Recode is reporting that Amazon is aggressively consolidating power within their widely-used Marketplace, causing some sellers to leave the platform all together.
As the story said, “Amazon has applied intense pressure to consumer brands across different product categories,” over the past few months, with the goal of “seizing more control over what, where and how they can sell their goods on the so-called everything store.”
The move seems to come in anticipation of “One Vendor,” a new initiative that will “funnel big brands and independent sellers alike through the same back-end system in a supposed effort to improve the uniformity of the shopping experience across Amazon on the public-facing side.”
But even though the stated goal is one of efficiency, the way it’s being enacted feels, to some sellers, like they’re being strong-armed by an organized crime operation.
Amazon has been “notifying brands… that part of their [business] would be shut down — with just 30 days notice,” while also informing them that they can now “only sell items to Amazon’s retail group at wholesale cost, and let Amazon act as the seller and determine the retail cost.”
And if a brand pushes back, Amazon gets downright draconian. Consumer electronics company, Popsocket, for instance, started wholesaling their stuff to a third-party seller within the Marketplace after growing frustrated with Amazon. Amazon, in turn, barred that third-party seller from selling the product, so Popsocket pulled off the platform. To thank them, Amazon allowed unauthorized versions of Popsocket’s products to proliferate across their approved channels.
And as Amazon continues to exert more influence over their platform, more sellers could find themselves in a similar situation.
You can read more about it at Recode.
