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Amazon Is a Monopoly

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Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#161

Post by laughinghan »

blairanderson wrote: post #120

I run a consulting company for Amazon suppliers. We have roughly 2-dozen Amazon suppliers and our first-hand experience is that Amazon is absolutely stifling competition/business to the detriment of customer. The biggest problem is `agreements that restrain trade` is a monopoly practice that happens across the board. They're a black box AND have tiny support systems for their marketplace. One recent example. A client…

What does "Amazon won't accept" mean? Doesn't Amazon just show the lowest price of all its current suppliers, and if the current lowest-priced supplier runs out, it shows the next lowest price?

(No fan of Amazon here, just trying to understand what you're saying.)

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#162

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

youeseh wrote: post #56
indopedia wrote: post #45

She forgets that the Amazon marketplace is made up of sellers and the prices aren't controlled by Amazon for a lot of their products. These are inherited from the distributor in most cases. Sure Amazon fulfills the orders but it's not like Walmart that controls the entire process. There is more freedom in Amazon. Anyways, this is just the hip thing of today. How about making a service better than Amazon? No that's im…

> Anyways, this is just the hip thing of today Observing that Amazon may be monopolizing isn't a new observation. When they began competing against their vendors is when they crossed the line, in my opinion. The same goes for any marketplace. It is one thing to provide your vendors the tools and information they need to operate better, but then to act on that information yourself - the operator of the marketplace - t…

Every operator of a marketplace seems to compete with its participants. The iOS App Store. Amazon.com. Stock markets have "market makers".

Not saying it's correct by any measure, but it doesn't seem like an unusual practice.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#163

Post by toasterlovin »

Alupis wrote: post #131
toasterlovin wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not your lawyer. They're allowed to have a conflict of interest. Especially one that you are fully aware of going into the relationship. I just don't get it. Do you think someone selling a generic product that only differentiates on price has some unalienable right to make money on Amazon.com? Or that some wholesaler buying branded products has an inalienable right to somehow not get squeezed out when the onl…

We're discussing anti-competitive behavior, and it seems this is a clear exhibition of that. It's not about what intrinsic value any particular seller can bring - it's whether or not Amazon has become a defacto monopoly and/or practices anti-competitive behaviors.

Amazon doesn’t have a monopoly. They sell less than Walmart. You can take your products elsewhere. Your problem is with Amazon doing on their platform what every brick and mortar does in their own stores.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#164

Post by lotyrin »

laughinghan wrote: post #161
blairanderson wrote: post #120

I run a consulting company for Amazon suppliers. We have roughly 2-dozen Amazon suppliers and our first-hand experience is that Amazon is absolutely stifling competition/business to the detriment of customer. The biggest problem is `agreements that restrain trade` is a monopoly practice that happens across the board. They're a black box AND have tiny support systems for their marketplace. One recent example. A client…

What does "Amazon won't accept" mean? Doesn't Amazon just show the lowest price of all its current suppliers, and if the current lowest-priced supplier runs out, it shows the next lowest price? (No fan of Amazon here, just trying to understand what you're saying.)

I imagine this is a supplier (as in B2B, Amazon is negociating prices for buying bulk stock from them to sell on Amazon as Amazon), not a marketplace seller.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#165

Post by ehsankia »

themagician wrote: post #103
indopedia wrote: post #45

She forgets that the Amazon marketplace is made up of sellers and the prices aren't controlled by Amazon for a lot of their products. These are inherited from the distributor in most cases. Sure Amazon fulfills the orders but it's not like Walmart that controls the entire process. There is more freedom in Amazon. Anyways, this is just the hip thing of today. How about making a service better than Amazon? No that's im…

> Anyways, this is just the hip thing of today. How about making a service better than Amazon? No that's impossible?? Well you can bet there are a million people trying right now so there are and will be plenty more alternatives. Someone did try. Jet.com. Walmart bought them almost instantly.

Google has been trying for years with Express and has barely made a dent. If Google can't, then I honestly don't know who can...

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#167

Post by bduerst »

scarface74 wrote: post #149
bduerst wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For years Amazon had banned Chromecast and AppleTV devices from it's entire marketplace when they competed with their Firestick device. Not only did Amazon not carry it, but Amazon also prevented third party sellers from listing the competing devices as well. That is textbook anti-competitive behavior, which is probably why Amazon finally started selling them again recently.

But aren’t you kind of making the opposite point? While Amazon wouldn’t sell AppleTVs and Chromecasts, neither Apple nor Google had any trouble reaching customers. If Amazon was a monopoly that wouldn’t be the case. Apple also sells third party hardware on their site. Should they be forced to sell Dells besides their Macs?

- If Google removed Amazon from search results, then that would be anti-competitive behavior.

- If Apple banned the Amazon app from iTunes, then that would be anti-competitive behavior.

You can still access Amazon in all these situations at amazon.com, and just like with the chromecast and Apple TV, whether or not there is access somewhere is irrelevant to the nature of the behavior being anti-competitive. Amazon was being anti-competitive by banning competing devices on it's - platform.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#168

Post by higherkinded »

No it's not, and you still have a burden of a proof on your shoulders. It probably is, indeed, kept up by some degree of anti-competitive practices but it's still not a monopoly but a member of what you call oligopoly, providing a lot of cheap stuff in every of its areas of competition.

I'd like to point out as well that sanctions (not necessarily well-deserved) against Amazon will just destroy some workplaces, mostly lower-qualified ones, which will cause quite a bit of a problem.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#169

Post by sjy »

snarfy wrote: post #140
mbesto wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and aren't expected to make a profit Sorry to be harsh, but this "no profit" trope specifically when it comes to Amazon needs to die in a hot fire. "“Percentage margins are not one of the things we are seeking to optimize. It’s the absolute dollar free cash flow per share that you want to maximize, and if you can do that by lowering margins, we would do that. So if you could take the free cash flow, that’s somethin…

When you reinvest your profits back into the company, your net profits are zero and you don't pay any taxes. This is where the distortion comes in. It's government subsidized growth. At this point it's grown over all the competitors and affects the market.

Is that right? Shouldn't the reinvestment involve a significant amount of capital expenditure which is not immediately deductible?

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#170

Post by dylan604 »

scarface74 wrote: post #145
blairanderson wrote: post #120

I run a consulting company for Amazon suppliers. We have roughly 2-dozen Amazon suppliers and our first-hand experience is that Amazon is absolutely stifling competition/business to the detriment of customer. The biggest problem is `agreements that restrain trade` is a monopoly practice that happens across the board. They're a black box AND have tiny support systems for their marketplace. One recent example. A client…

People have been complaining about basically the same thing with respect to Walmart for decades.

Exactly this. I've worked for a company where Walmart was the largest retailer for their product (DVDs). They were constantly being beat up to lower their wholesale prices while also demanding a separate SKU with edited content. Amazon is no different in this case (except not demanding edited content).

Whenever I asked about this, they said you still had to provide product for sale wherever the customers were. The large retailers all want you to believe that you can make up for the lower price in vast quantities their store front provides.

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