I think Amazon have been their own enemy here, their antics have set the conditions for a race to the bottom.
Instead of Amazon's early days where I'd see a large range of options and quality/price levels, I now deal with page after page of the same low-quality options from a large number of "different" suppliers. Increasing my spend doesn't work, as they've got that angle covered, it's just the same items but with a higher price. I can't even rely on reviews, since those are gamed too.
Then when I did find the item, the next hoop to jump through was the scams, when it's clothing: it's often a knock off using stolen photos, or the wrong size, or return instructions that demand delivery to a far away country even though the goods didn't come from there.
Then there are the issues with counterfeiting, or worse, like when Amazon's own staff steal the product by swapping the contents of the box - something that is incredibly difficult to prove with customer service.
Now if I want to shop online, I visit a store's website and buy directly. No scams, no counterfeits, no wrong sizes or b/s photos.
There are lots of American companies that have designed their own products and sell online but we are outnumbered by Chinese sellers who use a lot of similar tactics to sell their goods to get better placement.
It is a war zone for most popular product categories.
I’m happy people are starting to cover how Amazon (and Apple to a lesser degree) has decimated the small mom and pop online businesses.
Most of us leveraged social media to find small US communities that were underserved.
And now they are out of business completely or they have had layoffs in the last two years.
Apple? As in there ebook business they were fined for? I don’t know of many mom and pop cell phone or laptop manufacturers. I’m curious as to what you are referring to.
Traditional media does not serve underserved markets.
If you want to target Christian moms over 40 who live in Southern markets…
Or Muslim women 20-30 year olds looking for stylish but conservative clothing…
Then your best bet was social media.
Keep in mind, the Facebook, TikTok and Shopify partnership were growing into strong competition for Amazon.
Once they were dead in the water, Amazon raised prices and put the squeeze on its small FBA sellers by forcing everyone to sell FBA and purchase advertising.
Clothing IMO has always been terrible on amazon. Amazon really for cheap house stuff and electronics. Nick nacks.
If you know the brand and want to see what can be bought with a button push, or if you want to find random shit, go ahead.
I don't know if I've found any good general clothes shops. Just e versions of big boxes, and the brands own page. Then you have collectors/vintage/DIY shops.
Yes. This is one of the large reasons why I stopped going to Amazon entirely.
> Now if I want to shop online, I visit a store's website and buy directly
This is what I do as well. Interestingly, my experience doing that has generally been better than Amazon in every way, except that if I want 2 day shipping (which I rarely want very much) then there is often a minimum order or additional fee. Which is fine.
Amazon is probably doing some unfair or even illegal things.
But if your business is buying something from supplier X, adding no value at all and selling it on ecommerce site Y, then it makes perfect economic sense for either of X to sell to Y without you or Y to buy from X without you.
It's in the consumers interest for that to happen. The only situation where this wouldn't happen is if volume is too low, in which case you're adding some value by aggregating demand across a few channels.
This a perfect situation for cheap knockoffs to proliferate though.
My dad wanted a Theragun and bought one on Amazon. He thought he got a deal and it looked just like a Theragun until it arrived and he saw the cheap power connectors and no external battery.
Amazon is more than happy for cheap knockoffs to spread and rip people off by gaming thr product search system. Sure, middlemen are being cut out, but in many cases, so is the previously trusted vendor.
I'm absolutely not saying Amazon is playing fair here, but ultimately, if you're just a middleman, someone's going to try and cut you out of the transaction. The only safety is having some sort of unique value proposition. Either you make it yourself and control the supply, or you do what you have to to make customers want to buy from YOU.
A number of companies produce products only sold outside of the host country. The only way those citizens in the host country can access the goods is through an importing company with exclusive distribution rights. This often happens in the food and drink industries. An USA importer may be importing products manufactured in the US but only sold outside of the USA. This happens in the alcohol industry frequently.
India has set an example by banning Platform owners from owning companies that sell on the same platform, therefore ensuring a better level playing ground.
It is not perfect, but can be a start.
Amazon's subsidiaries must not be able to sell on Amazon marketplace. The giant needs to be broken up.
The Marketplace, the Warehousing and the Logistics must be three different businesses and other players in warehousing and logistics must be able to offer their services.
As it stands, most high value items on Amazon.in are sold by a small number of sellers: Dawntech, Cocoblu, Rocket Commerce etc.
These are more or less annointed by Amazon and it is very unlikely that some third party seller will be able to compete with them in their respective categories.
As an Australian who for many years never had or used Amazon, I never understood its appeal. It just reminds me of eBay but without the bidding options.
