4 ms·

The difference is that Target is a retail store, not a marketplace. Target has already bought your products from you when Target sells them to customers, and ag

The difference is that Target is a retail store, not a marketplace. Target has already bought your products from you when Target sells them to customers, and aggregates data about its own sales of your products. Amazon is a marketplace, and pays nothing to buy your products when they're offered for sale on its virtual shelves. It purports to provide an open and equal common area for companies (including itself) to sell products, yet only Amazon has access to the treasure trove of data about the behavior of consumers on its site.

c0nkflict5uxway 5y ago
Target is an online marketplace for 3rd-party products. They don't go out of their way to advertise it, but they call the program Target+. You can find online-only 3rd-party items by searching their website. They ship the items to you, and you can return them in-store if there's a problem. Most people never notice the middleman supplier. Walmart does this too. Newegg made the switch several years ago. Large retail outlets which do not have a "marketplace" online option are the exception rather than the rule. Different companies do different levels of vetting, but the retail ecosystem is vastly more accessible to small-timers than it was in the 2000s.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
granzymes 5y ago
> Target has already bought your products from you when Target sells them to customers This is not true for all products. Some are sold under a pay-per-scan model, where the product is owned by the supplier up until the barcode is scanned at checkout, whereupon it is immediately purchased by the store and sold to the consumer. For other products, suppliers may also be required to accept unsold goods for a full refund of the store’s purchase price. Stores are marketplaces too, and shelf space – particularly the valuable shelf space like end caps – is not free.
- msrenee 5y ago
  There are products like that, but to my knowledge, there's not a lot of them and it tends to be certain specialized categories. The only example I can think of where the supplier will refund the product if it doesn't sell is live plants.
  - granzymes 5y ago
    Another example of a product that commonly has a full refund clause is books. But pay-per-scan is much more common. Examples include everything from trading cards to makeup to sandwich bread. The supplier will often restock these products themselves, so the store doesn't even need to track inventory.
    - msrenee 5y ago
      I'm having trouble finding any solid numbers on what percent of products are sold pay per scan. I just know that in the retail stores I've worked in, the only examples I know of are live plants and possibly aquarium fish.

c0nkflict5uxway 5y ago

Target is an online marketplace for 3rd-party products. They don't go out of their way to advertise it, but they call the program Target+. You can find online-only 3rd-party items by searching their website. They ship the items to you, and you can return them in-store if there's a problem. Most people never notice the middleman supplier. Walmart does this too. Newegg made the switch several years ago. Large retail outlets which do not have a "marketplace" online option are the exception rather than the rule. Different companies do different levels of vetting, but the retail ecosystem is vastly more accessible to small-timers than it was in the 2000s.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

granzymes 5y ago

> Target has already bought your products from you when Target sells them to customers This is not true for all products. Some are sold under a pay-per-scan model, where the product is owned by the supplier up until the barcode is scanned at checkout, whereupon it is immediately purchased by the store and sold to the consumer. For other products, suppliers may also be required to accept unsold goods for a full refund of the store’s purchase price. Stores are marketplaces too, and shelf space – particularly the valuable shelf space like end caps – is not free.

msrenee 5y ago
There are products like that, but to my knowledge, there's not a lot of them and it tends to be certain specialized categories. The only example I can think of where the supplier will refund the product if it doesn't sell is live plants.
- granzymes 5y ago
  Another example of a product that commonly has a full refund clause is books. But pay-per-scan is much more common. Examples include everything from trading cards to makeup to sandwich bread. The supplier will often restock these products themselves, so the store doesn't even need to track inventory.
  - msrenee 5y ago
    I'm having trouble finding any solid numbers on what percent of products are sold pay per scan. I just know that in the retail stores I've worked in, the only examples I know of are live plants and possibly aquarium fish.