One of the ways that Amazon has been able to offer such a wide selection of items has been through its Marketplace, or third-party sellers. These businesses or individuals would ship from their own bookshelves, garages, or warehouses, handling order fulfillment and letting Amazon expand its inventory without building any new warehouses. Now a new policy makes it clear that sellers who handle their own orders are at a disadvantage. [More]
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Lloyd’s Of London Now Offers Insurance To Amazon Sellers Worried About Being Banned
By 3.23.17
Third-party sellers on Amazon often complain that the rules governing suspensions, bans, and reinstatement are vague, and that they feel at risk for losing their livelihoods at any time. Now one of the biggest names in insurance is underwriting plans that will pay out if a seller loses access to Amazon. [More]
Always Pay Attention To Who The Actual Seller Of Your Amazon Item Is
By 10.17.16 — Updated: 10.18.16
When you shop on Amazon, it pays off to pay attention to who you’re actually buying from. As we’ve discussed before, buying an item on Amazon.com doesn’t mean that you’re buying it from Amazon, even if it’s shipped to you from one of Amazon’s warehouses. The seller is another person or company who sent their stuff to Amazon’s warehouse. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it can have some unintended effects. Like depriving you of piano lessons. [More]
You’re Not Supposed To Receive Amazon Orders In Walmart And Sam’s Club Boxes
By 4.20.16
Buying an item on Amazon’s site doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily buying that item from Amazon. This can lead to serious confusion when you try to make a warranty claim, and seriously confuses some customers when a box from Walmart shows up on their doorstep with their Amazon order. Why would that happen? If a box from a different retailer shows up on your doorstep, it means that your seller is playing the retail arbitrage game and breaking Amazon’s rules. [More]
Amazon Lets Third-Party Merchants Limit Where They’ll Ship Prime Items For Free
By 8.28.15
Amazon’s Prime program includes third-party merchants, whose shops let the online Everything Store expand its inventory without building more warehouse space. While the company is experimenting with making these merchants part of the Prime program for items that already have free shipping, However, some of these merchants get to limit how far they will ship an item for free. [More]
Amazon Adds Marketplace Merchants To Prime Shipping
By 6.12.15 — Updated: 11.17.16
Back in January, Amazon expanded eligibility for its $35 Super Saver Shipping to items shipped by merchants in its Marketplace who already offer free shipping. Merchandise that doesn’t ship from an Amazon warehouse now counts toward the $35 free shipping threshold. Now they’re adding even more sellers to the virtual Amazon warehouse: selected large shippers will now be part of the Prime unlimited 2-day shipping program. [More]
Amazon Adds Seller-Shipped Marketplace Items To Super Saver Shipping
By 1.28.15
People love free shipping, even if retailers don’t necessarily love it so much. For customers who don’t have Prime memberships, Amazon’s free shipping on orders of $35 or more is a popular policy. Yet if one item in a customer’s cart ships from a third-party seller, it doesn’t count toward that $35 total. Amazon has now changed this policy…but only for items that were already listed as having free shipping. [More]
Amazon’s Sales By Third-Party Sellers Hit 2 Billion Items, 40% Of Total
By 1.5.15
40% of the items sold on Amazon.com in 2014 weren’t sold by Amazon. Sure, Amazon collected fees, a percentage of payments, and storage fees for items stored in and shipped from Amazon warehouses. However, Amazon didn’t own the actual stuff, serving as a sales platform instead of a retailer for 2 billion items sold on the site. [More]
Walmart Closes Now-Infamous Online Price-Matching Loophole
By 11.20.14
It was fabulous news for bargain-hunters when Walmart announced a change to its price-matching policy, allowing shoppers to bring in listings from popular online retailers as long as the items are identical. When some shoppers formulated an evil-genius plan to use fake third-party seller Amazon listings to buy PlayStation 4s for less than 25% of the sticker price, the wording of the original policy technically allowed this to happen. Walmart has responded by changing their policy. [More]
How Will Amazon’s New $35 Minimum For Free Shipping Affect Marketplace Sellers?
