Amazon is not just the frontend. There is a whole supply chain side of it with warehouses, distributors, couriers, etc. Inventory and stock readiness, shipping, and other things will continue to be bottlenecks for consumerism at scale.

3PLs and warehouse distribution channels have gotten better and are cheaper than using FBA shipping outside Amazon.

Did you know the biggest sellers on Amazon normally have their own website and in fact, orders from Amazon flow directly into their OMS (order management system). Amazon is simply a sales channel. Also Amazon has a stronghold in western countries but much less so in gulf states, South Asia, and Africa.

As someone who ran part of their fulfillment network, I say you are completely off the mark here. Their network is the best in the world bar none. In addition to marketplace, 1P, and FBA, there are many other cooperation models where massive companies that appear to have their own distribution centers actually use Amazon's network (even co-located for some warehouses/sort centers).

There is no 3PL or other warehouse companies (many of which use Amazon's anyway) there are better than Amazon. Maybe Walmart gets close. For the case you mentioned (OMS integrations), this absolutely does NOT mean that they handle shipping. The aggressive majority of those vendors just uses FBA anyway.

If you're building your startup on the principle that Amazon is "a sales channel only", then I wish you well but you will fail.

Can you give some more information for buyers who want to route orders directly to sellers instead of via Amazon? Right now the only benefit for using Amazon is a unified shopping interface and free shipping using Prime.

Amazon's biggest feature is free returns. I would not buy even a quarter of the stuff on Amazon if I was not confident that I could easily return it.

But even that is being enshittified. You have to pay for some returns now. And people have been putting defective to get free shipping returns and Amazon has just started a fee for returning items for the wrong reason.

I only buy the stuff that says free returns (for any reason) up front.

The funny thing to me is that, for years, Shopify has been trying to position their Shop app as an Amazon alternative, but just can't get the traction. Shopify and Amazon are two very different business models - but man, Tobi and Harley want that money!

ChatGPT comes along, and suddenly it has a real shot at the global customer capture that Shopify could never manage, so they jump in bed, and release a series of garbage collaborations, some of which got rolled back (Shop on ChatGPT, but you can only have one item in your cart, lulz), and some of which just keep mutating. Shopify fumbled pretty badly, and it was wild to watch the entire industry go from "You'll be buying through the LLMs this year" to "So, let's talk about AEO, GEO, and discovery..." like nothing happened.

None of the AI companies seem to have their heads screwed on straight about ecommerce, except potentially Google. The payment processors are sniffing around, too, since at the end of all the discovery, that order needs an easy means of processing payment.

I think your open-source, decentralized, interoperable marketplace is a noble effort, but you're up against multi-billion-dollar business interests who are looking to capture revenue from processing, and have dozens, if not hundreds of people on the case not only from a development standpoint, but from a business and marketing standpoint. Maybe you've got a team like that under you, too. Best of luck.

I've thought from the start that the strongest possibilities for ChatGPT to monetize boil down to advertising (so many ethical problems), and becoming a marketplace that finally dislodges Amazon. But that is a VERY tall mountain to climb.

Exactly, Shopify can become a new Amazon with Shop but then you’re just trading Amazon for Shopify. It’s why I’m building open-source SaaS for every vertical and that’s what powers the marketplace.

You can read the ethos to learn more[0]

0. https://marketplace.openship.org/ethos

I've mixed opinions on that. For example, there are products like Google Shopping or Google Travel etc. They show up bunch of stores where you can buy a flight ticket or a particular product from.

However, in the end most people just end up buying it from top 2-3 marketplaces anyway, not because its cheaper, but also because they can trust it, it arrives in 2 days, and you can easily return it if you don't want. So if I'm going to most likely buy something from Amazon anyway, why not just use Amazon web page. They've had one click buy button for ages.

> However, in the end most people just end up buying it from top 2-3 marketplaces anyway, not because its cheaper, but also because they can trust it, it arrives in 2 days, and you can easily return it if you don't want.

I've got enough complaints about the amazon customer and user experience that I'm not going to list them here, but returns are so easy.

I click the button, and then I don't need to print off a shipping label or even package the item back up, I just drop it off at the convenience store by my house, they scan a QR code on my phone, and take the bare item from me.

Yes Amazon’s power is very difficult to overcome. The hope with my marketplace is that stores will offer cheaper prices since we are interfacing with them directly and they are not paying Amazon a cut.

Also, Amazon Prime is affordable now, but it will get more and more expensive. They have a large distribution network but most of their drivers are contractors. Amazon also is not as powerful in non-Western countries. They still rely on many different websites depending on need.

Isn't the value on same day delivery? Returns, warehouses, drivers, customer support all of that? How chatgpt is going to help with that?.

Before I could build this decentralized marketplace, I had to build open-source SaaS that the sellers use. All of that is handled by that platform. The chat simply interfaces with the API just like the built in storefront does.

The marketplace is also built in a way that you can add a Shopify adapter, BigCommerce, custom, etc. It only supports Openfront for now. Even if the store you want to interface with has a custom software, you can write the adapter code and they are added.

I don't want "vetted" stores. I don't care if it's open-source or decentralized or interoperable (though, fine I guess if it is). What I actually want is stores that are scraped, preferably adversarially. When Amazon, Walmart et. al. try to shut you down, I will know you have something worth using.

You can use our vetted stores but add your own, it’s not restricted.

Sounds cool. Needs network effects of lots of highly rated stores to succeed, I think.

Yes but users can build adapters and bring their own stores.

Amazon still probably make it via AWS, but other websites you may be right.

This was Google's big announcement at their last I/O conference: That Google would become the agent handling all forms of commerce on behalf of the average person worldwide.

It’s because LLMs are a threat to Google Shopping too. But as a consumer, why would I want another middleman?

Nice, have a github repo? This is something I've thought about trying to build, seems like the future.

The new era of ads is this comment right here.

shudders

I legitimately thought the parent comment was satire

Reminds me of a message I got on LinkedIn on Memorial Day weekend.

"Memorial Day is an opportunity to slow down and think about the service of those who gave their lives for America and for our freedom.

We offer you freedom from the hassle of hiring your own internal engineering team by providing you with vetted, experience software engineers in the same time zone as your company."

Why it would be a threat? Unless Amazon is manipulating the marketplace for the customer to buy a product different from what they want. In that case such practice surely should attract a look from regulators?

> Amazon is manipulating the marketplace for the customer to buy a product different from what they want

There is no expectation or regulation that a store is supposed to only show customers what they want. A retailer is going to sell you the items you're willing to buy based on what they think will help them drive the most profits.

Imagine for a moment you're a store that sells millions of different products. Now, imagine a customer walks into your store, and as per some government regulation "you're expected only to show the customers who walk into your store products that they want". It's a fairly ridiculous expectation.

Also Amazon actively prevent you finding what you want, their search and filter get worse every time I use it.

Tricking customers into buying things they otherwise wouldn't is the core concept of adtech.

If you insulate humans from the manipulative dark patterns (though agent intermediaries), it's possible for them to spend less, spend more efficiently, optimize out information-asymmetries that are profit centers for entities like Amazon. Of course Amazon will fight this.

Realistically the agents will inject their own dark patterns. Whoever owns the glass owns the revenue stream, for they have the ultimate power to replace anyone else's revenue stream with their own. Some TVs detect ad spots in video content and overlay ads that pay the TV manufacturer instead.

Right. Agents in the hands of consumers (truly under their control) empowers them; agents in the hands of retailers does quite the opposite.

Amazon has generally been a shadow of itself. Fakes and less than reputable options. An opensource / legit sourced marketplace could be useful.