Five hundred online sellers are in Seattle this week to attend Amazon’s annual event where it listens to their concerns and provides them with advice on growing their businesses on the Amazon marketplace.
Amazon used to rely on a seller-organized event called SCOE to get face time with small sellers, but Amazon being Amazon, it decided to hold its own event to control the agenda – this week is its third annual gathering in Seattle.
Sources say Amazon is also hosting at least one overlapping meeting this week for sellers in a category of growing importance to the company – fashion.
The Seattle Times wrote about this week’s meeting and did a surprisingly comprehensive piece covering many of the issues facing Amazon marketplace sellers, from the problem of Chinese counterfeiters, to the benefits of the Exclusives program, to the issue of surge pricing for FBA sellers.
Amazon Marketplace Vice President Peter Faricy told the newspaper, “We really use this as an opportunity to do a lot of listening.”
It’s a sure bet sellers will have a lot to say.