By 10.24.13
When we learned that Amazon quietly upped the minimum purchase to receive free Super Saver Shipping to $35 from the longtime threshold of $25 as of Tuesday, we rather selfishly looked at this from the point of view of consumers, and also from the point of view of cats that like to lounge in Amazon boxes. Who didn’t we consider? Amazon Marketplace sellers. [More]
Rude Amazon Vendor Calls Me ‘Stupid,’ Only Wants Good Feedback
By 6.14.13 — Updated: 6.25.13
Robert found a great deal on swimsuits on Amazon, so he ordered a half dozen. What he didn’t notice during the ordering process was that the vendor is in China, and his purchase wouldn’t show up for six weeks. Sigh. Oh, well. He could deal with that, but didn’t like the seller hounding him for good feedback before he even received the items, then when he was unhappy with them. [More]
eBay Changes Up Its Seller Fees In Bid To Chip Away At Amazon Marketplace
By 3.19.13
Where you choose to sell the stuff you have to sell is a big decision, and online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay know that. So what could mean the difference between taking your budding business to one place and not the other? The fees sellers have to pay can be a deciding factor, and eBay knows it. That’s why the company is launching new fee rules for its sellers. [More]
Amazon Takes Page Out Of Kafka, Puts Seller Account ‘Under Review’ And Won’t Explain Why
By 1.16.13
Having the ability to sell items in the Amazon Marketplace is a great opportunity for individuals with just a few items to get rid of. That’s the case for Allan: he’s sold a total of three items, ever. Amazon arbitrarily put a hold on his account before he sold the third one, meaning that he can’t get money from his sales for as long as a month and a half. How can he fix this? What did he do wrong? To find out, he’d have to penetrate Amazon’s bureaucracy. [More]
When A Price Is Too Good To Be True, Prepare Yourself For Possible Disappointment
By 11.8.12
Adam happened to see the stand mixer of his dreams listed on Amazon for only $36. That was quite a discount from the list price of $500, even with $76.76 shipping, so he jumped on it. As you can guess, this deal wasn’t real and the Amazon Marketplace vendor certainly hadn’t meant to offer a 93% off sale. The seller canceled the transaction, claiming to have no inventory. Now Adam has no mixer, is sad, and blames Amazon. Is this really Amazon’s fault? [More]
Hey, Amazon, Your Marketplace Sellers Are Customers Too
By 10.15.12
When one individual buys an item from another individual through the Amazon marketplace, who is the vendor and who is the customer? From Amazon’s point of view, the buyer is the only one putting an item in their cart on Amazon.com and hitting “Check out.” Kyle complains that this means Amazon sellers, who might be individuals and loyal Amazon customers too, are shut out and automatically in the wrong when there’s a dispute. [More]
Amazon Marketplace Dispute Leaves Me With No Money, No Navigation System
By 7.26.12
The Amazon Marketplace is a really useful consumer-to-consumer selling arena. Unfortunately, when there’s a dispute, the site tends to side with the customer. Even, as reader and first-time Amazon seller Jeff learned, when the dispute has already been decided in the seller’s favor. Worse: the buyer, or the shipping service the buyer used to send the item back, destroyed the item enough that it can’t be resold. [More]
Amazon Has A Strange Definition Of 'Counterfeit'
By 5.15.12
Philip has a fun and profitable hobby: he looks for great deals on items online, then resells those items on the Amazon Marketplace. Recently, he found a great deal on headphones on Amazon itself, so he bought the item before the price expired, then listed it on Amazon as usual. This resulted in a nastygram from Amazon telling him that his account had been suspended for listing counterfeit Sennheiser headphones. You know, the same ones that he just bought from Amazon. [More]
How I Sent A Stranger A Free PS3, Thanks To Amazon
By 1.26.12
Peter didn’t set out to send a stranger in a different state the gift of a 100% free PlayStation 3 this holiday season, but thanks to the policies of the Amazon Marketplace, that’s what he did. His customer had a problem with the console, and filed an A-Z Guarantee claim with Amazon, since it didn’t work. Except after Peter helped her with the problem and it was working again, she stopped communicating with him, didn’t close the claim, and promptly received a refund for the full purchase price without having to return the item. [More]
