WSJ reports that Amazon is now limiting items sold by third parties so that only household essentials and medical supplies can be added to the Amazon warehouses. Existing items from third parties which are in Amazon warehouses will continue to be sold, but for sellers shipping new items to the Amazon warehouses, only select items will be allowed. The measure is effect until April 5th, to ensure they have enough storage and processing abilities for household essentials needed during this time of pandemic.
We are temporarily prioritizing household staples, medical supplies and other high-demand products coming into our fulfillment centers so we can more quickly receive, restock, and ship these products to customers.
I imagine there are quite a few readers who are Amazon sellers and will be affected by this. While the measure makes sense, it’s taking the economic halt of the country to a new level by affecting online businesses as well. If you have the infrastructure to do so, you can switch to selling with Fulfilled By Merchant instead.
They e-mailed sellers yesterday telling us they are starting to open up more availability prior to April 5th on a case-by-case basis.
For me they’ll only allow me to send the pet food and harnesses and a dog Lakers jersey (odd choice but OK) that I’ve sold in the past, I’m not sure if that category was ever fully shutdown though and is being reopened or if that option remained available to me over the past week.
eBay it is!
You can still do MF on amazon. You just can’t send items to the fulfillment centers for Amazon to ship to customers (FBA).
Any idea what this means for orders that have already been placed? I bought a monitor on Saturday to use for work at home that hasn’t shipped yet and it would be good to know if it’s coming (still says scheduled for Friday delivery but no tracking yet).
I’m assuming if it’s already in-stock you should be fine. If it goes out of stock, I’m guessing Amazon isn’t going to prioritize restocking it as quickly and you might be out of luck. This is all just a guess though.
I asked work to take a monitor home, and they said sure. Might be an alternative.
Yeah, that’s what I’ll do if I have to so it’s not a huge deal. I’ve been meaning to put together a little office setup in the spare bedroom, so this was an excuse to put something permanent in there.
This has zero affect on things you bought on Amazon. It might affect supply of such items in the future, but whatever is up for sale if fair game.
They should have separate website for third party sellers. A completely different website.
On amazon i want only amazon stuff for which they are liable.
100% agreed. Something like https://garbage.amazon.com
thank you I laugh
I dont want to deal with a different website. Rather have a filter to remove them from search or make the product page point out the seller better.
When doing certain searches/browsing, you can select Amazon.com as the seller from the left filter menu. It’s not always there, though, and seems to be dependent on the category of items you’re looking for.
Personally as an amazon seller, I only sell legit and items directly from the manufacture. I know some don’t which causes a negativity for us all.
3rd party sellers are clearly indicated in the listing and during the check out process. I’d just take a look their feedback and filter out those with questionable/few ratings and those who participated in price gouging in recent months.
The more difficult and pertinent task while shopping on Amazon is to filter out certain items which are sometimes sold by Amazon (or FBA) and will almost certainly disappoint if not causing property damage or personal injury.
Those items usually 1. have flashy titles (upgraded, premium, 2020 latest) 2. have capitalized bullet points in description (UPGRADED:xxx, PREMIUM:yyy) 3. made in a certain country “up to our strict and highest standards” and 4. have hundreds of 5 star ratings that are clear copy pastes.
Actually the vast majority of purchases on Amazon are from 3rd party retailers. Amazon has numerous quality standards in place.
If you want greater standards as far as liability… Many of us sell “fulfillment by Amazon” which means our products are housed at Amazon warehouses and Amazon is liable for refunding you if something goes wrong. Granted, if you open the package they’ll pass that liability on to us. But Amazon IS liable for “fulfillment by Amazon” items as far as the customer is concerned.