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
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