Amazon has abruptly stopped buying products from thousands of wholesale vendors and is encouraging them to instead sell direct to customers on its marketplace
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the sharpest step yet in a year-long squeeze on Amazon's wholesale supply base. The company had already shut down Vendor Express, its three-year-old shortcut for wholesalers in early 2018, and Recode reported in December how Amazon limits popular brands from selling independently elsewhere if they want access to its marketplace. Now the purchase orders themselves are being pulled from thousands of vendors, with a push toward direct marketplace sales.
The move lands alongside two other levers documented in the same window: vendors report Amazon is [[a:942151|systematically cutting off small suppliers while concentrating wholesale buys on majors like P&G and Lego]], and separately blocking ads on unprofitable products until vendors lower their wholesale prices. Together they show Amazon repricing its role from buyer to gatekeeper.
First-order effects
- Thousands of wholesale vendors immediately lose guaranteed purchase orders and the predictable cash flow that came with them, and must absorb inventory risk themselves by listing directly on the marketplace.
Second-order effects
- Vendors moving to direct sales now pay Amazon's marketplace fees and advertising costs instead of negotiating wholesale terms — and those who resist face ad suppression on unprofitable SKUs, giving Amazon new leverage over pricing without owning the inventory.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Amazon's retail business structurally splits: first-party procurement reserved for major brands, everyone else converted into fee-paying third-party sellers — shifting Amazon's margin engine from product resale to platform tolls.
The trend: Amazon is dismantling its first-party wholesale pipeline in favor of a marketplace where suppliers become customers paying for access, ads, and fulfillment.