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if it's anything like their marketplace, Amazon will keep all,contact information and all of your customers will be the property of Amazon. As a business owner,

if it's anything like their marketplace, Amazon will keep all,contact information and all of your customers will be the property of Amazon. As a business owner, this is scary, because you can get banned or dropped by Amazon at any time. It happened this month with DVDs on Amazon. If you aren't a wholesaler or someone that sells a lot in bulk, you can no longer sell DVDs. so if you are a small seller and you build up your customer base over a view years, you now effectively have to start completely over. Still least eBay allows you to keep your customers and build an actual business. Now with services, I'm not sure how they will enforce this. If you are meeting with the customer, you could easily just tell them to start purchasing from you directly (and avoid Amazon fees). But I suppose if Amazon saw you only getting 1-time customers, they might get suspicious. Either way, I would steer clear of doing any business with Amazon, unless you are fine with the fact that you aren't building yourself a business. You are building up amazon's

sp332 12y ago
Wait, you can't sell your DVDs on Amazon anymore? I didn't hear about that.
- shittyanalogy 12y ago
  sure you can http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00441GYS8/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00441GYS8/
  - troymc 12y ago
    It seems only certain sellers can. I know I tried to sell one of my used DVDs on Amazon recently (and I sell used stuff there fairly often, so I know how it works). They let me enter all the details but when it came time to list it, they said, "Oh, sorry, you can't sell DVDs here." No explanation was given.
    - exhilaration 12y ago
      Almost certainly due to the prevalence of fake DVDs. I had a high school buddy who would rent DVDs from Blockbuster, rip them, and sell duplicates on eBay. There's also a steady flow of high quality copies from East Asia which you can find all over New York. I can totally understand why Amazon would want to restrict sales of this specific category.
sebastianavina 12y ago
when you sell services, you have real contact with the customer. i.e. they bring you the car, you repair it and deliver the service. amazon is going to be more like yellow pages/payment platform.
- mathattack 12y ago
  Yes - and very highly compensated for it too!
  - rahimnathwani 12y ago
    But it's 20% of sales that go through the platform, not all sales forevermore to the same customer, or to friends referred by that same customer.
johnx123-up 12y ago
One of my friends bought Agriya thumbtack script lately. He's targeting micro workers and heavily using SEO. So, I think, he may not be affected with Amazon. Can anyone share some thoughts here? Anyway to handle Amazon?
softdev12 12y ago
i agree that this has a high probability of falling into the same zone as Marketplace. For businesses, this implies all the difficult choices of using someone else's platform (customer lock-in, rule changes, etc.). It also brings the benefits of Amazon's reputation and innovation (e.g. allowing Prime customers special benefits). But I think no one is focusing on the benefits to customers and not businesses. Amazon has historically been awesome for the consumer - bringing a high quality product at low prices. If it can do the same for services, I (as a consumer) will be very happy.
- jvehent 12y ago
  And comments! Reputation is critical for services, those 5 stars are going to become very important to business owners.
  - schafx 12y ago
    This is a really big deal. I have several times sourced handymen through Angie's List only to get very odd and sometimes bad service. This despite those contractors having mainly good reviews. I applaud Amazon for being one of the few who don't doctor their reviews which allows me to actually rely on them.
larrys 12y ago
"Either way, I would steer clear of doing any business with Amazon, unless you are fine with the fact that you aren't building yourself a business. You are building up amazon's" The type of people that will use this (an electrician as an example) will be like lambs to the slaughter. While many of us know about the mercuriality of places like Amazon and Google (dropping projects and services when they don't pan out or when they get bored) most "normals" are not aware of the dangers of having their eggs in this type of basket. And the risk that is involved.
- rahimnathwani 12y ago
  Electricians and plumbers are accustomed to running their own businesses, and may be more savvy than you think, and more savvy than many people here.
  - ams6110 12y ago
    Any many are probably earning a good deal more money as well. The wealthiest self-employed people I know are in trades, and they make a lot more than a web developer does.
  - larrys 12y ago
    They are savvy but they don't know what they don't know.
prostoalex 12y ago
They could set their sight on controlling the services, or they could just treat the services availability/price as a gateway to selling bulkier and more expensive products. Buying anything like refrigerators, pianos, dishwashers, or car audio systems involves some (sometimes heavy) amount of pre- and post-delivery service. Sometimes that friction might prevent the consumer from clicking the "Buy" button, as shopping around, contacting and then scheduling haul-away, delivery or installation jobs is not something people get excited about.
funkyy 12y ago
They could go Fiverr route - sharing contact info is prohibited and they allow only use of their own messaging central. The system is created to protect buyers, not sellers, but sellers in exchange for fee and obedience get platform to advertise.

