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> What exactly are YOU doing here that merits a payday? The hard part. Finding a product people want. If that were so easy, Amazon would just be a store, no s

by 22289d 3y ago

> What exactly are YOU doing here that merits a payday? The hard part. Finding a product people want. If that were so easy, Amazon would just be a store, no sellers. That part they can't do themselves.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago
Oh yes, Amazon Inc., famously they have a hard time finding out what customers want. Come on.
- 22289d 3y ago
  That part they can't do themselves at the same scale as all of the sellers can. That is what I meant.
danielmarkbruce 3y ago
If you can do the hard part, then do all the easy parts and leave amazon out of the equation.
- 22289d 3y ago
  It's always a signal that you're on to something when you get a bunch of pedantic rebuttals like this. Attacking the central argument isn't possible, so they nitpick.
  - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
    You literally just said that they did the hard part, which is apparently identifying a product that consumers want and cannot buy. The commenter then says: why don't they just do all the apparently easy shit, which is making it, holding the inventory, shipping it, and handling returns/customer service. Maybe your point just sucks because finding some cheap garbage on AliExpress that you can sell with instagram ads isn't actually all that hard, or that much work, which is probably why this exact business model was sold to people who, as stated by people selling it, had low skills and no interest in acquiring them, so they can generate passive income by operating an automated storefront on Amazon.
    - 22289d 3y ago
      They did the unscalable part. That better? Are you happy now? Can you go find something else to nitpick? > finding some cheap garbage on AliExpress that you can sell with instagram ads isn't actually all that hard It's very hard. What you're missing are all of the thousands of people who try it and fail. And you see one person succeeding and say that's easy, they're just buying shit from China. No, they combined skill and a lot of luck to find a product in China people want. That's not just ordering shit from China. If it were, Amazon would do it themselves and cut out all of these middleman. Which they can't, because it's not scalable. Which was my original point.
      - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
        Unscalable is not synonymous with hard for the vast majority of people. If you communicate confusingly, you'll be asked for clarifications. That's not nitpicking and you can avoid it by using words for what they're for. > What you're missing are all of the thousands of people who try it and fail. It's not easy or hard. It's lucky. It's getting your ad seen in the right place with the right audience and taking off with enough sharing to build virality. Then your store will do a brief burst of good business before you fall back into irrelevance and continue. It's highly analogous to gold rushes. And then as now, the people who get reliably rich off gold rushes aren't mining gold, they're selling shovels and pickaxes, namely: hustle influencers, shopify, and indeed, Amazon. > That's not just ordering shit from China. If it were, Amazon would do it themselves Buy some Amazon Basics stuff and check where it's made, then get back to me. > and cut out all of these middleman Which is what they seem to be doing. Like again, for emphasis: Amazon is not a good guy here. They are neutral, at best. But I have very low sympathy for people who build their entire way of life on one single platform that could at any moment tell them to kick rocks. It's bad when YouTubers do it, it's bad when instagram influencers do it, and it's bad here too. And all of these usually end in similar ways. You're only as good as your last post, your last sale, your last quarter of profits and if your and the platform's interests diverge enough, you'll be dropped like a flaming bag of dogshit.
        22289d 3y ago

by 22289d 3y ago

ToucanLoucan 3y ago

Oh yes, Amazon Inc., famously they have a hard time finding out what customers want. Come on.

22289d 3y ago
That part they can't do themselves at the same scale as all of the sellers can. That is what I meant.

danielmarkbruce 3y ago

If you can do the hard part, then do all the easy parts and leave amazon out of the equation.

22289d 3y ago
It's always a signal that you're on to something when you get a bunch of pedantic rebuttals like this. Attacking the central argument isn't possible, so they nitpick.
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago
  You literally just said that they did the hard part, which is apparently identifying a product that consumers want and cannot buy. The commenter then says: why don't they just do all the apparently easy shit, which is making it, holding the inventory, shipping it, and handling returns/customer service. Maybe your point just sucks because finding some cheap garbage on AliExpress that you can sell with instagram ads isn't actually all that hard, or that much work, which is probably why this exact business model was sold to people who, as stated by people selling it, had low skills and no interest in acquiring them, so they can generate passive income by operating an automated storefront on Amazon.
  - 22289d 3y ago
    They did the unscalable part. That better? Are you happy now? Can you go find something else to nitpick? > finding some cheap garbage on AliExpress that you can sell with instagram ads isn't actually all that hard It's very hard. What you're missing are all of the thousands of people who try it and fail. And you see one person succeeding and say that's easy, they're just buying shit from China. No, they combined skill and a lot of luck to find a product in China people want. That's not just ordering shit from China. If it were, Amazon would do it themselves and cut out all of these middleman. Which they can't, because it's not scalable. Which was my original point.
    - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
      Unscalable is not synonymous with hard for the vast majority of people. If you communicate confusingly, you'll be asked for clarifications. That's not nitpicking and you can avoid it by using words for what they're for. > What you're missing are all of the thousands of people who try it and fail. It's not easy or hard. It's lucky. It's getting your ad seen in the right place with the right audience and taking off with enough sharing to build virality. Then your store will do a brief burst of good business before you fall back into irrelevance and continue. It's highly analogous to gold rushes. And then as now, the people who get reliably rich off gold rushes aren't mining gold, they're selling shovels and pickaxes, namely: hustle influencers, shopify, and indeed, Amazon. > That's not just ordering shit from China. If it were, Amazon would do it themselves Buy some Amazon Basics stuff and check where it's made, then get back to me. > and cut out all of these middleman Which is what they seem to be doing. Like again, for emphasis: Amazon is not a good guy here. They are neutral, at best. But I have very low sympathy for people who build their entire way of life on one single platform that could at any moment tell them to kick rocks. It's bad when YouTubers do it, it's bad when instagram influencers do it, and it's bad here too. And all of these usually end in similar ways. You're only as good as your last post, your last sale, your last quarter of profits and if your and the platform's interests diverge enough, you'll be dropped like a flaming bag of dogshit.
      - 22289d 3y ago