Amazon Marketplace is an e-commerce platform owned and operated by Amazon that enables third-party sellers to sell new or used products directly to consumers on a fixed-price online marketplace alongside Amazon's regular offerings. Using Amazon Marketplace, third-party sellers gain access to Amazon's customer base, and Amazon expands the offerings on its site without having to invest in additional inventory.
This is in contrast to first-party sellers (1P sellers) who act as wholesale suppliers that sell goods directly to Amazon. Amazon calls these sellers "vendors" and they operate using Amazon's Vendor Central.
Overview
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Items purchased on Amazon from third-party sellers are either fulfilled by the merchant (FBM) or fulfilled by Amazon (FBA).[1] FBM goods are kept in the third-party seller's inventory, and shipping and customer service are handled by the third-party merchant. FBA goods are stored in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and shipping and customer service are handled by Amazon.
Amazon charges its third-party merchants a referral fee for each sale which is a percentage of the sales price. Additionally fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) fees, referral fees, subscription fee and storage fees. and also the advertising on Amazon which is optional.
As of 2020 , third-party sales on Amazon accounted for 54% of paid units.[2] In 2016, more than 10,000 third-party sellers[3] generated more than $1 billion of annual sales. Over 1,000,000 third-party sellers joined in 2017.[4] The growing success of these Amazon sellers has garnered the attention of some of the largest e-commerce roll-up businesses – known as Amazon Aggregators. These aggregators operate a buy-and-build model, deploying capital to acquire attractive brands and leverage in-house operational expertise to increase growth and maximize margin. A variety of strategies are used to achieve this, including listing optimization, spending on marketing & advertising, inventory & supply chain management, and expansion geographically or into other direct-to-consumer channels. As of October 2021, there are 79 aggregators with $10.9bn in disclosed funding.[5]
There are three major paths third-party sellers can take on Amazon: wholesale, private label, and retail arbitrage.
If an Amazon Seller has an active registered trademark for their brand that appears on their products or packaging and can verify themselves as the rights owner or the authorized agent for the trademark, they can apply for Amazon Brand Registry.[6]
Amazon has an internal search algorithm (A9) that works almost in the same way as those of Google or Bing. The algorithm analyzes search queries that users enter in a search bar and selects the most relevant offers from brands with a good track record.[citation needed]
Locations
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Amazon Marketplaces worldwideAs of March 2021, Amazon Marketplace operates worldwide in 19 countries; chronologically:
Additionally, Amazon maintains limited operations in China.[26]
Criticism
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Amazon's dispute resolution policies and practices for Marketplace have drawn criticism from many sellers. The Verge has reported that many fear a complaint lodged against them with Amazon more than they would an actual lawsuit. Among their specific complaints are that policies are vague and contradictory, that buyers are often taken at their word and thus businesses are forced to admit and correct wrongdoing for perceived or minimal shortcomings rather than contest the complaint since there is no other way to get reinstated. Rules meant to protect sellers have also been weaponized, with many merchants devoting their energies to getting competitors suspended or removed from the site entirely.[27]
On July 3, 2019, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Amazon.com Inc., stating that the online retailer can be held liable under state law for third-party sales on its portal.[28] After granting Amazon's petition for rehearing en banc, in a decision issued on June 2, 2020, the 3rd Circuit subsequently vacated the prior order and certified to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court the question of whether, under Pennsylvania law, an e-commerce business like Amazon is strictly liable for a defective product that was purchased on its platform from a third-party vendor, which product was neither possessed nor owned by the e-commerce business. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court accepted the question for consideration; however, the case settled via stipulated dismissal between the parties and was discontinued by the court before such hearing could occur.[29]
The company has faced numerous complaints since its inception related to its customer support.[30] As of January 2024 the company has a BBB rating of B.
See also
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References
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The more you talk with Amazon FBA sellers from all walks of life, the more you understand why each seller prefers the sourcing model used in their business.
Some folks love the thrill of the hunt, and they thrive on getting out there and scanning to their heart’s content at garage sales and thrift stores. Other sellers enjoy working retail arbitrage into their daily routine, or they love the huge profits that come from RA during the Q4 selling season. Some sellers live in a remote area or their time is limited, so they choose to do online arbitrage (OA) or wholesale. Still others like all aspects of product development and marketing, so they dive into private labeling.
Today I want to focus on one method of sourcing for Amazon FBA: sourcing from wholesale suppliers. We’re going to have a couple more posts after this one, so stick with me to learn more about where to find wholesale sources and other wholesale time hacks. But for today, let’s discuss the top 9 reasons why you should consider adding wholesale sourcing to your Amazon FBA business.
