which other retailers let third party small businesses sell stuff on their websites. It’s a double edged sword. Amazon and other big retailers help legit small businesses survive by allowing them to reach endless potential customers via the Amazon website. Amazon charges those small businesses a lot for services like warehousing, shipping and a presence on the Amazon “marketplace.
I’m not sure if Amazon also gets a percentage of their third party small businesses’ sales. But I’d guess that they do just like GrubHub gets a big piece of the restaurants’ sales when they deliver food for them. I’ve encountered the same thing on the Target website. Details probably vary by the contracts the mom and pop businesses have with the big retailers. But it’s a huge part of online retail now.
The problem, IMO, is that Amazon doesn’t seem to monitor enough who they let sell on their website. So among the small businesses that sell on the big retailer sites, we have things like the people who go from TJs to TJs buying up their inexpensive products and selling them online at hugely inflated prices. There is also a lot of stolen products being sold on the big websites by entrepreneurs whose “business” is stealing stuff to sell online.
It really is our latest version of the Wild West online.
Don’t feel bad for not knowing this. I only recently learned that designer outlet stores mostly sell inferior products that they intentionally make for their outlet stores, not just last season’s leftovers that didn’t sell in their regular (not outlet) stores.
