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Allbirds CEO on Amazon's copycat strategy

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Re: Allbirds CEO on Amazon's copycat strategy

#41

Post by katmannthree »

criddell wrote: post #26
readams wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people don't know that shelf space is actively sold by the stores. They imagine the stores go out and find the best products to display. That's not what happens.

That's not always true. I don't think it would matter how much Amazon money offered Apple, they aren't going to install an Echo end cap.

Sure they would. Apple has shown that they have no problem with human rights issues in their supply chain despite pushing a pro-human rights image in their marketing. They're a gigantic multinational company, their goal is to make money. Other concerns are secondary and prioritized in accordance with how they support that primary goal.

The relevant thing to consider is that Apple likely wouldn't do it for an amount of money that was anything resembling a good deal for Amazon.

Re: Allbirds CEO on Amazon's copycat strategy

#42

Post by [deleted] »

helen___keller wrote: post #7

Allbirds is a luxury brand. Retailers offer cheap versions of luxury brands. There's little surprise here. Should Ray-Bans complain that Walmart offers sunglasses that look nearly identical at a tenth of the price? Amazon has plenty of dodgy business practices, but I don't think this is one of them.

[deleted]

Re: Allbirds CEO on Amazon's copycat strategy

#43

Post by sct202 »

criddell wrote: post #26
readams wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people don't know that shelf space is actively sold by the stores. They imagine the stores go out and find the best products to display. That's not what happens.

That's not always true. I don't think it would matter how much Amazon money offered Apple, they aren't going to install an Echo end cap.

Yeah, the person above you makes it sound like stores just have giant Dutch auctions for space when it's more like negotiating terms to a contract after they've already passed other qualifying steps.

Re: Allbirds CEO on Amazon's copycat strategy

#44

Post by ShteiLoups »

40acres wrote: post #3

Abstractly, the question at hand is this: is a retailer that sells its own in house brand anticompetitive due to the information it has on potential competitor sales? Other large retailers: Target, Walmart, etc. have a higher percentage of in house brands for sale than Amazon. So on this argument going after Amazon means you need to decouple retailers from in house brands across the board. Even the concern about sear…

It certainly does seem to be anticompetitive to (1) own the market, (2) collect the data about the market, and (3) actively use that data to replace or compete with third parties on the market. As per a comment below[1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21597614

Re: Allbirds CEO on Amazon's copycat strategy

#45

Post by colejohnson66 »

rburhum wrote: post #24
ghaff wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question. Why is it dodgy?

Because designers spend an entire year designing what they are going to sell as their line for the year and when they show it on the runway, Zara takes a photo and has it mass produced and sent to stores in two weeks. They do this consistently. It is dodgy.

I’m not going to argue the capitalism aspect as others already have, but there’s also things called copyright, patents, and trademarks. They can be used against people stealing your design.

Re: Allbirds CEO on Amazon's copycat strategy

#46

Post by colejohnson66 »

umvi wrote: post #37
rburhum wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because designers spend an entire year designing what they are going to sell as their line for the year and when they show it on the runway, Zara takes a photo and has it mass produced and sent to stores in two weeks. They do this consistently. It is dodgy.

Hopefully Oracle wins in their case against Google, then, that would set a precedent to stop interface copyright violations. In a sense, sunglasses could be considered an interface, and anyone who copies the same shape of the interface violates that copyright (even if the materials are slightly different).

That makes no sense. Glasses are not an “interface.” They are an accessory.

Re: Allbirds CEO on Amazon's copycat strategy

#47

Post by cmcd »

umvi wrote: post #37
rburhum wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because designers spend an entire year designing what they are going to sell as their line for the year and when they show it on the runway, Zara takes a photo and has it mass produced and sent to stores in two weeks. They do this consistently. It is dodgy.

Hopefully Oracle wins in their case against Google, then, that would set a precedent to stop interface copyright violations. In a sense, sunglasses could be considered an interface, and anyone who copies the same shape of the interface violates that copyright (even if the materials are slightly different).

This is not how copyright works, depends on the exact application but material is typically not a determining factor.

Re: Allbirds CEO on Amazon's copycat strategy

#49

Post by cmcd »

ShteiLoups wrote: post #44
40acres wrote: post #3

Abstractly, the question at hand is this: is a retailer that sells its own in house brand anticompetitive due to the information it has on potential competitor sales? Other large retailers: Target, Walmart, etc. have a higher percentage of in house brands for sale than Amazon. So on this argument going after Amazon means you need to decouple retailers from in house brands across the board. Even the concern about sear…

It certainly does seem to be anticompetitive to (1) own the market, (2) collect the data about the market, and (3) actively use that data to replace or compete with third parties on the market. As per a comment below[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21597614

If this is anticompetitive then many brick and mortar stores are in trouble. Go into any large grocery store and popular items will almost always have a store brand equivalent prominently displayed and discounted next to the name brands.

Re: Allbirds CEO on Amazon's copycat strategy

#50

Post by ioror93jf »

ghaff wrote: post #40
csallen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't hate the player, hate the game. That's business. The fact that your designers worked hard is irrelevant. Capitalism is by its very nature competitive, and it's on you as a business owner to figure out a working model in a world with fast followers. It's a bit like complaining that someone blocked your shot in basketball. It's allowed, those are the rules, do better next time.

If you don’t think this should be allowed (and it’s sort of pointless to argue dodginess if it’s perfectly legal) you have to logically argue for much more stringent IP protection. Added: Of course some protections do exist and I don’t doubt some knockoffs skirt or outright violate those protections.

That doesn’t follow.

One could argue as well we should minimize the draw of purely romanticized notions that premium things should exist.

Other than inflated pricing pushing more money around in one go than cheaper stuff pushing a lot of little money around, what does owning premium accessories get humanity?

Stop manufacturing final products & retail can be just the materials that enable people to make their own accessories if we’re worried about style differentiation.

Or we could keep drilling into ideas like yours which will result in more consolidation of economic activity in the hands of the haves.

Like markets, brands are simply propped up by feels. IMO pretty sick of being told I need to give a crap about Coach as a business so a minority can actually design/create while the majority get to deal with their HR and accounting needs.

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