2b. Company thinks their online store is a boutique and sell the stuff for 50% more than Amazon
Somehow it happens even more often with small businesses. My city is small and irrelevant, so when I saw a book with the history of it, I wanted to buy it. On Amazon it was sold for 15% off, on marketplace directly by the publisher + free shipping. So I went to buy it on the publisher website and… MSRP + need to pay shipping
This publisher was doing a war price against itself. A small niche book where you’re the only one to sell it. Why would you need to discount this heavily on Amazon?
Numbers:
On Amazon: 13€ + shipping paid by the seller (+customer has free returns in one month). They can’t have more than 50 cents of profit for each copy sold
On their own website: 15€+5€ shipping (+customer needs to pay 7€ to return it within 2 weeks). Healthy profit for each copy sold.
You need to be an anti-bezos activist to choose the second option, though.
This is why you see SKU numbers like 301710-A and 301710-B and the products appear identical.
They “give” Amazon the best price for 301710-A but they sell B on their website for the price they want. The physical retailers also like them because if they match prices - no they don’t - it’s not identical.
Kind of like the old black friday scam that pretty much every retailer uses to prevent pricing matching, just have a slightly different store only specific SKU.
2b. Company thinks their online store is a boutique and sell the stuff for 50% more than Amazon
Somehow it happens even more often with small businesses. My city is small and irrelevant, so when I saw a book with the history of it, I wanted to buy it. On Amazon it was sold for 15% off, on marketplace directly by the publisher + free shipping. So I went to buy it on the publisher website and… MSRP + need to pay shipping
This publisher was doing a war price against itself. A small niche book where you’re the only one to sell it. Why would you need to discount this heavily on Amazon?
Numbers:
On Amazon: 13€ + shipping paid by the seller (+customer has free returns in one month). They can’t have more than 50 cents of profit for each copy sold
On their own website: 15€+5€ shipping (+customer needs to pay 7€ to return it within 2 weeks). Healthy profit for each copy sold.
You need to be an anti-bezos activist to choose the second option, though.
“Somehow”… amazon forcing all sellers on their platform to give them the best price or risk being delisted
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/apr/16/amazon-price-fixing-california-lawsuit
This is why you see SKU numbers like 301710-A and 301710-B and the products appear identical.
They “give” Amazon the best price for 301710-A but they sell B on their website for the price they want. The physical retailers also like them because if they match prices - no they don’t - it’s not identical.
Kind of like the old black friday scam that pretty much every retailer uses to prevent pricing matching, just have a slightly different store only specific SKU.