Market Dynamics

Jules Pieri has run The Grommet -- a site that launches innovative, sometimes quirky products made by thousands of small businesses -- for the past 12 years, and wasn't expecting the quarter she's currently having. Sales are up by 30 percent. In these days of shutdown, it helps that The Grommet's products "are super relevant for turning your home into a gym, school, office, commercial kitchen, et cetera," says Pieri, who along with her 74 employees is now working remotely to fulfill orders. Current best-sellers include exercise gear, gardening supplies, educational materials, bread-making kits ... basically, everything on a quarantiner's wish list. "We are really helping our makers stay afloat and even grow in many cases." But while her marketplace has seen a Covid-19 spike, Pieri worries for the future of independent craftspeople, inventors and entrepreneurs. Many of her merchants also rely heavily on Amazon.com to list and sell their products to a much broader segment -- and since the coronavirus crisis, Amazon has limited sales of non-essential products to speed up deliveries of items like household staples, diapers and medical supplies. Last week, Amazon also reportedly decided to cancel Mother’s Day and Father’s Day promotions, scale back coupons, and re-tool its site to persuade shoppers to put less in their carts, according to The Wall Street Journal. "Some of our makers will be put out of business by the Amazon shutdown," she says. "That will be a travesty in the economy to lose those companies." A Critic of Amazon Even before the pandemic hit, Pieri had become a vocal critic of Amazon. When we interviewed her in January to produce the above video, she called Amazon "the largest net destroyer of innovation in history" because of rampant counterfeiting on its site. Since 2015, the giant marketplace has allowed international sellers -- say, a merchant in Shenzhen, China, who has easy access to cheap counterfeits -- to list wares on Amazon.com. Time after time, Pieri says she has witnessed makers' products, often developed over the course of years, get knocked off on Amazon almost immediately after launch. "In the case of our little companies, look for something that seems to be succeeding and they cheapen the product, copy it, they steal the brand names, the photos, all of the trademarks of the company," she says. Then, “an innocent consumer buys it, not realizing it's a fake or a counterfeit and it fails," she continues. "Amazon's not responsible. The Chinese company is nowhere to be found. They have no office in the U.S., and the consumer gets mad at the originator whose blood, sweat, and tears created that product." Since the pandemic hit, and China itself had to shut down its factories for an extended time, Pieri suspects counterfeiting may have eased -- but just temporarily. "I don't think it would impact the nefarious players , but they might have had their operations slow down," she says. For its part, Amazon has consistently defended its practices, saying it moves quickly to protect consumers and sellers from counterfeiting when need be. As for the recent decision to prioritize deliveries of essential items, CEO Jeff Bezos noted in a letter to shareholders on April 16 that the Covid-19 sales spike "occurred with little warning, creating major challenges for our suppliers and delivery network" and that consumer demand for those products remains high. A Market Correction? A champion of craft, Pieri started The Grommet in 2008 with business partner Joanne Domeniconi to help small manufacturers beat the odds. As an industrial designer, Pieri had years of executive experience at Keds, Stride Rite and Playskool, and she knew that innovative products would often die on the vine if big-box stores like Target, Kmart and Walmart weren’t interested. The Grommet works as a product-launch platform, where the staff tests out novel new products and gives them a thorough vetting before unveiling them to consumers, often with video reviews. The Somerville, Massachusetts, company has helped launch brands like Fitbit, GoldieBlox and SodaStream. It pulls in over $50 million in annual revenue, and counts Ace Hardware as a majority investor. While she's worried about the long-term impact of Covid-19 on makers, Pieri thinks that something like a market correction is happening. Small players, she hopes, will finally understand that they need to diversify and not rely too heavily on Amazon for sales. Consumers, she believes, will realize that there is more than one marketplace than Amazon, and that other companies can provide safe, fast, reliable shipping. "In the long run, if this means consumers and small business founders understand those dynamics better, it could be healthy," she says. "We've been seeing this for years, but this made it real."

Market Dynamics

A Champion for Makers Reports Sales Spike, But Still Worries About Amazon

The Story Exchange

Market Dynamics

A Champion for Makers Reports Sales Spike, But Still Worries About Amazon

The Story Exchange

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