January 2017 (Revised August 2019)
Case
HBS Case Collection

X Fire Paintball & Airsoft: Is Amazon a Friend or Foe? (A)

By: Feng Zhu and Angela Acocella

Format:Print
| Language:English
| Pages:15

Abstract

Three years after launching his brick-and-mortar store, X Fire Paintball and Airsoft, Steve Herbert Sr. and his sons began selling products on Amazon.com’s third-party Marketplace, and online sales expanded rapidly. Over time, X Fire noticed that products of which it had once been the only seller were now being sold by Amazon straight from X Fire’s suppliers, effectively cutting X Fire out. Amazon was also ignoring the minimum advertised price (MAP) set by manufacturers. How should X Fire defend itself? Now Amazon representatives were approaching X Fire to encourage them to sell on Amazon’s smaller but growing Canadian Marketplace. How should X Fire respond to this opportunity?

Keywords

Ethics; Competition; Market Platforms; Online Technology; Small Business; Retail Industry; Canada

Citation

Zhu, Feng, and Angela Acocella. "X Fire Paintball & Airsoft: Is Amazon a Friend or Foe? (A)." Harvard Business School Case 617-046, January 2017. (Revised August 2019.)