Selling Partner or NUMBER 1 Competitor?!
Dear fellow sellers,
after almost 14 years of selling on Amazon it’s time for us to go.
We are honestly frustrated and tired of having to COMPETE rather than to partner up as they say, with Amazon.
We also would like to say in advance to the quite active couple users that usually defends Amazon on most of the forum threads, that is not about evolving or failing or such things… but simply being drastically undercutted by the worse competitor that any of us might want to face for selling online: Amazon.
And unless you are a private label seller who managed to scale your own Brand, it’s becoming way too difficult to compete with Amazon directly that keeps undercutting most of it’s own Selling Partners on pretty much any good selling ASINs.
Please see some concrete examples following:
B07B6MZW9F
B00CBU0IV8
B086W45C62
B086W4LBFK
B0B4JZS23C
B09XV9339K
B0828CKSFC
these are just some examples of course but the list is endless… and the only one selling on these ASIN and many many more while undercutting all the rest of its selling ‘partners’, is Amazon itself.
There is no way any of the rest of the sellers on these listings are making sales while Amazon stays on top of the listings, and we know that for a fact as we are and have been on many of these listings directly.
In these cases you just have to wait for Amazon to go out of stock when and IF it happens for a short while, but still this is drastically killing sales, profits and leaving third party Sellers feeling more as if we are betting on a listing knowing that Amazon might come back on it at anytime undercutting and stopping sales for anyone else.
So unless you are a very large seller with an enormous numbers of lines and/or sending to FBA a very large amount of inventory and lines, and you happen to sell some of these a bit more often when Amazon is out of stock or rising the price for a little bit, (but even then and we hope we are wrong, but we would bet that you are still seeing your turnovers drastically decreasing), you would agree with us that is becoming more and more difficult to make a smooth consistent profit on here.
In our book this is not Partnership but PURE COMPETITION and nevertheless unfair, as it’s unbeatable since Amazon don’t pay commissions to themselves (and good luck in getting anything from secure and authorized channels at a better price than Amazon).
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Nothing against Amazon being Amazon and wanting to sell everything directly, but since Amazon implemented and built much of its strength on third party sellers, we should all face reality a bit more and admitting that is not a selling partnership and an healthy environment for third party sellers to rely upon and make a consistent growing profit, but a bit more the opposite nowadays.
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AND OF COURSE, we are also very happy for any other seller that should not agree with us and is currently happily selling here without difficulties and making a great and consistent profit, but this is our current experience based on many many years of selling on Amazon, but if it’s not yours of course we are sincerely happy for you.
But that’s definitely not the case for many of us.
We will keep doing what we can here, we still love Amazon which was and still is the greater part of our business life, but we honestly just don’t feel treated anymore as a trusted Partner but we rather see pure competition from Amazon which is getting too difficult to compete with and keeping the business growing.
So we are going to put our eggs in some other baskets where there is way less competition and a way more healthy environment for us Sellers rather than keep watching ourselves slowly failing here.
All the best and good luck to all. 
0 replies
Seller_uhsTIkyXWzleq
What a frustrating start! Im a new seller and still studying the process and planning the first product 🥹
Seller_77IcbQKVGdZo0
I’m not trying to defend Amazon but I actually complete okay with them on a lot of products. On the ranges I sell then in 75% of cases they are priced higher than me. I would go as far as saying their pricing is actually far too high when compared with the RRP.
On ranges I can’t compete they do seem to run out frequently and I get the sales then. They are not particularly good at staying in stock.
My two hurdles at making a profit are firstly other sellers who drive the price down to a level that is not profitable. Secondly the setting of competitive prices at a level where profits can not be made.
Despite the hurdles I still make a decent profit each month.
Seller_DTufFoxJuMU0M
I’m lucky I don’t compete with Amazon for most of my listings, though there is a few where they sell the item for silly money, they obviously don’t have referral fees, and their postage expenses would be a lot less than mine, and they probably get some bulk purchase discount, so for me to meet their price I’d be selling at a loss.
I just don’t send them into FBA and I do sell a few myself, but its not a range I would consider expanding too much, I sell on other sites as well so its not costing me anything to have a FBM listing.
This is definitely the hardest, most stressful, most frustrating site that I sell on - unfortunately it is also the one with the most sales and most profit…
We did all know when we signed up here that Amazon are a retailer though,
Seller_j7UlCowZz6aOF
I totally get your frustration selling on Amazon is a very frustrating selling channel. No tools no seller support high levels of theft almost impossble to list new products if they are not already in the catalogue to name but a few.
For myself Amazon does not really compete with me most likely due to the distributors and some manufacturers wanting nothing to do with Amazon not only will they not deal with Amazon direct but a lot of them will refuse new trade accounts if the new account says they will be selling on Amazon. I have learned that to my cost when 2 new distributors were in the final stages of approving new accounts for me they asked were I intended to sell thier products all was fine until I mentioned that amazon would be one of the sales channels I would be selling on both said sorry we cannot approve your account so now I never mention Amazon when applying for new distributors.
Seller_OwG1S9JedjAdO
Made my decision yesterday. Wind down should take about six weeks. Bit of a double whammy for me, sick of being dragged down by the bottom feeders (Amazon have undercut by £1 on a £2 item) and a health diagnosis that made me think, stuff it, slow down and enjoy what’s left. Still going to do a bit elsewhere, but just enough to tick over.
Seller_JkWQzveEoG2ZL
I totally agree and relate , I am also struggling to survive and its been a year without making a penny just paying charges and fees , lets hope for the best I wont gonna give up.
Seller_FxlD6ypUczrN2
100% agree with you. As a menswear seller, we sell Calvin Klein underwear and Amazon sell them for cost price at times. It’s impossible. They recently wanted us to buy into a Seller Programme where we improve existing listings - which ultimately Amazon will end up monopolising. The guy was lovely but even he smiled and nodded at how ludicrous it actually was on a basic level.
I’d love it to be a fairer marketplace - it used to be, but its absolutely not at the moment; especially given the power of the customer to literally lie and be supported.
It’s becoming less and less viable. For now it’s just about worth it, but never sure for how long.
Seller_WiYAb9WBhjsuT
This has happened to me many times. Everytime I start selling a new line with ever increasing sales. Amazon very quickly source a supply and start undercutting my prices. My sales stop until Amazon is out of stock.
Rooree Books.
Seller_9vYzAspLN0bEC
You will soon find out rather then Amazon, its other sellers who drive the price down by setting a price by 1p less then the cheapest without working out the cost. If two sellers do this the price will reach the bottom very quickly.
