Middleman sellers might not technically be a scam, but it's not often beneficial to all parties. I've spent some time working for a bookstore that has decent quantity of sales on Amazon, so that's where my perspective comes from. Some issues with middlemen:
- First, a lot of middlemen ALWAYS email the seller after placing an order, expecting the seller to omit any mention of the seller and how much the product cost on Amazon. Further, they request that the seller send a separate email with the tracking info for their orders. While this is probably find for random small sellers on Amazon, for larger ones like the one I was at, honoring all the middlemen's requests would cause HUGE shipping delays for all products, middleman or regular, just to deal with all the emails and special requests.
- Often they'll email again ("angrily", though it's just a canned response) if an item hasn't arrived 3 or so days after they placed the order. Even if the order was on a Friday night. And even if it's going from one side of the country to the other via the cheapest/slowest shipping method offered. So that's more needless emails to waste the seller's time.
- If there's an issue with the order, the middlemen often do not pass on details of the issue to the seller. Instead they just say (effectively) "There was an issue. I demand a full refund." Often issues can be resolved with exchanges or returns, but so many middlemen just demand full refund with no returns.
- Due to poor listings wherever the middlemen are relisting the Amazon products, the middlemen's customers often aren't aware of all the details of what they order. We'd regularly get things sent back and the complaint was "it's a used book" when that's exactly what was listed on Amazon.
- Some middlemen sellers are A-z Claim happy... Threatening to file a claim in their very first email to the seller, when they ask for no invoice or reference to the seller. We dealt with a few who would ask that you'd print out their own packing slip to send with the order and that you'd write their name on the return address of the package instead of your own.
- Often, middlemen include "(NO INVOICE)" somewhere in the shipping address, as a further instruction to seller to omit pricing info. Removing that part from a more automated shipping process (like larger stores use) adds processing time and increases possibility of mistakes. Plus Amazon requires that orders be shipped to the address provided, so I'm still not even sure if it breaks Amazon's policies or not to remove that from the address.
- We would frequently get confused or angry emails or phone calls from customers who bought something from a middleman seller who in turn bought it from us, because they'd see that our return address wasn't the middleman's name, or we'd include a packing slip (middlemen don't always ask for it to be omitted, and we wouldn't always comply if they did anyway) with our info and they'd see the price it really cost. That means more customer service time spent on that, and an upset end customer.
This thread is about FBA, and I suspect you're referring to non-FBA sales here.
>First, a lot of middlemen ALWAYS email the seller after placing an order, expecting the seller to omit any mention of the seller and how much the product cost on Amazon
The order is fulfilled by Amazon, and the seller has no control over this. The middleman can email all he wants, but it's no use.
I don't think the middleman even has the ability to contact the seller easily. How exactly can they get the person's email address?
>Often they'll email again ("angrily", though it's just a canned response) if an item hasn't arrived 3 or so days after they placed the order.
Fulfilled by Amazon. The middleman is in entire control on the shipping. They want it faster? They should select faster shipping.
>If there's an issue with the order, the middlemen often do not pass on details of the issue to the seller. Instead they just say (effectively) "There was an issue. I demand a full refund." Often issues can be resolved with exchanges or returns, but so many middlemen just demand full refund with no returns.
This is Amazon policy for FBA. It is no different from you buying from Amazon or some other store and returning without an explanation. When you sell via FBA, you are required to accept this as a consequence. This has little to do with middlemen. I myself have had perfectly functioning items returned as defective, and I have no recourse.
>Due to poor listings wherever the middlemen are relisting the Amazon products, the middlemen's customers often aren't aware of all the details of what they order. We'd regularly get things sent back and the complaint was "it's a used book" when that's exactly what was listed on Amazon.
I too get pointless returns. As do almost all retailers out there. Why do you expect things to be different? As long as you sell via Amazon FBA, Amazon has a return policy you need to accept.
I could go on and on about your other bullets, but it is clear you are complaining about a different problem from the one in this thread. Most of these issues are non-issues with FBA. Customers will not get your contact info via FBA. Middlemen do not get it either. If a middlemen puts "No Invoice" on an FBA order, Amazon will deal with it (likely by literally shipping to that address).
