I would have done the same for my business, but I didn’t want to risk getting a huge bill later when they figure it out.
Am I understanding correctly that Amazon will not allow me to buy something off their site with prime shipping if i intend to resell that product?
Is the the scope of this limited to only include me taking orders for item X at price y on my own Amazon marketplace account and then placing my order with an FBA partner who's price for X is below y?
Otherwise wouldn't you run into all kinds of issues with first sale doctrine? Who is amazon to tell me I cant sell something I bought through them?
It has nothing to do with the first sale doctrine. If you are reselling the item, then you owe Amazon shipping charges for 2-day shipping.
Maybe Amazon won't try to collect, but you have violated the contract you have with Amazon.. and they could come back to you later and send you a bill for all of the shipping charges you owe them. Maybe they won't do that.. if you want to risk it, that's up to you.
Not so fast. Amazon would like this to be true, which is why they put that provision in their TOS. The NFL does the same thing when they state in every single broadcast, "This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast or any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent is prohibited." Merely expressing a sentence in legalese doesn't create a binding contract.
A decent lawyer in a Common Law jurisdiction (and IANAL/this is not legal advice) could probably argue that such a "no-resale-for-Prime" provision constitutes restraint of trade along with any other similar statutory prohibitions that would render such language unenforceable. (I don't know, but I'm guessing Civil Law jurisdictions have their own such restraints.) Amazon for its part would argue that if it allowed resale, it couldn't offer Prime services at all to anyone. If I were to guess, the real purpose of this provision is to kick people out who might do something like purchase up an entire supply of some particular Prime-eligible item and then immediately resell the entire stock at around the same price but with paid shipping (including a small profit cushion). That kind of behavior actually would ruin the Prime brand/program and itself constitutes a form of market manipulation.
In no way would anyone owe Amazon money for reselling products purchased on Prime. At worst, Amazon could kick a person out of Prime or completely ban them as a customer (and the courts might even frown upon that). Amazon might even try to "collect" money, but unless the resale constituted actual abuse (cf. the scenario above), a strongly worded letter CC'd to the person's lawyer, Congressman and FTC might help Amazon stand down.
Again, IANAL and this is not legal advice. If it were me, I'd try to follow the TOS as a matter of prudence/respect. However, I don't like people thinking that they're under legal obligations that are at best a stretch.