We’re all in this business to make profits, right? Well, selling items sourced via wholesale has huge profit potentials. You can find items with great return on investment (ROI) for resale on Amazon because you buy them at a low wholesale price, compared to what other sellers are getting by buying from retail sources.
Buying via a wholesale account gives you the opportunity to search their catalog for several different profitable items in one product line, and you can then buy larger quantities of those items than you would be able to if sourcing via RA or OA. Once you’ve done your research on the sales history data on Keepa, as well as researching how much your competition has in stock (we use the How Many? extension for doing this research), you can make an informed decision and buy as many of an item as you feel comfortable buying, rather than being limited to what’s on the shelf at the retail store.
But you don’t have to worry about making a huge wholesale order of only one item to meet a company’s minimum purchase requirement. You can order a few of several different items, test them out, assess the results of your sales, and make a decision about reordering and possibly going deeper.
“Replen” is short for replenishable. A replenishable item is one that is profitable to buy over and over again because you can sell through the item at a decent rate. Replens can be a lovely cash cow for your business, since all you have to do is order, send to FBA, sell, order, send to FBA, sell, and repeat, repeat, repeat. Finding a replen today saves you time tomorrow by not having to repeat your sourcing research once the item sells out. You’ve already done the research – now all you need to do is reorder and send that item in again. It’s a much more time-efficient process than the one-offs that come with RA, OA, garage sale sourcing, and thrifting.
If an item isn’t available from retail sources at a low enough price to resell on Amazon BUT you can find it at a wholesale source, you will have lower competition. If you’re sourcing items that anyone can find at a retail store and resell for profit, it’s often only a matter of time until a ton of sellers jump on that listing. Sourcing via wholesale opens the door of opportunity to find unique items that RA and OA sellers can’t source at your buy cost.
Once you have found several replens through wholesale sourcing, you can get to a place in your business where you have more predictable cash flow. Often with RA, OA, and thrifting, you will see ebbs and flows with your sales throughout the year, depending on what’s going on in your part of the country or in the stores where you like to source. Wholesale sourcing can provide more stability when it comes to ordering products to sell consistently throughout the year.
Like I said above, finding a wholesale replen saves you a ton of time when it comes to not having to constantly be out sourcing for more one-off items to resell. It could take you all day to drive around town and spend $800 on RA finds, or you could spend a couple of hours doing wholesale research and find a great replen, place an $800 order, and then just reorder when you’ve sold out.
Another way wholesale saves time is when it comes to prepping your inventory. Wholesale items won’t have stickers to remove, and they often (though not always) come already poly bagged. You also can save time in listing the items. Instead of having to list and price 20 one-offs from RA clearance, you could list and price one item with 20 multiples from a wholesale source.
As your FBA business grows, you will need to find ways to scale the business. Scaling your business means being able to increase your output. There are only so many garage sales in your town every week, so unless you hire folks in other towns to source for you, you can’t scale an FBA business based on garage sale sourcing. Same with retail arbitrage – you only have so many hours in the day to drive to retail stores, so you will need to hire someone else to source if you want to scale your RA business. But with wholesale, it is much easier to keep your business simple, source large amounts of inventory (with or without the help of a VA), and process it without needing to hire help. In fact, if you use a prep and pack center (we like MyPrepCenter) to process your inventory, you can grow your Amazon FBA business even more through wholesale.
We recently posted a poll in the Full-Time FBA Facebook group asking what the biggest fears were as an Amazon reseller. The number one fear on the list was account suspension. Many Amazon FBA sellers experience great anxiety over the thought of being suspended because of claims by brands or by customers, especially claims of inauthentic products. As of this writing, Amazon is accepting retail receipts as proof of your source for inventory, but it’s often more difficult to prove your case with Amazon using retail receipts than it is when using wholesale invoices – not to mention, at any point Amazon could stop accepting retail receipts altogether. Adding wholesale sources to your Amazon inventory gives you a level of protection for your seller account.
Brand restrictions on Amazon can be tricky when you’re looking for good retail sources for inventory. There’s nothing worse than finding an awesome item for resale, only to discover you are restricted from selling that brand. But with wholesale sources, you have the potential to work with Amazon and the manufacturer to become a brand approved seller. It requires some time and effort to get approval, but if you’re successful, you have the potential to make even more profits with even lower competition. In some cases, you can even get an “Amazon exclusive” where you (or you and a small number of sellers) are the only one(s) allowed to sell that brand or a particular brand ASIN.
Now you have plenty of good reasons why you should consider adding wholesale to your Amazon FBA business.
*This post was updated for 2023