tucros

I've worked in ediscovery software for years. Everlaw is definitely an up and coming player with an attractive interface, but no serious law firms/in house counsel have been using spreadsheets to conduct reviews for, oh, two decades at least

Your first and third points have nothing to do with FBA or FBM so I won't comment on those. Commingling is a cluster fuck though for sure and you won't find really anyone who disagrees, and any seller worth a damn has turned it off and never used it. Commingling can have severe repercussions for sellers besides, like being suspended.

Regardless, if there is an issue with a commingled product, Amazon's customer service will take care of it instantly, which is putting the customer first. I imagine there are a hundred variations, besides commingling, where sellers do shady shit, and regardless, Amazon will take care of you as a customer quickly, without question, and usually with additional compensation above what is expected.

Exactly. And it makes perfect sense honestly. Brands get to control their pricing, Amazon gets probably better margins than they otherwise would (up to 15%), and Amazon no longer has the risks associated with owning the inventory.

As a medium sized FBA seller, 1.75M revenue last year, this is a ridiculous article. It conflicts with Amazon's and Bezo's core value of putting the customer first. If it's as suggested, Amazon would become no better than Ebay, and would cost them tons of customers.

FBA does shift a lot of costs onto Amazon but it also lets them completely manage the customer experience. You don't have to deal with some dumb shit seller who could give a crap about customer service. It conflicts with Amazon's plans of broadening their fulfillment network and logistics too. Why build all that capacity if your sellers are now responsible? And while Amazon does charge a single per unit fee, they also have monthly storage charges, long term storage charges, fees for handling refunds, etc, and combined, the fees have steadily increased each year to the tune of 5-10%. Oh, and you also get charged fees for Amazon to do any prep work on your products, etc.

FBA has been an unequivocal boon for Amazon, and I doubt will go away any time soon.

The shift to seller fulfillment is probably driven by sellers, not Amazon. FBA requires you to carefully manage inventory--you're penalized if you don't. It is infeasible for drop-shippers. You have to understand their reports, and reconcile them. You're giving up a large amount of control and introducing some risks, but for some incredible benefits.