Comment by throwaway_isms
5 years ago
#2 should have been a requirement. I used to sell a product through Hot Topic, its no Walmart or Amazon in terms of scale, but a Fortune 500 retailer with around 800 stores when we were a vendor and insurance was required.
I mean not requiring sellers to be insured - and yes every product is different, has different risks, but that is reflected in the insurance premium - basically is Amazon saying they don't give a shit about the quality of the products they market on their marketplace nor the safety of their marketplace customers. Its scandalous and if people only knew how much power they actually had they would crush Amazon into the dirt over night just by collectively organizing a mass cancellation of Prime, 1 week boycott of purchases and visitation...it would bring Amazon to its knees.
I’m baffled by the idea that anyone would sell anything without product liability insurance. Even at a shitty hardware startup sending out our first dev kits we made sure to have that. Maybe it’s different if you’re a fly by night drop shipped but still insane to me.
From some googling, it seems Amazon does require this of all sellers but didn’t require proof. I imagine we’ll see increased enforcement now.
Just for some insight my product was a consumable product (considered candy/confectionary) and packaged in glass. I think the insurance premium came out to $700/year (I forget the exact coverage but I'm sure it was a $1M to $2M policy).