Pushing suppliers onto the marketplace — rather than selling their products itself — lets Amazon offload the risk and costs of buying, storing and shipping the merchandise. Instead, the company can charge suppliers for these services and take a commission on each transaction, which is much less risky. The strategy is part of a larger effort to reduce overhead by getting more suppliers to use an automated self-service system that requires no input from Amazon managers.

Source: Los Angeles Times March 07, 2019 21:11 UTC