Billionaires Working With Billionaires to Service Billionaires

Amazon has been trying to nudge its sellers to sell more to businesses and to give businesses price discounts and better shipping compared to run of the mill people customers.

At this point a “nudge”. Likely soon to be a “force”.

A recent post by Amazon is noteworthy – telling its sellers NOT to use the post office for business deliveries. See https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions/t/228197c9-185b-48c7-879a-c6fc01bb9cbd

Amazon’s contract with USPS ends in October 2026. Search the news about USPS Amazon negotiations, breakup, etc.

Amazon is looking at paying USPS billions more, with a remote possibility of losing USPS delivery access, which is a reason why Amazon is spending billions to increase its rural delivery – unprofitable deliveries that Amazon has leaned on USPS for many years to service.

Trying to “leverage” the postal service during contract negotiations by recommending other services is not surprising.

UPS is also significantly reducing its relationship with Amazon.

Who else is moving away from Amazon?

Besides UPS and the postal service, it is reported a whopping 1/3 of active sellers have walked away the past few years and the number of new seller registrations is at a decade low. The number of new US seller registrations has basically collapsed. – See https://www.ecomcrew.com/amazon-sellers-registration-plunges-to-decade-low/

There are currently no AI deals like Walmart, Etsy, Shopify and other marketplaces have.

Amazon is having to run expensive TV ads to try and attract employees.

I’m not suggesting Amazon is in trouble, but major changes are happening and IMHO one is Amazon moving away from smaller sellers while also making a play toward larger buyers.

Think of it as billionaires working with billionaires to service billionaires.

That is why Amazon’s sellers forum is filled with posts about product categories basically ending, product gating and opportunities disappearing.

Remember when IBM was the #1 consumer computer seller? Then it shifted to all business.

Again, not saying Amazon will go 100% business, but it is rapidly tracking in the direction of being like Macy’s where if you want to sell on Macy’s you basically need to be a billion dollar supplier. Macy’s has a surprisingly few suppliers it relies on – unlike the millions of sellers on Amazon. But those millions of Amazon sellers are quickly dwindling and only a few now constitute the bulk of Amazon’s marketplace sales. A mere 7760 sellers do HALF of Amazon’s sales. See https://www.billiondollarsellers.com/p/bdsn-do-you-make-these-selling-mistakes-in-english

Will Amazon Use the Melania Movie to Teach Sellers How to Advertise and Make Money

The $75 million Amazon has reportedly plunked down for the Melania Movie is a bit outside my budget this week, so I’m hoping for a detailed, in-depth analysis showing where the money went, advertising techniques with AWS quality detailed statistical results, and how Amazon sellers can apply this to video ads and other types of advertising.

For instance, I just saw a paid commercial on CNN for Melania and it is SHOWING NOW.

I rushed to Fandango to see if there were tickets still available at my local movie theater. Whew! Only 2 tickets had been sold.

Maybe I’m just an amateur, but I don’t see the ROI or bandwagon effect from 2 tickets.

How to Change Image Raw Data in Photoshop for AI Created Graphics

When an AI created graphic is opened in Photoshop, the File Info Raw Data may show the AI software was used to create the image.

For example, Amazon’s Creative Agent in Creative Studio will show as Creative Agent.

Amazon also places a small watermark in the bottom left corner of the image which is easily and quickly removed using the Spot Healing Brush Tool – but the Raw Data cannot be edited in Photoshop. Re-saving the file as a psd and then to another format maintains the raw data.

Solution: Open the image, then File | Export | Quick Export Image as PNG – and save the file with its existing name or give it a new name.

Either way, the Raw Data is now changed to only show Photoshop without any reference to the original software used to create the image, whether it is AI or something else.

Prediction Market Fees Compared

Prediction Markets are red hot – everyone is now trying to jump on board. Although federally regulated as trading financial futures lets call it for what it is – betting. Gambling. And with federal law superseding state law it is breaking the gambling monopoly held by states, Indian Tribes, and the well known Vegas type casinos.

I think it’s great.

In California the Indian Tribes have held-up sports betting and fun for the masses for years to protect their own casino profits and now they’re going to get run over. No tears here.

