, Columnist
Amazon’s Slowing Sales Growth Signals a Supply Shift
Acting more like eBay and less like Walmart makes sense. It’s the timing that’s curious.
Any tweak by Amazon is like an earthquake to suppliers.
Photographer: Melissa Lyttle/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
One sign of a powerful company is that even small changes it makes set off wakes that can sink smaller companies. Facebook might tweak the computer system that prioritizes social network posts, and websites that rely on Facebook for traffic turn themselves inside out to compensate.
Amazon.com Inc. has this heft, too. Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday that the company is planning to shift how it sources products in a way that could drastically improve Amazon’s finances and inflict pain on some of the millions of companies that sell on its mega mall.