[jacobr1]

On the sourcing side, they have a scale advantage of placing larger orders which can get them better OEM pricing. Depending upon the product category their probably are manufacturing efficiencies of scale that enable better pricing. And in particular, their purchasing departments have more efficient analytics numbers to make product entry decisions that benefit from the scale Amazon has reached. So the efficiency in which they are likely to operate in making JIT purchases, or predictive purchases, and avoiding costly inventory mistakes and markdowns is only possible with the large market reach and ability to hire a technical depth of analysts (or tools makers for analysts) enabled by their size.