The holiday shopping frenzy will be upon us soon and Amazon wants to ensure that you don’t go elsewhere for your shopping needs. That’s why for the first time ever, the online retail giant has discounted products being sold on its marketplace by third-party sellers. This will enable the company to be more competitive with other online sites during the holiday shopping season.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon is now providing discounts on some products being sold by third-party sellers on its marketplace. These items carry a “Discount provided by Amazon” label.
It seems this move has caught many third-party sellers on Amazon by surprise as many were unaware that this is now happening. Amazon’s discounts on these items are less than 10 percent and only appear to be offered on products that use its fulfillment service.
The discounts don’t seem to impact what sellers earn on each sale so it seems that Amazon is putting up the money for the discount out of its own pocket. Sellers get to keep the full proceeds from the discounted sales less any fees that Amazon already charges them for selling on its platform.
Amazon is also making it clear on the product listings that these discounts are being offered for a limited time. We’ll likely see them go away once the holiday season passes.
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