An antagonist is someone who competes. Imposing fines and penalties is not competition.
1.13 billion? That’s not that much for a company like Amazon, right?
>In the case of Amazon’s latest fine, the regulator took issue with the firm encouraging Italian sellers to use its own logistics service, Fulfilment by Amazon, which the watchdog said was an abuse of its dominant position.
Italy taking issue with and fining Amazon for encouraging companies to use Amazon logistics services is terrible for Italians.
I manage a small American e-commerce company that sells internationally. As far as the EU goes, we have a disproportionately high number of Italian customers. This is because almost all our competitors flat out refuse to offer basic shipping services to Italian customers, while we do so, making us the only low-cost shipping option available in most cases.
Why do a lot of international sellers not offer economical shipping options to Italy? Well, based on years of experience it’s become quite clear that the Italian postal service has major deficiencies and little improvement is being made.
Just as an example: of the hundreds of packages we’ve shipped to Italy using our basic service since November, not even one has been delivered to this point, while France, Germany, UK customers get their orders delivered within 2 or 3 weeks (Spain isn’t as good but at least the shipments get delivered). Poste Italiane put out a vague statement in early December saying that they were experiencing “IT issues” and large delays should be expected. This issue has still not been resolved as of mid January and our customers are still complaining and filing payment disputes.
Starting in February, we are going to start denying Italian customers the basic shipping service. Since we don’t have a global presence and cannot operate our own logistics service, this means only expensive courier options like DHL Express will be available: this is about $30-$50 USD to ship even a small package.
I don’t fault Amazon at all for trying to operate and push their own logistics service. They have the money and means to do so, and it is objectively better for Italian consumers than any alternatives at this time in terms of affordability and reliability.
fuck amazon
Good for Italy. Protection against the free monster is perfectly reasonable.
Since they cannot tax them, then they fine them
An investigation has recently come out on the unfair practices that amazon implements with merchants who sell their goods on e-commerce.
In practice, amazon has the products shipped and then declares that fewer have arrived (for example 40 printers instead of 50).
So they start by paying less, even if there is all the documentation that certifies the receipt of all the goods.
In Italy, the balance of the invoices can be done after 90 days, so the traders get into debt because they have to wait for amazon to pay but they have to buy more goods to sell and then amazon blackmails them with agreements in which it promises to pay but with big discounts (e.g. 50% of what they have to give).
Another incorrect practice that has come out is the return to the detriment of the merchants associated with amazon, in practice amazon passes as the return of a merchant identical products that the merchant sells but who has sold amazon. The traders noticed this scam through the serial numbers of the goods that did not coincide with those sold by them.
Easy to be super competitive by scamming people.
The investigation was carried out by the television / journalistic program “Report”, but I believe that the videos are only in Italian.
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An antagonist is someone who competes. Imposing fines and penalties is not competition.
1.13 billion? That’s not that much for a company like Amazon, right?
>In the case of Amazon’s latest fine, the regulator took issue with the firm encouraging Italian sellers to use its own logistics service, Fulfilment by Amazon, which the watchdog said was an abuse of its dominant position.
Italy taking issue with and fining Amazon for encouraging companies to use Amazon logistics services is terrible for Italians.
I manage a small American e-commerce company that sells internationally. As far as the EU goes, we have a disproportionately high number of Italian customers. This is because almost all our competitors flat out refuse to offer basic shipping services to Italian customers, while we do so, making us the only low-cost shipping option available in most cases.
Why do a lot of international sellers not offer economical shipping options to Italy? Well, based on years of experience it’s become quite clear that the Italian postal service has major deficiencies and little improvement is being made.
Just as an example: of the hundreds of packages we’ve shipped to Italy using our basic service since November, not even one has been delivered to this point, while France, Germany, UK customers get their orders delivered within 2 or 3 weeks (Spain isn’t as good but at least the shipments get delivered). Poste Italiane put out a vague statement in early December saying that they were experiencing “IT issues” and large delays should be expected. This issue has still not been resolved as of mid January and our customers are still complaining and filing payment disputes.
Starting in February, we are going to start denying Italian customers the basic shipping service. Since we don’t have a global presence and cannot operate our own logistics service, this means only expensive courier options like DHL Express will be available: this is about $30-$50 USD to ship even a small package.
I don’t fault Amazon at all for trying to operate and push their own logistics service. They have the money and means to do so, and it is objectively better for Italian consumers than any alternatives at this time in terms of affordability and reliability.
fuck amazon
Good for Italy. Protection against the free monster is perfectly reasonable.
Since they cannot tax them, then they fine them
An investigation has recently come out on the unfair practices that amazon implements with merchants who sell their goods on e-commerce.
In practice, amazon has the products shipped and then declares that fewer have arrived (for example 40 printers instead of 50).
So they start by paying less, even if there is all the documentation that certifies the receipt of all the goods.
In Italy, the balance of the invoices can be done after 90 days, so the traders get into debt because they have to wait for amazon to pay but they have to buy more goods to sell and then amazon blackmails them with agreements in which it promises to pay but with big discounts (e.g. 50% of what they have to give).
Another incorrect practice that has come out is the return to the detriment of the merchants associated with amazon, in practice amazon passes as the return of a merchant identical products that the merchant sells but who has sold amazon. The traders noticed this scam through the serial numbers of the goods that did not coincide with those sold by them.
Easy to be super competitive by scamming people.
The investigation was carried out by the television / journalistic program “Report”, but I believe that the videos are only in Italian.