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Amazon, the Brand Buster

nytimes.com

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Re: Amazon, the Brand Buster

#11

Post by subpixel »

dmoy wrote: post #8

I don't get this argument. I just went to CVS and bought their white labeled lotion and some band aids, that were nearly identical in ingredients to the branded stuff sitting right next to it on the shelf. My soap at home is similarly target's in house stuff. Half the things I buy from Costco are Kirkland. Why do I do it? Because it's like half the price. Just like buying say AmazonBasics batteries vs Energizer.

The argument isn't that Amazon is making things hard on consumers. It's that they are killing brands on a battlefield they control absolutely.

Think of it from the brand perspective. CVS pays you to stock their product on their shelves, so while they compete with you, they also send you money every month regardless.

On the other hand, you have to pay Amazon to include your products in their catalog. So while they compete with you, you pay them for the privilege. And everything you do to innovate, they steal.

Re: Amazon, the Brand Buster

#12

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

dmoy wrote: post #8

I don't get this argument. I just went to CVS and bought their white labeled lotion and some band aids, that were nearly identical in ingredients to the branded stuff sitting right next to it on the shelf. My soap at home is similarly target's in house stuff. Half the things I buy from Costco are Kirkland. Why do I do it? Because it's like half the price. Just like buying say AmazonBasics batteries vs Energizer.

I think the example given with Alexa voice purchases ("Buy batteries" only results in AmazomBasics batteries being purchased) is a pretty major difference that makes the in-store comparison not really a great analogy.

Every CVS I've been to always has the CVS brand pretty much right next to the major label brand - they're equally accessible. If I ask a store worker where the shampoo is, he'll point me to the shampoo aisle where the CVS and major label brands are side-by-side. Contrast that with Amazon, where (at least for me) searching for "batteries" returns AmazonBasics in the top non-sponsored position.

Re: Amazon, the Brand Buster

#13

Post by dmoy »

subpixel wrote: post #11
dmoy wrote: post #8

I don't get this argument. I just went to CVS and bought their white labeled lotion and some band aids, that were nearly identical in ingredients to the branded stuff sitting right next to it on the shelf. My soap at home is similarly target's in house stuff. Half the things I buy from Costco are Kirkland. Why do I do it? Because it's like half the price. Just like buying say AmazonBasics batteries vs Energizer.

The argument isn't that Amazon is making things hard on consumers. It's that they are killing brands on a battlefield they control absolutely. Think of it from the brand perspective. CVS pays you to stock their product on their shelves, so while they compete with you, they also send you money every month regardless. On the other hand, you have to pay Amazon to include your products in their catalog. So while they com…

Right I see the argument, but I don't get why it's a valid argument. I just don't get why this is news. Every retailer I've shopped at in the last year does this.

Re: Amazon, the Brand Buster

#14

Post by nicodjimenez »

I think this article is a little misguided. Sure, commodity products such as Duracell or cheap clothing companies might be in trouble, but such companies were weak brands in the first place. Their main appeal was low cost, good enough, and Amazon is just doing the whole low cost, good enough thing better than anyone. But high end brands like Apple, Nike, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, are not going anywhere, that's for sure!

Re: Amazon, the Brand Buster

#15

Post by pbreit »

bshepard wrote: post #4

How much do consumers pay in Bezos tax for goods on Amazon? i.e, if the site simply let consumers buy from Chinese manufacturers (which, in the end, is what much of Amazon is) without the fee to the owners of the marketplace (i.e, "Bezos Tax), how much cheaper would it be?

Considering the downward pressure Amazon has had on prices, I would say the "Bezos Tax" is negative.

