Time for Anti-Amazon Policy?

[smilie]

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System: The following message was cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4848737.htm [webmasterworld.com] by goodroi - 9:24 am on May 11, 2017 (utc -5)

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Yesterdays Internet Retailer magazine was interesting. While before writers were all happy that Amazon is so great etc. This issue was surprising as almost every article mentioning Amazon was describing anti-Amazon strategies. Another words, every single online merchant now must have anti-Amazon strategy Or be prepared to go out of business. And the big ones all do, in every single article there's someone mentioning what they do to be able to compete with Amazon and some even 2017 and 18 projections.

Amazon was estimated by IR writers to have between 40% and 43% of ALL ONLINE US COMMERCE.

That's way past the point of being able to break almost any online ecommerce competitor at will. Certainly small one.

What's your anti-Amazon policy?

[Shaddows]

anti-Amazon policy

Overtly not to compete on price, prominently publish a phone number, and offer exert advice by phone or email within business-class SLAs- as well as offering case-studies and use cases online.

We used to smoke them on Return policy too, but AMZN spotted an easy win, and went the way of B&M retail - accept everything back and force the return to the supplier.

[edited by: goodroi at 2:34 pm (utc) on May 11, 2017]
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[smilie]

Great , it's been cut out into it's own topic, thanks! Long overdue.

Ok, let's start with some numbers that kill US small and medium retailers.

NEED TO IMMEDIATELY DO AWAY WITH a little known Asian subsidy which is KILLING US retail. Did you know a small package sent by an Asian online seller only cost them about $1.00 vs the $20.00 we would have to pay to send a package to Asia. We even provide tracking services on that package. This was pushed down our throats thru the “heavy lobbying” by Ebay and Amazon to promote direct chinese sales on both sites.

Extremely anti-US , anti-competitive.

[smilie]

@NickMNS provided a good link you can study to see how large Amazon has become.

Amazon accounts for 43% of US online retail sales
[businessinsider.com...]

[NickMNS]

@glakes everything your are saying makes sense to me. I have one question, are the Amazon listings that crowd your website listing in the serp, are the Amazon listings for product pages of your products or of competitor products?

Amazon was estimated ... between 40% and 43% of ALL ONLINE US COMMERCE.

@smilie that figure is staggering, almost unbelievable. but not surprising. But to be sure I Google'd it and here is a reference:
[businessinsider.com...]

To put this into perspective US personal consumption for q4 2016 (excluding energy, because amazon doesn't sell gas (yet!)) was 3,892 B, Amazon revenue was excluding AWS was about 40B. That is 1%. That means that 1% of everything purchased by individuals in the US was bought at Amazon. And this is a rough estimate, if you exclude things that Amazon doesn't sell (that doesn't include much) such as vehicles. Then the percentage increases. And as smilie and the articles referenced point out, their share is growing.

[edited by: goodroi at 3:03 pm (utc) on May 11, 2017]
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[smilie]

@NickMNS, exactly , thanks for the link. It is becoming too-big to not notice.

[edited by: goodroi at 3:04 pm (utc) on May 11, 2017]
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[RhinoFish]

Unique items, personalized items, add-on services, training, installation, anything you can do to be different.
If you're the same, you can't beat them - price, shipping, etc, all too good.
As a shopper, I love my Prime benefits.

Be different.

[shigamoto]

Agree on the above. But would like to add mixing content and e-Commerce in specific niches. For example create blogs with easy buy buttons integrated. I think the worst thing you can do is replicate the Amazon experience, because it's hard to compete head to head with them.

[smilie]

Adding stuff here, instead of starting new thread.

Amazon just announced that it will allow automatic returns on it's marketplace. Which means big losses for the merchants who sell on Amazon. All over the web small merchants are very upset.

Amazon (AMZN) sellers are up in arms over a new returns policy that will make it easier for consumers to send back items at the merchant's expense.

Marketplace sellers who ship products from their home, garage or warehouse -- rather than using Amazon's facilities -- were told this week by email that starting Oct. 2, items they sell will be "automatically authorized" for return.

That means a buyer will no longer need to contact the seller before sending an item back, and the merchant won't have the opportunity to communicate with the customer.

A third-party seller forwarded the email to CNBC and said these policies "will totally crush small businesses that fulfill their own orders."

Online forums are already lighting up with angry sellers.

On the topic of returnless refunds, one merchant said, "In other words, customers get things from us for free! Is this a joke?" Another said, "Amazon is going to assume that a buyer would NEVER lie about the reason for the return so they don't have to pay for it."
[msn.com...]

[lgn1]

With Amazon making so much money, you think they would hire somebody who can do good web design.

Seriously, when you sell practically everything, it's hard to stay focused, on a design that will work well.

Our business is based on multiple niche markets. with a website for each niche market, and a support website for each niche. It is also important that your product requires some level of technical expertise.

We have no problem competing with Amazon, as they focus on the general, and we focus on the specific. Also, I wonder what portion of Amazon business is from sellers accounts, and if that total is included as part of their market share.

The seller's account is a great scam. Sign up as an Amazon merchant, and get nickel and dimed in fees, and let Amazon collect your sales statistics, so they can put you out of business, by competing with you, if you have a hit.

[martinibuster]

Amazon is vulnerable at the niche level. They have good SEO but it's hard to do at scale what a niche focused retailer can accomplish.

I routinely beat Amazon with informational sites. My clients who soundly beat Amazon across a range of niche products.

[keyplyr]

With Amazon making so much money, you think they would hire somebody who can do good web design

Amazon likely has the most successful web design of any retailer; thorough product information & stats, high def image choices, vendor price & option comparative, customer reviews, payment options, mobile-responsive... the best I've seen.

[lgn1]

Keyplyr,

I agree that the product data, reviews, and metadata Amazon have is extensive. Why wouldn't they, with such a huge portion of the market.

It's the presentation of this data that is crap. However, when you are as big as Amazon, you can get away with crap presentation.

However, I wonder if it's even possible to present this much data in a cleaner format and keep the customer focused on the buying decision.

But then again, with Amazon selling practically everything, it's like going into the supermarket for gluten-free pasta, and coming out with $300 worth of groceries. Amazon like Supermarkets certainly doesn't use Least Cost Path Analysis.

[keyplyr]

I don't let competitive bias influence my impression of their utilitarian value. I did some programming work at Anything Auto last year, where they use much the same presentation as Amazon, and very successfully.

Amazon freely presents lower prices from their 3rd party Amazon Marketplace participants. That's their version LCPA.