Who Is Michelle Clark? A Look Behind the Mask of the Mysterious Amazon Seller

template

Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the products and services mentioned on this website pay affiliate commissions to the creators at no cost to you. Thank you for your support!

If you sell on Amazon, you've likely noticed a familiar name when you use the seller app... 

Michele Clark.

She (or he) is appearing on countless listings and is consistently offering extremely low prices on whatever they're selling.

Now, with over 2.5 million active Amazon sellers as of 2019, it's rare for one seller to get the attention of the masses...even someone who is showing up so much and brings such competitive prices.

With this seller, there seems to be more to it. 

Something that reeks of an internal cover up... 

Michelle Clark on Amazon

Who Is Michelle Clark (Really)

First, a quick search on LinkedIn brings you a Michelle Clark who is a Senior Product Manager at Amazon.com.

Now, it's one letter away from "Michele" I know...not a stretch though.

Regardless of who is really behind this, there are a couple of obvious questions that arise...

First, the role of Senior Product Manager at Amazon isn't a job that would require a side gig to make ends meet. According to Comparably.com, the position of Senior Product Manager pays an average of $183,045.

Amazon Senior Product Manager Salarya

Second, it's a huge conflict of interest for the senior product manager to also be a full time seller. Anyone working at Amazon moonlighting as a seller would be problematic, but a senior product manager....that's next level. 

Finally, the volume that Michele Clark is processing is FAR beyond what a "weekend warrior," could be doing.  

But, when I reached out to her, she claimed to not know anything about this.

"I don’t know who this 'Michele Clark' is but it’s not me. Please reach out to Amazon PR as they handle all questions from media."

She is on 1,000s of listings and has CRAZY low prices on them all. 

Here's another crazy thing about the Michele Clark seller storefront. It ONLY appears on the Amazon seller app. If you review the same listing on a regular Amazon page, the alias turns back to Amazon.com.

Seller App Discrepencies

Coincidence? 

Well, let's get into the conspiracy theories...

The Potential Conspiracy

Now, I hope that you help me fill in the blanks in the comments, but it seems obvious to me that Michelle Clark is an intentionally created alias for Amazon.

But why? 

Well, a few possible reasons.

First, Amazon recently suspended nearly 4,000 sellers for price gouging during the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak. 

The part that Amazon doesn't want to talk about is that they themselves were pricing items far above MSRP as well. Price gouging isn't cool, but neither is hypocrisy. Amazon should have been held more accountable for their role in the pricing calamity and they weren't. 

It seems like they're doing their best to avoid it from ever happening either. 

They need to save face and they might be under the false impression that they can use a different seller name to be their fall man (woman in this case). 

Next, they may not want sellers to know that they're on the listing. 

This could be in an effort to manipulate 3rd party repricing software.

Also, many sellers avoid listings that Amazon is on because they know how competitive they can be and how deep their inventory can run.  By using this alias, they can give the impression that they aren't on the listing. This gives the impression that owning the buy box is more possible which means more sellers on the listing which means..... lower prices.

Good for consumers, misleading (at best) to sellers. 

Tell me in the comments what you're experience with the Michele Clark account has been. am i being paranoid?

Triple arrow down

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  1. I am not and have never been an Amazon seller. In the Amazon app on my Android phone, I just went to the “Help” section, then “A delivery, order or return”. I found Michele Clark listed as the seller on numerous items I have purchased (maybe all the Amazon seller items). I have never purchased from Michele Clark that I know of. I may have to contact support by phone about this.

  2. I am surprised that from reading all these ways of this ghost seller showing up in and out of 3rd party sellers sites that you missed one aspect of the simple reason of she is getting to you without selling as maybe showing off causing you to do this exact debate of who, what, and why? It maybe fun for her. Has she sold any items of what your selling ,that you know for sure.?I don’t recall seeing her sales record on items you have seen her with.? It’s just a look at a simpler idea . I have been in brain storming sessions asking for answers days sometimes. When the answer was always in front of us it turns out we made the challenge to find answers that we think of ? Why it waists time it is what it is. END.

