PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
After UK tech distributor Smithie UK called on other suppliers to unite against Amazon over unpaid invoices, system integrator Yoyotech has now spoken out against the etailer.
The firm’s managing director CK has told PCR that he shipped around £7,000 to £8,000 worth of products to Amazon last year, and says the etailer claims it never received them.
"If someone is selling your products and the courier has evidence that the items have been dropped off, but they’re ignoring all that evidence and saying they haven’t received it, that’s like daylight robbery," he said. "It’s while collar robbery, it’s like going to the bank, throwing the money in and them saying they haven’t received it.
"We sell high-ticket items and I can’t afford to lose 20 or 30 pieces to them. I said that’s it, no more business with Amazon – we don’t want to sell to them.
"In the end we were spending so much of our account’s time, and our senior people’s time, chasing and getting nowhere. So we wrote it down, we called it a day and no longer supply them now. They said they didn’t receive the stock so we had to write it off."
CK cited communication problems and criticised Amazon’s payment system in particular.
"They were buying from us but there’s no way to communicate with anyone, you keep on writing email after email after email and hear nothing back," he added. "Even when we said we’d stop supplying them, they didn’t get back to us. There’s just no way to negotiate with them or talk to them. It’s very poor.
"Obviously there’s trouble with their systems. But the worst thing is Amazon expects you to ship the parts without them even paying you. Amazon take two weeks to pay and their accounting system takes another week to send the payment to you, so you’re awaiting payment for three or four weeks.
"If there are any mistakes, they are deducted up front without notifying you."
Yoyotech’s MD also agreed with Smithie’s stance of rallying other suppliers together.
"If you keep raising this as an issue, people will speak out," he commented. "We should all stand up against Amazon. Amazon need to get their act together to pay people on time.
"The channel has to work together and stand up to Amazon to figure out what is going on. There may be others who are owed money but are scared to open their mouth because it’s Amazon. But if we all gel together and become one, lobby Amazon and ask them what they’re going to do about it… all of us can’t be lying.
"Why does Amazon treat its suppliers like sh*t? They treat their customers very well. I’m an Amazon customer myself and I buy from them probably daily. I admire the service they provide – it’s absolutely fantastic. But they need to treat their suppliers the same way. Because if they don’t have suppliers, how are they going to have customers? How are they going to be able to fulfill customer demand?
"For me at Yoyotech to supply to my customers, I need my suppliers’ support. I need 1080s, I need NVIDIA’s support to supply me with stock so I can fulfill demand. So why are Amazon so good with their customers and so poor with their suppliers?"
Further reading:
Disties tell indies ‘you don’t need to try and compete with Amazon’
