So, What Is A Small Proprietor Supposed To Do?

I don’t think their price is hefty, but maybe I’m misunderstanding. Thought it was about 15-20%. Even if you take something and sell it in a retail store, the store wants 40-50%.

Right now, I’m of the opinion that Amazon is absolutely the way to go. Especially during the Christmas rush. If I get my business off the ground, I will definitely use them for selling my product.

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I heard the problem with Amazon is, if your product is a hot seller, you will soon see the same product sourced by Amazon itself. The buyers tend to buy things sold directly by Amazon. Is this true?
The have control over all the seller’s data.

Very good question. First, Amazon is NOT the only person doing this. You always risk having someone else try to cut into your sales and duplicate your stuff for cheaper. Amazon is simply following the same model Walmart and Target do which is to offer their own version of what they sell. My brother-in-law has some experience with this. He made an item which was essentially good for a tv-infomercial, and got a call before it even went to market from someone who told him to give him rights to it, or he’d knock it off. On the other hand, he sells a certain kind of blanket and has done very well with them because no one cares. It’s all about the mark-up and volume, honestly, not the idea.

Second, there are things you could sell that would be less desirable as an Amazon ripoff. For example, if you are selling designer jeans or purses and you have a name brand label, sure Amazon CAN make jeans and purses, but they’re not going to be your competition. If you are an artist and are selling paintings or prints, sure Amazon could knock them off, but would you still want it? Does anyone here actually buy IKEA art? I like some of it, but the idea of decorating my wall with something 10 million other people have in their houses isn’t my idea of art.

Hey, I used to do that… but then my wife put the kibosh on it…

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LOL! I’ll forgive it for bachelors and businesses. :slight_smile:

@Terri,

Well, at least it is not Tela Tubby art…

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More than most realize. I worked for a multinational, major distribution, specialty retailer. A big part of our line was costume jewelry. Our marketing staff were also our buyers. We would send them to all the national jewelry shows where they would pick up samples of what they thought would be good additions to our line. Then, we’d take those samples to the far east and use them as "models’ to manufacturers over there and set up contracts to produce the. We often made small changes to the design to avoid copyright infringement liabilities.

We had more than a few marketing staff quit over this very issue. They saw it as completely unethical and they had reputations in the industry they wanted to preserve.

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Amazon is on the move again…

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Ok, you Amazon shoppers… you just made Bezos the 2nd richest in the US

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Really? Why should anyone be worried? yet another grocery store opens up. Big deal. I buy my groceries from the farmer anyways.

Amazon already threatened their markets by selling toiletries to deliver to my house. Any damage is already done.

Well, (from their perspectives), there is the small matter of further undercutting pricing and eroding market share and potentially causing their business models to literally cease to be relevant… that’s all…:slight_smile:

It’s great for consumers. It’s very deflationary.

But do we want a company to get so big that it dictates not only pricing but eventually choice?

You can always go to Walmart… Wait, I forgot we in SF have no Walmart. :cry:

We have lack of choice in most things the government does for us. People seem happy with that and keep voting for the government to do more. Why should a company be different? Just look at how efficient and cost effective the government is.

Do we not have technically anti trust laws on the books that prevent monopolies???.

Amazon e-commerce revenue is around 100B a year. Walmart’s revenue is over 400B. So even it may look like Amazon is dominating the fact is it’s not. Amazon only has a very small share of the retail pie. I think it’s like 7% or something of the US retail market. Retail is that big.

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Yeah, just thinking down the road…like that BART thing going around the Bay Area in a circle…

Anti trust doesn’t apply to the government. I don’t know if the government has ever forced a company to split itself up. They will prevent mergers/acquisitions if they deem it anti competitive and bad for consumers.

Reagan did with AT&T. It was great. That’s why our calls are so cheap it’s free.

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