Amazon has been a fantastic deflationary source for consumers, however it is also constantly squeezing seller margins.  Fees, as a percentage of Gross Selling Price, have increased every year since 2009. In 2009, Amazon fees totaled less than 20% of the gross selling price for most third-party sellers.  Now, nearly 10 years later, Amazon fees have risen to nearly 35%.  Since most third-party sellers are unable to increase prices to offset the majority of these fees, margins are constantly under pressure.

Sellers can combat some of the increasing Amazon fees by more effectively managing their inventory to reduce monthly and long-term storage.  Sellers can also redesign certain products to reduce weight and optimize shipping expenses.  However, sellers ultimately have no choice, but to accept the Amazon fee increases.  The margin squeeze has caused valuation multiples of Amazon only businesses to drop significantly over the last several years, especially sellers of staple white-label items.

Several years ago, sellers could offer white-label products, optimize their listings and enjoy year-over-year growth due to the increasing Amazon audience.  However, Amazon is directly capturing an ever-increasing share of white-label products (from batteries and charging cables, to bedding, luggage, and recently small appliances and apparel).  Amazon only had a minor share (or even zero share) of these markets a few years ago, but will control the vast majority of each within the next couple of years.

The speed of this transition is rarely talked about, but will make an amazing case-study in the future, as Amazon is capturing, virtually, entire category after category.  Differentiated, proprietary products were beneficial for third-party sellers in the past, but now they are an absolute must to thrive on the Amazon platform.

Update:  The New York Times published an detailed article today (July 23, 2018) on Amazon capturing increasing market share of white-label products.  How Amazon Is Winning the Online Retail Game. Again.  A few snippets below:

The results were stunning. In just a few years, AmazonBasics had grabbed nearly a third of the online market for batteries, outselling both Energizer and Duracell on its site.

The company now has roughly 100 private-label brands for sale on its huge online marketplace, of which more than five dozen have been introduced in the past year alone. But few of those are sold under the Amazon brand. Instead, they have been given a variety of anodyne, disposable names like Spotted Zebra (kids’ clothes), Good Brief (men’s underwear), Wag (dog food) and Rivet (home furnishings). Want to buy a stylish but affordable cap-sleeve dress? A flared version from Lark & Ro ($39), maybe in millennial pink, might be just what you’re looking for.

Amazon is utilizing its knowledge of its powerful marketplace machine — from optimizing word-search algorithms to analyzing competitors’ sales data to using its customer-review networks — to steer shoppers toward its in-house brands and away from its competitors, analysts say.

Update: October 16, 2018: The below excerpt is from a Bloomberg published article:  Amazon Doles Out Freebies to Juice Sales of Its Own Brands

Amazon has more than 120 brands, about 100 of which were introduced over the past two years, according to TJI Research. One is Amazon Basics motor oil. Less than three months since its July debut, the product has a 4.5-star rating based on about 100 customer reviews. That’s almost as many reviews as a similar Valvoline product sold on the site for six years. More than 80 percent of the reviews for Amazon’s new oil came through the Vine program;  the Valvoline oil had zero Vine reviews.

#Amazon  #DirecttoConsumer  #Private-label  # AmazonThirdParty  #AmazonSqueeze

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