Had a few of these emails from Amazon over the years, and just lately they have been becoming more frequent with more and more brands doing the backhanded deal direct with Amazon to what appears to be anti competitive and market manipulation by both.
"Hello,
Thank you for your partnership and for providing a quality selection for customers, including RALPH LAUREN FRAGRANCES products in the gl_luxury_beauty category. RALPH LAUREN FRAGRANCES has a large catalogue of products and we’ve historically relied on our selling partners to surface offers for them in the gl_luxury_beauty category. That said, only a subset of RALPH LAUREN FRAGRANCES products in the gl_luxury_beauty category is currently available in the Amazon store, which sometimes leads to a poor experience for a customer searching for these products.
We’re always looking for ways to improve the customer experience, and as part of that effort, we’ve decided to source RALPH LAUREN FRAGRANCES products in the gl_luxury_beauty category directly from the brand owner going forward, which gives us a better ability to offer a greater selection with higher reliability. As part of that change, you will no longer be able to list RALPH LAUREN FRAGRANCES products in the gl_luxury_beauty category in the Amazon store. We recognise that this is an impactful change for your business and we want to give you time to adjust and the opportunity to sell through your inventory"
I am totally dumbfounded how this "improves" customer experience when Amazon cannot carry every item from the brands they are sneaking around with, and how Amazon have hiked up the price being sole seller of the goods.
An example being HUGO BOSS, when Amazon went direct with them a few years ago, now you can find hardly any of this brand in stock with Amazon, and those that ARE in stock are mainly higher priced than other platforms and websites that us sellers are now selling these products on.
Amazon's logic is customers get a greater selection and price from one single supplier.... Amazon, and the multitude of sellers carrying these brands do not collectively have a greater choice than Amazon???
About 80% of my stock that Amazon has gated for itself, Amazon do not have stock of, and are denying their customers CHOICE, of the stock Amazon DOES have... most of it is more expensive than elsewhere.. denying their customers VALUE.
It seems that Amazon would rather limit customer choice, price and experience.
How they can get away with this obvious market manipulation is beyond me.
But it does seem that Amazon want to drive away their 3rd party sellers by rapidly limiting the things they can sell on the platform until eventually there is nothing left of Amazon apart from private label brands and Amazon as sole sellers of branded stock they never have.
Every time Amazon go solo with the big brands, my traffic elsewhere increases as Amazon's customers search for better value and items actually in stock.
Eventually there will be nothing left for sellers to sell and customers to buy.
Amazon is heading down a slippery slope and the brands that are signing exclusively with them are just forcing their goods onto cheaper platforms.