We’ve written about the practice of arbitrage in e-commerce in the past. Arbitrage is when you take advantage of different prices for the same items in different places, and make money by buying it from one place and reselling it in another. E-commerce has created a new variation on this business: people who receive orders from one site, order the items for their customers on another, and then ship directly, serving as a middleman. [More]
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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 Marketplace Seller Bombards Me With Free Textbooks
By 11.17.11
Earlier this month, Tom ordered a microbiology textbook from the Amazon Marketplace. It arrived in the mail later that week, and everything was fine. Then he received another copy of the book the next day. Then a third, and a fourth. All of the books were identical, and his credit card was only charged for the first one. What was going on here? More importantly, what was he supposed to do with the extra textbooks? [More]
