Comment by wiremonger | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wiremonger | Hacker News Reader

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> Selling on Amazon takes a 18-33% markup on the price of the product. Amazon forces this margin consumers by requiring sellers to not sell cheaper elsewhere

Amazon charges a referral fee on all 3rd party transactions. It varies by category, but is typically 8-15%. All retailers take similar margins. For instance, the largest retailer in the US is Walmart. Here is a list of their 3rd party referral fees: https://marketplace.walmart.com/referral-fees/.

Given that the retailers all take similar margins, I think it's crazy to somehow paint this as Amazon forcing a markup on customers. All Amazon is doing is refusing to show products if the price on Amazon is higher than at a competitor. It's the seller who chooses what to do about that. They can either raise the price at the competitor, or they can lower the price on Amazon.

Again, the retailer's margins are similar, so it shouldn't matter.

Fees are even less if they sell direct on Ebay or Shopify.

> Given that the retailers all take similar margins, I think it's crazy to somehow paint this as Amazon forcing a markup on customers. All Amazon is doing is refusing to show products if the price on Amazon is higher than at a competitor. It's the seller who chooses what to do about that. They can either raise the price at the competitor, or they can lower the price on Amazon.

Think of it this way: If that was the case, then why does Amazon require them to sell it for the lowest price on Amazon?

Amazon has a dominant market position, extracting more margin then competitors, yet they engage in this anti-competitive and consumer damaging behavior of requiring sellers to sell products at low or below cost in order to 'play' on the amazon.com marketplace.

Shameful.

> Fees are even less if they sell direct on Ebay or Shopify.

eBay charges similar fees: https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/sell...

Shopify is not a meaningful comparison, since it is not a marketplace. They don't bring customers to you. They're essentially a hosting and payments provider. You have to get traffic yourself.

> yet they engage in this anti-competitive and consumer damaging behavior of requiring sellers to sell products at low or below cost

Is your position that they are increasing the prices consumer pay or that they're decreasing them?

Re: "consumer damaging behavior of requiring sellers to sell products at low or below cost in order to 'play' on the amazon.com marketplace."

How does this damage the consumer?

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