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Comment by delfinom | Hacker News Reader

So the same exact thing that Walmart does? You know, the retailer that's bigger than Amazon?

It is terrible but they aren't exactly breaking new ground here.

Walmart is the retailer. With third party sellers Amazon is not. So they sidestep sales tax (in the UK anyway) and various consumer protections. With this change Amazon becomes the retailer in all but name. I hope the tax authorities and consumer groups take note.

Walmart also has third party sellers.

Not in their stores they don't.

Does that matter when we're talking about online retail? Walmart the physical store might as well be a separate business.

People are mixing up Walmart's retail practices with their online practices.

Walmart's retail arm will squeeze water from a stone. However, their online division actually works with suppliers since they're still trying to compete with Amazon and eBay.

For now.

Yep, there's absolutely no reason they won't squeeze the online sellers later. They already have the precedence with their stores and suppliers. Shit, once they get the ball rolling with their online shop, they could even find products to kick the sellers out and negotiate with the suppliers themselves (the most likely result long term).

Amazon doesn't pay sales tax? Amazon collects and remits VAT in the UK and across Europe.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeI...

They also started billing advertising services through a separate UK branch with UK VAT. However, they're definitely not big on corporation tax: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/02/amazon-ha... (Aug 18)

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