Amazon Has Become A Pillager of Small Business

Late last year, Amazon approached the small woman-owned company I work for about selling a more conservative version of our already highly successful product. They likely had access to our revenue through our advertising and were projecting our growth as well.<br><br>The pitch was simple, they would start selling the same product and for every sale of their product they would discount it by 50% and for every sale of our product they would discount it by 35%. And they would get our product at roughly double what we pay to manufacture the product.<br><br>Their pitch was that they were buddies with our largest supplier and they would be able to get their products manufactured at the same price ours was. They had already run a preliminary set of production runs with the same results.<br><br>Their pitch was trying to entice us into letting them sell a similar product because they projected even with a 50% discount they would still make more money than they were making off of our product. And they were trying to get us to do work for them and help them build and market the product.<br><br>The idea of selling our secret sauce to the largest retailer in the world against our best interests didn't sit well with more than half of the company. But, the CEO was swayed by the lure of the big dollar, and with some help from some higher-than-average priced consultants, they decided to go all in on this. And the entire project was run by the CEO.<br><br>Three months went by and they were ready for launch. We had already prepared all of the tooling for them and they were ready to ship out the first set of products. The tooling took the company a few man-years of effort and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. This was the largest manufacturing job we had ever taken on and it had to be done to their best-in-class standards.<br><br>And their manufacturing lead came off of a $5bn/year production line and was responsible for leading the efforts for Amazon.<br><br>But then, came the punch to the gut, 3 months after production had started and all of the manufacturing was complete we were told they were going to move our manufacturing to China.<br><br>They weren't going to pay any of the costs associated with the switch over, even though the reason they were able to switch was because we had completed all of the manufacturing work on the product. They were basically going to wipe their hands clean of the $1M+ that had been spent to manufacture the product (brokers, manufacturing, technical staff).<br><br>Now, even though we had built a product that would sell for roughly double what we were selling our product for, even with a 50% discount they are going to likely kill off our product. We are going to make less money on the products they sell than we do on the products we sell ourselves. So once we stop selling these products, the only way we are able to maintain revenue is if we get the product out the door at the same price we got it when it was manufactured in the US.<br><br>We, as a smaller business, don't have the clout to get low costs out of China. And we are locked into a 1-year agreement with them (they more than likely have a 2-year agreement with their Chinese contractor, which is why they can make this bet).<br><br>The CEO spent the last 3 months being rude and unprofessional to suppliers, manufacturing companies, and even us. He more than likely chewed up 1 million dollars in his ham-fisted attempt to copy us. And he more than likely has already set up production with the Chinese contractor.<br><br>This is what happens when greed and arrogance collide. The worse part is that he is trying to cover up for his mistakes and worse, his lack of oversight. He has already pushed off the job of Engineering Manager so that he can more than likely cover up his professional incompetence. And he is even going after employees who have done good work and fired them.<br><br>This is what greed and arrogance look like. And I cannot say I have much worse contempt for someone who would do this. He deserves to be scorned for this level of incompetence. And this is how Amazon treats and breeds people. It is probably the most toxic company in America right now.