Shoppers Disparage Obscure Brands on Amazon

An article about Amazon sellers who are seeking legal help over suspensions revealed some interesting attitudes from consumers in the comments section about third-party sellers on the platform.

Shoppers aren’t necessarily happy with what one seller characterized as a “massive proliferation of obscure sellers.”

Even FBA sellers whose items ship from Amazon fulfillment centers are suspect, said one commentor: “I don’t touch anything that’s a weird brand for anything that matters. Sorry, not trusting random letters like “etguuds” for something I connect to my $1200 phone, despite it’s 50,000 reviews.”

“Almost everything that turns up after a search is just some faceroll on keyboard name,” one Amazon shopper said. “I don’t really want fly-by-night products or sellers that are likely to be gone in a few weeks. Amazon very much has a product trust issue from my perspective (even when the products themselves may well be the same as the brand name stuff), and I hate that I don’t have a good way to view strictly trusted or real product/brand things.”

The article itself (“Amazon marketplace crackdown has sellers searching for legal help”) is worth reading, with the introductory paragraph summarizing the issue: “Merchants who have been suspended from selling goods on Amazon’s marketplace are turning to a cottage industry of lawyers to regain access to their accounts and money, amid growing scrutiny of how the retailer treats independents.”

It quotes the head of a trade organization who saw the issue as a problem for Amazon. “”If you’re operating a business where the people you’re deriving revenue from feel that they’re being treated in an arbitrary way without due process, that is a problem,” said Marianne Rowden, chief executive of the E-Merchants Trade Council.”

The article on Ars Technica had garnered over 130 comments by Wednesday evening.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.