• Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Supplier Directory
  • SCB YouTube
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Logout
  • My Profile
  • LOGISTICS
    • Air Cargo
    • All Logistics
    • Express/Small Shipments
    • Facility Location Planning
    • Freight Forwarding/Customs Brokerage
    • Global Gateways
    • Global Logistics
    • Last Mile Delivery
    • Logistics Outsourcing
    • LTL/Truckload Services
    • Ocean Transportation
    • Rail & Intermodal
    • Reverse Logistics
    • Service Parts Management
    • Transportation & Distribution
  • TECHNOLOGY
    • All Technology
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud & On-Demand Systems
    • Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
    • ERP & Enterprise Systems
    • Forecasting & Demand Planning
    • Global Trade Management
    • Inventory Planning/ Optimization
    • Product Lifecycle Management
    • Sales & Operations Planning
    • SC Finance & Revenue Management
    • SC Planning & Optimization
    • Sourcing/Procurement/SRM
    • Supply Chain Visibility
    • Transportation Management
  • GENERAL SCM
    • Business Strategy Alignment
    • Education & Professional Development
    • Global Supply Chain Management
    • Global Trade & Economics
    • HR & Labor Management
    • Quality & Metrics
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • SC Security & Risk Mgmt
    • Supply Chains in Crisis
    • Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility
  • WAREHOUSING
    • All Warehouse Services
    • Conveyors & Sortation
    • Lift Trucks & AGVs
    • Order Fulfillment
    • Packaging
    • RFID, Barcode, Mobility & Voice
    • Robotics
    • Warehouse Management Systems
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Aerospace & Defense
    • Apparel
    • Automotive
    • Chemicals & Energy
    • Consumer Packaged Goods
    • E-Commerce/Omni-Channel
    • Food & Beverage
    • Healthcare
    • High-Tech/Electronics
    • Industrial Manufacturing
    • Pharmaceutical/Biotech
    • Retail
  • THINK TANK
  • WEBINARS
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
  • PODCASTS
  • VIDEOS
  • WHITEPAPERS
Home » Amazon Is Poised to Unleash a Long-Feared Purge of Small Suppliers

Amazon Is Poised to Unleash a Long-Feared Purge of Small Suppliers

Amazon
Source: Bloomberg
May 29, 2019
Bloomberg

Two months ago, Amazon.com Inc. halted orders from thousands of suppliers with no explanation. Panic ensued — until the orders quietly resumed weeks later, with Amazon suggesting the pause was part of a campaign to weed out counterfeit products. Suppliers breathed a sigh of relief.

Now a larger, more permanent purge is coming that will upend the relationship between the world’s largest online retailer and many of its long-time vendors.

In the next few months, bulk orders will dry up for thousands of mostly smaller suppliers, according to three people familiar with the plan. Amazon’s aim is to cut costs and focus wholesale purchasing on major brands like Procter & Gamble, Sony and Lego, the people said. That will ensure the company has adequate supplies of must-have merchandise and help it compete with the likes of Walmart, Target and Best Buy.

The mom-and-pops that have long relied on Amazon for a steady stream of orders will have to learn a new way of doing business on the web store. Rather than selling in bulk directly to Amazon, they’ll need to win sales one shopper at a time. It’s one of the biggest shifts in Amazon’s e-commerce strategy since it opened the site to independent sellers almost 20 years ago. While the plan could be changed or cancelled, it’s currently moving forward, the people said.

“This is the kind of change that will scare the living daylights out of brands selling on Amazon,” said James Thomson, who organizes the Prosper Show, an annual e-commerce conference focused on Amazon. “Amazon usually doesn’t give a lot of lead time and brands will be left scrambling. If they make this change soon, brands will have until the end of the summer to get their acts together or their holiday quarter will be at risk.”

In an emailed statement, an Amazon spokeswoman said: “We review our selling partner relationships on an individual basis as part of our normal course of business, and any speculation of a large scale reduction of vendors is incorrect.”

Amazon secures inventory two ways. The company buys products directly from wholesale vendors, reselling them like a traditional retail store, and it lets independent merchants post their own products on the site in a marketplace model similar to EBay Inc. or a consignment shop. About half of the goods sold on Amazon come from independent merchants, and the change will push the marketplace share of revenue even higher.

The vendor purge is the latest step in Amazon’s “hands off the wheel” initiative, an effort to keep expanding product selection on its website without spending more money on managers to oversee it all. The project entails automating tasks like forecasting demand and negotiating prices which were predominantly done by Amazon employees. It also involves pushing more Amazon suppliers to sell goods themselves so Amazon doesn’t have to pay people to do it for them.

There’s another upside for Amazon. By forcing many existing wholesale vendors to sell their products directly to consumers, the company holds less inventory itself — reducing the risk that it gets stuck with unsold merchandise. Moreover, Amazon can collect a commission on each sale a vendor makes and charge them fees to store, pack and deliver their goods — boosting profits.

Generally speaking, vendors selling less than $10m in products each year on the site will no longer get wholesale orders from Amazon, although that will vary by category, said the people, who requested anonymity to speak about an internal matter.

In another sign that a supplier shakeout is looming, Amazon didn’t renegotiate annual terms with many smaller vendors, a usual springtime ritual, one person said. Amazon also isn’t filling many vacant vendor manager positions, another person said, indicating the company expects to need fewer people to handle supplier relationships since there will be fewer suppliers.

