[petra]

True. But some manufacturers in the Alibaba platform already solve these problems with alibaba's financing services , which remove all/most of their risk.

And if that all allows some manufacturers to offer cheaper prices, other manufacturers will have to do the same.

[sfifs]

Sure you can.... but working capital financing always comes with a cost and typically it's quite high. If you're funding inventory with your own money which is generally cheaper than a working capital finance, you're still taking a hit on opportunity costs.

If you're a small manufacturer with an unknown brand, you may still be forced to go this route to sell your products.

If you're a hundred million dollar brand with consumer demand, you typically don't need to bother being a seller yourself as well and can easily pass on the risk to a distributor or retailer and turn around your cash faster.

Branding often trumps pricing. Most products in the world are not purchased with detailed price/features comparison analyses (soap, cola, food) because our minds would get exhausted making so many choices.

[petra]

Maybe you're right about capital.

But branding - sure if you have $100M to advertise your product, you have branding power in the classic sense(cola/soap). But branding on the Amazon platform is of a much weaker form, more tied to reviews, and with a good product, it's not that hard to get those.

And the other case is of course of the $100M brand - he has the brand, not the reseller.