Six months after Apple-Amazon deal, small sellers have all but disappeared from Amazon Marketplace

“For US retailers big and small, Amazon has become the preeminent place to sell products, rivaled only by eBay and Walmart’s competing marketplaces and smaller, more product-specific platforms like Etsy and Overstock.com,” Nick Statt reports for The Verge. “Yet none of Amazon’s competitors offer the same robust logistics and shipping benefits the company offers its sellers, making it a top destination for online businesses.”
“Companies that want to sell Apple products through Amazon now have to meet one of two requirements. The first is to purchase at least $2.5 million worth of refurbished inventory every 90 days from Apple itself or through a retailer with more than $5 billion in annual sales, like a wireless carrier or big-box retailers like Target or Walmart,” Statt reports. “The second is to reach out directly to Apple to become an authorized reseller. Apple has yet to make its reseller requirements known to the public, but to become an Apple-authorized provider of repairs requires a physical retail space for customers to enter.”
Statt reports, “By cutting this deal, Apple and Amazon benefit while knocking out millions of dollars worth of business for small sellers.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple obviously wants as much uniformity in, and control of, the sales experience of their products as possible..