Filed under: Consumer experience, Amazon.com (AMZN), Black Friday

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) plans on cleaning up the third-party “Amazon Marketplace” due to many product duplications that are most likely getting on the nerves of many regular Amazon shoppers (the writer included). This new “clean sweep” inventory strategy only deals with the bookselling section of Amazon’s online offerings, but it comes years too late.

ASINs, which are Amazon’s unique numbers that are assigned to each individual product name or title (like a UPC code), are duplicated all over the e-tailer’s website where it lets booksellers sell used and new books directly to Amazon customers for a small commission. The problem is that the largely unregulated Amazon Marketplace is littered with confusion due to so many ASIN duplications and such that the bargain shopper can become a tad frustrated when shopping for that immensely popular $3.95 used book.

But then again, Amazon’s third-party sellers are (correctly) stating that the timing of the inventory cleanup is not really good, with the holiday shopping season in full swing and all. Could such drastic changes on this area of Amazon’s website cause unknown glitches at a time when sales are everything?

With Black Friday coming up a week from tomorrow, many sellers probably don’t want any changes at all to the way Amazon Marketplace operates — something that makes perfect commerce sense. But past this holiday season, the inventory management of third-party goods needs to be a priority for the e-tailer. The way it presents many book items from outside sellers is anything from world class right at this moment.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 4:56 am and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.