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I think Amazon's thought process here is that if there's going to be an after market, they might as well get paid for it. This also could grow the total market

I think Amazon's thought process here is that if there's going to be an after market, they might as well get paid for it. This also could grow the total market size if people can easily resell their books, rather than pitch them or give them to goodwill. It's kind of like companies selling their premium soap under one label, and then selling the excess inventory to private label brands.

hga 13y ago
Oh, I agree 100% on the after market part, and Amazon makes a not inconsiderable amount of money from me that I do not begrudge in the least because of the quality of their marketplace, including useful quality scores for their merchants (e.g. I've learned to not touch anyone below 96% outside of special cases). However here we're talking about direct competitors in selling new goods. Look closely at the right items, and you'll see that Amazon sometimes does two amazing things: if someone else is offering something new for a lower price, they, not Amazon will get the sale if you just click on the Buy button. (Of course, I'm often willing to pay a bit more to get it directly from Amazon.) If 2 or more including Amazon are offering it at the same price, Amazon sometimes rotates who gets the sale if you just hit the Buy button. That's what I meant by "fairness", although I couldn't find any examples of this just now (ADDED: that might be because according to another commentator in this topic they only offer this for highly rated merchants). Then again if Amazon is analyzing my purchasing habits, they know a) I prefer to buy direct from them and b) for most of what I buy from them unit wise (but not price), I always check out lower priced new and used offers from their merchants. And, yeah, especially with how much media I buy that's out of print, it's win-win-win for them. But to the extent this story is true ... well, it was a "new" item that was claimed to be counterfeit.

hga 13y ago

Oh, I agree 100% on the after market part, and Amazon makes a not inconsiderable amount of money from me that I do not begrudge in the least because of the quality of their marketplace, including useful quality scores for their merchants (e.g. I've learned to not touch anyone below 96% outside of special cases). However here we're talking about direct competitors in selling new goods. Look closely at the right items, and you'll see that Amazon sometimes does two amazing things: if someone else is offering something new for a lower price, they, not Amazon will get the sale if you just click on the Buy button. (Of course, I'm often willing to pay a bit more to get it directly from Amazon.) If 2 or more including Amazon are offering it at the same price, Amazon sometimes rotates who gets the sale if you just hit the Buy button. That's what I meant by "fairness", although I couldn't find any examples of this just now (ADDED: that might be because according to another commentator in this topic they only offer this for highly rated merchants). Then again if Amazon is analyzing my purchasing habits, they know a) I prefer to buy direct from them and b) for most of what I buy from them unit wise (but not price), I always check out lower priced new and used offers from their merchants. And, yeah, especially with how much media I buy that's out of print, it's win-win-win for them. But to the extent this story is true ... well, it was a "new" item that was claimed to be counterfeit.