Amazon and Small Suppliers

I am not sure this makes much difference for most small retailers, they have already made the transition, lived with their particular context or failed.    Our own experience with a small retail within Amazon saw little support from them except basic infrastructure.

Amazon to set small suppliers adrift   by George Anderson  with further expert retail input.

For more than a decade, Amazon.com has publicly pronounced that it is not a destroyer of small businesses but a creator of growth opportunities for those that take advantage of the reach offered by its platform. Fifty-three percent of Amazon’s online sales are made by third parties, after all, and nearly three quarters of those selling directly to consumers on the site have between one and five employees. Many other small businesses sell products on a wholesale basis to Amazon. And so goes the rationalization that Amazon is small business friendly.

New reporting by Bloomberg, however, suggests Amazon may soon seem a less hospitable place for small third-party sellers as the e-tailer cozies up to larger retailers (Best Buy, Chico’s, Party City, etc.) and consumer brands such as Nike choose the path of coopetition to drive greater direct sales to consumers. Amazon is also shifting its percentage of products sourced from small suppliers to larger entities such as LEGO, Procter & Gamble and Sony as it focuses on competing directly with rivals selling popular name brand goods.  .... "