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Amazon's New Refunds Policy Will 'Crush' Small Businesses, Outraged Sellers Say (cnbc.com)
Amazon sellers are up in arms over a new returns policy that will make it easier for consumers to send back items at the merchant's expense. From a report: Marketplace sellers who ship products from their home, garage or warehouse -- rather than using Amazon's facilities -- were told this week by email that starting Oct. 2, items they sell will be "automatically authorized" for return. That means a buyer will no longer need to contact the seller before sending an item back, and the merchant won't have the opportunity to communicate with the customer. If a consumer is returning an electronic device because it's difficult to use, for example, the seller won't be able to offer help before being forced to pay a refund. "Customers will be able to print a prepaid return shipping label via the Online Return Center instantly," the email said. Additionally, Amazon said that it's introducing "returnless refunds," a feature that the company said is "highly requested by sellers." The change enables sellers to offer a refund without taking back an item that may be expensive to ship and hard to resell.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Go where? Amazon nuked the competition. It's the same reason most orgs still have Microsoft desktops despite MS sucking rotting eggs forward and backward. Your poop has to be crevice-for-crevice compatible with the shape of everyone else's MS-Anus if you want to pass goods and services instead of be constipated.
Competition is good, now lets get some.
Table-ized A.I.
You buy an item that is so worthless that not even the seller wants it back. You then get to keep it for free and it's on you to dispose of it.
If you do this too many times, Amazon will close your account.
In other words, you can get a couple of cheap trinkets for "free", if you decide to game the system. And afterwards you might never be able to use any one of the many different Amazon services again.
It's a calculated risk for all parties involved
When it comes to computer equipment, I find it much easier to use Newegg to search. And also Newegg gets points from me for taking on patent trolls, while Amazon itself is a patent troll.
Amazon's competition nuked themselves with their inadequacy. All Amazon did was spot the weaknesses (which were pretty obvious) and exploit them.
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
becoming the global proxy for "Everything".
Do you realize that Amazon is the world's second biggest e-commerce company?
It is silly to label them a monopoly when they aren't even the market leader.
FFS, first or second place hardly matters when there are only two fucking players left. This isn't about "leaders". This is about destroying the market altogether. You can't point at the other monopoly to dismiss or justify the existence of the arrogant and soul-crushing behavior of market domination. It's become a pathetic joke to even have anti-monopoly laws on the books anymore. At this rate, the world will be reduced to a dozen mega-corps within the next decade or two, with Amazon being the "Everything Everything" proxy. The middle class will dissolve away just as the concept of competition will. In the end, there will only be the 0.0001%, and the rest of the enslaved planet.
There are many dangerous addictions, but Greed is the one that will ultimately lead to our demise.
"Standing behind your product" is not anything like "accepting all returns for no reason". There are a large percentage of people who will return something out of stupidity, ignorance, malevolence, spite, or even just for shits and giggles.
I don't respond to AC's.
You should also be happy that you're supporting your neighbors and your community.
I don't respond to AC's.
You also have to go there, shop during their specified business hours, deal with their significantly smaller selection, wait in lines, transport your purchase home afterwards, etc. All told, what took 5 minutes of your time to do online, takes over an hour of your time to do at a physical store.
Online shopping is far more convenient than brick and mortar, offers a larger selection, and generally at lower prices.
Of course, if you're an "instant gratification" type who can't wait 2 days for shipping, then I guess you can keep shopping at the local mall until it finally goes out of business, but keep in mind that the fewer people like you who are willing to do it, the higher their prices are going to have to rise to compensate for it.
Do you realize that Amazon is the world's second biggest e-commerce company?
Different market. I don't want to have to deal with getting a quote or contacting a vendor to tell him what I want, I want to click on the "buy" button and buy it. Amazon does the latter. Alibaba, from every experience I've had with them, is the former.
www.aliexpress.com
In fact, Amazon's new policy is a direct result of Alibaba. People buy a bunch of shit wholesale from Alibaba and relist it on Amazon with huge markups. They "seller" on Amazon often never sees the product. They drop ship it straight to the customer who buys it off of Amazon.
Amazon's new policy is a FUCK YOU to those "sellers". If Amazon doesn't touch the inventory then they assume it's drop shipped, and will let customers get instant refunds, no questions asked. This will quickly be abused.
I don't know where you guys get this shit from.
As someone who operated a small ebay business and still sells on ebay, I can assure you that the game is always configured in the buyer's favor. It is beyond easy for buyers to get away with all sorts of return scams and arbitrary complaining.
I have never and will never have an experience in my life where I receive something from eBay or Amazon that wasn't as expected and I am not able to reconcile it. On the contrary, my biggest fear as a seller is that a buyer takes advantage of this leniency.
Think about it for one second. What does a company like Amazon or eBay lose by pissing sellers off? Nothing. They have literally nothing to lose by their buyers having slightly fewer choices of who to buy from, on the off chance that seller completely gives up.
What does a company like Amazon or eBay lose by pissing buyers off? A potentially life-long customer. There are far more places to buy things than to sell things.