Bought Something new wanna share it? Post it here

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Seasherpa
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Re: Bought Something new wanna share it? Post it here

Post by Seasherpa »

Lvyakker wrote:
I have a 5000 size salt (old version) that I've had for about 8-9 years. Apart from a bit of a whining noise when turning the handle (needs a grease again) its runs as smooth as the day I bought it, this includes taking a dunk for about 45 seconds at one stage and a constant barrage of sand. They are slightly heavier and even though they have a relatively nice gear ratio for what they're worth, I feel like they are a little slow still (spool size maybe).
I haven't cranked the drag up on something big with it to see how it goes there but from past and present experience I say good choice reeling and most of the negatives won't really affect you in NSC unless you plan on a lot of casting and what not.
Good to know they have a bit of longevity in them, I’m not to worried if they are a little heavier/lack finesse as almost all of my other reels are Penns that do a job and just keep turning. Sounds like these are of the same vein, thanks for the info.
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Re: Bought Something new wanna share it? Post it here

Post by 4liters »

chrisw wrote:
shane wrote:I had a look at the Amazon launch but didn't find to much of immediate interest. The one thing I did order was a GoPro Session4 camera for $189. This is quite a bit cheaper than current local offerings and I wanted to upgrade my head cam to 1080P. These are waterproof without the case, pick up decent audio and small and light enough for what I need. It also arrived within 2 days. :up: Now I just need to film something again that's worth editing and posting. :roll:
I was honestly a little surprised at how uninspiring the local Amazon launch was; I had thought they would have a lot more 'sold by Amazon' products (which are the ones that they can really shaft other sellers with). I suspect they will ramp up their local warehouse offerings as time goes by based on sales (see below).

The following is a bit of a rant from someone who works in the industry and knows more then he'd like about Amazon's hidden face. Feel free to skip to the end if you're not particularly interested in how they work; I'll put a summary there.

For what it's worth I work with a US e-commerce company that sells in multiple marketplaces, including Amazon where we have about 50,000 products. I don't have a high opinion of Amazon (the face they present to the customer is staggeringly different to that they present to sellers).

One thing we see often is that Amazon will look to see how a product is selling and if it becomes particularly popular and they can purchase it themselves they will do so, usually taking the buybox in the process (hence 'ships from and sold by amazon.com'). This may sound like normal business (and it could be argued it is) but when you take into account that Amazon earns 15% (for most categories; I think it's 8% for cameras, drones, computers and the like) for each sale (including shipping) made by marketplace merchants this means basically if Amazon can buy the product at the same price (or less) than you can, you are already at a 15% disadvantage over them. Additionally if you are using their warehouse ('FBA') you also pay them fees for that as well.

The first company to list a particular product has to provide the data to set it up (description, images, barcode, metadata etc etc) so basically that work is done by the seller for Amazon; it costs them nothing. Amazon can then take over the listing and sell the product itself at any time if it wants. So for products that become popular in Australia, they can just wait and see what is most profitable for them and then effectively kick the local sellers off the listing by undercutting them or just forcing Amazon's offering to win the buybox (they aren't physically kicked off, but if a seller doesn't get the buybox most people won't buy from them).

On the plus side unless they can score a really good deal on the product they don't get a lot of advantage by undercutting a seller because they get 15% anyhow, so it's a "win/win" for them.

Combine this with the fact they leased a fleet of jets last year (6 or 7 I think) giving them the ability to ship literally planeloads of goods to international warehouses overnight and they have a pretty sharp edge over local sellers in cases where they can purchase the goods at equal or lower prices (and with most products being made overseas, that's "most of the time").

Put simply one of their strategies is to allow other sellers to build up a product's popularity (taking a large cut in the meantime) and if/when it suits them stepping in and selling the product themselves. I'm not saying this is wrong, just that it's how the marketplace works.

