So, like does this also apply to esty? EBay? Heck, maybe Shopify? At what point does the liability cease for the service provider?
> Owners of malls typically do not serve as conduits for payment and communication in each transaction between a buyer and a seller. Moreover, they do not typically charge a per-item fee rather than a fixed amount to rent their storefronts. Instead, these actions – 1) interacting with the customer, 2) taking the order, 3) processing the order to the third party seller, 4) collecting the money, and 5) being paid a percentage of the sale – are consistent with a retailer or a distributor of consumer goods.
I would say Etsy, eBay, and a Shopify lean slightly more mall-like than Amazon but whether that difference is enough for their legal department to be comfortable concluding they’re definitely outside the scope of this ruling is impossible to say. You can bet they’ll all be reviewing and revising their third-party seller program documents, though.
Slightly related, there was a recent case in Philadelphia that came to a similar conclusion (holding Amazon responsible for defective third-party products) for an entirely different reason: the commingling of Amazon-owned inventory and third-party inventory.
Regardless of how Amazon reacts to this specific case I think the direction things are heading for Amazon with respect to products liability is pretty clear.
[1]https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Lo...
>1) interacting with the customer, 2) taking the order, 3) processing the order to the third party seller, 4) collecting the money, and 5) being paid a percentage of the sale – are consistent with a retailer or a distributor of consumer goods.
IANAL. If you are reselling to the end-customer, then you are effectively a retailer and depending on where you operate will have some level of liability. Incidentally, a true middleman - a distributor - does (at least in the US) carries liability for product defects as does the retailer and manufacturer. I worked for a distributor who had to back a defective product from an out of business manufacturer who's warranty insurance was depleted. A lot of people at our company made bad assumptions about the law, and didn't realize that most consumer protection laws could not be waived by the consumer... So we ended up with a batch of 12000 bad network devices that we had to replace... When you operate at 20-30% gross margin that takes a huge bite out of profit.
>So, like does this also apply to esty? EBay? Heck, maybe Shopify?
The question is, who is operating the store? Who's name is on the receipt? In the case of eBay, the seller is clear (eBay forces the use of an escrow service -- often PayPal -- for payment). In the case of Shopify, the seller is clear (the store owner). On the question of Amazon, we shall see, but it appears they have lost quite a few cases (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/08/29/amazon-...).
Is a marketplace of vendors a store? No. Is a piece of software that enables a vendor a store? No. Is a store that runs software to host products from distributors a store? Yes. That's Amazon.
Slippery slope averted.
>Is a store that runs software to host products from distributors a store? Yes.
Is not valid (presupposed outcome)
Did you mean,
Is a marketplace implemented via software to host products from multiple suppliers a store?
Conclusion: Yes. It is. It has inventory. It brokers sales and transactions. It is a store.
Which is fair; it's just the cost of doing business. It's just that some merchants may reconsider whether it's a cost that's worth paying for working through Amazon.