Leaving Amazon

Hi. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and responding, if you do.

We are presently considering leaving Amazon as a third party seller. There are a number of reasons for wanting to do so, but the current impetus is because Amazon are requiring biometric information now in order to “validate” our account.

The fact is, we’ve had the account for over 10 years. When it was first created Amazon required various bank information and a principal’s social security number. They are now demaning a government issued photo ID with biometric information and we believe this has nothing to do with verifying the account and everything to do with tracking and selling personal information. We believe they will use this information to track individuals in stores and other locations using facial recognition.

While this currently only affects third party resellers like ERA, we also believe that they will shortly be insisting all of their customers provide the same biometric information. The excuse is that it is always for your own protection, we believe this is dishonest and invasive.

Costs. While the above invasion of privacy is providing the current impetus, selling on Amazon increases the cost of our product by almost 35% to our customers. We provide exactly the same, return policies for sales on our web site as we do on the Amazon site. We also provide the same warranty on eBay. We sell our products on our own web site at a small discount to the price on Amazon. Were we not selling on Amazon we would be able to reduce our prices.

Payment. We current use PayPal, and Amazon Pay, for payment. Even though our web site is secured with SSL, we do not accept credit cards directly on our site, only through PayPal, where the information is secured. We receive and store no payment information at all. We are also going to add Square as a payment processor in the near future. Regardless, your information is secure.

Please let us know what you think. Should we quit Amazon and reduce our prices, or should we stick with Amazon, provide the biometric data they require, and maintain our prices. Please use the Contact Form to let us know your opinion and, while you are doing that, let us know how you heard about Carton Caddy.

Thank you and God bless.