  3. I have not run into any of Michele listings as yet, mostly because I have not been active in my account due to health issues again….but I have heard about the suspensions, the price gouging especially within Amazon, (someone shared that they were selling 6 cans of tuna for $78.00+ and the 12 pack of toilet paper for $754.00+ and all of the BS that they keep creating to make it more and more difficult for sellers. They have in the past 2 months have told me that I had sneaker that were not authentic and had to remove and told them they were Nike and bought from Kohl’s not off the street and then someone claimed I was selling Merrills twice and did not have permission to do so, sent that msg out to fb group, and they told me that someone else got that msg and it was another seller…there is no support or protection for sellers and worse NO customer service for sellers, and to open a case is harder and harder….I am thinking that could be my last year selling because I am losing more than I am making, I am not a big time seller but I still pay the same as they do and just do not feel I am getting what I pay for, especially the fees they keep changing on listings….they are out of control…that is my two cents on what is and has gone on within my dealings with my account and if you are correct and they are now creating accounts like Michele, if it is the same person that works for them, that is very underhanded. My son just told me that they are again copying others PL products and now undercutting the prices to squeeze them out…..I see how much 3rd party sellers has created in revenue for Amazon and instead of showing appreciation they are now taking over as much from them that they can….thank you for sharing and I for one cannot wait to hear if you are correct in them now creating dummy accounts..

  4. Try this on for size…Michele Clark was created by Amazon as a “tool” to aid in the reduction of prices for chosen products. Amazon does not even have posession of the products she is listed on. When you make a purchase, at the Michele Clark price, Amazon will internally make a purchase from the next lowest seller and just write off the difference as the “cost” of running this tool. Test this theory. Before making a purchase, check the inventory levels of all sellers, and then make the purchase. Then recheck the inventory levels of all sellers and see if anyone other than Michele Clark changes.WHY would Amazon do this? Their internal plan for driving down prices. Even if it fails on a percentage of the listings, they know it will work on many, some simply by AI algorithms (repricers) dropping to match. :O Check your listings if she is on it, and guard against this. Genius.

  5. Conflict of interest? Amazon employees, no matter what their position is are allowed to sell on Amazon themselves or abuse the position for a personal gain. The company has the most fraudulent, illegal and immoral practices you can imagine but they can afford to lose all the lawsuits and their profits massively exceed any losses.

  6. I’ll say what no one else will. Amazon is Michele Clark and Michele Clark is Carol Baskins! Yes! This was all part of her evil plot to feed her husband to the tigers then to profit off of it. However, the Tiger King will use his “gaydar” (wait that wasn’t working with his former toothless guy now did it), oh well. He will use his political powers, since he came in 3rd for Governor, from behind bars to publicly “out” Michele Clark and extract his final revenge. Except for the part that there is nothing illegal about Carol calling herself Michele as a seller. Anyhow, Tiger King says, “hey”.

  7. I noticed this when comparing the Amazon listing and sellers vs the tactical edge module within Tactical Arbitrage.Would be interested to understand the purpose or motivation behind this change. In speaking with some friends I know they go out of their way not to order from Amazon, but rather a third party sellers (assuming their prices are competitive).

  8. Everything is possible. Bu$ine$$ is a dog eat dog world. Until the day when sellers decide to build their own platform that compete with Amazon marketplace all what we can do is speculate while our teeth are being kicked like fools because they can.

  9. Great article Nate, and the first one I have seen broach this issue. Obvious this fake name is in violation of their own TOS.No surprise that they do not hold themselves to the same standard as their “partners”. It would be great if the press got ahold of this…….any volunteers?

  10. You have made good points. In my opinion this Michele Seller is indeed Amazon. Such a poor job on their part, I wonder how many other decoy sellers Amazon has out there. Looking forward to your follow up if she responds to you,

  11. I noticed this the other dayShe is listing books in “new” condition on Amazon Maybe they are selling stock that was left over from clients that were thrown out for price gouging?

  12. It seems clear that this represents Amazon, but why the subterfuge? And why only on the Seller App? And why so poorly executed? Why always Michele Clark? If Amazon were truly trying to hide that these are Amazon listings why not generate or display a unique or random name for each listing? Using the same fake name for all of these listings seems way too obvious.

{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}