Third party retailers are struggling to compete with Amazon’s ability to cherry pick high selling items and offer them at low prices with greater visibility.
Resellers operating part of their business on Amazon’s Marketplace have found that they can sometimes be seen as a testing bed for products, and this is creating a conflict of interests within the channel.
Reports from the Wall Street Journal claimed that Amazon had in the past offered products that had previously sold well for third parties also selling on on the site.
While there are apparently upsides to joining the retail site, the WSJ cites claims from Amazon that it leads to an average of a 50 percent increase in sales, companies feel that it can be tough when Amazon muscles in on popular sales.
This has been the case for firms working in the IT channel.
One memory reseller told us that it found the competition from the host site’s on sales were often tough to compete with as it would sell the same products.
“You have to be able to compete with them and you have to be able to beat their prices,” we were told. “It can be difficult.”
When asked whether Amazon has latched on to any products that have sold well and begun selling them itself, ChannelBiz was told that “They have done that in the past, yes.”
Another told us that while the retail giant does follow what is selling well, it is largely to be expected.
They found that Amazon would sell the same products in some instances, though they believe this is to be expected with competition to an extent.
“That’s just competition on Amazon, if something is selling well in the industry then yeah Amazon are going to put it on there too.”
However sometimes this “can make it difficult on a number of items”, and can be the case if Amazon is able to leverage its supreme buying power.
“Sometimes they put items on for sale, if they bought them at a bulk price,”
While we were told that competition is par for the course on any trading site, Amazon has the power to put its own sales more prominently on search lists.
“Sometimes they can put their item higher,” we were told, “but that is Amazon.”
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