[AaronNewcomer]

It is different. This is talking about Amazon Marketplace sellers. It would be more similar to if Walmart set up a flea market with tents and stuff in its parking lot and let anyone rent a booth and sell whatever they wanted. Walmart would also provide a centralized cash register at the end of the parking lot where people could pay for the items they got from the individual sellers. Walmart would then settle up with the sellers at the end of the day for the sales they rang up for them, while keeping a cut to cover the cost of the transaction and logistics for setting up the tents and keeping security guards on site.

This would be an equivalent analogy. Does THAT seem different than going into Walmart and buying from inside Walmart?

[sray]

Except it’s not like a flea market in the parking lot. It’s more like Walmart had a flea market, but mixed all of the items in with their own, inside of the store, and made it difficult for a casual buyer to tell the difference.

[ganoushoreilly]

Except in amazons case they take items from the tent sale and use it to augment their stocks in different warehouses so they can reduce shipping times. So in that instance it is the same thing regardless of “supplier middleman”.