”Please be informed that at this time, we are not placing any purchase orders on your products. To preserve the customer experience, the featured offer will be disabled when the product is out of stock. We will notify you if we choose to place any purchase orders.” - Amazon Vendor Central This week, many brands who supply Amazon via Vendor Central received the message above. In typical Amazon fashion, it’s a move driven by a maniacal survival of the fittest model for growth. Merging Vendor Central and Seller Central optimizes for Amazon’s own profitability while providing lower prices and massive selection to consumers. When I started as one of Amazon’s first 3P sellers from my Harvard dorm in 2003, it was hard to imagine a world where Amazon’s marketplace would become the future of retail. 16 years later that future is now. Direct-to-consumer is the future of retail and to survive, brands must evolve to master the “seller playbook”. At Teikametrics, we have built a company around the mission to help sellers optimize for profitability. Our newest technology, Teikametrics Flywheel, is a Retail Optimization Platform (ROP) that helps sellers win in this new retail model. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this evolution and how we can help sellers navigate through it.
AMZN Stakeholders, As many of you are aware, we are seeing limited VC accounts resuming POs with the following messaging from AMZN- "We are writing to confirm we have resumed ordering from your account following a temporary pause. We apologize for any inconvenience. We note that you are not yet enrolled in Brand Registry. We prefer to source products directly from brand owners, so enrollment in Brand Registry will be important for vendors going forward." If your POs have resumed, I would still strongly encourage AMZN business to make their #1 priority brand registry if they do not already have it.
This is an interesting juncture merging Amazon's counterfeit issues with a transition to "one vendor." Admittedly, this happened at a larger scale than anticipated. However, I would not approach this with the expectation that 1p (VC) accounts will be turned back on and taking this as a pivot point to a 3P business. What is happening - Amazon has stopped issuing POs 1P (Vendor Central) Suppliers <$10M/year AND select distributors that do more than $10M/Year. This includes dropship and dropship fast track. Why is this happening- a. Crack down on counterfeits (Amazon has experienced much legal action, hence the necessity of brand registry) b. Early stages of ‘One Vendor’ migration (this may be tied to an attempt to stop the groups that are at most risk for producing counterfeits) c. Amazon focus on profitability. This is a mass suppression of SKUs so Amazon can focus on head vendors. On 3p (seller central) fees are transparent and the same across the board, VS. various terms on vendor central.
Gavin Trippe
4y
It's going to be interesting how some industries will respond when a brand is now a seller along with other dealers within the seller central space. When Amazon retail gets its hands on a brand we see MAP go out the window and dealers are left attached to a listing that won't generate sales because Amazon retail has the buy box. When 15 dealers are attached to a listing I am not sure how well it will sit when they see the brand attached to the listing as a seller. Who needs the dealers? This is just my opinion. We don't sell on Amazon anymore.
Alasdair, you hit it on the spot-"Merging Vendor Central and Seller Central optimizes for Amazon’s own profitability while providing lower prices and massive selection to consumers." This is not a surprising move, especially when we look from Amazons perspective. We have seen Amazon make so many of the "Vendor Benefits" (Videos, A+, Display Ads, ECT.) available to all sellers over the last couple of years. As the saying goes, the best time to make the transition was in the past, the next best time is now.
Chris Walker
4y
If you are a 3P seller using FBA, what do you recommend for long-term strategies to protect against the Amazon private labels that will inevitably enter your category?
B2B Marketing, PR, & Content | Ex Fulbright
10moCommenting 4 years later to recognize a real OG. What an amazing picture this is!