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Monopoly junior amazon11/7/2023 ![]() Even after his business selling Suavecito and other beauty products went bust, he pivoted to selling toys and sporting goods also on Amazon. KERR: Parks says he tried to sell Valentina elsewhere, but it's difficult because Amazon is the behemoth. PARKS: Right now, I have, like, seven or eight pallets of Valentina in my warehouse. KERR: Amazon could sell Valentina for less, put it up higher in the search page and essentially squeeze them out. PARKS: It doesn't even matter if I've sold it for 10 or 15 years. And after selling a product like Valentina brand hot sauce for years, Amazon started selling it, too. He says the fees he now pays Amazon eat up about half of his revenue. ![]() KERR: Selling on Amazon was initially great for Parks, but like Mrdeza, it didn't last. NICHOLAS PARKS: My wife has this sign in our house that says, do what's right, not what's easy. Even though he fears Amazon could yank him from its marketplace, he thinks it's important to talk about his experience. He's based in Alabama and has sold on Amazon since 2002. KERR: Retaliation is something hot sauce vendor Nicholas Parks thinks about. STACY MITCHELL: So many of them cannot speak out. She's at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and has worked with dozens of sellers. Stacy Mitchell says that's because they don't want to upset Amazon. It says sellers buy things like placement at the top of the page because it gives them, quote, "more value than they can get elsewhere." People don't hear sellers' stories often. Amazon called the government's lawsuit wrong. It filed a lawsuit against the company this week, which was joined by 17 states. KERR: The Federal Trade Commission says these actions by Amazon are illegal. MRDEZA: That's your entire margin, you know? How are we supposed to keep the lights on? Finally, fees for things, including warehousing and delivery, shot up. Then Amazon started selling many of the same products he had in his shop, making it nearly impossible to compete. KERR: First, Amazon started letting sellers pay for placement at the top of the page, so Mrdeza says his listings got buried. MRDEZA: There was just a lot of moving pieces. He used the tools Amazon had to offer, like its warehousing and delivery network. He'd hired 45 employees and opened four warehouses. KERR: Within a couple years, Mrdeza had built a beauty product empire. MRDEZA: I did the calculation, bought what I would have sold in a month, sent it in, and it sold out in, like, a day. ![]() KERR: It flew off Amazon's virtual store shelf, so Mrdeza ordered more Suavecito. And I was running a barber shop out of East Lansing, ordered a bit too much. So NPR's Dara Kerr has the seller's story.ĭARA KERR, BYLINE: When Douglas Mrdeza first opened his Amazon shop selling hair products from Michigan in 2014, he had no idea it would go gangbusters.ĭOUGLAS MRDEZA: The first product that I ever listed on Amazon was a hair pomade. So what is it like to be one of those sellers? Amazon is among NPR's financial supporters, and we cover it like any other company. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice.The heart of a federal antitrust lawsuit is an allegation that Amazon squeezes sellers, online shops that offer everything from dog treats to camping gear. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. ![]() This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice.
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