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Comment by bshepard | Hacker News Reader

How much do consumers pay in Bezos tax for goods on Amazon? i.e, if the site simply let consumers buy from Chinese manufacturers (which, in the end, is what much of Amazon is) without the fee to the owners of the marketplace (i.e, "Bezos Tax), how much cheaper would it be?

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Considering the downward pressure Amazon has had on prices, I would say the "Bezos Tax" is negative.

Identical bluetooth OBDII scanners: Aliexpress $2.98 shipped, Amazon $10.99 shipped

IME this is a fairly typical price ratio. Sometimes they are much closer though. Of course Amazon ships it in 2 days instead of weeks. The "Bezos tax" is largely paying for the very convenient logistics of US warehousing.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/ELM-327-V-2-1-BT-adapter-Wor...

https://www.amazon.com/Mestart-Bluetooth-Diagnostic-Scanner-...

Those are not identical items. Look at the photos: the one sold on Amazon is much smaller.

Oh sorry, the Aliexpress listing includes quite a few variants and the one I was referring to apparently isn't selected by default. The one on the far left is the same as the Amazon listing.

But the point is, search for any popular product category on both sites and you will see largely the same items, with Amazon typically somewhere from 2-5x as expensive.

Aliexpress takes around 30 to 60 days for shipping, what about Amazon in the US?

While you're at it, might as well pick up your vegetables straight from the farm, your clothes straight from the factory, and eat your food straight from the restaurant kitchen top?

It's value added service that brings convenience.

First place for you to start to answer that question is to see how much it costs to sell on Amazon. https://services.amazon.com/selling/pricing.html

I would be more expensive: you would have to pay tax on the imports, you wouldn't get a warrenty and the stuff that is sold on ali-express is not the same as is being sold in the west. The chargers for one don't hold up to the safety specs so they are cheap, but not when they burn down your house.

I buy stuff from ali from time to time, but I would never buy anything expensive there.

Often I comparison shop between aliexpress.com and amazon.de. When the "brand" or equivalent quality product is on both, AliExpress is almost always cheaper, sometimes up to 50%. I would say on average 25% less and with free shipping even for small orders.

Yes, but the prices on aliexpress don't include European warranty, customs and VAT.

Sure but who needs those?

Those who pave streets you walk on and fine you when you're speeding... So uh... How about Aliexpress?

I think this is valid point in general, but I don't think it has much bearing on a discussion about Amazon, which doesn't contribute very much to taxes.

They pay VAT and custom duties as much as anybody else. They probably skim on employee-related and profit taxes though.

You may not need them, but often enough you will have to pay the duty and VAT before the customs release your package, thus erasing the price difference. As for the warranty, customers usually do need it.

I understand the concern, but never needed to pay that and I have over 70 orders there. They always say it's a sample or gift worth under 5 euro.

Well, I and many others did. The customs officers don't have to believe what's written on the package.

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