Amazon’s response to FTC antitrust lawsuit

Amazon Marketplace seller and Prime member here. I make and sell my own patented product that nobody else makes or sells.

Amazon says prices will go up and they are right: prices will go up on Amazon. They don’t mention that prices will also go down everywhere else. This is what they are afraid of.

Prices are high everywhere because Amazon is taking large slices off the top of every sale and sellers are not allowed to pass this cost onto Amazon buyers. In my category it is 15% (not including ads, storage, fulfillment) which makes my product more expensive to sell on Amazon but I can’t just pass that cost onto Amazon customers who are the supposed beneficiaries of this value.

If you buy from my website you’re saving me money and I want you to enjoy a lower price. Amazon thinks that’s not fair. So they monitor prices everywhere and they enforce their idea of fairness by hurting the search rankings of products that are cheaper elsewhere.

The way Amazon likes it, sellers pay the Amazon fees and then sellers have to spread that cost across all of their customers, both on and off Amazon. They are getting rent from everyone, even those who never buy from Amazon. The only way to avoid sending money toward Amazon is to boycott every seller of a product that is also being sold on Amazon, no matter where else you might buy it.

People buying from my website are subsidizing Amazon and the only thing I can do about it is leave Amazon. I don’t want to do that. What about the millions of people who have been trained to search and buy only on Amazon? They would never have a chance to try my solution to their problem. I care about those people and I want to help them.

I net almost nothing directly from my Amazon business. This is a strategic risk. The reason I endure the abuse is because it’s the most time-effective way to reach the millions of people who don’t shop anywhere else. Amazon customers are brutal. They treat me like I’m a faceless, trillion dollar company because they think they’re buying from Amazon.

I’m at a stage where every unit shipped is an opportunity for feedback and word-of-mouth advertising. As soon as I have enough traction I will go ahead and raise my Amazon price and lower my prices elsewhere to make it fair for consumers. My Amazon sales will plummet and I won’t mind.