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Comment by basch | Hacker News Reader

Theres a big difference between ending the same of products from creators and manufacturers and ending 3rd party resale and price arbitrage. If you make something, you should still feel safe on amazon (until your product takes off and they clone it), i dont see a reason to retreat to etsy or ebay. But if your business is buying and reselling things, and youre not adding value, I can see why Amazon would want to eliminate you.

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Amazon likes 3rd party sellers because they basically give them free credit (3rd party seller pays for product, Amazon only pays them after the product was sold).

Also, 3rd party sellers shoulder a lot of the risk. If a product doesn't sell, or needs to be recalled, etc., Amazon doesn't care -- it's the seller's responsibility.

So I think Amazon really likes 3rd party sellers. They probably only want to get rid of them if a product gets popular enough (they want to sell it themselves) or if a product category comes with too much issues (counterfeits).

>> But if your business is buying and reselling things

You mean like the vast majority of all consumer goods? Very few people buy direct from the manufacturer - isn't this exactly what amazon is, minus the requirement of having to buy the product to be the MITM?

Amazon shopping is a storefront software tool, payment processor, and warehouse/shipping company? What value does the guy reselling trader joes for 10x markup out of his basement do that is of a similar level to what amazon does?

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