Amazon seems to always having the long view. It’s hard to imagine that Amazon’s domination of e-commerce will change anytime soon, the company is setting their sights on challenging other giants. In this case, those giants include Walmart, Costco and Target.
Amazon is ready to implement a rumored change to force smaller vendors (these are vendors who are making less than $10 million a year) to move from Vendor Central to Seller Central. It was reported last week by Bloomberg that Amazon is planning a “large scale reduction” of small vendors. This move is to help cut costs for the company, as well as increase automation and prioritize its partnerships with major brands.
There hasn’t been any announcements made by the company as of yet, Amazon’s actions have been quite loud. Back in March, Amazon unceremoniously paused its weekly replenishment orders for over ten thousand small vendors where were making $10 million per year. After that, Amazon claimed that a number of these interruptions were done in error. Although not all, most of the vendors had their orders resumed, but with a catch. These vendors had to register with Amazon’s Brand Registry or, if they didn’t register, move from Vendor to Seller Central.
If you’re one of those vendors being forced to make these changes, you’ll want to make sure you understand the implications of this change in order to adapt and prepare for a smooth transition.