Amazon Marketplace. A Catalyst or Potential Competitor?: German Market Analysis of Third-Party Sellers Post COVID-19

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2022 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,3, Berlin School of Economics and Law, language: English, abstract: This thesis aims to examine whether Amazon is a catalyst or competitor to its third-party vendors and sheds conceptual light on e-tailers in the German region to form a future outlook and strategic implications once the pandemic is overcome. After analyzing various scholars in this field, the author conducted four in-depth semi-structured interviews as well as four qualitative written surveys with third-party sellers in Germany. Using qualitative content analysis, the data from the interviews were coded and statements were categorized. By investigating the chances and risks of selling on the marketplace in times of COVID-19, this paper assesses whether selling on Amazon is a long-term business model. In conclusion, the findings indicate that Amazon's entry into e-tailers' niches does not seem to affect German sellers as much as expected based on current literature. Moreover, even though the market is rather saturated and issues in the global supply chain caused delivery delays, third-party sellers recorded a strong increase in business performance, benefiting from both the pandemic as well as Amazon marketplace. Recent literature emerged addressing online sellers' concerns about Amazon copy-ing their products and therefore the studies analyzed the effects Amazon's entry had on those sellers. However, third-party sellers may enjoy a vast number of benefits from selling on Amazon's platform such as access to a large customer pool or fulfillment options which are not available on other e-commerce platforms. Furthermore, global disruptions induced by COVID-19 affected businesses in the past three years.