Sorry but as someone who has a Shopify store and also sells via Amazon - you are dead wrong.
I have much more freedom with Shopify, it's not even comparable. It's not even apples to oranges, it's apples to calculators.
Amazon places a lot more restrictions on everything, from products, product descriptions, images, it's quite difficult to list original products on Amazon (took me 2 weeks of work to register our product backlog when I started selling via Amazon, despite having GTINs and everything already in place). Cashflow etc is not comparable in ANY way.
Just wanted to call out a blatantly wrong comment.
Yep, as a former shopify seller, this read like someone who had no clue and no basis in reality.
And yes i have a lot of criticisms of shopify, but for the most part on the product side you can do whatever you want if the payment platforms accept it, this is very different than amazon.
Depends on what you sell. We were in electronic recycling selling everything from Xeon processors and server ram to used iPhones and MacBooks on Amazon. Easy to sell and list, no issues.
Then we realized we weren’t really building a brand on Amazon so we started a Shopify store. Listed the same products and one day just unpublished. Messaged Shopify and they said we can’t sell used Apple products. Send them our Amazon and eBay stores with thousands of sales. Didn’t care. I brought in a payment processor myself, still unpublished. I just built my own Shopify alternative at that point.
In the end, you’re selling products that Shopify deems ok so you’re not going to face these issues. Do you really think Shopify doesn’t have issues just cause you don’t face them?
I am admittedly not an expert here but this does not at all sound like something that Apple can force Shopify to do. I was under the impression that when Apple does something like this it's primarily because the seller was positioning themselves as an official Apple reseller in some way which they do pretty aggressively police. Did Shopify give you any more details on why they believed they had to delist you?
Because we were in electronic recycling, many items came without batteries or chargers due to fire-risk concerns, so we had to source replacements ourselves. We eventually launched a private-label brand for generic camera batteries, drone batteries, power-tool batteries, chargers, and similar accessories.
Then Shopify unpublished those products too after Canon contacted them, claiming we were not allowed to sell them. But these were generic replacement products, the same kind of items sold by Anker and countless other electronics brands online.
If Canon believed we were doing something illegal, they could have sent a cease-and-desist and gone through the normal legal process. Instead, they went through Shopify’s back channels and effectively skirted due process, using platform pressure to remove products they simply did not want us selling.
But don’t worry, companies like Anker who have resources and pull can still sell them and have online websites. Again, the market is being manipulated and winners chosen.
Or were you doing something shady that was legitimate grounds for Shopify to remove those products? There's a big difference between what you personally think should be appropriate and what laws and compliance requirements consider. It's like the annual HN post about someone that claims Cloudflare shut down their account and eventually it turns out they were clearly doing something against the TOS.
Nope we’re electronic recyclers and work with real certified Apple refurbished sellers across the US. Let me know if you find any Shopify stores selling refurbished MacBooks like we and many other sell on Amazon and eBay legally. Same with generic batteries and chargers.
We ditched Shopify years ago and sell the same things on our Shopify alternative. Host on Railway and haven’t faced issues in more than 5 years, no need for a high risk payment processor either.
Yes, first I built Openship, an order management system, that worked with Shopify. Then it was easy to move off Shopify and build my own alternative. Any e-commerce seller knows all you need is an OMS. I also built a custom storefront so that was easy to migrate.
Are those sellers on Shop.app established? Try launching your own and get back to me. Apple will be on Shopify trying to shut you down immediately. Just like so many websites on the web, it’s hard to make accounts now and that’s the same with e-commerce. Shopify is essentially choosing winners based on who they allow to sell what.
Reaper has been growing MASSIVELY in popularity in recent years. It's actively on course to topple Pro Tools as the de factory standard for recording studios. It was considered "the little guy" and a niche product just a few years ago but industry professionals have been discovering it and it's popularity is going exponential.
Try this as a reply; "hello everyone. This seems to have all gotten out of hand. We want to continue selling teensy units, We've made a lot of sales working together and I want to salvage this working relationship and ensure we continue to do business together and sell as many Teensy units as possible. Why don't I, sparkfun and Paul Stoffregen get together for a zoom meeting next Monday and discuss this. At the end of the day I'm sure Paul S would prefer his product to be as widely available as possible and we want to help with that. Best regards - ptorrone".
That would be the mature and professional response which ensures continued sales for you, sparkfun and PJRC.
And for Christ's sake stop arguing business issues on social media and messaging boards. What are you doing, man?! :)
> if someone has deliberately hidden their identity online, knowingly disclosing that is malicious
That argument breaks down if the person hiding their identity is doing malicious things. If you hide behind anonymity and you're harassing people and sending threatening or hateful messages, disclosing their real identity is a public service.
Or could I set up an anonymous account, doxx people all day long for the lulz, and then cry wolf when you doxx me for being a prick? :)
If someone punches you, and you punch them back, you're being hostile, but so are they, and a lot of people would say that was reasonable.
If you deliberately go find someone's secret that they hid after you think they hurt you, and disclose it, it's because you're trying to hurt them, justifiable or not.
Over the years it’s kind of becoming clear that “running major businesses” is kind of orthogonal to “having emotional integrity”. In larger businesses it’s mediated by layers. But just take a look at some of the deranged tweetstorms we’ve become used to in recent times.
I missed a parcel delivery because a computer server in Virginia, USA went down, and now the doorbell on my house in England doesn't work. What. The. Fork.
How the hell did Ring/Amazon not include a radio-frequency transmitter for the doorbell and chime? This is absurd.
To top it off, I'm trying to do my quarterly VAT return, and Xero is still completely borked, nearly 20 hours after the initial outage.
Go to Hagkaup or Samkaup on a Saturday (or just after midnight on Friday night, where you'll usually bump into a gaggle of teenagers in their pajama bottoms, out on a candy run) and get yourself a massive bag of pick'n'mix for half price. It's one of the few things I miss about Iceland.
I remember as a kid, I'd get 100 kronur (probably about $3 USD in today's money) on Saturday morning and go to the store to buy sweets. You'd meticulously choose which items to put in the bag to make sure you got the best value for money :)
Which jet will they prefer if they need to defend Greenland? A dated and affordable gripen, or an F35 that the Americans will just beam a kill -9 command to via a backdoor?
I have much more freedom with Shopify, it's not even comparable. It's not even apples to oranges, it's apples to calculators.
Amazon places a lot more restrictions on everything, from products, product descriptions, images, it's quite difficult to list original products on Amazon (took me 2 weeks of work to register our product backlog when I started selling via Amazon, despite having GTINs and everything already in place). Cashflow etc is not comparable in ANY way.
Just wanted to call out a blatantly wrong comment.
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