So let’s look at a few prediction markets:

Summary

Lowest to Highest Fees for Sports Prediction Markets

1. Polymarket (When it re-enters the US)
2. Kalshi
3. Crypto
4. Robinhood

Polymarket – The largest in the world is just re-entering the US market after taking care of regulatory issues. My current understanding is trading fees will be near zero at .01 percent. No fees for deposit or withdrawals.

I don’t know if there will additional ‘exchange fees’ or ‘gas fees’ for tracking on a crypto blockchain. But Polymarket will likely destroy much of the competition in the US with its almost free trading – assuming it can be as user friendly as alternatives.

Kalshi – Already available in the US Kalshi offers a wide range of predictive trades.

The fee structure, though, is a convoluted financial equation resulting in significantly different rates depending on the likelihood of the trade. Consider fees to be somewhere between 1 and 2 cents, but can be substantially higher for since contracts. Basically, 50/50 trades are very expensive and trades with 85/15 or higher odds are very cheap. HOWEVER, if you trade a lot of contracts at once, such as 100, then Kalshi’s fees become a substantially smaller percentage.

I signed up but the identity verification process was broken. But even if that gets resolved, I’m not sure due to the weird fee structure, and Polymarket almost being free, if there is a strong future for Kalshi. It may be big now – because Polymarket has not been in the US – but it may not last.

Robinhood – Easy to use but fees are 2 cents for $1 contract, which makes trading high/low risk events impossible, and can take a high percentage of winnings. It results in weird events where a 99%/1% trade is offered, but it can’t be made use of because one would lose money by paying a 2 cent fee where the max payout is 1 cent.

The 2 cents is 1 cent to Robinhood and 1 cent to Kalshi which is used for trades.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Robinhood reduce fees in the future. It has a larger business enabling it to be more competitive for prediction markets.

Crypto – Crypto has $1 and $10 trading contracts. Crypto’s fees are hidden from easy access – they can be found here. The fee for a $1 contract is 2 cents. The fee for a $10 contract is 10 cents if you lose and 20 cents if you win.

Note that Crypto currently talks about “waiving” other fees, meaning it is setup to impose additional higher fees in the future.

The Crypto website says sports trading is only allowed before an event starts. But looking at individual games it shows in game fluctuating odds and suggests one can trade until the end of the game. I think part of their website may be outdated as only allowing sports trades before a game starts would be a huge negative. Other markets like Robinhood let you trade until the game ends thus enabling you to better target the odds you want and to make additional in-game trades to reduce risk or reduce a loss by creating a second trade for the other team.

The number of events shown on Crypto is small – which is a huge problem.

Crypto fees are cheaper than Robinhood because it has a 50% lower fee when you lose. Fees for winning are the same for Crypto and Robinhood

PredictIt – No sports trading it is mainly for political events.

Maximum trade amount is $3500. No fee to create a trade, but if you win PredictIt takes 10 percent of your winnings. It then takes another 5 percent as a withdrawal fee.

The fees are very high. And unlike sports events which are quickly over, it can take years to know the outcome for a political bet. PredictIt only makes sense if you get incredible odds and wait on the outcome and afford a 15% fee. But you’re also up against a $3500 limit so no big payouts. Personally – no.

Coming Soon …

Fanatics, Fanduel, DraftKings, Truth Social and more

Amazon Sues Perplexity to Stop Buyer Purchases Using AI Agents

I thought the big idea behind Amazon’s marketplace was to encourage product purchases so sellers make money from sales and Amazon makes money from referral fees (and a ton of other fees).

I thought another big idea was consumer first – whatever consumers want they get.

I thought a third big idea was to have a huge affiliate program driving sales from third parties recommending purchases.

Enter AI. Buyers can use Perplexity’s Comet AI Browser to make purchases on their behalf. For example, I need X please purchase the best product for my needs on Amazon – and the browser makes the purchase.

Amazon has sued to stop these sales. Sued to reduce sales. Sued to reduce sellers income – money used to put food on the table and a roof overhead.

