Amazon might transform from “the everything store” to the only store. In the midst of the corona crisis Amazon is showing its power. It acts like a government by mass hireing people and raising wages. Also, it regulates the market: Amazon decided to stop accepting non-essential products from third-party sellers. This hurts smaller businesses who depend on selling thorugh Amazon’s marketplace.
The lession to be learned is simple. As Stacy Mitchell, the co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance points out:
If you want to have a diverse, competitive economy, where people invent new things, write new books, and come up with new ideas, you need to have diverse pathways to market. We could see the distribution of consumer goods collapse into a single pipeline named Amazon. It’s incredibly risky.
In Austria, there are already some initiatives popping up and try to help small local businesses to reach out to customers. A very notable example is the web page of Nunu Kaller that acts as small businesses directory for local services and products. We from IKANGAI are also trying to help local businsesses by offering our qonnect platform for free.
Ultimately, weakness comes from relying on a single company like Amazon. Fortunately, the alternative is already here: local services and products from local companies.
