AliExpress, then I've not violated the policy.

Rapzid 5y ago

I would like more information on that number. It doesn't sound tenable as presented for physical goods.

brnt 5y ago

The rule of thumb is simple: more middlemen equals lower share going to the person actually making the thing. I had this revelation too when I started buying food from farmers direct and was surprised at the low prices. Its kinda obvious, when you think about it.

nanis 5y ago
> more middlemen equals lower share going to the person actually making the thing. Most people forget that the transaction might not have taken place were it not for said middleman.
treis 5y ago
Eh,that's not entirely true. The farmer has to box up their produce in retail sized bits instead of shipping a truck sized load for someone else to do that. They also have to pay someone to man a store, handle returns, etc. Same deal for online retail. You've gotta have a warehouse, someone to box orders, a website to take orsers, customer service, etc. This all costs money and Amazon has the scale to do it all a lot cheaper than you can.
- bombcar 5y ago
  That’s why “farmer direct” often has you doing the bulk of the pick work.
  - a9h74j 5y ago
    Or the least practical packaging as with a CSA.
  - brnt 5y ago
    Never heard or seen that here. They still have their pickers (and butcher), they just don't have an intermediary come take it at prenegotiated prices which then sells it to some grocer, they just sell it direct in their own shop. Meat is frozen, the rest fresh and on shelves.
- bcrosby95 5y ago

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> I never really need anything I buy online "tomorrow". Gifts generally have strict deadlines. Sadly, Amazon has stopped offering any shipping speed guarantees -- there is no longer even an option in the purchase flow. It will get there when it gets there. They won't refund if they miss their own self-imposed shipping deadlines, either.

hellbannedguy 5y ago
I think that might be regional? Prime customers get pretty much anything delivered in two days. I still haven't figured out how they do it. I ordered two obscure oil filters, and they were delivered within a day. I think they had driver go into a local automotive store, and buy them? Anyhoo, they were cheaper than the store price. (I don't hate Amazon. I'm pretty amazed how effient they are. I never thought I would pay for Prime, but that MGM buy was brilliant. Local retailers need to up their game. I'm getting tired of being quoted a cheaper price online, just to pay more if I go in to buy. Automotive parts stores are notoriorious for this behavior.)
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > Prime customers get pretty much anything delivered in two days. So? That has nothing to do with my comment. Amazon used to let you select a shipping speed! The benefit of Prime was that two-day shipping was free, not that it made anything any faster. You can no longer do this. Amazon will tell you how long they plan to take to deliver the item. Do you want it faster than that? Suck it up. Did it, in fact, take longer? Suck it up.
- trvr 5y ago
  Amazon has completely abandoned most of the state of Montana as far as "Prime Two-Day Shipping" goes. I've fought with them for over 6 months now, I ended up getting a 125% refund of my Prime Subscription for the year. Still didn't solve anything, so they told me to email "jeff@amazon.com". I did, got a handful of "executives" who gave me the run around about COVID and shipping delays (which is all horse shit, I provided my order history where Amazon switched my shipping method to "UPS Ground" about 20 months ago, and it takes 5-6-7 days to arrive AFTER shipment. Used to be "UPS 2-Day". They literally told me they wouldn't reply to my emails anymore. It's total crap, they are using the Prime subs of rural customers to pay for same-day delivery in the cities, and hoping we won't notice. So, yes, it is regional, but I have not even seen the words "Prime Two-Day" on any Amazon checkout in well over a year.

victor106 5y ago

> I should just be going to the bose.com store and cutting out amazon. I never really need anything I buy online "tomorrow". That’s another point of the article. Amazon forces Bose not to sell at a lower price anywhere else. So the price you pay at Bose is also the 30-40% Prime premium that Amazon charges. Although you are right that premium goes to the manufacturer as opposed to Amazon but overall a significant loss to all customers prime or non-prime

dtnewman 5y ago
In this specific example it’s probably the opposite. Bose is very good at locking down their supply chain to make sure no one is selling their headphones below list. They always have been. They probably imposed this restriction on Amazon even if now Amazon wants it too.
- davey48016 5y ago
  Seems like it's both. Bose wouldn't let Amazon sell below list, and Amazon won't let Bose charge an Amazon premium.
- robocat 5y ago
  Supply chain is the wrong word here… Retail prices? What is the generic word for the same practice which is used by other global brands too.
- hedora 5y ago
  The fact that Bose has to set their retail prices to include the Amazon surcharge makes it an even better example. If you buy the headphones at a brick and mortar store, you’re still forced to pay the Amazon shipping surcharge, even if the money is not going to Amazon. This puts brick and mortar stores at an unfair disadvantage, and it is directly traceable to Amazon’s anticompetitive behavior.
  - chub500 5y ago
    Reading the article it wasn't clear to me why exactly they couldn't sell elsewhere cheaper. That seems to be an important detail. Is there some fine print stating if you're 'caught' selling cheaper elsewhere you lose the buy button? This wasn't clear to me from the article.

cosmodisk 5y ago

What you get by shopping at Amazon isn't just the pricing, it's the convenience not to enter your details again and again and again for the sake of getting a single item. I'd love if someone could solve it and instead of 'sign up here' I'd get 'pay with superDuperSingleSolutionForAllECommerce' and it's done. Maybe I should ask for VC money and start working on it?..

willj 5y ago
Isn’t this the same as “pay with PayPal/Amazon pay/etc”?
- nanis 5y ago
  > Isn’t this the same as “pay with PayPal/Amazon pay/etc”? There is always the issue of how well the integration performs. It is not uncommon for merchants software to get confused in the process and ship your order to the billing address or for other things to go wrong. When that happens, you now have to deal with customer service of varying quality. In most cases, the purchase decision is easier for me to make on Amazon than anywhere else. I've been a customer since almost the first days and while I can count a lot of minor irritations, there isn't anything better.
mdaniel 5y ago
The very problem that PayPal solves, and why Elon now builds rockets (and Google Pay, and Pay with Amazon, to come full circle). However, inevitably the vendor wants your details in their own database and now you're back to having to interact with their terrible UX, just with the benefit of a breach no longer exfiltrating your credit card info That's not even mentioning the network effect, where a service has to have enough adoption or demand to "force" other merchants to accept it
- cosmodisk 5y ago
  I understand the vendor wants my details,I'd want it too, but the reality is that the buyer is voting for convenience and going to Amazon instead. Paypal kind of does it,but only to a degree-I'd love wider spectrum of payment methods+ some flexibility on what the vendor can/can't do with my data,similar to how app permissions work on Android. If it's some 'local brooms and stick', they only get my address for delivery,but if it's some specialist store with fountains of knowledge,then yes,sure,send me texts,emails and so on.

dheera 5y ago

> I should just be going to the bose.com store and cutting out amazon I'll do that if these websites will stop assaulting me with GDPR popups 5 seconds into the site and then newsletter popups 10 seconds into the site, require me to search 10 different coupon websites to find 49 fake "no coupon needed" coupons and 1 real coupon that actually gets me the same price as listed Amazon, and then requiring me to register an account with email (or in some cases $#$*& SMS verification before making a purchase, and then unsubscribe from the goddamn newsletter after making the purchase. Until they can learn to not annoy me, I'll buy from Amazon, and they will pay the price. Oh and also, pay for return shipping. Amazon does.

gkanai 5y ago

> I should just be going to the bose.com store and cutting out amazon. There is one significant negative with going direct, which is the fact that online stores are often hacked. Amazon has yet to be hacked (afaik) so leaving your data with Bose is a higher risk than with Amazon.