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Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

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Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#261

Post by benologist »

toasterlovin wrote: post #244
benologist wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was actually abusing their platform to deliberately harm other companies that sparked the antitrust. That abuse created a monopoly but the monopoly was not why they got in trouble. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars

The only reason bundling IE was an issue is because Microsoft had a monopoly on PC operating systems. The monopoly is a necessary precondition for the antitrust action.

Microsoft had a monopoly, and they leveraged it to create a monopoly, but that does not mean abuse requires a monopoly. Abuse does not require emulating any particular prior instance of abuse.

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#262

Post by bearcobra »

partialrecall wrote: post #160
jastanton wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one difference is that the Amazon Basics products seem to have a quality bar higher than the other random re-labeled products.

I'm not sure about Amazon Basics, but with Amazon's Choice products they're plainly not evaluating products before selecting them. LockpickingLawyer on youtube has done reviews on several Amazon's Choice locks and safes and they've all been abysmal borderline fraudulent products.

I really enjoy the LockpickingLawyer's videos, but I'd imagine that the threat model of the average Amazon (or Walmart/Home Depot/etc.) buyer is such that any basic lock is enough deterrence for 95%+ of scenarios. It could just be that their evaluation criteria don't match his.

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#263

Post by raz32dust »

I see folks saying that it is good for consumers because Amazon products are better quality that the other sellers who tend to be unreliable. However, we are missing the long-term impact of this - (a) It will slowly kill competition, at which point Amazon products no longer have to be better quality. (b) It kills innovation because anyone who wants to sell stuff online knows Amazon is going to copy the product soon enough.

Why is this not an antitrust case? Amazon has the monopoly on online retail I assume, so isn't ranking it's own products higher an antitrust violation?

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#264

Post by falcrist »

Kalium wrote: post #204
falcrist wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot for the life of me understand why Sears didn't become a major online retailer. They not only had a physical catalog system that could be fairly easily converted into an online catalog, they have physical stores that could be used as pickup points and warehouses for customers who don't want to wait until things are mailed. In the UK there's a company called Argos that worked ENTIRELY as a catalog store. Their…

Among other things, Sears was afraid of cannibalizing their in-store sales and didn't understand the potential of the internet. They had a very B&M-centered mindset.

That's insane, though. In reality, these things can coexist just fine, but even if they couldn't... why wouldn't you want to have a business model with lower overhead?

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#265

Post by some_random »

password1 wrote: post #52
Pxtl wrote: post #34

Considering how shopping at Amazon now feels like shopping at an electronics bazaar in Singapore with giant bins of random knock-off products of suspicious quality, tweaking the algo to push name-brand options (even if it's their own name-brand) would be a welcome move to me as a buyer. Obviously it's grossly unfair to their vendors, but from a strictly user-centric view it's an improvement. Otherwise, Amazon feels l…

> Otherwise, Amazon feels like AliExpress with faster shipping and better English. It literally is. All these products are cheap stuff that marketers find on aliexpress. They buy them in bulk, stamp a logo on it, import in the US/EU, stock in logistic centers and then sell on Amazon. It's the same stuff, but it comes from an English seller and a warehouse in US/EU. It's exactly the same thing that Amazon does with it…

I was told by an ex-amazon employee that amazon basics were all designed in-house. As in, they're explicitly not white-labels.

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#266

Post by jonknee »

bduerst wrote: post #247
jonknee wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When a grocery store puts something on it's shelves, the store itself bought it from the manufacturer. They have already made their money. On Amazon, manufacturers don't make money when the item is listed, they make it only if and when a customer buys the product. It's way more complicated than that. Manufacturers pay stores to carry their products, feature their products in special places in stores, get forced to…

Only certain big box retailers do that, like Best Buy , whose business model have them leasing floor space in their physical locations, which has tangible scarcity. Amazon is not leasing retail floor space, so to GP's point, any comparisons between Amazon's open platform and traditional physical retail spaces are moot.

I think retail stores controlling what you see based on how much money they get which is quite similar to Amazon controlling what you see in a search result based on profitability, but I guess we can agree to disagree. However, it's not just stores like Best Buy. Your local grocery store almost certainly makes a large percentage of their profit from companies paying for shelf space. End caps don't come out of thin air.

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#267

Post by alistairSH »

nokcha wrote: post #146
alistairSH wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is a power bank different than a battery? Isn't the power bank just several batteries crammed in a casing, with a power-out port?

jschwartzi was talking about power supplies (i.e., devices that transform mains AC power to DC power), not power banks.

Ah, I read "power bank", as that's what ikeyboy mentioned above. And when you search (google) "power bank" the results are all about portable batteries for topping up phones and whatnot. Does Amazon even brand/re-sell power supplies like jschwartzi is talking about?

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#268

Post by gok »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #97
jjohansson wrote: post #74

If you’re a manufacturer without a strong brand, it’s incredibly risky selling through Amazon. They will take your sales data to evaluate ROI of building it themselves , and then undercut you. Similar if you’re a retailer. This is why Shopify’s new model is better for D2C and retail (but very difficult for them to pull off).

Also, a factory can produce a counterfeit of your product and sell it on Amazon on the same listing as your genuine product, with no way the customer can tell which they're buying.

Hell, that factory can produce an AmazonBasics-branded version of your product too.

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#269

Post by vinay427 »

ikeboy wrote: post #237
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's similar and completely indistinguishable, except for brand name and logo. e.g. their desk lamps, also their mice. Seems to be the case for almost every Anker product I remember looking at recently.

Nothing illegal about that unless Anker has a design patent.

I appreciated your response but as far as I can tell, they were asking whether Anker is badge engineering generic products or is a victim of counterfeiting, which I think is a slightly different question that I'm also looking for the answer to.

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#270

Post by [deleted] »

partialrecall wrote: post #160
jastanton wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one difference is that the Amazon Basics products seem to have a quality bar higher than the other random re-labeled products.

I'm not sure about Amazon Basics, but with Amazon's Choice products they're plainly not evaluating products before selecting them. LockpickingLawyer on youtube has done reviews on several Amazon's Choice locks and safes and they've all been abysmal borderline fraudulent products.

[deleted]
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