Also many landlords (airports, arenas, etc...) charge a percentage of sales instead of a fixed rate (and even fixed rates can be adjusted based on perceived revenue).
Amazon is basically the Internet version of WalMart. WalMart used its power to force suppliers' margins to near nothing thus lowering prices for consumers and making the WalMart heirs some of the richest people in the world. Amazon uses its power to improve the consumer experience overall thus making Bezos the richest person in the world.
The complaints leveraged at Amazon have analogues to those leveraged at WalMart. Also, WalMart has copied Amazon's online strategy including being a store/bazaar hybrid.
This area would seem to be very hard to legislate. I suspect that most of the tech giants are now partly competing with each other and partly with the next big innovations. Amazon became WalMart's competition with the rise of the Internet.
Or you can go to department stores, gas stations, or grocery stores in the US, where the “store within a store” model is also very common.
Costco does similar things—both my ladder and my blender were things I purchased at Costco under the influence from third-party sellers demonstrating products there. Sure, the stocking and checkout were via Costco, but the same is true for Amazon.
Amazon is fundamentally a bazaar that does a good job of pretending to be a store, but the mask is starting to slip.
Third party sellers who use FBA in particular are more like suppliers to whom Amazon can outsource part of their job to. In that case I’d say Amazon is a store, with infinite shelf space, and a very permissive policy about letting suppliers stock some of that infinite shelf space themselves sometimes.
(1) I can’t “easily” register as a seller with Costco, but I can with Amazon (Or so I believe)
(2) The ease with which non-company merchants can enter is a key property of the bazaar vs store dichotomy. Easier to enter, more bazaar-like
(3) Given (2) and (1), it seems like Amazon wants to be both a store and a bazaar, which my initial post articulated as a “problematic” state, at the least. Even if only problematic through novelty
This doesn’t make Amazon good or bad, I can just see where it leads to new discussion
The bazaar part of amazon is the worst part for me. It’s purely noise. I hate it and do whatever I can to filter it out. I just want the store part of amazon and like their basics brand stuff.
And I’m not sure parent really touches on my point that the bazaar part of amazon is just noise.
It’s worse than unreliable junk. A vendor is showing up and dropping their orange painted lemons onto amazon’s orange display.
I think my initial post agrees with your conclusion, though, which is that trying to be both is an area that is not as defined and is part of what is causing issues.
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurendebter/2019/05/15/worlds-...
Costco, being a store, can choose foods or goods that have been rebranded or independently sourced and no one really cares — they are still fully autonomous. They have always taken ownership of the product, so a change in supply seems to be completely within the store’s wheelhouse.
On the other hand, Amazon is a bazaar. Merchants line up, trying to get you to purchase from their stall using various tactics. Merchants get unhappy when they see that the bazaar’s guard uses their ledger to inform the head of the bazaar which merchants he could kick out. Not literally kick out, but be put in a worse position so that the bazaar’s own products are now the first ones people see.
This conflict of interest is in direct opposition of the merchants and may be in opposition of the consumers.
I personally really like Amazon Basics, as it tends to remove the brand cost. However, there’s a reason brands became popular in the first place — and the Amazon Basic brand is not one I associate with “quality”. I think the best part of the Amazon Basic brand is that it establishes a minimum bar of quality that Amazon generally needs. I know if so want the cheapest I go to them, otherwise I do my research or rely on brand reputation like I did before.
This is becoming more of the case with Whole Foods, which I’ve started to avoid. They were a quality store and that quality (seems to) have gone down. The issue with the Whole Foods purchase is that there are lower quality grocery stores already, so I’d be interested in how they’re doing with that market.