Posted by Vincent Banial

Video is courtesy of the ColdFusion YouTube channel

Amazon.com offers buyers convenience and there is also the price. One thing that is not often mentioned is that Amazon.com opened it’s platform to other 3rd party sellers. Over 2 million sellers are doing so.

Those 3rd party sellers compete vigorously against each other. Sometimes Amazon itself will compete against its own clients, that is those 3rd party sellers. The Holy Grail at Amazon is to be featured in the Amazon Buy Box

Close to 50% of Amazon’s sales are made by that over 2 million strong army of 3rd party sellers. It’s a win-win situation for consumers, for the 3rd party vendors and also for Amazon.com as they get a percentage of all sales. IMHO allowing 3rd party sellers to sell on amazon.com played a huge role in making Amazing as big as it is today – and still very much growing even bigger.

The losers in this new Retail Landscape are the vast number of Brick and Mortar retailers. For example, check the recent earnings filings for say Sears Holdings and Staples Inc. Losses – while Amazon and friends are making Billions.

Especially hurt are those who try to go after a greater share of the Customer’s wallet not thinking about providing the Human Experience or Customer Service. The Retail Dive website has a good post regarding Best Buy’s opinion on the importance of Customer Service to compete with Amazon.

The price competition to get featured in Amazon’s Buy Box has opened the door for 3rd party firms to develop software which monitors item prices on Amazon. Artificial Intelligence is also incorporated in some offerings. Why? So that those 3rd party sellers (who purchase such analytical services) can beat out Amazon and the other 3rd party competition. The key is to get the Amazon Buy Box.

It is not just Amazon. There is another eCommerce giant called eBay. Even Walmart has their jet.com eCommerce site with over 4 Thousand 3rd party sellers. Not only that, but Walmart also has Walmart Marketplace which apparently has over 10,000 3rd party sellers. Yes, Walmart’s number are a far cry from Amazon’s numbers, but Walmart is just getting started and IMHO learned from Amazon by allowing 3rd party sellers to sell on their sites. Walmart’s number are sure to keep rising. Marketplacepulse.com had a great article about Walmart eCommerce growth.

Some of the firms providing eCommerce Marketplace research are Marketplace Pulse (mentioned above) and Feedvisor. For those 3rd Party Sellers on Amazon, Feedvisor has a downloadable PDF titled “THE 2017 BUY BOX BIBLE”.

When you move a lot of packages, as Amazon does, you also may consider getting into the Transport and Shipping business. The Seatle Times newspaper has an interesting article about Amazon in that regard, with their Chinese 3rd party sellers.  Amazon.com changed Retail and Amazon could change Transport and Shipping.

It’s not just about the price. It’s also very much about the “convenience”. Henry Ford gave consumers the automobile and changed the world. Jeff Bezos is this century’s Henry Ford and he is also changing the world…