Comment by blairanderson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by blairanderson | Hacker News Reader

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You mentioned two processes that have been in place with Amazon Vendors/Manufacturers for many years.

1. Amazon Direct Fulfillment (dropship): Order is shipped directly from the manufacturer to the customer. Amazon pays for the shipping label and contractually "own" the item once it leaves the MFR doors. Amazon incentivizes Manufacturers by paying the freight and loosening shipment deadlines. [1]

2. Ships In Own Container (Amazon SIOC) certification puts the responsibility on the manufacturer to certify their products can be shipped without extra packaging. MFR pays for the testing/certification from a third-party. After July 3st 2019, Amazon will charge/fine manufacturers $2/unit received that are NOT SIOC certified and greater than a certain dimensional threshold. [2]

Its a tough economic balance for Amazon because they want to keep shipping stuff, but many MFRs will literally stop selling items to Amazon on July 31st because the costs of SIOC certification are greater than the estimated product profitability.

Source: I am a consultant for Manufacturers that sell to Amazon. [3]

1: https://www.andersonassociates.net/guides/amazon/what-is-dro...

2: https://www.andersonassociates.net/2018/frustration-free/

3: https://www.andersonassociates.net

> Ships In Own Container (Amazon SIOC) certification puts the responsibility on the manufacturer to certify their products can be shipped without extra packaging.

Sorry, but how can this be a good idea? I'd hate if I ordered something expensive, for example a digital camera, and every porch pirate (or shady parcel delivery subcontractor) immediately sees "this thing is worth a couple grand", compared with the usual Amazon grey packaging.

I often see an indicator on Amazon that the product ships in packaging that reveals what it is, with an option to select Amazon packaging instead.

This box of rubber gloves is SIOC and hopefully isn't too attractive to porch pirates: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01JGLWP3S

I've usually seen an option to select the kind of packaging at time order is placed.

If you're worried about porch pirates - use a locker instead. They're already stealing some of your packages anyway.

Shady subcontractors are Amazon's problem.

Its usually a brown cardboard overbox with a barcode that has extensive droptesting.

More common these days is for manufacturers to produce items, and separately purchase very durable over-boxes that are sent to eCommerce customers like amazon/walmart/bestbuy/etc.

Its already the reality for most TVs and furniture (at least from Target), child car seats/strollers are the other big one that's always ship-alone

A side question:

Blair, how do you Amazon's private label effort ? How will that end, would we buy mostly Amazon exclusive brands ?

Yes its going to continue in a huge way.

Their retail team used to consist mostly of buyers. Most of those resources have shifted to private label.

Imagine a thousand people previously managing external brands now focused on finding/creating private label brands with the data of sales volume at their fingertips.

They have something like 150 private label brands right now.

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