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Amazon Is a Monopoly

marketplacepulse.com

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Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#211

Post by IloveHN84 »

Well, years ago, when Amazon wasn't a monopoly, who had the choice to make it one?

The final user.

Personally, I've never used Amazon before seeing a friend ordering a fairly huge amount of stuff from there. Prior to that, I was a not-so-obsessed-from-ecommerce eBay user, where I placed an order maybe every 4-5 months. I've started using Amazon because of its returning policy, which is better that eBay's, but by doing so, i've also increased the amount of stuff bought on the platform, because of time. Getting older and having more responsibilities, you've to save some time, then Amazon comes to rescue when it comes to generic stuff.

I guess now it's really late to blame Amazon for the monopoly, as well as Microsoft did in 90s with PCs and Google is doing nowadays with Android+Chrome.

Sure, there are alternatives, but the final decision on who gets the monopoly is the user

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#212

Post by jldugger »

Alupis wrote: post #132
perl4ever wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Until recently, Walmart hasn't had a Marketplace" No? When exactly did they start selling large numbers of items on their website that aren't in stores?

"Marketplace" refers to 3rd parties selling on the platform. Until recently, Walmart.com was exclusively products sold by Walmart - now they let 3rd parties list and sell products too (just like Amazon).

Are you familiar with a planogram? Walmart the physical location is a platform, with paid placement for premium locations on a shelf. Same goes for virtually all national retailers.

Hell, Frito even has their own employees stock the shelves, which is why the chip aisle tends to look immaculate compared to the rest of the store.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#213

Post by themagician »

ehsankia wrote: post #165
themagician wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

That’s a weird thing to say. Google fails at like 90% of the things they do, especially when they try and do it from scratch. Some things they have even failed at multiple times.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#214

Post by mk89 »

Alupis wrote: post #42
Arrezz wrote: post #2

How we actually define a company to be a monopoly seems to be somewhat arbitrary? I agree that Amazon engages in anticompetitive behaviour but I'm not sure that it can control prices or exclude competition to that extent? I mean every company can affect that, at what point does it become problematic?

> I'm not sure that it can control prices Amazon very often competes directly with sellers on the Marketplace, and often undercuts them on price. There are products they sell below the purchase cost, sometimes below manufacturing cost. You can't compete with that unless you have piles of money to burn. They sell at a loss until they shake everyone loose from a product, then dominate all sales of that products on the…

>The reasons they go after certain sellers and leave others alone are as mysterious as the team behind the decisions.

Is there any report from sellers that were banned just because? I mean, authentic sellers, not fake etc.

Edit: still googling, but it seems in many cases there is a ToS violation, like multiple accounts, or shady practices. One seller got kicked because "we grew up too quickly and we were unable to deliver in time". I am really wondering which sellers got kicked despite being respectful of the rules. All of them, including the user experience, because I think that's main reason amazon kicks you out - if I can get scammed or my items don't ever make it on time, why would I even bother using their service, instead of buying elsewhere?

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#215

Post by kevinsundar »

Supermancho wrote: post #204
kevinsundar wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But doesn't the customer benefit in that scenario? They get the items they want for a lower price from a brand they trust (they're on their website for a reason). And if the customer is benefitting, isn't that the best outcome of capitalism? In that scenerio, and captialism in general, eBay doesn't owe sellers on its marketplace the right to sell items at all. They've just been given a chance to make hay while the su…

Benefits are not static. What's good in the short term, doesn't necessarily mean it's good long term. Following the capitalistic ethos, once you have less competition, you can raise your price to match what the customer can afford (which is not competitive, it's exploitative) as opposed to what the market will bear (because there is no market, just a limited or singular purveyor). This is economics 101 stuff. China s…

I agree with everything you say. However, everything you mentioned about how Amazon could act in the future is speculation. I agree that when / if they start raising prices they should be considered a monopoly and heavily scrutinized and possibly regulated. But at this point, there is no justification in doing that as they haven't crossed that line.

I feel like a lot of people jump to attack Amazon on the basis of what they could do (because they're so big) instead of what they're doing currently.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#216

Post by headsoup »

mikeash wrote: post #201
headsoup wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what if, more and more, the products you want are only on Amazon, because of the deals made or conditions set by them?

That would be really bad, but we're very far from that point.

Depends on what products you want doesn't it? I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I've noticed an increasing tendency to not be able to find some products online outside of Amazon, or there is a significant price difference.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#217

Post by mrtksn »

IloveHN84 wrote: post #211

Well, years ago, when Amazon wasn't a monopoly, who had the choice to make it one? The final user. Personally, I've never used Amazon before seeing a friend ordering a fairly huge amount of stuff from there. Prior to that, I was a not-so-obsessed-from-ecommerce eBay user, where I placed an order maybe every 4-5 months. I've started using Amazon because of its returning policy, which is better that eBay's, but by doin…

Aren't they playing really nice and even operating at loss until they become a monopoly? It's not really a choice if a company is giving you free stuff.

Probably it's the same idea with Uber: We can have really nice rides at good prices because rich people are co-paying our rides. When it's only Uber out there, they can start testing our patience while maximising the profits.

Amazon and Uber are not really selling some high margin tech products, their core innovations are not in the product but the business operations and strategies.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#218

Post by cryptica »

headsoup wrote: post #198
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon has the power to do both. No they don't. If Amazon significantly raises prices it charges customers, or lowers prices it pays suppliers, to above/below what Walmart or a hundred others do, are the customers and suppliers going to stay with them? No. When they don't put you in their store, can they also prevent you from reaching the same customers through any other store? No. The fact that they can choose not…

You appear to be only referring to the retail side of Amazon, not the platform side where the article mentions Amazon has numerous restrictive practices in place and set the price through these by excluding competition and competing through their own retail lines, regardless of other (uncompetitive) options

Amazon could drive companies within entire product sectors to bankruptcy simply by lowering the price of that product category on Amazon. The problem is that they can afford to do this in a sustainable way because they have so many other product lines.

When other big chains like Walmart do similar things, it does not have the same effect because people don't go to Walmart to buy just one item. Amazon is different; if they lower the price of an item, consumers react quickly and that can put other websites which specialize in that item out of business. Then when all major competitors within the item category are out of business, Amazon can increase the price to any amount it wants and use the extra proceeds to continue the process with different item categories.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#219

Post by Findeton »

dylan604 wrote: post #170
scarface74 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 la…

Yeah, there's nothing inherently bad about monopolies. The problem only arises when monopolies are forced into people by the government. Instead, people choose Amazon on their own.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#220

Post by cylinder »

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.

That doesn't invalidate the point
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