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

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

#341

Post by chillacy »

sacks2k wrote: post #171

I saw this happening a decade ago, but I had no real proof. I had a profitable Amazon store in 2010. I found niche products that Amazon didn't sell. As soon as I started getting traction on any one product, Amazon would start undercutting me, and my sales would drop to almost zero over the course of a couple of weeks. I had near 100% feedback and I had a single customer complaint that I sold them the wrong product. W…

Is life significantly better for retails selling through grocery or other retailers? What stops Safeway from one day selling a competing product under their store brand? And then they'd still be charging you for shelf placement.

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

#343

Post by TimSchumann »

econcon wrote: post #331
sacks2k wrote: post #171

I saw this happening a decade ago, but I had no real proof. I had a profitable Amazon store in 2010. I found niche products that Amazon didn't sell. As soon as I started getting traction on any one product, Amazon would start undercutting me, and my sales would drop to almost zero over the course of a couple of weeks. I had near 100% feedback and I had a single customer complaint that I sold them the wrong product. W…

Same happens to us but we split sales to Shopify. Any idea if Shopify does same? It seems their ambitions keeps growing, they started charging percentage of revenue instead of flat subscription.

I've had this thought as well, and certainly there seems to be nothing preventing them from going down that road. Though at least with Shopify, it's theoretically easier to move your website to another platform/service or just roll your own.

I'd say that you're basically at their mercy with regards to the charging a percentage of revenue though. I mean, that's how all card processors work.

By default I trust Shopify more than Amazon, and in both instances your business is essentially succeeding 'at their pleasure' so to speak. So I thought on it for a minute.

I think the main difference comes down to individuals in the business and culture. I'd elaborate more but I'm not sure I want to write that much speculative crap on the internet this morning, and I should get something productive done with my day.

EDIT: Also just realized, that if you look at my spending habits, they 100% imply I trust Amazon more than Shopify.

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

#344

Post by dv_dt »

allemagne wrote: post #248
dv_dt wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what India basically regulated with Amazon. i.e. a company can't sell proudts on their open-market platform from companies you have a stake in (or your own generics presumably?). https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2019/02/01/new-ecommerce-...

FTA: >The new rules could wipe out nearly half the products on Amazon.in, said Satish Meena, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. “It’s likely to disrupt availability for customers,” he said. >The biggest beneficiary from the tightened rules could be Reliance, which is India’s largest private company and owns the country’s biggest brick and mortar retail chain. In theory India standing up to giant foreign corporatio…

Or it will allow small businesses space to compete in India instead of taking a shortcut of allowing unfettered access by large corps to increase commerce, but in a way that funnels profits away from India itself.

That portion of the article is basically the opinion part. I didn't find great coverage over the full details of the regulations themselves.

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

#345

Post by darkerside »

TimSchumann wrote: post #281
motoboi wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely no veil between the hypervisor and the guest virtual machines. Not in the EBS either. If they say they won't read your data, better trust them. If you don't, stay away from their datacenters. EDIT: fix typo.

> The is absolutely no veil between the hypervisor and the guest virtual machines. Not in the EBS either. This is 100% true. To do any useful computation on your data (read, what you're using all AWS for) they have to have 100% visibility into your data. > If they say they won't read your data, better trust them. If you don't, stay away from their datacenters. That's it, right there. All of this is based on Trust in…

This is a similar level of trust that you give to banks not to seize your money, or to your bodyguard not to do you physical harm. Stealing data from a customer paying for hosting would be _very_ different, and much more scandalous, than identifying trends on a competitive marketplace and taking advantage of them by launching competing products.

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

#346

Post by annoyingnoob »

freeone3000 wrote: post #83
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…

The Amazon Basics products I've purchased have been of acceptable quality - and at least I know they're not counterfeit.

I can't really argue with that.

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

#348

Post by chillacy »

pge wrote: post #338
entee wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major question I don’t have a good answer to is, “Why is this different than brick and mortar store brands like Safeway signature?” Surely a part of is is placement, but Safeway could put own brand ketchup at the same level (and I think sometimes does) as Heinz and still wouldn’t sell the same volume. Amazon is clearly getting a big advantage here, I’m just curious about what the underlying dynamics are that allo…

I have wondered the same thing every time this question comes up. It seems the difference is that the companies that put products in grocery stores are very large companies that spend a huge amount on marketing themselves (e.g. P&G, General Mills). So, the "house brand" is less recognizable to consumers and sells at a discount to the known brand that is often a larger company than the grocery chain. The grocery store…

I had a friend who worked at a milk factory. They took their 2% organic milk and piped it into cartons with different labels: brand names as well as store brands, off to be sold at various price points.

To his company it didn't matter at the end of the day if people bought the brand name or the store brand, it was all the same stuff.

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

#349

Post by entee »

pge wrote: post #338
entee wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major question I don’t have a good answer to is, “Why is this different than brick and mortar store brands like Safeway signature?” Surely a part of is is placement, but Safeway could put own brand ketchup at the same level (and I think sometimes does) as Heinz and still wouldn’t sell the same volume. Amazon is clearly getting a big advantage here, I’m just curious about what the underlying dynamics are that allo…

I have wondered the same thing every time this question comes up. It seems the difference is that the companies that put products in grocery stores are very large companies that spend a huge amount on marketing themselves (e.g. P&G, General Mills). So, the "house brand" is less recognizable to consumers and sells at a discount to the known brand that is often a larger company than the grocery chain. The grocery store…

I think you’re totally right. In addition/corollary, it seems a lot of the things Amazon Basics sells are basically commodities. If you have a million iPad stands, eh, just buy the amazon basics one, it’s probably not crap and the reviews look good. I need my stand, my USB adapter, my cable, my whatever to just, “do the job”, there’s not a whole lot of performance differential within the category beyond works/doesn’t work. If there’s a strong quality differentiator in the product I think they’d do less well and I bet their data scientists have answered that question one way or the other.

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

#350

Post by [deleted] »

sacks2k wrote: post #171

I saw this happening a decade ago, but I had no real proof. I had a profitable Amazon store in 2010. I found niche products that Amazon didn't sell. As soon as I started getting traction on any one product, Amazon would start undercutting me, and my sales would drop to almost zero over the course of a couple of weeks. I had near 100% feedback and I had a single customer complaint that I sold them the wrong product. W…

[deleted]
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