Recalls and online marketplaces
Jul. 22nd, 2021 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitouthttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-22/amazon-s-battle-against-product-recalls-is-on-after-safety-regulator-sues
Forever ago, Amazon did not used to collect sales tax in states where it did not have a “nexus” (seems so quaint now, doesn’t it?). We went through years of Well Maybe We Should Rationalize Sales/Use Taxes, but eventually, we got to a point where it wasn’t just going to be Amazon having to collect all the annoying sales / use taxes, but everyone else doing online sales and we were finally through that hump (without, I might add, rationalizing all those sales/use taxes. So, not only are taxes, along with death, and absolute certainty, but we can probably conclude that even negotiation the details of taxes is pretty damn hard).
Amazon also went through a few rounds of scandals associated with counterfeit goods. That seems to have been resolved — I’m still a little unclear on the details, but it looks like a whole lot of new seller tools were created, and some crackdown on sellers occurred. The Cracked-Down-Upon sellers squawked, but didn’t successfully get much traction.
And now we are onto the Safety / Recall problem. I’m honestly surprised it took this long to get here. Hoverboards were so ridiculously dangerous, and that was years ago now. Amazon and various regulators have been in talks forever, and there is now frustration. And what, exactly, does Amazon seem to be trying to get? Something very familiar.
“ Amazon offered support for that bill if it would encompass all marketplaces, spreading around the costs of compliance that Amazon is well positioned to bear. Amazon’s smaller rivals, and a trade group representing EBay Inc., Etsy Inc and Shopify Inc., opposed the measure.”
I know that Wal-Mart isn’t mentioned here, but Wal-Mart has been working very hard the last couple years to get their third-party sales game competitive with Amazon. My sister has noticed that they are almost as good now, to which I responded, yeah, if you don’t mind having to sort through all the skeezy listings that Amazon won’t allow any more. Poor Wal-Mart. They finally get their third-party marketplace big and broad, and the window before all those compliance costs land on them is going to be pretty short.
Probably.
Forever ago, Amazon did not used to collect sales tax in states where it did not have a “nexus” (seems so quaint now, doesn’t it?). We went through years of Well Maybe We Should Rationalize Sales/Use Taxes, but eventually, we got to a point where it wasn’t just going to be Amazon having to collect all the annoying sales / use taxes, but everyone else doing online sales and we were finally through that hump (without, I might add, rationalizing all those sales/use taxes. So, not only are taxes, along with death, and absolute certainty, but we can probably conclude that even negotiation the details of taxes is pretty damn hard).
Amazon also went through a few rounds of scandals associated with counterfeit goods. That seems to have been resolved — I’m still a little unclear on the details, but it looks like a whole lot of new seller tools were created, and some crackdown on sellers occurred. The Cracked-Down-Upon sellers squawked, but didn’t successfully get much traction.
And now we are onto the Safety / Recall problem. I’m honestly surprised it took this long to get here. Hoverboards were so ridiculously dangerous, and that was years ago now. Amazon and various regulators have been in talks forever, and there is now frustration. And what, exactly, does Amazon seem to be trying to get? Something very familiar.
“ Amazon offered support for that bill if it would encompass all marketplaces, spreading around the costs of compliance that Amazon is well positioned to bear. Amazon’s smaller rivals, and a trade group representing EBay Inc., Etsy Inc and Shopify Inc., opposed the measure.”
I know that Wal-Mart isn’t mentioned here, but Wal-Mart has been working very hard the last couple years to get their third-party sales game competitive with Amazon. My sister has noticed that they are almost as good now, to which I responded, yeah, if you don’t mind having to sort through all the skeezy listings that Amazon won’t allow any more. Poor Wal-Mart. They finally get their third-party marketplace big and broad, and the window before all those compliance costs land on them is going to be pretty short.
Probably.