"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 14:16:09 on Sun, 2 Oct 2016,
Mizter T remarked:

You can of course also compete with Amazon using Amazon's platform!

Only in a small subset of products, preferably ones not available via
Amazon Prime.

Or sell them cheaper than Amazon.

It's not a sustainable business to sell things cheaper than Amazon, while
also paying them to use the platform.

It is if you charge people for postage

not everyone has Prime

tim

In message , at 17:26:05 on Sun, 2 Oct
2016, Neil Williams remarked:

It's not a sustainable business to sell things cheaper than Amazon,
while also paying them to use the platform.

It can be - plenty of people do.

What makes you think their businesses are sustainable?
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 17:25:39 on Sun, 2 Oct
2016, Neil Williams remarked:

In the sense you ask, because the only product being cherry picked
from Uber is transport *here*, whereas the thing which isn't in
fact being cherry picked from Amazon is mail ordering a specialist product.
You can of course also compete with Amazon using Amazon's platform!
Only in a small subset of products, preferably ones not available
via Amazon Prime.

You can sell any product on Amazon near enough, regardless of whether
it is offered via Prime or not.

Yes, but we appear to be drifting from competing with Amazon the
platform, to competing with Amazon the retailer selling a limited number
of things via its own platform.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 18:24:03 on Sun, 2 Oct 2016,
tim... remarked:
You can of course also compete with Amazon using Amazon's platform!

Only in a small subset of products, preferably ones not available via
Amazon Prime.

Or sell them cheaper than Amazon.

It's not a sustainable business to sell things cheaper than Amazon,
while also paying them to use the platform.

It is if you charge people for postage

What? Less postage than Amazon, who will have negotiated the very best
discounts.

not everyone has Prime

Prime is faster, there's also their free postage offering.
--
Roland Perry

On 2016-10-02 17:43:46 +0000, Roland Perry said:

What? Less postage than Amazon, who will have negotiated the very best
discounts.

Amazon charge quite a lot for postage for non-Prime purchases. No
doubt this is very profitable for them.

Prime is faster, there's also their free postage offering.

Yes, but if you don't order often the membership fee is fairly hefty.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 18:24:03 on Sun, 2 Oct 2016,
tim... remarked:
You can of course also compete with Amazon using Amazon's platform!

Only in a small subset of products, preferably ones not available via
Amazon Prime.

Or sell them cheaper than Amazon.

It's not a sustainable business to sell things cheaper than Amazon,
while also paying them to use the platform.

It is if you charge people for postage

What? Less postage than Amazon, who will have negotiated the very best
discounts.

IME (not necessarily with Amazon) postage is charged in fixed chunks with
say 6.95 as the smallest chunk,

when all the delivery of the specific item requires is a jiffy bag and a 2nd
class stamp

not everyone has Prime

Prime is faster, there's also their free postage offering.

The things that I looked for didn't "qualify"

tim

Neil Williams wrote:
On 2016-10-02 17:43:46 +0000, Roland Perry said:

What? Less postage than Amazon, who will have negotiated the very best
discounts.

Amazon charge quite a lot for postage for non-Prime purchases. No
doubt this is very profitable for them.

No, I get free delivery with all my Amazon-fulfilled orders, without Prime.
I just make my orders are all for goods with a total value of at least £20.

In message , at 19:18:36 on Sun, 2 Oct
2016, Neil Williams remarked:
What? Less postage than Amazon, who will have negotiated the very
best discounts.

Amazon charge quite a lot for postage for non-Prime purchases. No
doubt this is very profitable for them.

Not always. The last thing we bought, would have been zero postage even
without Prime, for the slowest delivery option.

Prime is faster, there's also their free postage offering.

Yes, but if you don't order often the membership fee is fairly hefty.

The membership fee is worth it for the streaming TV/movie service.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 19:26:21 on Sun, 2 Oct 2016,
tim... remarked:
It's not a sustainable business to sell things cheaper than Amazon,
while also paying them to use the platform.

It is if you charge people for postage

What? Less postage than Amazon, who will have negotiated the very
best discounts.

IME (not necessarily with Amazon) postage is charged in fixed chunks
with say 6.95 as the smallest chunk,

That's simply not the case. eBay in particular encourages traders to
ship with zero postage charges. Lots of stuff "fulfilled by Amazon" has
a zero postage charge for the slowest service.

when all the delivery of the specific item requires is a jiffy bag and
a 2nd class stamp

not everyone has Prime

Prime is faster, there's also their free postage offering.

The things that I looked for didn't "qualify"

Not qualifying for Prime is an indication that the product is being sold
on their platform, but fulfilled by the trader. Which is the modality
I'm saying is difficult to make competitive.

I just tried a random example: a pack of four Duracell rechargeable AA
batteries.

You can get them 'direct' from Amazon at £7.44 with free delivery, and
qualifying for Prime.

Just two other vendors match that price, and have free delivery (without
qualifying for Prime).

50 other vendors will also supply, with prices going up from £7.88 to
£8.99 by the tenth cheapest, and to £10 and beyond. The cheapest which
is "fulfilled by Amazon" (and thus also qualifies for Prime) is £7.99,
and rises rapidly to £10.84 for the most expensive (of the five/50 using
this method).
--
Roland Perry

On 2016-10-02 18:26:21 +0000, tim... said:

The things that I looked for didn't "qualify"

I do use Prime but the main "use case" I have for non Prime suppliers
is that they will post small, low value things on their own. Amazon
won't, they will only post them with a minimum £20 order.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.