[cm2012]

I've worked with quite a few old school manufacturers that have expanded their business by selling direct on Amazon.

Amazon's easy to use marketplace is the only online medium that has ever worked out so well for companies that make products but are not savvy in e-commerce. The profits from Amazon are giving these businesses the opportunity to dip their toes in e-commerce.

The real advantage to the world from all of this is just starting to appear: In every example that I know, the manufacturers are now getting the confidence to start seriously selling directly outside of Amazon, because of their experience on Amazon.

[mooreds]

> the manufacturers are now getting the confidence to start seriously selling directly outside of Amazon, because of their experience on Amazon.

Hmmm. Are they concerned about marketing? That seems to be where Amazon provides a ton of value--aggregating a tremendous number of customers that are shopping. A manufacturer's website won't have the same traffic, right?

[joshvm]

I made a bit of money flipping things during the Black Friday sales - a bit of retail arbitrage. I didn't make much, but I got a lot of airmiles out of it.

My experience with FBA was very positive and actually made me consider finding something to sell. For me the main advantages were a) if you sell on Amazon using FBA, you get to use Prime services and people will preferentially choose that over 3rd party sellers on their own b) Amazon will (for a small cut) deal with all the shipping, packing, returns and so on. Shipping was pretty cheap and the UPS van picked up the stuff directly from my house.

It's so heavily automated that aside from the initial shipment to the warehouse - I don't believe you're allowed to dropship direct to them from China - you can sit back and forward parcels to them and they'll do absolutely everything else. The small overhead in warehouse and handling fees is well worth the peace of mind I think.

[cm2012]

Precisely.

[mooreds]

Err, maybe I misunderstand. Is it possible that their confidence is misguided, or are they aware that Amazon provides a tremendous platform that, if they sell direct to consumer, they'll have to replicate in some way?

[cm2012]

Sorry, yeah, misread your question. It is really hard to expand beyond Amazon because marketing is so hard. But the few that do succeed can then control the customer relationship, so its worth the risk and investment.

[mooreds]

Ah, yes, that makes sense. Thanks for clearing it up for me.

To me, it's a bit like the relationship between an author and a platform like FB or twitter. Whoever owns the customer relationship is in the driver's seat.