Amazon pinches sellers: Use our costly logistics services or pay extra fee
Amazon pinches sellers: Use our costly logistics services or pay extra fee
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/08/amazon-adds-extra-seller-fee-despite-intensifying-ftc-scrutiny/
Change comes as booksellers urge FTC to launch another Amazon antitrust inquiry.
I stopped using Amazon years ago (sometime before 2016). I'd rather buy directly from manufacturers in most cases. Waiting an extra day for shipping isn't a big deal for me.
It's depressing how often I try to buy from the manufacturer, and their shop is an Amazon store.
This is so annoying. Also if a seller is selling the same fake product, it will get binned with the official retailers :) so it's just pot luck.
This crap has sent me back to physical stores. If they have it in stock, I don't have to wait for it to ship, I just drive there and pick it up. Same with returns too, and exchanges. Same day.
Plus, I can trust that the company itself has probably looked at and tested the products, and has a real product and not a fake. I doubt I'm the only one going back to brick and mortar as well.
It's even worse when you go to the manufacturer's website, order it directly there, and then have it delivered using Amazon fulfillment still despite trying to avoid it.
Maybe it's just due to what I'm buying online but if I can't find it for sale on the manufacturer's website I often can get it from a 'smaller' retailer or the webpage for a big box store like Best Buy or REI.
I started shopping at Walmart just because I can sort by seller and I know what kind of cheap garbage I'm getting if I buy from them. It drives me nuts that they all have these amazonesque garbage online stores full of alphabet soup brand names now but at least places like Walmart and Target still let you buy things from themselves.
Oh man...I got this backpack from Amazon, and it's honestly a great backpack, I like it a lot...but the seller named their brand Kaka. I got the backpack anyway...but very much cut the "Kaka" brand tag off.
It's so stupid that this honestly great backpack got saddled with a name that means "poo" in more than one European language.
And there was this other product I saw the other day that was something like "doukee".
I can't tell if it's an honest mistake, or if whoever is doing some of those English brand name translations is having a giant laugh at their expense.
afaik Amazon tries to offload the work of vetting its vendors by requiring them to have a registered trademark. This led to all the sketchy sellers making tons of fake companies with random strings of letters as names, knowing the USPTO is going to approve "AEGIJDU Clothing" because nobody is ever going to contest that name.
That's why you see a ton of identical products listed with supposedly different, super random brand names, in case Amazon tries to take down one of the "vendors" (aka, one of the real vendor's many fronts).
They have been continually and progressively hostile toward their sellers. They want total devotion and commitment, they want their sellers to swear off any and all other venues and pledge total loyalty to Amazon - AND they continually screw them as punishment for not doing so.
Kinda sounds like a cult to me. And yes, according to Louis Rossman, the FTC is preparing to go for the jugular against them.
And this is one more reason that makes me think that my personal boycott to Amazon is a good thing.
A spokesperson told Bloomberg that the fee will "help cover the costs of running a separate infrastructure and measuring its effectiveness." So a significant part of the fee is to pay for measuring it? What's that phrase about the bureaucracy expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy again...?
with the antitrust lawsuit now looming, Amazon is seemingly less motivated to appease the agency
Nothings going to happen. See when you're dealing with a trillion $ company which is bigger than some economies in the world. Its has the power to put a dent on US economy. If they just threaten to leave US, every goddamn public servent will become Amazon's Lil bitch.
TLDR: Amazon will never go down and they own every goddamn 9-5s
If they threaten to leave the US, it will be seen for the very obviously empty threat that it is, which is why it won't happen. There are much more subtle methods of exercising power.
I sell the same product on both Amazon and eBay and the latter is much better with more flexibility...only keep it on amazon cause its a book and amazon is slightly better at advertising for that...