Bottom line: IMHO it appears Amazon doesn’t want agentic browsers bypassing the zillion ads making the marketplace a craphole for buyers because it is apparently more profitable to make money from ad clicks than actual sales.

Example: My friend could ask me, Hey Brian, can you buy X for me on Amazon. But she can’t tell her AI assistant to make the same purchase.

Prediction: Every reason Amazon gives for its stance disappears if Amazon can get an additional payment from Perplexity for each sale its AI participates in.

eBay vs Amazon as a Seller

There was an interesting post in an Amazon forum about whether eBay or Amazon is better for sellers and their opinion was eBay is the Gold Standard and Amazon is the Black Standard.

eBay is far from perfect and I can point to a few things where it is a piss terrible company: charging sellers fees for sales tax paid by buyers and the upcoming ad “cookie” stuffing of charging sellers ad fees for sales if anyone in the world sees an ad even if the person making the purchase did not. It’s just plain fraud in my view.

And it will lead to more fraud as every seller will have an incentive to click on competitors’ ads every 30 days to force their competitors to pay the ad referral fee to eBay for every sale they make.

Something tells me eBay will be looking down the barrel of lawsuits and government action in the future.

But beyond that … eBay stock is up 35% Year to Date. Amazon up 10% and that’s only because it just got a 10% bump from the AWS AI deal.

Step back farther – 5 years or about Andy Jassy’s tenure as Amazon CEO: eBay up 75% Amazon up 50% – and Amazon is largely due to AWS and a massive income jump in seller ads.

eBay also thanks its investors with some dividends. So does Google, Microsoft, etc. Amazon has never paid a penny in dividends to the investors who were necessary to build the company.

If you sell on both platforms there is a definite “vibe” growing significantly more disparate the last few years.

Amazon? Many sellers wonder why Amazon hates them so much and why it is even in the marketplace business and doesn’t just split the company.

Maybe some sellers feel like eBay is the “gold standard” for sellers because it understands it needs sellers; while it can feel like sellers on Amazon are are just fodder while Amazon focuses on AWS and pivots Prime to being a Disneylike media company.

Personally, I think Amazon needs to be split into at least 3 companies: AWS, Media, and Marketplace.

That might force Amazon to be better for sellers.

Right now too many parts of the Amazon marketplace are atrocious. Products are shadow banned until the seller pays for ads. Consumers just see ad after ad after ad. Many of the products are just Chinese companies buying cheap stuff on Alibaba and then selling the same product under different – unintelligible trash “brands”. It can be a horrible experience. So bad I believe eBay is reaping the benefits.

Amazon has exited the used toys business. A huge percentage of booksellers are gone. Numerous other product categories are under strain to even be sold as bots run amok and Amazon limits sales of non-Chinese bombarded categories to billion dollar brands. Amazon merch is squeezing out sellers of additional product categories. For many sellers and their products they are going to eBay and I expect that trend will accelerate.

Custom Print on Demand Product Options

Several services offer the ability to automate customization for print on demand products.

Here is a brief overview of current pricing and integrations:

Customily

Broad marketplace integrations with Shopify, Woocommerce, Amazon, Etsy and others.

Print on Demand integrations – Customily works with a large number of major POD providers.

Pricing: $49 per month PER MARKETPLACE INTEGRATION plus $1 per order, which drops to .50 per order after 100 orders are sent in a month, .25 per order after 1000 orders are sent and .10 per order after 10,000 orders – per month.

Bottom line: Customily is realistically targeting only those with high volumes of sales. the top 1 percent of the market. For the other 99% of online sellers the pricing may consume a significant amount of your profits, although perhaps customization is your path to higher sales volume.

Customily appears to be the market leader and has priced itself knowing it is the leader and can maximize its profits.

Hello Custom

Marketplace integrations are Amazon and Etsy.

Print on Demand integration is Printify.

Cost per month is $30 plus .29 per order.

Many sellers are doing the Printify / Etsy get rich scam so the limited number of integrations will still work for them

Anywhere POD

Marketplace Integrations are Etsy and Shopify.

