I'm not trying to defend Amazon, but I don't think that comparison makes sense.
>Amazon gives you distribution, traffic, logistics, etc, with zero risk.
Not everyone uses the distribution, and a mall or flea market also provides traffic to tenants.
If amazon does charge a fee for simply listing a product, tell us. They don’t as far as I know.
A grocery store owns the goods in their possession even if they have agreements for sellers to buy some unsold product back. Amazon does not own the 3rd party goods in their possession.
Amazon isn’t a grocery store. The majority of their catalog isn’t even available at most grocery stores, maybe excluding WalMart.
My family owned several convenience stores growing up. Some products were bought and it was your problem to move them off shelves. Some were displayed on shelves and you only paid for what was actually sold. This was common with one of the distributors who gave us Frito Lay products. Other products had strict terms - for instance, Pepsi and Coke distributors wouldn’t give you competitive pricing unless you agreed to purchase Y in X quantity, place their mini coolers next to the refrigerator, place signage within x feet, clearly visible from the front entrance, etc. suddenly, you’re the only store in town who sells 16 oz soda for $1.59 just to break even while everyone else is selling the same soda for $1.09 or just 99 cents.
It’s a different model than Amazon and you’re taking liberties to simplify it
No I'm saying it has very important distinctions that make the grocery store analogy inappropriate and that the mall or flea market analogy is closer in some respects, but not all.
>Amazon isn’t a grocery store. The majority of their catalog isn’t even available at most grocery stores, maybe excluding WalMart.
Of course it's not. That's a big part of my original point.
> Some were displayed on shelves and you only paid for what was actually sold.
My dad worked for Lance (and frito lay for a while). I could be wrong and you could have had a very unusual distributor. But my guess is you misunderstood what was happening.
Companies do sometimes offer buyback guarantees and you might even be able to buy items on credit, so that it appears you're only paying for what sells, but that's not actually how it works. Those items are the property of the store while they are on the shelf.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/clb-percentage-rent....