Amazon could soon be on the hook for safety of third-party products it sells and ships — Government order could classify it as a distributor, potentially exposing it to more legal claims::undefined

  • Sanctus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1401·
    11 months ago

    I mean, how is it not a distributor? Honest question, all those trucks sure do look like they are distributing products.

    • Shadow@lemmy.caEnglish
      642·
      11 months ago

      Typically a distributor deals to stores that deal to end users.

      Amazon call themselves a store, but at their scale and volume they’re pretty much a distributor.

      • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        401·
        11 months ago

        Not even pretty much, they really are a distributor

        They have many different businesses all selling on their shelves and then Amazon ships you the product

        • brbposting@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          191·
          11 months ago

          Nooo the businesses are truly totally independent!

          Amazon just handles:

          • marketing (choosing who gets the “buy box”)
          • warehousing
          • fulfillment in their own trucks
          • some customer service
          • transaction processing / disbursement

          Am I forgetting anything? Besides the disclaimer that sellers don’t have to use Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) and could ship themselves.

          I could be more sympathetic if they just changed the user interface to put seller names front and center. Even keeping FBA. Even if eBay handled warehousing and fulfillment, we’d still think of it as more of a platform than Amazon - right?

          Hidden too deep.

          (Interesting, eBay announced “Managed Delivery in 2019, but pulled the plug before launch. They do still help you ship internationally.)