Print on Demand integrations are Printify, Teelaunch, and a few others – notable including Order Desk. It was unclear from my limited review, though, whether Order Desk can be used as a gateway connection to potentially dozens of POD companies that Order Desk works with; as well as many marketplaces.

Pricing paid monthly is $10 flat fee with no per order cost. The limitation is one Etsy or Shopify store and one POD provider. If you’re limited to doing the Printify – Etsy thing this is a no-brainer to use.

$25 per month for two POD providers and up to two Etsy stores, and then $49 per month for unlimited POD providers and unlimited Etsy stores. Again, there is no per order fee.

Conclusion

Decisions. Decisions. I haven’t attempted to evaluate how the customization works with each company and any limitations.

For sellers using numerous POD providers with lots of sales Customily seems built for your business.

Anywhere POD, though, may be an option, especially depending on how broad the Order Desk integration can be used. However, Customily offers POD integrations that Order Desk does not, such as Completeful.

The problem with Anywhere POD is that it is OK if you only use one POD provider such as Printify. But once you expand to other providers you’re suddenly looking at the same monthly cost as Customily – although not having a per order fee is a significant savings.

There is not much of a reason to use Hello Custom – except it has Amazon – which can be a huge reason. Order Desk integrates with Amazon so if you sell on Amazon you will want to find out if Anywhere POD working with Order Desk can handle customized Amazon orders.

Collars and Co Shirt Review

I tried the Collars and Co shirt that was promoted on Shark Tank and invested in by Mark Cuban.

The claim to fame for the shirt is that it has a rigid collar but instead of a dress shirt it is a polo shirt. Stay put collar on a more casual shirt.

I decided to give it a try and ordered the Red Houndstooth.

Ordering

The shirts are expensive!

During ordering Collars and Co wanted to know if I wanted to pay extra to insure the order for delivery. Otherwise, if it was not delivered it was my loss.

Hmmm. I was so put off by that – are they using some shady delivery service? – I put away my credit card and used PayPal to maximize my protection if the order was not delivered.

Then I saw shipping. It should have been free given the hefty price of the shirt but no. Even worse, Collars and Co was padding the amount as an extra profit item. That is, customers are paying one price for shipping and Collars and Co is actually paying a lower amount and pocketing the difference.

Once the order was placed this happened …

Nothing.

IT TOOK A WEEK FOR SOMEONE TO GRAB THE SHIRT OFF THE WAREHOUSE SHELF AND SHIP IT.

Bad. Very bad service.

Even worse … during that week I started getting spam messages from the company and finally had to unsubscribe and remove myself from their spam lists. Come on. Ship the order instead of sending spam.

The Shirt

The collar is very rigid. I’m not sure how the shirt is supposed to be washed and have the collar hold up, even on a delicate cycle. But overall the shirt is what it claims to be.

Size though is a different story.

The shirts are long. Longer than a regular polo shirt and not something to be worn untucked.

Actually, the shirts are intended for bean poles. I had to go back and get the info on the model shown for my shirt – 5’10” wearing a small. How many 5’10” men do you know who wear a size small? With a 14 inch neck?

I don’t know anyone like this and certainly wouldn’t design a shirt with this in mind.

Men if they workout have at least a few pounds of muscle. Or, if they don’t work out have a few pounds of fat. Either way, this shirt won’t be a good fit. It is like a straw intended for someone very thin.

So for sizing the shirt was a disaster. An almost impossibly small neck, with a narrow shirt, that is long. Looked terrible.

Even worse, in real life the Red Houndstooth looked like a brighter red shirt with bright white buttons – a clown shirt if there ever was one. Bad choice on my end. Could have been a cool design but “clown shirt” was my immediate thought upon seeing it.

There is a label sewn on the back of the inside back of the shirt below the collar, and the stitching comes through the back of the shirt and is visible. Even $20 shirts from Target look better than this $100 shirt intended for the professionals.

Overall

Had to return it. If it was just the idiot looking color combination I would have tried a different color, but the sizing of the shirt was impossible.

The collar would take some getting used to but seems to be exactly as advertised.

Oddly, the company seems to be adding and promoting everything except its shirt. There’s jackets, sweaters, hoodies, socks, belts, etc.