sp332 12y ago

Wait, you can't sell your DVDs on Amazon anymore? I didn't hear about that.

shittyanalogy 12y ago
sure you can http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00441GYS8/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00441GYS8/
- troymc 12y ago
  It seems only certain sellers can. I know I tried to sell one of my used DVDs on Amazon recently (and I sell used stuff there fairly often, so I know how it works). They let me enter all the details but when it came time to list it, they said, "Oh, sorry, you can't sell DVDs here." No explanation was given.
  - exhilaration 12y ago
    Almost certainly due to the prevalence of fake DVDs. I had a high school buddy who would rent DVDs from Blockbuster, rip them, and sell duplicates on eBay. There's also a steady flow of high quality copies from East Asia which you can find all over New York. I can totally understand why Amazon would want to restrict sales of this specific category.

sebastianavina 12y ago

when you sell services, you have real contact with the customer. i.e. they bring you the car, you repair it and deliver the service. amazon is going to be more like yellow pages/payment platform.

mathattack 12y ago
Yes - and very highly compensated for it too!
- rahimnathwani 12y ago
  But it's 20% of sales that go through the platform, not all sales forevermore to the same customer, or to friends referred by that same customer.

johnx123-up 12y ago

One of my friends bought Agriya thumbtack script lately. He's targeting micro workers and heavily using SEO. So, I think, he may not be affected with Amazon. Can anyone share some thoughts here? Anyway to handle Amazon?

softdev12 12y ago

i agree that this has a high probability of falling into the same zone as Marketplace. For businesses, this implies all the difficult choices of using someone else's platform (customer lock-in, rule changes, etc.). It also brings the benefits of Amazon's reputation and innovation (e.g. allowing Prime customers special benefits). But I think no one is focusing on the benefits to customers and not businesses. Amazon has historically been awesome for the consumer - bringing a high quality product at low prices. If it can do the same for services, I (as a consumer) will be very happy.

jvehent 12y ago
And comments! Reputation is critical for services, those 5 stars are going to become very important to business owners.
- schafx 12y ago
  This is a really big deal. I have several times sourced handymen through Angie's List only to get very odd and sometimes bad service. This despite those contractors having mainly good reviews. I applaud Amazon for being one of the few who don't doctor their reviews which allows me to actually rely on them.

larrys 12y ago

"Either way, I would steer clear of doing any business with Amazon, unless you are fine with the fact that you aren't building yourself a business. You are building up amazon's" The type of people that will use this (an electrician as an example) will be like lambs to the slaughter. While many of us know about the mercuriality of places like Amazon and Google (dropping projects and services when they don't pan out or when they get bored) most "normals" are not aware of the dangers of having their eggs in this type of basket. And the risk that is involved.

rahimnathwani 12y ago
Electricians and plumbers are accustomed to running their own businesses, and may be more savvy than you think, and more savvy than many people here.
- ams6110 12y ago
  Any many are probably earning a good deal more money as well. The wealthiest self-employed people I know are in trades, and they make a lot more than a web developer does.
- larrys 12y ago
  They are savvy but they don't know what they don't know.

prostoalex 12y ago

They could set their sight on controlling the services, or they could just treat the services availability/price as a gateway to selling bulkier and more expensive products. Buying anything like refrigerators, pianos, dishwashers, or car audio systems involves some (sometimes heavy) amount of pre- and post-delivery service. Sometimes that friction might prevent the consumer from clicking the "Buy" button, as shopping around, contacting and then scheduling haul-away, delivery or installation jobs is not something people get excited about.

funkyy 12y ago

They could go Fiverr route - sharing contact info is prohibited and they allow only use of their own messaging central. The system is created to protect buyers, not sellers, but sellers in exchange for fee and obedience get platform to advertise.