Summary: lots of folks think Amazon appearing locally is a good thing as it will shake up complacent local retailers. This is partly true, but the complacent ones are generally the bigger ones who already have plenty of bricks-and-mortar exposure. It's not nearly as good a thing for smaller online businesses who, often (but not always), do a decent job of competing with the larger sellers because they simply have to in order to survive. Most sales through Amazon will funnel 15% of profit that would have otherwise stayed here into Amazon's pockets (hence offshore). In terms of employment, I can't say how it will work here but in the US they are famous for how badly their workers are treated.
I don't think it'll make much difference when it comes to fishing gear. The prices of big brands are fairly tightly and anyone found selling stuff on Amazon for 10% less than everyone else would pretty quickly have an unpleasant phone call from their sales rep.
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Re: Bought Something new wanna share it? Post it here

Post by Seasherpa »

4liters wrote: I don't think it'll make much difference when it comes to fishing gear. The prices of big brands are fairly tightly and anyone found selling stuff on Amazon for 10% less than everyone else would pretty quickly have an unpleasant phone call from their sales rep.
They can't make that call because it would be deemed anti-competitive price fixing behaviour and they would get themselves in hot water with the ACCC. Anyone can sell discounted online and there is very little the supplier/manufacturer can do about it. The only thing they can enforce these days is a contract term than forces the online seller to trade under their regular business name to avoid complaints coming to the parent company directly when a product is on-sold by the a faceless ebay or online account.
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Re: Bought Something new wanna share it? Post it here

Post by laneends »

Seasherpa wrote:
4liters wrote: I don't think it'll make much difference when it comes to fishing gear. The prices of big brands are fairly tightly and anyone found selling stuff on Amazon for 10% less than everyone else would pretty quickly have an unpleasant phone call from their sales rep.
They can't make that call because it would be deemed anti-competitive price fixing behaviour and they would get themselves in hot water with the ACCC. Anyone can sell discounted online and there is very little the supplier/manufacturer can do about it. The only thing they can enforce these days is a contract term than forces the online seller to trade under their regular business name to avoid complaints coming to the parent company directly when a product is on-sold by the a faceless ebay or online account.
online resellers are already starting to get suppliers cutting wholesale supplies to them in order to prevent competition on both Ebay and Amazon. I think this is because the suppliers themselves are looking to sell direct on Amazon. Of course its carefully worded excuses to prevent the consequences you point out.
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Re: Bought Something new wanna share it? Post it here

Post by 4liters »

Seasherpa wrote:
4liters wrote: I don't think it'll make much difference when it comes to fishing gear. The prices of big brands are fairly tightly and anyone found selling stuff on Amazon for 10% less than everyone else would pretty quickly have an unpleasant phone call from their sales rep.
They can't make that call because it would be deemed anti-competitive price fixing behaviour and they would get themselves in hot water with the ACCC. Anyone can sell discounted online and there is very little the supplier/manufacturer can do about it. The only thing they can enforce these days is a contract term than forces the online seller to trade under their regular business name to avoid complaints coming to the parent company directly when a product is on-sold by the a faceless ebay or online account.
That’s why they get a phonecall and not an email that can be sent to the ACCC
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Re: Bought Something new wanna share it? Post it here

Post by cobby »

4liters wrote:
I don't think it'll make much difference when it comes to fishing gear. The prices of big brands are fairly tightly and anyone found selling stuff on Amazon for 10% less than everyone else would pretty quickly have an unpleasant phone call from their sales rep.
Not quite like that. There was almost a blew at AFTA a couple of years ago when other store owners (who themselves heavily discount below rrp) cracked it with another owner within the same buying group for having a sale on prestige lines at below wholesale cost whilst inflating prices on the necessary accessories to use those outfits. Supplier moved to please all involved and maintain prestige value of their top line products that such reductions on prestige lines can see shops lose that supplier.

There's a number of local shops that have well below rrp prices every day of the week. There's no one stopping them or attempting to stop them doing so
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Re: Bought Something new wanna share it? Post it here

Post by chrisw »

4liters wrote:I don't think it'll make much difference when it comes to fishing gear. The prices of big brands are fairly tightly and anyone found selling stuff on Amazon for 10% less than everyone else would pretty quickly have an unpleasant phone call from their sales rep.
Initially it's unlikely this would happen, precisely because selling on Amazon costs so much. For local sellers they would be crazy to undercut their own website by selling on Amazon at less than their own price, since they are then losing not only the lower sale price but also an additional 15% (generally).

