4 ms·

Iirc, Amazon prevents you from charging a lower price on a non-Amazon site. It drives up prices across the board and artificially makes non-Amazon retailers see

Iirc, Amazon prevents you from charging a lower price on a non-Amazon site. It drives up prices across the board and artificially makes non-Amazon retailers seem more expensive than they would be, because Amazon prices often hide part of the shipping costs. There’s no such thing as free shipping after all I forget what the penalty is but it was all over the news a few years ago. Let’s see… 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-...

lotsofpulp 4y ago
> artificially makes non-Amazon retailers seem more expensive than they would be, because Amazon prices often hide part of the shipping costs. I presume there would not be anything stopping the other websites from including the shipping prices? Regardless, my point is if Amazon was not offering a seller a reasonable deal, they should just start their own website. The barrier to entry has never been lower in all of history.
- barbariangrunge 4y ago
  That sounds so easy. I wonder why so few of them thought of that
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  > The barrier to entry has never been lower in all of history. There are distinct brand, network, and bundle effects at play. Like "I've already got Prime so why bother looking elsewhere".
googlryas 4y ago
I actually worked at Amazon on the tool that crawled the web looking for lower prices on products which Amazon had a most favored nation clause on. This was in 2012 and the tool had been broken for multiple years and no one cared until I found it and fixed it. After I fixed it I think in the first year it "made" Amazon $30M in lower payments to vendors(though it is hard to attribute exact monetary values due to complexity of the contracts) But no one cared, I barely got any praise, no promo or anything. So I quit and went somewhere else.
- GauntletWizard 4y ago
  If I had a dime for every story like yours I'd read, I'd have a few dollars. Which is saying something, because I don't talk to Amazon or Ex Amazon people all that often.
  - googlryas 4y ago
    Move here to Seattle and you can't throw a rock without hitting a current or ex Amazon employee:) But also please don't throw rocks at us.
    - GauntletWizard 4y ago
      Oh, I live in Seattle myself. I just know the warning signs to avoid.
      - googlryas 4y ago
        Seems a little bigoted to judge 75,000 people like that, but to each their own.
        GauntletWizard 4y ago
        It was a joke, though it is true that my friends circles don't happen to include that many people from Amazon, and I still have many stories of broken business processes there.
WoahNoun 4y ago
Well if they can't sell the Apple products on Amazon, this doesn't seem to apply.

lotsofpulp 4y ago

> artificially makes non-Amazon retailers seem more expensive than they would be, because Amazon prices often hide part of the shipping costs. I presume there would not be anything stopping the other websites from including the shipping prices? Regardless, my point is if Amazon was not offering a seller a reasonable deal, they should just start their own website. The barrier to entry has never been lower in all of history.

barbariangrunge 4y ago
That sounds so easy. I wonder why so few of them thought of that
paulryanrogers 4y ago
> The barrier to entry has never been lower in all of history. There are distinct brand, network, and bundle effects at play. Like "I've already got Prime so why bother looking elsewhere".

googlryas 4y ago

I actually worked at Amazon on the tool that crawled the web looking for lower prices on products which Amazon had a most favored nation clause on. This was in 2012 and the tool had been broken for multiple years and no one cared until I found it and fixed it. After I fixed it I think in the first year it "made" Amazon $30M in lower payments to vendors(though it is hard to attribute exact monetary values due to complexity of the contracts) But no one cared, I barely got any praise, no promo or anything. So I quit and went somewhere else.

GauntletWizard 4y ago
If I had a dime for every story like yours I'd read, I'd have a few dollars. Which is saying something, because I don't talk to Amazon or Ex Amazon people all that often.
- googlryas 4y ago
  Move here to Seattle and you can't throw a rock without hitting a current or ex Amazon employee:) But also please don't throw rocks at us.
  - GauntletWizard 4y ago
    Oh, I live in Seattle myself. I just know the warning signs to avoid.
    - googlryas 4y ago
      Seems a little bigoted to judge 75,000 people like that, but to each their own.
      - GauntletWizard 4y ago
        It was a joke, though it is true that my friends circles don't happen to include that many people from Amazon, and I still have many stories of broken business processes there.

WoahNoun 4y ago

Well if they can't sell the Apple products on Amazon, this doesn't seem to apply.