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Comment by hoveringcto | Hacker News Reader

This is great news for Amazon. They already collect sales tax on everything they sell in most states (47 I think?). Now that smaller sellers (marketplace sellers, eBay, etc.) also have to collect tax, that hurts the ~8% discount built in, so why even shop around?

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Note: the states where Amazon doesn't collect sales tax are those states that don't have a sales tax.

> Now that smaller sellers (marketplace sellers, eBay, etc.) also have to collect tax, that hurts the ~8% discount built in, so why even shop around?

Because the more I learn about Amazon and their warehouse employees, the less I've been shopping on Amazon.

Having choice is a good thing.

In addition this adds a new administrative burden to small sellers that isn't free

The problem with Amazon is that shipping can take months for non-prime users. In most cases you are better off buying from walmart if they carry the item.

Sent from someone outside of the US

US sales tax is not relevant if you're not in the US.

Most of Amazons sales are through third parties, most of them dont collect.

It is about 50/50.

How does f'ing the third-party sellers help Amazon? You know they make money from them, too right? If anything Amazon and eBay have offloaded inventory and sometimes logistics risk onto third parties and they're happy to just extract rent. They're not interested in going back to be a first-party warehouse of everything.

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