Amazon's policies are strict, and third-party sellers are suffering...

Yesterday, the editor learned from the official Amazon seller forum that a seller said that Amazon is currently implementing a long-term plan to remove smaller third-party sellers from the platform.

Seller Home_Networking_Depo said that he has been a long-term seller of AFN (Amazon Fulfillment Network) on Amazon and has been selling products on Amazon for more than ten years. In recent times, he has found that Amazon has signs of removing smaller third-party sellers from the platform, and shared the trend of events that he believes affects smaller third-party sellers.

First, Home_Networking_Depo pointed out that the costs of AFN sellers have risen from 43% of total revenue 8 years ago to an average of more than 53% now. For example, their average product price is $10. Amazon charges $5.3 per sale, and the seller only gets the remaining $4.7. In addition, all administrative expenses and product costs are paid by the seller.

Secondly, Home_Networking_Depo said that according to Amazon's claim policy, AFN sellers will not be compensated for unreturned or lost products, whether the order sent missed the promised delivery date or the order was not received. Sellers not only need to blame themselves for product loss costs, but also be charged AFN fees. Customers only need to make a claim and select product late/goods not received as the reason to get free products.

Once again, Home_Networking_Depo said that Amazon developed an advertising recommendation program called "Custom Strategy", which is a program that recommends the use of keywords and key phrases to increase customer awareness of sellers' product listings. But after a period of time, the cost of advertising recommendations soared. Home_Networking_Depo encountered this situation twice and asked Amazon to provide authorization for the new "Custom Strategy" advertising program, but Amazon refused to approve it, and the huge advertising costs made the sellers miserable.

Finally, Home_Networking_Depo said that Amazon's restrictions on inventory are also a clear sign of the continued removal of smaller third-party sellers. In recent times, Amazon has restricted the inventory of small AFN sellers by limiting total availability and reducing product availability, thereby reducing the sales volume and market share of smaller third-party sellers.

Many sellers agree that Amazon needs a prosperous market and a large supply of goods to attract consumers in the early stages of its development, and third-party sellers can help Amazon do this with minimal risk. Amazon is now growing bigger and bigger and has become a world-renowned e-commerce platform. It will naturally screen internally and suppress the growth of some sellers to alleviate the saturation of the e-commerce market. It seems that smaller or newly established AFN third-party sellers should pay attention to their development prospects and must not rush into the game.

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