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A comment on I Fell Victim to a $1,500 Used Camera Lens Scam on Amazon. Parent comment

Re:I Fell Victim to a $1,500 Used Camera Lens Scam on Amazon by nwellnhof on Friday August 11, 2017 @05:48PM (#14994615)
> It is really worth it for Amazon to have them? I struggle to see how.

I think the main reason is that it gives Amazon huge amounts of market data essentially for free. For example, they can easily identify best-selling new products even if they're not sold directly by Amazon. If you're successful selling stuff on Amazon, it's only a matter of time until Amazon will compete with you and possibly destroy your business.

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Re:I Fell Victim to a $1,500 Used Camera Lens Scam on Amazon by mikeash on Friday August 11, 2017 @05:59PM (#14994702)
That is a really interesting angle on it.
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Re:I Fell Victim to a $1,500 Used Camera Lens Scam on Amazon by hobofan on Saturday August 12, 2017 @03:56AM (#14996927)
> If you're successful selling stuff on Amazon, it's only a matter of time until Amazon will compete with you and possibly destroy your business.

Mind you that this is not just a "when Amazon turns bad" scenario, but actually what they are doing daily. When I was writing software for Amazon sellers, their most profitable items were always some new niche product they discovered and worked well for ~1 month until Amazon swooped in and sold the same thing.

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