It's a massive swathe of low quality goods of which I can't trust the reviews, the website's UI is highly cluttered and I have to filter through the trusted brands that I know.
I much prefer to just buy goods from individual vendors online or go in store.
It’s one single place where you can search for most everything you could want, while also being only one place to hand out your monetary info and address to. It also heavily favors buyers (like ebay), so if there is an issue, it’ much more of a sure thing to get a no hassle refund. Entering your credit card into dozens of differently designed websites the owner of whom may or may not know how to even spell “security” and stores everything in plaintext, or just outright may be a scammer, requires more mental overhead and risk.
Now, in reality amazon is basically an internet flea market, and those supplements you bought are probably either a fake knockoff of a brand and made with lead, or “genuine” but falsely reporting it’s contents with no oversight and also filled with lead, but it’s the idea of buying them through “a familiar and therefore trustworthy place” that matters.
Also the 2 day “free” shipping with prime really brought a lot of people onboard.
The idea of buying them through "a familiar and therefore trustworthy place" that matters, where products could be filled with lead? Doesn't sound like a very trustworthy place to me
If I want to buy supplements, I will buy them from a trustworthy supplement store online that is popular and well known. If I want to buy a new TV I will go to popular and familiar online retailers that specialise in selling HiFi products.
Amazon is quantity over quality. I want to be shown quality products, Visa and the consumer guarantee I get from reputable retailers is better than unknowingly buying lead filled supplements.
It comes the next day, shipping is free with prime, you can return it easily.
An EBay listing often has buyers contacting you through email trying to do the transaction outside of ebay. The lower the price the higher the shipping cost. Forced to use paypal. Gambling you get the product listed not scammed and can fight your way through the dispute process.
Individual vendors are great but you must do your own vetting. Going in and finding out they have no stock and you are directed online is getting more common.
In the early days of Amazon Prime I ordered a grill and got it delivered literally the next day for cheaper than I could purchase it locally. Since then the delivery delays have extended and the knockoffs have increased dramatically and local retailers price match, so I no longer bother with Amazon. But for a short while, it was an amazing service.
I can order it and get 90% delivered by tomorrow afternoon and a lot of it before 10am. I hate that they are so far ahead of everyone else. I will order direct from specialty websites for higher quality foods when I can, but more often than not, that will end up taking 6-10 days to be delivered and will be a hassle.
There is such an easy solution here: Amazon divests their logistics operation -- the warehouses, airplanes, and delivery trucks. They become a common carrier with a published price list; amazon.com and all the sellers on Amazon become customers of this logistics company. Probably a lot of ebay sellers too.
I'm not so sure. Because of Amazon, local stores no longer carry a great deal of things I need and that they used to carry. When I ask them about it, their response is that everyone just gets that stuff from Amazon so it isn't worth them selling it themselves.
You can get whatever item you're looking for at a myriad of other online retailers, let alone brick and mortars. It's not Amazon's problem that people prefer them over the local store.
The question isn't whether or not it's "Amazon's problem" or even Amazon's fault. The question is whether or not Amazon is a monopoly. I'm not asserting that they are or are not. I think it's a legitimate question.
I do think that even if they technically aren't, they're very close to it.
They are absolutely not close to a monopoly. They have tons of competitors. Walmart has basically the same exact service online. You can get your crafts on Etsy. You can get your tech supplies on a ton of different websites. You can get all your hardware supplies at homedepot (online and b&m) and the list goes on and on and on. If Amazon disappeared tomorrow, you could get literally everything the minute it happened on many other places. You can even get all the same chinese knockoffs right from the source, aliexpress.
A monopoly means you are _forced_ to patronize them. I know a lot of people who have chosen specifically not to shop at Amazon and they don't have a problem getting what they are looking for.
They have a monopoly on offering two day shipping and incredibly easy returns and an extremely reasonable price, that's why people use them.
Instead of Amazon's early days where I'd see a large range of options and quality/price levels, I now deal with page after page of the same low-quality options from a large number of "different" suppliers. Increasing my spend doesn't work, as they've got that angle covered, it's just the same items but with a higher price. I can't even rely on reviews, since those are gamed too.
Then when I did find the item, the next hoop to jump through was the scams, when it's clothing: it's often a knock off using stolen photos, or the wrong size, or return instructions that demand delivery to a far away country even though the goods didn't come from there.
Then there are the issues with counterfeiting, or worse, like when Amazon's own staff steal the product by swapping the contents of the box - something that is incredibly difficult to prove with customer service.
Now if I want to shop online, I visit a store's website and buy directly. No scams, no counterfeits, no wrong sizes or b/s photos.