Amazon's Small Business Partnership

I've always been a little skeptical of Amazon's small business partnerships. I mean, with  a quick look at Amazon, it's great, you can get almost anything your heart desires, and for cheaper than the price that a local store might charge you. Upon closer examination, it's not so perfect. For one, they don't treat the environment or the workers very well. And, they have made so much money You've got to wonder if their relatively new small business partnership is actually helping the small business, as much as it might be getting Amazon more money. 

I decided to look more into this so-called “partnership”, I didn’t even know that much about Amazon's small business partnership. I looked around a little and here's what I gathered. The first thing I realized is that the small and medium business partnership (SMB) is not such a small business. Just from browsing the website, I learned a lot about what Amazon SMB is about. According to their website, “SMB products account for more than 50% of all units sold in our online stores, and their sales continue to outpace our first-party sales.” That's a lot of people and a lot of stores. I also learned this. “Small and medium businesses (SMBs) selling in Amazon’s Store come from every state in the U.S., and more than 130 countries around the world.”  These are pretty much the basics of what Amazon says it's all about, and after reading this, my skepticism has gone down a little bit. But of course, Amazon's claim could still just be a part of the story.

After a bit I came across something I hadn't even thought of. A writer for HuffPost mentioned this. “When the average consumer buys a widget on Amazon, they don't tell their friends, ‘I got this from John's Widgets.’ They say, ‘I got it on Amazon.’” When I was thinking about whether the SMB is legit, I was thinking on the lines of money. This problem is so simple but has huge potential to stop the growth of the business. If you found it on Amazon, you found it on Amazon. Nobody pays that much attention to the details. And how are you supposed to have a small business, when a huge business takes all the credit for it? Just this would stop me from selling on Amazon, but let’s see some of the other details about the SMB. 

Turns out, the story doesn't end there. Later, HuffPost talks about how losing your brand name can keep hurting your business. Once the brand names are out of the picture, people don't care about customer support. They go after the price. Earlier, I said my skepticism has gone down, well, it's right back up to the top again. The more I read about it, the  worse it gets. 

Finally, the money part, the part I never thought could be as great as they say it is. Obviously, it's not free to sell on Amazon, but they make it seem a lot cheaper than it is. By splitting up costs into small lots, they can make each fee seem relatively small. But added all together, the fees can add up to almost 50% of the profit for a single item. This means the small business only gets about 50% of what they made off their product. And that is not fair. 

So, while Amazon might be helping SMBs sell their items and take logistics off their plate, the actual amount of money they are saving for the small company might not be enough to make it worth it. I for sure won't be selling on Amazon anytime soon, but what do you think? Does this all make the SMB not worth it? Or, is it just the tradeoff for having such a huge company to help sell your products?