Is Amazon Reinventing Itself?

byWjtera

132 followers

6 years ago

Amazon's Covid-19 Excuse

I do believe that Amazon is using the Covid-19 upheaval as an opportunity to push grocery and other sales from large established businesses. That way Amazon can slowly get rid of individual sellers. I'm pretty sure they know that they will lose thousands of individual sellers and that could be their intention.

Reason for Amazon's Move

It could be an attempt to cut down on the amount of refunds and returns. These not just from normal shoppers but from those taking advantage of the system. Amazon can ban a customer "returning the wrong item or making frequent returns" but the publicity is ugly.

In year 2018 Amazon banned a computer programming customer but backtracked and lifted the ban. Their hands are tied. They cannot be advertising easy returns and simultaneously banning customers.

Solution for Amazon, Bad for Some Sellers

Since low barrier to entry means anyone can sell on Amazon, as a customer I have experienced that quality control on Amazon is an issue. Expanding into the grocery business where they would most likely deal with businesses and less individual merchants seems like a solution.

Amazon ultimately may lose little as the product quality may improve and customers like me don't have to spend an unreasonably amount of time researching their listings/merchants before purchasing a product.

Sellers . . . well . . . as Apple would say, they get promoted to customers.

Large Merchants Will Be the New Thing

For years I was grateful to shop almost exclusively on Amazon. Then they really started pushing the pantry or grocery items. For grocery I shop locally but I recently noticed Amazon has Whole Foods delivery available.

No More Prime

When I decided against renewing Prime membership I shopped more locally and found out for sure that it truly was more "expensive on Amazon than the local stores. No joke." You're on point, Kyle. Ain't no joke to my pocketbook.

What Weened me Off Amazon Shopping

Dumpster Diving

I had read a true account of a photograher who found he was making more money by dumpster diving behind the supermarkets and other stores such that the earnings outpaced his photography work. He started to sell full time on Amazon.

That explained a lot of reviews I have seen on Amazon where customers complained of stale-dated items, or even perishable oils the origanal dates covered with alternate labels.

Pallets of Returned Merchandise

Though this incident with which I'm familiar happened on eBay, I figure others could do the same on Amazon. A neighbor would buy pallets of returned merchandise from Home Depot and sell them on eBay, Facebook and Craigslist. I suspect some people would sell the lesser damaged ones on Amazon.

Self Storage Treasures

I've read of similar antics when a self storage auction winner needed to break even. His treasure hunting didn't bring him any. But, he believed what he ended up with were still saleble. Anyone right now thinking Covid-19?

Must I Research Everything?

I still buy from Amazon. It takes increasingly more research, and I'm still good with some of the products. But, I've had to return some which was doable. Except those from China. In one case a seller had a strict no-return policy. Howerver, Amazon saw the well researched communication from me to the seller about the china-made-cosmetics. Amazon wasted no time refunding me.

It's a Breakup

Yes, Amazon is writing a Dear John letter to individual sellers.