I've been selling on Amazon for two years now. When I went to the Boost with FBA conference last year, they said their goal was to be global. Their vision is that no matter where you live in the world, you can order whatever you want, and have it delivered with Prime shipping. Thus a global marketplace for consumers. They're already in Canada, US, Mexico, Europe, Japan, China, used to be in India, and building more fulfillment centers in Israel and more. Amazon is also rolling out their Amazon Basics and secret private label brands under different names. I read somewhere their private label brands alone did a couple billion in sales.

Every Amazon seller knows that if you make a great product, Amazon will compete with you eventually. They utilize an 80/20 rule. They sell the top 20% of products on their marketplace that make up 80% of the sales. I don't know how accurate this information or numbers are, but I heard from a VP who helped build the marketplace from the beginning, so I trust his insight.

Amazon did not start out this way from the beginning. They started as resellers themselves, then started private labeling, and I am going to bet that they will eventually start manufacturing themselves with their own factories if they haven't already. Bezos wants to build rockets so I'm sure Amazon could build their own products too if they wanted to. I could be completely wrong about this but it would be the next rational jump. Amazon is great at ruthless efficient systems so being able to own something where they could guarantee quality and lower costs seems obvious.

So far it seems they have been working on relentlessly cutting out the middle man they initially partnered with whether it was the first resellers they added to their marketplace, UPS, etc. Another example of this is how Amazon ruthlessly uses the data of sellers on their marketplace against them. They pretty much let third party Amazon sellers do all the testing for them and they can just take action on the best opportunities by simply looking at the data. Every time a brand sells something on Amazon, you're pretty much giving your business and customer data on a golden platter to Amazon. Amazon's algorithm loves outside traffic. Their beast needs to be fed.

Sorry for the long ramble but the point is that I think Amazon's end goal of global marketplace is achievable if you keep in mind the 80/20 rule. Amazon's marketplace might have millions of products but if 80% of the revenue comes from only 20% of the selection then fulfillment is a lot more manageable.

Amazon might seem to be a behemoth but they are having a lot of issues right now. Their fulfillment centers aren't perfect. They are losing customer trust. Retailers pretty much hate them. Amazon sellers would get off the Amazon marketplace in a heartbeat if they could make more money on another marketplace. Many sellers I know are always diversifying, selling on Walmart, Ebay, and their own stores. They're only on Amazon because that's where the customers are for the time being.

For those that think Amazon is unbeatable, ecommerce shifts quickly. Ebay used to be the bees knees years ago and look where they are now.

There are still new technologies that are being developed that will change the way people shop. Alibaba is light years ahead of shopping than Amazon. Just look at all their promotional videos. They built a fully functioning Amazon Go store way before Amazon. In this sense, Asia is leading the way.

Amazon might be dominating the American marketplace right now but they are not winning in other countries. There is still a race. Amazon failed in India and they're locked out of China.

Amazon has fat pockets but I don't think they're unbeatable. I heard there might be a stealth startup trying to take on Amazon. If anyone wants to put my esoteric knowledge to use, I'd love to talk. It's one of the weird things I might be good at so I love building or testing my Amazon knowledge. There's not that many people I can talk to about Amazon on this level so if anyone can push my thinking, I'd appreciate it. I'm colleagues with people on all levels of the Amazon marketplace ecosystem from sellers to agencies to software founders but they tend to be laser focused on their circle of expertise.