"Amazon shifted gears so that it now litters its storefront with pay-to-play advertisements. In addition to overcharging its customers, Amazon is degrading the services it provides them."
As someone in Asia where Amazon is trying to break through the market with stiff ecommerce incumbents, Amazon is great. And more importantly, they know they have no real value selling the generic Chinese stuff that has infiltrated US Amazon, so the amount of that is a lot less. The Chinese stuff on Amazon tends to be from the better companies that have tried to brand themselves and sell decent products (think Anker at the start), otherwise it’s usually products from established brands. If I wanted cheap Chinese stuff I have way better and cheaper avenues.
How long has Amazon been operating in your market? Their MO is capturing a customer base with low prices and good service, followed by capturing sellers by offering them access to said customer base. After having locked everyone in their last step is to extract all possible value from both groups. Their playbook is creating a chokepoint to force themselves upon everyone for trade.
Competition is far fiercer here, they have to contend with Alibaba-backed platforms as well. I also have access to Taobao. It’s not going to be as straightforward as it is in the USA.
I believe you, but the ultimate goal for all of those platforms is monopoly, looking at their track record. Like Peter Thiel said, competition is for losers.
As someone in Asia where Amazon is trying to break through the market with stiff ecommerce incumbents, Amazon is great. And more importantly, they know they have no real value selling the generic Chinese stuff that has infiltrated US Amazon, so the amount of that is a lot less. The Chinese stuff on Amazon tends to be from the better companies that have tried to brand themselves and sell decent products (think Anker at the start), otherwise it’s usually products from established brands. If I wanted cheap Chinese stuff I have way better and cheaper avenues.
Competition is good, eh?
How long has Amazon been operating in your market? Their MO is capturing a customer base with low prices and good service, followed by capturing sellers by offering them access to said customer base. After having locked everyone in their last step is to extract all possible value from both groups. Their playbook is creating a chokepoint to force themselves upon everyone for trade.
Check out Chokepoint Capitalism.
Competition is far fiercer here, they have to contend with Alibaba-backed platforms as well. I also have access to Taobao. It’s not going to be as straightforward as it is in the USA.
I believe you, but the ultimate goal for all of those platforms is monopoly, looking at their track record. Like Peter Thiel said, competition is for losers.