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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.
Amazon isn't in the retail business. Amazon isn't in the cloud computing business. Amazon isn't in the logistics business. Amazon is in the business business. It is no longer The Everything Store; it is now the Everything Everything. It wants to be the platform around which all of the world's businesses depend.
This is about as ambitious a mission as a company has ever launched, in my opinion -- and Amazon may be the first company with a justifiable claim to such ambition. Its only business constraints at this point are geopolitical, really. I believe it aims even higher in the long run: it is aiming to become the macroeconomic backbone of at least the Western world.
When viewed in that context, traditional definitions of monopoly -- especially the most widely known definition of the state, which is based on market share within a specific industry -- almost feel antiquated. Jeff Bezos isn't JP Morgan; he's freaking Cohaagen from Total Recall.
(To be very clear, I say all of this in admiration of Jeff Bezos, not in fear or criticism of him.)
After my return experience with NewEgg where I bought a defective gaming motherboard and took three days of back and forth emails with tech support before finally having to pay for my own return shipping I switched to Amazon. Yes, I'll pay $5 more for that motherboard, but it takes 30 seconds to return it and the replacement will arrive in 24 hours.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Imagine the tragedy of a world where a seller is liable for making the products they sell actually useful out of the box rather than forcing customers to go down a "support" rabbit hole before they give up.
The 14 days cancel and return of online purchases no question asked is mandatory in the EU.
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
Amazon is already taking 30% of the sales price PLUS 30% OF SHIPPING. There are very few things that can be sold for enough of a margin to make a profit with costs like that. Unlimited returns will remove any remaining profit from most merchants selling through Amazon.
But hey, who needs profit, right? Just keep selling things below cost, and eventually, you'll make a profit, right?
I don't respond to AC's.
Amazon's competition nuked themselves with their inadequacy. All Amazon did was spot the weaknesses (which were pretty obvious) and exploit them.
No, what Amazon did was figure out that they didn't need to make profit so long as they kept investing in new technology that they could maybe sell eventually. They now make so much money on cloud computing and related services that they don't give a crap about profit in their retail side. They are walmarting the entire retail business model safe in the knowledge that everyone else is going to go broke long before they do trying to compete.
People who have never worked in a small retail business don't understand the business model. You don't "compete" with lower prices, that's just a race to the bottom with everyone dying a slow death. Including the manufacturers who now have a thoroughly devalued product that they can't wholesale.
yes, and you know why we, as consumers, won't touch e-bay? precisely because it's a haven for these exact sellers who don't care about their customers.
If you won't stand behind your product, e-bay is the perfect place to sell, as the buyers there expect that level (or lack of) support.
If you DO stand behind your product, than continue to sell on Amazon, this change won't affect you.
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.
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.