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Amazon Discounts Other Sellers' Products as Retail Competition Stiffens (reuters.com)
Amazon is slashing prices of products from third-party sellers on its website, moving beyond its more typical method of discounts on items it sells directly. From a report: The "discount provided by Amazon" applies to products including board games and technological gadgets offered by other merchants as the holiday season approaches. The retailer has been trying to compete aggressively on some items to win sales and draw customers away from low-priced rivals like Wal-Mart Stores. The move allows Amazon to sell the products at lower prices while still giving full price to the sellers. "When Amazon provides a discount, customers get the products they want at a price they'll love, and small businesses receive increased sales at their listed asking price," an Amazon spokeswoman said in an emailed statement, noting that businesses can opt out at any time.
the old "drive all your competitors out of business" ploy. This time, powered by a global conglomerate.
Isn't this a perfect example of monopolistic behaviour? Use your large size to sell a service at zero or even below cost to drive anyone not using your service out of business?
Amazon sells nearly everything its third-party sellers do. I noticed after Amazon started collecting sales tax in my state they began to feature third-party sellers much more prominently in my browsing sessions, none of who collect sales tax because they're mostly virtual resellers with a physical presence in only one state. Amazon still makes money by charging transaction fees on the seller. The fact they're subsidizing discounts for these third-party sellers is more proof of Amazon's sales tax strategy.
I know they are trying to paint a happy face on this, but over the past year Amazon has instituted a number of seller hostile policies and we are getting pretty sick of it. Most recently - very recently - Amazon instituted an automatic return policy. It used to be that we would get a return request notification with a reason selected and an explanation from the buyer. This allowed me to save many sales or otherwise turn some frowns upside down. A return request was a great way to get a good seller review. Being able to offer customer service on returns also helped reveal scammers. Now if a buyer wants a refund, they just pick an option, usually "bought by mistake" or "did not need" with no written explanation. Still want to contact the buyer? Too late, they already printed out the prepaid return label and it's on its way. The seller pays for the prepaid return label. Have a policy that the cost of the label will be deducted from the return? The buyer can file a claim to dispute that and will usually win. Otherwise you get a nasty review out spite, and there is nothing to do about that either. Need a new guitar for a gig this weekend but you have to pay rent in two weeks? No problem! So we can opt out huh? Yeah, right. This week maybe.
I would rather not have posted this anon, but Amazon has become so big brother the paranoia is justified.
The final nail in the coffin of Toys-R-Us was when they stopped differentiating and just carried the same stuff that everyone else did. They decided to compete only on price, and they should have known they would lose.
They stopped carrying all the cool toys. That is what killed them.