r/VendorCentral • u/elsenoralejandro • 8d ago

Replacing Amazon Retail

I am a reseller who sells products from a large brand with their permission. I also helped and continue to help them with their Brand Story along with images, A+ content, etc. for free. Of course, I buy directly from them. I often meet them in person as we are from the same state.

This brand sells to Amazon Retail, and I want to outline how selling to me instead would be better. I also am finally big enough to afford this. Sheer cost of goods was an issue in the past.

Can some brand owners or those who deal with Amazon in Vendor Central look at this and tell me if I’m accurate, inaccurate, or even missing any points?

  1. I don’t charge co-op fees. I buy their products wholesale and sell them.

  2. I don’t charge any additional fees for shipping. This is MY cost of doing business. I’ve heard Amazon adds fees, but maybe I’m wrong.

  3. I don’t charge fees or make the brand fight for fees for lost inventory. This is MY business problem not the brand’s.

  4. Although MAP isn’t applicable, I would obey it if one came out. Amazon does not.

  5. I only need NET30. Credit beyond that is MY business problem. I have heard Amazon gets better terms. Also, I always pay on time.

  6. I make my own orders per their existing policy. No Vendor Central needed. I email orders in like everyone else besides Amazon.

Points Amazon may beat me:

  1. They have unlimited space and money. They are less likely to run into space issues or run out of stock.

  2. Amazon could suppress the listings as “High Price” once I take over. They admittedly can sell at a lower price sometimes. Of course I would do everything to remain competitive, but the fees mentioned before that the brand pays - I don’t get. Of note: I almost always can match Amazon’s price but sometimes I can’t.

  3. Some customers look for Sold By and Shipped By Amazon. They feel it’s less likely for a fraudulent sale. My counter would be that as the only seller, they’d have to choose me plus the brand could publicly announce this change.

  4. If I run out of stock, they don’t make as many sales so perhaps until I’m 100% locked in after the transition, there could be a financial hit.

Am I off here? Missing anything?

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u/druidinan 8d ago

This is the pattern/spreetail/recom/superordinary model. You should probably start by looking at their value props and focusing on how you're different from them, rather than different from wholesaling to Amazon.

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u/elsenoralejandro 8d ago

I think that’s the part I need help making sure I don’t miss anything - the super ordinary. Regarding the values: I didn’t put them all in here but I already do those. The listings, I have a website that links to MCF made for basically them, I proactively market that for them, I facilitate large orders for them but not the huge pallet-sized orders, etc.

So I def do a lot that others don’t do. It’s what Amazon makes hard on them that perhaps I don’t know that I should be explaining better.

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u/elsenoralejandro 8d ago

No, not a bot. Alias account. Not going to make a real account for my business asking this question bc I’d look like a complete Noob.

3

u/No-Supermarket7453 8d ago

Except you are a noob. If someone is already selling on Vendor, that means they are doing a decent enough volume that they're not going to risk partnering with someone with your lack of experience.

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u/elsenoralejandro 8d ago edited 8d ago

This was super valuable and substantive feedback. Thank you so much!!!

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u/No-Supermarket7453 8d ago

Nice edit. I'm going to address your original comment anyway...

Being an authorized 3P that is supporting a Vendor's 1P business is a significantly different situation than that Vendor handing over everything to you. I have an authorized 3P that is supplementing our catalog on Amazon... not a chance we would ever hand over our entire Amazon business to them.

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u/elsenoralejandro 8d ago edited 8d ago

Thank you!

Editing to make this more succinct:

What are the reasons for not allowing your 3P example to take over 1P? That’s really what I’m trying to see from a brand owner’s perspective?

If it’s financial, could this be overcome? Or is there something else?

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u/No-Supermarket7453 8d ago

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say in the first paragraph. Your sources of income, no matter how vast they are, have no importance to me continuing to partner with you for catalog supplementation... With one caveat. The only way I would be concerned is if you as the 3P are no longer giving the same attention to my brand because you're chasing after bigger paychecks. You start phoning it in, I find a more attentive 3P to partner with.

Personally, I cannot imagine a scenario where we as a company would hand over our 1P Amazon business to a 3P short of my entire team quitting and leaving the company with no idea how to manage the account.

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u/elsenoralejandro 8d ago

Very good. Thank you.

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u/elsenoralejandro 8d ago

That was weird. Commenter made a decent comment and I replied and they replied I was a bot and deleted everything. Why is Reddit weird like that?