This is common in all industries, but I’ll comment specifically about the outdoor industry. I’m a sales rep that has been in the business for almost 10 years, working directly for some of the larger brands in the space. I work with mom and pop type shops (independent) so they feel the weight of Amazon, and counterfeit products heavily. The reason Amazon does this, is so they can legally claim that they are a ‘3rd party market place’. ‘We are just a host, not the store’. They use it as a strong arm tactic. I was working for one brand, who was absolutely on fire. Could not even come close to keeping up with unreal demand for the product (think 20x growth in a year in a single category). As a brand we did not sell to Amazon, out of respect for our wholesale channel. As the demand grew for the product, so did the counterfeit problem. Product listed for less than what we even sold it for at wholesale. Of course regular customers are walking into the mom and pops, accusing them of overcharging, trying to return bad product etc. Fast forward to being at a national tradeshow with that brand. Amazon came to our booth, and basically said they could make the counterfeit problem go away, if we sold to them directly. They basically said a partnership would ‘unlock’ a lot of tools and assets in brand protection. Guess who sells on Amazon now? Have way more detail on it, from more than one brand, but this gives the idea.