Amazon began discussing which vendors it would keep in the fall, the people said. Amazon employees who manage vendor relationships were able to make a written argument about suppliers that shouldn’t be cut, but the decision was ultimately up to senior leaders, one of the people said.

In recent years, Amazon has increasingly prioritized its marketplace, which last year generated more than half of e-commerce sales. Revenue from merchant services, meanwhile, is growing at double the pace of revenue from the online store. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos gave a shout-out to marketplace sellers in his annual shareholder letter, saying they were “kicking our first-party butt. Badly.”

Online marketplaces can offer greater selection than even the biggest of stores. Walmart and Target are both copying Amazon’s marketplace model to increase selection. U.S. shoppers will spend $317bn on Amazon this year, representing 52.4 percent of all online sales, according to EMarketer Inc. Profits have increased for seven consecutive quarters, a trend investors expect to continue through the rest of the year.

Wall Street will likely applaud Amazon’s effort to consolidate bulk purchases with big-name brands, but smaller suppliers will have to adjust quickly before the busy holiday shopping season.

It takes up to 120 days to shift from an Amazon wholesale supplier to a marketplace seller, said Anderson Salgado, a former Amazon vendor manager and CEO of Trisbell, a consulting firm that helps people sell products on Amazon. Smaller Amazon vendors should prepare now by learning how to sell on Amazon’s marketplace to make the transition more smoothly, he said.

“If this happens soon and people are not ready for it, they will not be ready during the holidays,” he said. “The people who get ahead of the game are going to thrive.”

RELATED CONTENT

RELATED VIDEOS

Logistics E-Commerce/Omni-Channel Retail
KEYWORDS E-Commerce/Omni-Channel Retail
  • Related Articles

    Amazon Looks to Shave Delivery Time of Small Items from China to U.S.

    Amazon Was Fighting Fakes With Big Vendor Purge

    Is Ice-Cream Parlor Business a Snapshot of Mexico's Small-Is-Better Approach to Retail?

Bloomberg

Global Oil Trade Shakes Up After Fires at U.S. Fuelmakers

More from this author

Wake up to live
“Supply Chains in Crisis”
updates and the latest Supply Chain News!

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter

Timely, incisive articles delivered directly to your inbox.

Popular Stories

  • INTERIOR OF A CHICKEN FARM, WITH WHITE CHICKENS AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE

    Worst Avian Flu in U.S. History Is Hitting Poultry

    Food & Beverage
  • TWO FINGERS MANIPULATE WOODEN LETTER BLOCKS TO TURN FROM SHOWING THE WORD RECOVERY TO RESILIENCE

    Five Challenges to Supply Chain Resilience in 2023

    Supply Chain Visibility
  • A PERSON HOLDS UP A TABLET COMPUTER IN A WAREHOUSE, SUPER-IMPOSED BY A GRAPHIC SHOWING A COMPLEX WEB OF SUPPLY CHAIN ELEMENTS

    Three Post-Pandemic Actions for Repairing Global Supply Chains

    Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
  • A MAN IN A SUIT SHAKES HANDS WITH A WOMAN IN A HARD HAT, NEXT TO A STACK OF CONTAINERS

    Three Procurement Technology Evolutions for 2023

    Sourcing/Procurement/SRM
  • The blank stare of a child's eye who is standing behind what appears to be a wooden frame

    The Alarming Continued Rise of Modern Slavery in Supply Chains: How Procurement Can Help Reverse the Trend

    Sourcing/Procurement/SRM

Digital Edition

Scb nov 2022 sm

2022 Supply Chain Innovator of the Year

VIEW THE LATEST ISSUE

Case Studies

  • New Revenue for Cloud-Based TMS that Embeds Orderful’s Modern EDI Platform

  • Convenience Store Client Maximizes Profit and Improves Customer Service

  • A Digitally Native Footwear Brand Finds Rapid Fulfillment

  • Expanding Apparel Brand Scales Seamlessly with E-Commerce Technology

  • How a Global LSP Scaled its Security Program and Won More Business

Visit Our Sponsors

Orderful Yang Ming Alithya
Barcoding Blue Yonder BNSF Logistics
CoEnterprise Data Capture Deposco
E2open GAINSystems Generix
Geodis GEP GreyOrange
Here Honeywell Intelligrated IFM
Infor Inmar Keelvar
Kinaxis Korber Lean Solutions Group 2H
Liberty SBF Locus Robotics Logility
LogistiVIEW Lucas Systems MCA Connect
MPO Nvidia Old Dominion
OpenText ORTEC Overhaul
Parsyl PMMI QIMA
Redwood Logistics Ryder E-commerce by Whiplash Saddle Creek Logistics
Schneider Dedicated Setlog Holding AG Ship4WD
Shipwell Tecsys TGW Systems
Thomson Reuters Tive Trailer Bridge
Vecna Robotics Verity
Verusen
  • More From SCB
    • Featured Content
    • Video Library
    • Think Tank Blog
    • SupplyChainBrain Podcast
    • Whitepapers
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
  • Digital Offerings
    • Digital Issue
    • Subscribe
    • Manage Your Subscription
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Events Calendar
    • SCB's Great Supply Chain Partners
    • Supplier Directory
    • Case Study Showcase
    • Supply Chain Innovation Awards
    • 100 Great Partners Form
  • SCB Corporate
    • Advertise on SCB.COM
    • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
    • Data Sharing Opt-Out

All content copyright ©2023 Keller International Publishing Corp All rights reserved. No reproduction, transmission or display is permitted without the written permissions of Keller International Publishing Corp

Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing