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You are a seller. Amazon makes up 40% of your sales. You have your own first party website where you can profitably offer your product for 5% less and still mak

You are a seller. Amazon makes up 40% of your sales. You have your own first party website where you can profitably offer your product for 5% less and still make an additional 10% profit but it only makes up 5% of your sales currently. What's your move in this position? You can't just imagine all companies as perfect frictionless spherical interchangeable cows. In reality companies as large as Amazon can have significant market distorting effect, while much smaller companies might have to choose between their principles and going out of business.

endisneigh 3y ago
You can lower the product for 5% on both your site and on Amazon. Since Amazon makes up the plurality of your sales you gain more sales both there and on your site. Everyone wins except for you, and such is the life of race-to-the-bottom e-commerce sales. What I'm describing is already what happens, by the way. Look at Anker for an example.
- Jensson 3y ago
  > Everyone wins except for you Which is why your scenario here wont happen. Thanks for clarifying so well why your argument "there is no consumer harm" is bullshit, what you said here means you know that what Amazon does here increases prices.
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    The consumer is Amazon’s end customer, not the seller. Amazon sellers can and do take a loss to sell on Amazon, and ultimately the seller's fate is of no concern to Amazon. Again, they don't have to sell on Amazon to begin with. I buy plenty of bike parts, for example directly on their site and they're not even offered to Amazon to begin with.
- dwallin 3y ago
  Great, you gain more sales and immediately go out of business since you were already pricing your product near cost. Prices then rise back up as your nearest competitor was smart enough to not lower price below their cost. Or do you somehow believe that price competition currently only exists everywhere EXCEPT on Amazon's platform?
bryan_w 3y ago
> What's your move in this position? What about taking out an ad to let people know where to buy your cheaper item? People didn't know walmart.com existed until a tv ad told them. Doesn't seem unreasonable to take some of the saving from not selling on Amazon and use it for services the platform was providing (discoverability). Nothing changes until it changes.

endisneigh 3y ago

You can lower the product for 5% on both your site and on Amazon. Since Amazon makes up the plurality of your sales you gain more sales both there and on your site. Everyone wins except for you, and such is the life of race-to-the-bottom e-commerce sales. What I'm describing is already what happens, by the way. Look at Anker for an example.

Jensson 3y ago
> Everyone wins except for you Which is why your scenario here wont happen. Thanks for clarifying so well why your argument "there is no consumer harm" is bullshit, what you said here means you know that what Amazon does here increases prices.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  The consumer is Amazon’s end customer, not the seller. Amazon sellers can and do take a loss to sell on Amazon, and ultimately the seller's fate is of no concern to Amazon. Again, they don't have to sell on Amazon to begin with. I buy plenty of bike parts, for example directly on their site and they're not even offered to Amazon to begin with.
dwallin 3y ago
Great, you gain more sales and immediately go out of business since you were already pricing your product near cost. Prices then rise back up as your nearest competitor was smart enough to not lower price below their cost. Or do you somehow believe that price competition currently only exists everywhere EXCEPT on Amazon's platform?

bryan_w 3y ago

> What's your move in this position? What about taking out an ad to let people know where to buy your cheaper item? People didn't know walmart.com existed until a tv ad told them. Doesn't seem unreasonable to take some of the saving from not selling on Amazon and use it for services the platform was providing (discoverability). Nothing changes until it changes.