Now getting to your case, where you are likely a business selling via Amazon, but not having them fulfill your orders, the larger thread is very relevant to you. If a big chunk of your business is dependent on Amazon's existence, you are vulnerable. It is hard for me to sympathize with you. At the end of the day, you list on Amazon because Amazon is creating value for you - despite all these annoyances. You are seeing all the annoyances of middlemen, but you likely do not know how much business they are generating for you.
2 questions:
1. For orders like (No Invoice), would it be beneficial for you to just cancel the order and not get the money (assuming Amazon gave you that option, with no repercussions to your Amazon rating)? If not, you are benefiting.
2. How can you tell which of your orders that go smoothly involve middlemen? If you cannot, you have no idea if it is benefiting you or not.
I get that you were talking about FBA... I was just ranting a bit about middleman sellers in general I guess. You didn't need to do a point by point explanation of why it doesn't apply to FBA, especially after you surmised I wasn't talking about FBA. ;]
I'm well aware about the dangers of relying on Amazon sales. Sadly in the used book world it's almost impossible to break free of it. The store does list on many different online marketplaces, but no matter how diversified, the majority of the sales come from Amazon.
To answer your questions...
1. I'm not sure if it's be beneficial to cancel the order if it were repercussion-free (which it most certainly isn't and never will be). I haven't done an analysis of money made versus time wasted yet, since Amazon will never make it repercussion-free. I have a feeling that even if it's still _technically_ financially worth it to not cancel the middleman orders, it'd be very close to being not worth it.
2. Middlemen are usually _very_ easy to spot due to their ordering habits and addressing habits, at least if they've ordered from us more than once. It's possible that some of the only-ordered-once people are middlemen as well, but last I looked, only a small percentage of them were likely to be (based on shipping names not matching Amazon names).
I haven't really looked into middlemen sellers in FBA, since they never really bothered me much. Plus most of the stock that we send for FBA are things that don't move in store, and we've kind of given up on and are just trying to get a little bit of profit on. So we generally don't care about the FBA stock (beyond ensuring that any lingering stock is "disposed" before the 6/12 month fees hit if it's not selling).
- First, a lot of middlemen ALWAYS email the seller after placing an order, expecting the seller to omit any mention of the seller and how much the product cost on Amazon. Further, they request that the seller send a separate email with the tracking info for their orders. While this is probably find for random small sellers on Amazon, for larger ones like the one I was at, honoring all the middlemen's requests would cause HUGE shipping delays for all products, middleman or regular, just to deal with all the emails and special requests.
- Often they'll email again ("angrily", though it's just a canned response) if an item hasn't arrived 3 or so days after they placed the order. Even if the order was on a Friday night. And even if it's going from one side of the country to the other via the cheapest/slowest shipping method offered. So that's more needless emails to waste the seller's time.
- If there's an issue with the order, the middlemen often do not pass on details of the issue to the seller. Instead they just say (effectively) "There was an issue. I demand a full refund." Often issues can be resolved with exchanges or returns, but so many middlemen just demand full refund with no returns.
- Due to poor listings wherever the middlemen are relisting the Amazon products, the middlemen's customers often aren't aware of all the details of what they order. We'd regularly get things sent back and the complaint was "it's a used book" when that's exactly what was listed on Amazon.
- Some middlemen sellers are A-z Claim happy... Threatening to file a claim in their very first email to the seller, when they ask for no invoice or reference to the seller. We dealt with a few who would ask that you'd print out their own packing slip to send with the order and that you'd write their name on the return address of the package instead of your own.
- Often, middlemen include "(NO INVOICE)" somewhere in the shipping address, as a further instruction to seller to omit pricing info. Removing that part from a more automated shipping process (like larger stores use) adds processing time and increases possibility of mistakes. Plus Amazon requires that orders be shipped to the address provided, so I'm still not even sure if it breaks Amazon's policies or not to remove that from the address.
- We would frequently get confused or angry emails or phone calls from customers who bought something from a middleman seller who in turn bought it from us, because they'd see that our return address wasn't the middleman's name, or we'd include a packing slip (middlemen don't always ask for it to be omitted, and we wouldn't always comply if they did anyway) with our info and they'd see the price it really cost. That means more customer service time spent on that, and an upset end customer.