Most sellers are just arbitragers and scammers. Yes, most. They add zero value. They leech money away from manufacturers and brands and the people that actually make things. They lie to get discounts then redirect shipments to Amazon FBA. They sell used, damaged, and counterfeit goods as new. And when a customer complains they say, “Contact the manufacturer.” They create new listings on existing items and say shit like “special edition” and “limited edition” to confuse customers and win the buy box when no such variant exists. They lower the price and jack up the shipping cost to confuse people. They are a disease.
Brands hate third party sellers and so do customers. Most people don’t even realize how Amazon works or who they are buying from.
There are some sellers that are scammers, and there are some brands that are scumbags and will lie and commit wire fraud (which is a crime, although unlikely to be prosecuted when it's a big company doing it to a small one) to get rid of legitimate sellers they don't like.
The ones that are suing are not the ones doing shady things, presumably. If you were selling counterfeits, why would you sue and waste money when the truth will inevitably come out?
I've personally seen many brands falsely swear that goods were counterfeit to get rid of sellers they didn't like, even though the sellers were fully compliant with the law.
Not some, most. The vast majority of 3P sellers are garbage.
Counterfeiting is just a small piece of the overall problem.
Sellers will sue because that’s all they can do. If you’ve built a revenue stream off of selling someone else stuff under the radar you don’t actually have a defendable business or any skills. Might as well sue.
Brands need to do a better job too. Reality is, if you have a business today the best thing you can do is terminate all distribution and wholesale relationships you don’t control and wait for the 3P pipeline to dry up. It’s the only way to strangle out the sellers. But I sympathize with the business that can’t do that and are trying to stop the damage to their business.
The problem is many brands want to have it both ways. Give special discounts to some stores, but have it not affect any other channels. They want the freedom to price discriminate however they want with zero channel conflict, and this doesn't work. Some brands really want it to work and freely commit torts and crimes to keep it working until someone sues; since most of the victims here are small businesses very few have the ability to sue.
Nah, that’s not the problem. That’s just something you made up because you don’t know what you’re talking about. Brands want to have it such that brick and mortar retailers can still exist, so they create pricing models that allow for that additional discount.
3P sellers take advantage of this. They add no value, only take. It hurts brands, manufacturers, retailers and even consumers to a large degree. Now it’s even starting to hurt Amazon, which is why they are finally getting serious about it.
I personally can’t wait for the Amazon scamming business to dry up. I’ve even been to a few of the conferences and lord all mighty it’s really pretty sad what people think is a business these days.
You've been making stuff up throughout this conversation. I'm quite well informed; my information on brands comes both from direct experience as well as from talking to brand owners and others in the field.
>Brands want to have it such that brick and mortar retailers can still exist, so they create pricing models that allow for that additional discount.
But plenty of brands don't feel like buying back and destroying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of inventory. So they use cheaper alternatives, namely perjury to get rid of legitimate sellers.
>They add no value, only take. It hurts brands, manufacturers, retailers and even consumers to a large degree.
This is incorrect on most counts. For the most part this benefits retailers, which is why most retailers have liquidation programs to sell off their overstock in the first place. This benefits consumers as resold goods lead to lower prices. It does hurt some brands, as they can no longer channel stuff to pad revenues. But increased competition hurting companies and benefiting consumers with lower prices is generally considered a good thing, in economics.
I've been to many conferences and spoken at a couple. In my experience most conferences on Amazon selling are geared towards private label brands that add little value.
>But I sympathize with the business that can’t do that and are trying to stop the damage to their business.
If the way they're doing it is committing perjury (the infringement form requires you to swear under penalty of perjury), I don't have sympathy.
I agree that the correct way to handle distribution is cutting of suppliers. Like I said in the other comment, brands want it both ways. Wide distribution but restricted sales on Amazon.
We can flip this around. If as a brand, you've built a revenue stream that can't be sustained without commiting crimes you don't have a defendable business or any skills.
How so? If you can't survive without committing crimes you shouldn't be in business.
Some of these lawsuits are about brands that would not be viable without the blackhat tactics they use. See e.g. KDC Direct, LLC v. Ravage Holding, Inc, the defendant allegedly hijacked a product page then sent a false IP complaint to Amazon.
Most sellers are just arbitragers and scammers. Yes, most. They add zero value. They leech money away from manufacturers and brands and the people that actually make things. They lie to get discounts then redirect shipments to Amazon FBA. They sell used, damaged, and counterfeit goods as new. And when a customer complains they say, “Contact the manufacturer.” They create new listings on existing items and say shit like “special edition” and “limited edition” to confuse customers and win the buy box when no such variant exists. They lower the price and jack up the shipping cost to confuse people. They are a disease.
Brands hate third party sellers and so do customers. Most people don’t even realize how Amazon works or who they are buying from.