When prices get really low on Amazon it's usually either Amazon itself or the faceless sellers who have no website and no other sale outlet. When you have a lot of such sellers vying for the buybox you get what we call a 'race to the bottom', with auto-repricers scrambling to keep the sellers price below that of others.

This often ends up with sellers who are willing to cut corners anywhere getting the buybox; their margins are so impossibly thin (or they got their stock from a less than reputable source) that they cannot provide reasonable service. This isn't always the case of course but it happens.

I'm responsible for the API (software integration of my clients site to Amazon) and operation of our repricer and we simply will not allow it to get crazy; if someone wants to sell at a loss or nearly so we let them do it and just wait until we get the buybox back later.

A big issue with Amazon US in recent years is they allowed Chinese sellers on, and by 'on' I mean in droves, there is no barrier to signup and many many outright scammers selling plus lots of counterfeiting. This has hurt the marketplace overall but Amazon didn't seem too worried.

Getting back to the 'race for the bottom' comment I made and your comment about margins, other folks are correct in that the manufacturers can't stop someone selling the product at whatever price they want. However they can and do have what we call 'MAP' (minimum advertised price) and this is becoming increasingly prevalant in the USA. Quality manufacturers will sometimes set a MAP on parts of their range, meaning authorized sellers aren't allowed to advertise a price lower than this (however they can sell for lower - but you need to add to the cart to see the price). Sellers who break these rules risk getting cut off by the supplier (if they buy direct - or their supplier gets cut off, if they don't and the supplier can be located).

This is legit in the USA at least and acts as a stabilizer on products where the manufacturer wants to keep the quality of the sellers up. Since most sellers will be selling at MAP, buyers then have to choose amongst sellers not by price, but by reputation, which is what they want. If a seller gives better customer service or better experience for buyers, they get a better rep and have a better chance of winning the buybox for MAP'd items.

BTW while typically MAP does allow selling for less once the item is added to the cart, often (at least on marketplaces like Amazon) the price is just kept at MAP.

So to summarise: yes big brands are worried about some of the crap going on in marketplaces and when and where they can they try to do what they are able to do to keep up quality.

And, yes I'm a total geek :ugeek: when it comes to this stuff cause I've been living and breathing it for almost a decade : :eh:
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Re: Bought Something new wanna share it? Post it here

Post by chrisw »

cobby wrote:There's a number of local shops that have well below rrp prices every day of the week. There's no one stopping them or attempting to stop them doing so
Correct. No-one cares about RRP. If a supplier has a MAP that's the lower limit, but most don't so pretty much any price applies.
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Re: Bought Something new wanna share it? Post it here

Post by chrisw »

Also just a followup to my previous comments about buying on Amazon vs buying on a sellers website.

When my client first started selling on Amazon we had some concerns we would cannabilize sales from our own website; even if priced the same, an order placed on Amazon can reduce profit by 15% as opposed to selling direct through the website.

In practice we found this wasn't so much of a problem. Amazon customers often like to use Amazon because reasons. Maybe they are just comfortable doing so, maybe they like not having to register on other websites, maybe they like the A-Z guarantee, maybe they like prime shipping. Whatever the cause, we didn't see a lot of crossover with existing customers exiting to amazon.

Whether this will be the case here in Australia remains to be seen. They don't yet have prime here (rumored to start next year) and they have yet to build up a dedicated customer base. More importantly, the order of events is different: in the US Amazon was one of the very first online retailers and others came later, so they had a chance to build up a loyal customer base before many others stepped into the ring.

I'll be watching closely to see how it works out here.
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Post by Reeling »

Santa visited me in Melbourne while I was away in the UK. A nice little mix. Hopefully some suited for NSC?

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Tuna 20.5kg ---KingFish 90cm --- Snapper 84cm --- Gummy 83cm (55cm legal) ---- Whiting 40cm --- Silver Trevelly 41cm --- Flathead 52cm --- Aussie Salmon 38cm --- Squid 34cm hood

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