Got a Hot Seller on Amazon? Prepare for Amazon to Make One Too
Watchya gonna do about it? Amazon makes merchants an "offer they can't refuse." Fear of Amazon cloning your product (whether physical via Amazon Basics, or virtual via AWS) is not enough reason to avoid selling on Amazon altogether.If your product is easily cloned by Amazon, and you cannot afford to sell it for less than Amazon, then you do not deserve to have the dominant market position.A good, sustainable product is more than just marketing and engineering. It must also be defensible, meaning you need to have an advantage in either product-development (patents, expertise, first-mover advantages) or supply-chain (exclusive manufacturing contracts, access to greater economies of scale). It's almost impossible to beat Amazon in the supply-chain economics, unless you have a highly specialized product and deals with the manufacturer, so you are left to compete in product development. Your product needs to be sufficiently innovative and defensible in order to avoid Amazon cloning it.