Re: Amazon, the Brand Buster

#16

Post by mjcl »

jasongill wrote: post #9
mmt wrote: post #2

Notably absent in the anti-trust speculation is how the AmazonBasics brand does or doesn't get treated differently from other brands with respect to counterfeits (and other undesirable non-Amazon seller behavior, such as used items as new). AFAIK, Amazon prohibits third-party merchants from selling AmazonBasics, which would mean that the inventory-mingling problem, which has been discussed on other threads, wouldn't…

Commingled inventory is an option for FBA sellers. You can disable it easily from your FBA account; I think at this point the "problem" is only for beginning sellers who aren't aware that it's on by default

Until it's an option for buyers, I'm going to be quite reluctant to buy from Amazon.

Re: Amazon, the Brand Buster

#17

Post by User23 »

pietroglyph wrote: post #5

I think this illustrates the unfair advantage pretty well: https://www.amazon.com/s/&field-keywords=batteries

You're right. It's absolutely unfair that Energizer is ripping customers off to the tune of 30%.

Also wow this is terrible reporting. "Around 2009..." is it too much effort to find a real date?

Re: Amazon, the Brand Buster

#18

Post by hakfoo »

subpixel wrote: post #11
dmoy wrote: post #8

I don't get this argument. I just went to CVS and bought their white labeled lotion and some band aids, that were nearly identical in ingredients to the branded stuff sitting right next to it on the shelf. My soap at home is similarly target's in house stuff. Half the things I buy from Costco are Kirkland. Why do I do it? Because it's like half the price. Just like buying say AmazonBasics batteries vs Energizer.

The argument isn't that Amazon is making things hard on consumers. It's that they are killing brands on a battlefield they control absolutely. Think of it from the brand perspective. CVS pays you to stock their product on their shelves, so while they compete with you, they also send you money every month regardless. On the other hand, you have to pay Amazon to include your products in their catalog. So while they com…

I find, across the board, Amazon often feels like their incentives don't align with those of a customer.

They're always trying to push Prime (and to a lesser extent their video and music service) which represents extra clicks to sale. It's a significant auto-renewing commitment, not a $5 casual impulse add-on-- repeatedly dangling it in front of me and hoping I misclick into it borders on a dark pattern. I'd love to see a big one-click "I am not interested do not bother me further" button.

Everything about their checkout funnel is contrary to modern best practices. Fields are oddly arranged compared with most other ecommerce sites, and once you reach a certain point, the normal navigation disappears. I guess this is designed to trap the user with no way out but purchase, but it makes it harder to compare items, especially when you're trying to find out on shipping (see below).

Shipping is a mess to deal with. "You need to spend $25 for free shipping, but these items don't count". "These items can ONLY be purchased with an order of other items that hit the free-shipping threshold." "These items can only be purchased with Prime." There's no easy "estimate shipping" button without going several pages into checkout. These sort of complexities probably are engineered to steer customers towards buying the items fulfilled by them to avoid the pitfalls.

I'd also wonder if their brands "accidentally" do well because of how bad their product categorization is. Nobody else is selling AmazonBasics products, so the single listing gets all the ratings and sales volume. Meanwhile, the name brand has 30 slightly different poorly arranged listings all overlapped.

Re: Amazon, the Brand Buster

#19

Post by andyidsinga »

the referenced article from Yale Law Journal is very interesting - and discuss amazon in context of anti-trust laws, what is wrong with those laws and some solutions.

snip snip ( https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado... )

"in some ways, the story of Amazon’s sustained and growing dominance is also the story of changes in our antitrust laws. Due to a change in legal thinking and practice in the 1970s and 1980s, antitrust law now assesses competition largely with an eye to the short-term interests of consumers, not producers or the health of the market as a whole; antitrust doctrine views low consumer prices, alone, to be evidence of sound competition. By this measure, Amazon has excelled; it has evaded government scrutiny in part through fervently devoting its business strategy and rhetoric to reducing prices for consumers. Amazon’s closest encounter with antitrust authorities was when the Justice Department sued other companies for teaming up against Amazon.23 It is as if Bezos charted the company’s growth by first drawing a map of antitrust laws, and then devising routes to smoothly bypass them. With its missionary zeal for consumers, Amazon has marched toward monopoly by singing the tune of contemporary antitrust."

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