Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#181

Post by LaEc » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 4:31 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #155

chairmanwow1 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What really is the issue? That Amazon is leveraging its success to be successful? It's unfair that Amazon is able to see that a product category is doing well so it invests its own money into manufacturing a product to sell through its site? Do you really think that if Amazon couldn't use the data from its own site that it wouldn't procure it elsewhere? Before any product is developed there is extensive market resear…

Vertical monopolies are anti-competitive. It works like this: 1. Amazon clones independent manufacturer's product. 2. Amazon strangles manufacturer because they can promote their own product more and have lower overhead because they control the entire chain. 3. Competitor dies. 4. Amazon has no competition on this product. 5. They raise prices and/or lower quality. 6. Consumers pay more for a shittier product.

Vertical monopolisation is a mixed bag actually. Vertically integrated companies profit more with lower prices in the downstream market than a purely downstream product company because they make profit at both stages. Antitrust law is far kinder to vertical mergers than horizontal mergers.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#182

Post by jacknews » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 4:31 PM UTC

no shit

we're in the era of 'all out competition', rules be damned

look at China

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#183

Post by vntok » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 4:31 PM UTC

mtone wrote: post #122

hanniabu wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't solve anything. They'd just split their company to be separate entities but still share all the information and operate as if nothing has changed.

Isn't that collusion?

Companies enter into agreements all the time, not all of it is necessarily collusion.

The Amazon Basics company could buy some market information or behavioural stats from the Amazon Dotcom company at a rather steep price, for example.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#184

Post by toasterlovin » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 4:32 PM UTC

ProAm wrote: post #148

malandrew wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is arguing as if Amazon is the only retailer here. Yes, they are a platform, but they are one of many. In fact, many people here contradict their own argument by saying that they are forced to go to other websites or direct to the supplier. Stating as much is tantamount to admitting that the market is functioning correctly. Amazon is great for some things and bad for other things. If it doesn’t meet your nee…

Except Amazon disallows and punishes you for selling your product cheaper on a different platform.

This is common practice in the retail industry. Large retailers want to ensure that they can offer their customers the lowest price on all of the products they sell.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#185

Post by grafporno » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 4:32 PM UTC

woodgrainz wrote: post #158

fastball wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you link to where AMZN has said this?

"Nate Sutton, associate general counsel at Amazon, told lawmakers the company doesn’t tap data from individual third-party merchants to determine what new products to create." https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/16/amazon-tells-house-it-doesnt...

Ah, the hyper-specific dementi? Doesn't tap data from _individual_ third-party merchants.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#186

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

dd36 wrote: post #161

thoraway1010 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is totally false - the number of retailers who have testified before congress that they don't use seller data to compete against sellers - and then who go ahead and do just that is basically zero. Additionally, most other retailers actually BUY the third parties products and take the risk of promoting and selling it. On Amazon third parties take the inventory and many other risks and may have to pay amazon to pr…

How would Amazon not use sales data of comparable products to evaluate the launch of a new white label product?

[deleted]

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#187

Post by sokoloff » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

archgoon wrote: post #172

dd36 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would Amazon not use sales data of comparable products to evaluate the launch of a new white label product?

Amazon agrees that what is being reported goes against their policies. '"However, we strictly prohibit our employees from using nonpublic, seller-specific data to determine which private label products to launch." Amazon said employees using such data to inform private-label decisions in the way the Journal described would violate its policies, and that the company has launched an internal investigation.'

That carefully phrased language could be technically accurate but still allow them to use seller-agnostic information about the market for batteries or speaker wire to decide to launch Amazon Basics batteries or speaker wire.

(Which by the way, I’m totally fine with, because there’s no reasonable way to prove you’re not doing it and any brick-and-mortar retailer is almost surely doing it as well.)

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#188

Post by annoyingnoob » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

jacobr1 wrote: post #62

annoyingnoob wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is not great for the consumer. It lowers the bar for everyone. What I find mostly on Amazon in the past year or so is cheaper imported versions of decent products. The decent products are hard to find or I have to look outside of Amazon. They've pushed out the quality and replaced it with higher profit junk. Its kind of the same thing with Home Depot. I used to be able to buy quality hardware from a local st…

Different problems. One is the regulation of which suppliers can distribute on a platform, deceptive advertising, right-to-repair, and similar consumer protection considerations. The other problem the article and parent comments are describing relates to the distributor/retailer creating or sourcing generic alternatives to the items sold by their existing suppliers and informing their decisions to do so based on the…

Fair enough, its not quite the same thing. Though Home Depot has a ton of its own products now too - they are doing the same thing inside physical retail stores rather than online only.

For pharmacy items where there is some regulation around the quality of the product, I find generics/store brands to be great. For products that are not regulated in some way quality is all over the place. If you search Amazon for "ul listed usb charger" you will mostly see results for products that are not UL listed - there are probably 5 times more unlisted products for sale there than listed products - Amazon is pushing a bunch of cheap and high-profit crap at me even when I try to avoid it.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#189

Post by toasterlovin » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

tcarn wrote: post #14

Amazon makes life so hard for their suppliers it doesn't even surprise me. I once shipped a box of 10 laptops to sell on FBA (retail value ~$10k) and UPS showed the box as delivered, Amazon checked in the units and showed them available for sale on the website. Then 24 hours later all of them got removed saying I sent the inaccurate quantity in the box and none where now available for sale. The laptops disappeared an…

As a counterpoint, we regularly have Amazon reimburse us for thousands of dollars of merchandise when they lose our products at their warehouses. And they reimburse us for what we would have netted had we sold the product, instead of what the product cost us. It's been a great arrangement so far.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#190

Post by thoraway1010 » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

dd36 wrote: post #161

thoraway1010 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is totally false - the number of retailers who have testified before congress that they don't use seller data to compete against sellers - and then who go ahead and do just that is basically zero. Additionally, most other retailers actually BUY the third parties products and take the risk of promoting and selling it. On Amazon third parties take the inventory and many other risks and may have to pay amazon to pr…

How would Amazon not use sales data of comparable products to evaluate the launch of a new white label product?

Amazon enticed sellers by promising them they would not do this. They literally testified before congress they would not do this.

My comment got voted to zero and negative initially - does HN not understand that lying DAMAGES even capitalistic economies and functioning markets?

"why not do this?" - because you promised you would not.

This is stuff we teach 6 year olds - but apparently the most rudimentary form of ethics is too much for amazon.