Amazon are going to ban merchants from selling Apple products on their marketplace. From the 4th of January next year Apple and Beats products will be only be offered by a small group of select Apple Authorised Resellers as part of Amazon’s new agreement with Amazon.
This isn’t a particularly unusual arrangement and those familiar with Amazon’s brand registry will be only to familiar with the restrictions brands can impose. On the plus side, for consumers it means that they’ll be purchasing from an official channel but on the downside it means less choice of who to purchase from and very possibly higher prices, although for new Apple products margins have always been tight so discounts low. Authorised resellers will be happy as there will be less competition. On the downside, it could be the end of the road for those Amazon merchants who have built their business selling Apple products unless they have already diversified into other products or onto other marketplaces.
Over the last decade there have been many calls to end restrictive trade practises, none of which have really made much interest. In the past the aim was to keep a brand’s products off marketplaces but that has consistently failed to work so now brands look to control the experience and restrict sales to the few merchants who are authorised resellers of their products and ban anyone who is a legitimate supplier but hasn’t paid the brand to become an authorised reseller.
Apple are emailing anyone who’s previously sold Apple or Beats products on Amazon to inform them that sales will end of the 4th of January 2018 and that the last date shipments will be accepted into Amazon FBA will be the 1st of December 2018.
- You may continue selling Apple and Beats products on Amazon until the 4th January, 2019.
- If you have any remaining inventory of these products in Amazon fulfilment centres on the 5th of January, 2019, you will need to create a Removal Order.
- Amazon will reimburse you for the return or disposal fees until the 4th of February, 2019.
- You will not be able to send shipments of Apple and Beats products to Amazon fulfilment centres after the 1st of December, 2018.
4 Responses
I’m going to post my comment here also…
They’ve destroyed a number of small business sellers who use Amazon to sell Apple products in the process, some of which, as of Jan 4th will lose almost their entire business and those who sent product into Amazon FBA ready for this Christmas will now have to pay to get their stock back in January and May even end up owing Amazon money after this.
I don’t sell Apple products, generallly, so I’m not affected personally, but I don’t half have some sympathy for those affected reading the comments in the Amazon Seller Forums about this today.
CMA should be all over this. This is where the real crime is.
I operate an Amazon Marketplace store where I sell used Apple products, mostly laptops. I recently quit my full time job to do this full time. This is a devastating blow to my business.