Amazon’s deal with Apple should benefit plenty of customers, but puts the hurt on small sellers

“About five years ago, Page Weil needed to make some extra cash to support his wife going to nursing school and help pay for costly surgery she needed. He turned to Amazon’s marketplace for help,” Ben Fox Rubin writes for CNET. “”He started listing used electronics through the site, finding particular success selling used and refurbished Apple products, including discontinued keyboards and iMac desktops. In the past year, he sold roughly $300,000 worth of mostly Apple products on Amazon, for an after-tax profit of about $40,000.”
“Weil is now among a group of Apple sellers on Amazon who are about to see their business dry up. Amazon this month signed a deal with Apple that will allow it to directly sell many more of Apple’s new devices, including the iPhone XS, iPhone XR and iPad Pro,” Rubin writes. “The new inventory will arrive in the coming weeks. As part of the deal, any merchants that aren’t authorized Apple resellers will be barred from selling any more Apple products starting Jan. 4.”
“Weil’s situation illustrates the risks that independent sellers often take in building up a business on Amazon, where deals made by the company can shift the ground from under them,” Rubin writes. “An eBay spokesman said the company has already heard from several Apple sellers who will be affected by the deal and the company plans to offer them support, like promoted listings, to encourage them to bring more of their business to eBay.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Commerce finds a way. Expect eBay to become a place for Apple sellers who were formerly on Amazon.
SEE ALSO:
Amazon strikes deal with Apple to sell new iPhones, iPads, and more worldwide – November 9, 2018