Finally, get this, as I write this the home page as big picture of sports announcer Joe Buck and welcoming him to the team.

He is wearing what looks to be just a regular polo shirt. NOT a Collars and Co shirt with its rigid collar that is the reason for buying these shirts.

OMG. What a fail. Can you imagine paying someone to promote your shirt and their picture appears to show them not wearing what you are famous for?

Collars and Co Review

Printify Review – How to Survive and Not Have Printify Destroy Your Business

Printify used to advertise itself as the “safest” Print on Demand provider you could trust with orders and fulfillment.

Those days are long gone.

Custom Cat and other manufacturers have bailed from the service.

District Photo purchased a competitor, TeeLaunch, which posted messages telling sellers not to use Printify but instead to use TeeLaunch for fulfillment of District Photo’s products to get faster and better service.

Printify then had to “merge” with Printful and now it is no longer an independent company. Unfortunately, even with the merger the service continues to get worse.

Printify decided to shift delivery where possible to OnTrac, a cut-rate service with a 1 star review resulting in hundreds of complaining seller posts. The cost savings by using OnTrac instead of USPS – pocketed by Printify. No cost savings passed along to sellers – just customer support headaches dealing with angry customers.

As I write this Printify’s Amazon integration broke two weeks ago, was fixed, and has broken again and is now on day 5 – yes and incredible 5 days and counting of being completely broken.

Products cannot be created on Amazon using Printify. Orders are not being received. Tracking is not being sent. It’s a clusterfuck of magnitude 10.

If that wasn’t enough, Printify started saying it was going to delete products – 3 days ago (WTF) without explanation, with a fake link to “learn more” about what is happening.

EVEN WORSE – IF YOU USED PRINTIFY TO INTEGRATE WITH A MARKETPLACE OR WEBSITE PRINTIFY WILL ALSO REMOVE YOUR PRODUCT FROM YOUR WEBSITE OR MARKETPLACE.

Frankly, it could be criminal trespass on your website and interference with your Etsy, eBay, Amazon contract.

This is what you need to do to protect yourself:

1. Whenever possible do not use Printify’s product creation tool. Instead, create designs yourself in Photoshop, graphic tool of your preference, AI, whatever, and then upload your completed design to Printify.

2. If you want to preserve product mockups created on Printify always save them to your computer or backup storage device.

3. Whenever possible do not use Printify’s integration tool to create products on websites or marketplaces. Fact is for single version products it will be just as fast for you to create the listing directly on the marketplace or your website. Maybe even faster. This is because Printify’s integration tool is garbage and savvy sellers already have to edit and modify every listing anyway that Printify creates – if anything, so it will be compliant with marketplace terms and have the SEO you want.

For multiple version products, such as tshirts with many colors and sizes, Printify’s integration tools can provide considerable time savings instead of downloading every mockup to your computer and then uploading to your sales channel. That’s something for you to decide. It’s time / risk tradeoff.

4. This means for orders not using an integration tool you will need to import each order. This can be fast enough within Printify, but ultimately not hands-off and automated which defeats a major benefit of POD and which can be critical as your order volume increases.

5. For imported orders, to be safe, do not click Printify’s box asking if future orders are to be imported. I don’t think these products are actually synced (you’re just telling Printify to automatically import orders with that SKU) and removal from Printify would not also remove the paroduct marketplace, but I’m not sure about that.

6. Consider opening accounts with manufacturers directly. It is handy to have all your orders in one place with Printify, but many manufacturers are also connected with Order Desk which you can use instead as a command center to review your orders.

7. If you’re really concerned I believe you can break the integration by changing the SKU in Printify and/or the marketplace where possible. Creating SKU mismatches may prevent Printify from being able to delete a product elsewhere.

PayPal Button Greyed Out on Woocommerce Variable Product

Weird situation I have seen others complain about online – their WordPress Woocommerce product pages having the PayPal button greyed out.

Not on all products – but only products with variations.

Here is the solution – set a default variation to show customers.

On your product page go to:

Product Data | Variations | Default Form Values

Set a default variation and, at least from my experience, that will make the PayPal button appear again – usable and in full color.