This statement is intended for wholesalers/manufacturers concerning marketplace restrictions.

Some of our suppliers ask us to sell their products in-store and on our own website only - not on Amazon or eBay. At the same time, many of those same suppliers sell on those marketplaces themselves. At Itemdrop, we believe fairness means independent retailers should have the same freedom to sell where customers shop. 

When a supplier tells us we cannot sell on Amazon or eBay while actively selling there themselves, that is not a policy designed to protect retailers. It is a competitor using a supply contract to limit competition.

The contradiction becomes even clearer when we compare suppliers selling the same category of products. Some manufacturers allow retailers to sell wherever they choose. Others, selling identical products, prohibit Amazon and eBay sales because they occupy those marketplaces themselves. That demonstrates the restriction is not about protecting the high street - it is about protecting market share.

The "Protecting the High Street" Argument Doesn't Hold

We're often told these restrictions exist to support independent retailers like us. In our experience, the effect tends to run the other way.

Only recently, a couple browsing in our shop said openly, "It's nice to see them properly, we'll look online later." We don't think this was unusual - it's a pattern we recognise. In practice, our shop can end up serving as a showroom for a sale that happens somewhere else entirely.

Like most independent retailers, we invest in stock, premises, staff and customer service to introduce people to products. When restrictions then prevent us from completing that sale on the platforms customers actually use, the costs stay with us while the eventual sale goes elsewhere.

We're sometimes told that retailers simply need to adapt to a changing market - and we do, regularly. But adapting to genuine market change is very different from adapting to restrictions deliberately imposed by the very businesses supplying us. We should not be expected to overcome disadvantages created by our own commercial partners.

The Conflict of Interest

The conflict of interest is increasingly difficult to ignore.

During a wholesale discussion about marketplace restrictions, another business copied in an agency that specialises in helping companies maximise their own sales on Amazon - in the same conversation where we were being asked not to sell there ourselves.

You couldn't illustrate the conflict more clearly.

Manufacturers typically have marketing budgets and platform relationships, well beyond what an independent retailer can match. When the largest marketplaces are then closed to us as well, it leaves very little room to compete on equal terms.

Wholesale Should Mean Partnership

If a manufacturer would prefer to keep Amazon and eBay for themselves, that's entirely their decision to make.

But it's worth asking whether wholesale supply still makes sense alongside that decision. Wholesale, by its nature, means accepting that retailers will sell through the channels available to them. It sits a little uneasily alongside asking those same retailers to fund the stock, staff, and premises, while reserving the largest sales channels exclusively for the supplier.

This Is Bigger Than One Retailer

We think this matters beyond our own shop. Retail remains one of the UK's largest private-sector employers. As more sales move toward direct-to-consumer models and away from wholesale and independent retail, fewer transactions pass through local shops and local jobs - and more value concentrates with fewer, larger businesses. High streets become progressively weaker.

Meanwhile, customers increasingly compare prices online while standing inside physical shops. Restricting retailers to in-store and website sales only places independent businesses at a growing disadvantage in an economy where consumers naturally shop across multiple channels.

Regulators in both the EU and the United States have already begun examining similar marketplace practices from a competition perspective. We hope the UK follows. We've raised our concerns with our local MP, although we recognise meaningful regulatory change takes time.

What We're Asking For

We're not asking for special treatment.

We're simply asking for equal opportunity; the same opportunity to reach customers wherever they choose to shop, including on the marketplaces our suppliers use themselves.

A genuine partnership means competing on equal terms.

Until that principle is respected, we cannot support suppliers who impose marketplace restrictions.

Let independent retailers sell where customers shop — or don't be surprised when the high street isn't there anymore.

Edited and reworded 26/6/26