Amazon is not just the frontend. There is a whole supply chain side of it with warehouses, distributors, couriers, etc. Inventory and stock readiness, shipping, and other things will continue to be bottlenecks for consumerism at scale.

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theturtletalks 2 hours ago | parent [-]

3PLs and warehouse distribution channels have gotten better and are cheaper than using FBA shipping outside Amazon.

Did you know the biggest sellers on Amazon normally have their own website and in fact, orders from Amazon flow directly into their OMS (order management system). Amazon is simply a sales channel. Also Amazon has a stronghold in western countries but much less so in gulf states, South Asia, and Africa.

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linkregister an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Can you give some more information for buyers who want to route orders directly to sellers instead of via Amazon? Right now the only benefit for using Amazon is a unified shopping interface and free shipping using Prime.

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lotsofpulp an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Amazon's biggest feature is free returns. I would not buy even a quarter of the stuff on Amazon if I was not confident that I could easily return it.

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theturtletalks an hour ago | parent [-]

But even that is being enshittified. You have to pay for some returns now. And people have been putting defective to get free shipping returns and Amazon has just started a fee for returning items for the wrong reason.

	▲	lotsofpulp an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I only buy the stuff that says free returns (for any reason) up front.