Does anyone compete against Amazon?
Good Morning,
I’m in contact with a supplier for a few products that are being sold on Amazon by Amazon themselves with no other competitors
Does anyone directly compete with Amazon?
I’m not sure if it is worth bothering, I can be highly competitive on price but am worried I will never have the buy box on the listings, just wondering if anyone has any previous experience of this good or bad.
Many thanks in advance
26 replies
Seller_Yja9oH7DLHk2I
It totally varies by product. Sometimes they will match you on price no matter what you put.
Sometimes they have a level they will drop to and sometimes they won’t react to you at all.
I also find that sometimes they will stop dropping the price for a while and then will suddenly start again. I always think this is because the robot has had to seek some sort of authorisation from on of the fleshy robots.
Seller_Gyxl3CWGjSd3N
I sell many of the same products Amazon do and we buy from the exact same supplier. No one competes against Amazon though and you are correct, you will never win the buy box if they are listing. You hope to mop us sales if they run out of stock.
Seller_KKcTTZzy6Jd6Q
As far as I’m aware if you’re selling products non-prime then you can’t compete with Amazon for the buy-box.
You also cannot compete on any media category.
Besides this a prime offer (FBA or SFP) can compete with Amazon as long as you beat their price by approx 5-15% (depending on category and other factors)
The problems start when they try to match your price.
I’ve talked about this in other threads but there are also situations where they will actively beat your price… by buying from you…
Seller_pK7xNtqKBLm9g
Thanks everyone,
I will be FBA on the product so I guess I will have a chance on the buy box, although dont particularly like going much below current buy box price as it’s not beneficial to anyone dropping price to much.
Margins are pretty high on it and prep time minimal so may just have a punt on it and like was said above not throw masses of stock at it.
Amazon buying from me would be interesting, I guess they will still charge me a picking and delivery fee even though it will more than likely be left on it’s current shelf 
Thanks for everyone’s advice really appriciate it
Seller_hXjIuSzRRFZIn
No… Amazon compete against me as I started selling this brand on their platform, then when they saw the good sales they started stocking them
They are usually lower than me, sometime a penny over so they do get the majority of sales then I just hope to pick some up when they run out of stock.
I think it’s disgusting tbh that they grind sellers to the ground that already support their platform in fees. I made a good living until they started, I can understand why Trump declared war on them
I use FBA on all my stock and love it most of the time but annoyed that for a while there are always shortages when checked in and we can no longer fight against it!
Seller_YZsi5FfZqUkFK
As a manufacturer, we sell the same products to Amazon (as a vendor), and through Amazon (as a seller, both FBA and FBM). We price our own offers at our recommended retail prices and let Amazon price however they want.
Our FBA offers were originally intended to provide a buffer against retail running out of stock, but our offer can sometimes win the buy box even when there is an identically priced offer from Amazon retail. On the face of it it seems illogical that Amazon wouldn’t favour their own offers at all times, however it has been discussed on these forums before that their buy box bots do appear to take into account the FBA and referal fees when determining which sale would be more profitable for Amazon. They will adjust their offers above yours if your sale will make them more profit. That is why sometimes Amazon buy your FBA stock from you and resell it retail at less than your offer. (Apparently they have an exemption to the ‘New’ vs ‘Used as New’ listing requirements…)
When you are the manufacturer, as we are, we know what price Amazon retail pay us for our products after rebates and what our FBA fees are per product sale so we can work out at what point to price our FBA offers to ensure we get the buy box even when we are not the cheapest price. (However that would be in the realm of price fixing, and unethical to our vendor agreement at best, so we only offer at our recommended retail price.) If you are not supplying Amazon retail there is no reason why you cannot do that based on your wholesale costs to get a guide as to whether you can successfully compete and make a profit.
Seller_LKjg1QRrO36Yq
As a BMVD seller I’m constantly in competition with Amazon but book and media sellers are used to not getting the buybox.
Having said that, I’ve noticed another incarnation of ‘Amazon’ popping up quite a lot recently:
Anyone know what that’s all about?
Seller_sLuG362AxUdBT
Hi,
If you are doing FBA, then your stock will be there in amazon warehouse and you will have to pay long term storage fees if your product don’t sell. That’s why we do not send goods as FBA where Amazon is themselves selling. Yes you can sell as Merchant Fulfilled when Amazon goes out of stock or sometime Amazon as quantity restrictions and you could get orders.
Best of Luck
Regards
Manish
Seller_z5IIdzraU6omK
I have found over the years some very low and strange selling policies from Amazon Direct and other sellers.
My advice would be (for what its worth) to set your prices and stick to them. You sell what you sell and if you can’t get a ‘decent margin’ out of it sell the stock off and walkaway from the item 
Seller_JHdYYHAeKWpb1
In all fairness that will be business suicide, even my distributor who supplies Amazon can’t compete with them… Else you can recuperate your loses on a different product, you may try this, otherwise just follow their lead…
