One Thing Every Seller Should Know: The Meat-Grinder Rule
As a Seller, your business is governed by the Meat-Grinder Rule—
"Amazon regards Sellers the same way that McDonald's regards cattle: essential to its business, yet completely disposable and undeserving of any real consideration."
The Meat-Grinder Rule governs your relationship with Amazon at all times. Keeping this in mind leads to better decisions about product investment, advertising spend, avoiding reliance on Amazon as a sole sales channel, and every other aspect of a Seller's business.
Many of the complaints in this forum are the result of ignoring this rule.
One Thing Every Seller Should Know: The Meat-Grinder Rule
As a Seller, your business is governed by the Meat-Grinder Rule—
"Amazon regards Sellers the same way that McDonald's regards cattle: essential to its business, yet completely disposable and undeserving of any real consideration."
The Meat-Grinder Rule governs your relationship with Amazon at all times. Keeping this in mind leads to better decisions about product investment, advertising spend, avoiding reliance on Amazon as a sole sales channel, and every other aspect of a Seller's business.
Many of the complaints in this forum are the result of ignoring this rule.
13 replies
Seller_4zBzdtgCyS9EI
Sadly, that applies to nearly any corporation, not just this one.....
Seller_8sP6ffckcRn6v
Well said. They need the live cattle. But only in order to reproduce more cattle. Not able to produce more? Off the slaughterhouse.
Seller_I8hyzprV80tHC
Holy smokes! No one has conveyed the nature of the relationship more succinctly than you!
Thank you for the insight!!!
Seller_u3ulvhXpfX7Wt
Well said. Follow up with an appropriate description of The Sprinkler.
Seller_3qllv6SY8mdjV
Long time seller here, and I can confirm it was not always this way. There was a time when I truly felt (and my business data confirmed) that this was a mutually beneficial business partnership with Amazon. Yes they definately took their cut, but it was well worth it and seemed fair.
That has gradually morphed into a cynical, one sided arangement where it is clear in every way Amazon is abusing the relationship.
-The fees have gone from fair, to eybrow raising, to outrageous.
-Policies like the competetive pricing rule are blatently illegal price fixing attempts to raise prices across the internet. If it can be sold cheaper on another platform (due to Amazons outrageous fees) then that should be allowed.
-Cynical fees like the "low inventory level fee" kick sellers when they are down and give negative reinforcement and make the problem worse, where in times past Amazon would have given some positive reinforcement to fix the issue.
For the first time in 15 years I started actually moving product to other platforms in 2025, as it is clear Amazon is all about the short term outlook now.
Seller_xo4Akj7FBBnfC
@Seller_3qllv6SY8mdjV, we’d be interested to hear about your experiences with this, especially since competitors like Walmart have a similar reputation when it comes to working with sellers.
Seller_DBzTQPDCouH9d
Amazon's going down the same way as their friend, DeCluttr.
Seller_admzpx6kjdFTA
I learned the Meat-Grinder Rule the hard way.
My account was suspended for “ranking manipulation” — something I genuinely did not do.
I’m a conservative seller: no fake orders, no rebates, no review manipulation, no external traffic. Reviews only through Vine, traffic only through Amazon Ads.
Seller Support gave conflicting advice. Appeals were rejected within minutes, clearly without review. The accusations kept changing. Eventually, my account was shut down, inventory frozen, and over $10,000 withheld.
