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Amazon’s New Competitive Advantage: Putting Its Own Products First

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Re: Amazon’s New Competitive Advantage: Putting Its Own Products First

#151

Post by egd »

saltedonion wrote: post #13

I don’t see what’s wrong with this. Many retailers reserve some of their best shelves paces for their private label products, both as a form of differentiation and to extract higher margins. You could argue that Amazon is unique in that it is large and potentially has a monopoly over eCommerce, but it is hard to say that in the end, consumers are on the loosing end. Most amazon basic products are commodities, and pri…

> but it is hard to say that in the end, consumers are on the loosing end.

Consumers are actual humans with complex lives that often also include producing things. Every seller that Amazon drives out of business is a consumer (or consumers) that no longer has an income. That's how this harms consumers.

Re: Amazon’s New Competitive Advantage: Putting Its Own Products First

#152

Post by wwarner »

Haters gonna hate.

Every retailer has a store brand. Why is it a public good that I have to pay a premium price for a cable from a pre-approved seller? Why should anyone selling on Amazon think that they have an exclusive relationship with their customers? Sellers can, and always have, cannibalized one another's products. Yes, in school it's cheating, but in retail it's called competition.

Every retailer can compete with Amazon on any axis they want to, whether it's selection, price or service. Walmart does, IKEA does, and Ebay and Etsy and FreshDirect and Target and Powells. I buy online from all of these companies.

Amazon never seems to get credit for things that it does that are good for society. There are the obvious things, like trustworthy ecommerce, huge selection, fast shipping and low prices. But then there are things like raising the minimum hourly wage to $15/hr, supplying PPE and food during a pandemic and providing tax revenue through salaries. Add to that creating new economic sectors and leading the world in distributed s/w development. None of these things is inevitable, none of these things are easy to do.

Re: Amazon’s New Competitive Advantage: Putting Its Own Products First

#153

Post by SolarNet »

mthra wrote: post #141

If FooCorp chose to list competing products on their own website (and to help facilitate payments, returns, etc.), and it became popular because it allowed consumers to comparison shop more easily, would that also be an antitrust issue? Is their a legal distinction that establishes Amazon as a platform first, and a seller second?

Antitrust is kind of a nebulous smell test (I'll know shit when I smell it kinda thing), and from before the internet era, so I don't think the distinction exists. It's more about how consumers end up interacting with the market due to the actions of the companies being prosecuted/regulated.

The issue in this case would be that Amazon is manipulating the markets involved by effectively being the market. If FooCorp was a minor player in the market, didn't buy up competing marketplaces, and was clear about it's brand as a seller of Foo products that would be fine (think Costco and Kirkland Signature branded products). The issue with Amazon is that it is half of all eCommerce, buys up competing marketplaces to shutter them, it is hellishly difficult to determine what is an Amazon sold product and a marketplace sold product on their site, and their brand is as a marketplace.

Re: Amazon’s New Competitive Advantage: Putting Its Own Products First

#154

Post by robryan »

chillacy wrote: post #20
saltedonion wrote: post #13

I don’t see what’s wrong with this. Many retailers reserve some of their best shelves paces for their private label products, both as a form of differentiation and to extract higher margins. You could argue that Amazon is unique in that it is large and potentially has a monopoly over eCommerce, but it is hard to say that in the end, consumers are on the loosing end. Most amazon basic products are commodities, and pri…

Add to this the fact that a lot of these brands don’t even manufacture their items in the first place: they source manufacturers and slap their logo and marketing on, then markup the item price. Does that really add value? In some cases the private label even uses the same manufacturers, the people producing the product still get paid in the end.

I think what Amazon is saying here is if it is just about slapping a logo on something Amazon can do it better and cheaper than all of these 3rd parties.

In some of these categories it is basically heaps of 3rd parties slapping logos on the same stuff and the winner is whoever best games the reviews for search rankings. They are now annoyed that in some cases Amazon decides that there is no winner.

Re: Amazon’s New Competitive Advantage: Putting Its Own Products First

#155

Post by DubiousPusher »

It's interesting to see how "vertical integration" has gone from being an unacceptable form of monopoly to widely expected. The government broke up film companies for controlling production, distribution and exhibition in the 40s but it's been pretty par for the course in retail for the past 40 years.

Re: Amazon’s New Competitive Advantage: Putting Its Own Products First

#156

Post by anonAndOn »

aeturnum wrote: post #52
saltedonion wrote: post #13

I don’t see what’s wrong with this. Many retailers reserve some of their best shelves paces for their private label products, both as a form of differentiation and to extract higher margins. You could argue that Amazon is unique in that it is large and potentially has a monopoly over eCommerce, but it is hard to say that in the end, consumers are on the loosing end. Most amazon basic products are commodities, and pri…

I think it's easy to describe why it's problematic without even referring to antitrust. Amazon's brand (as a store / marketplace) is that it helps you sort through many options to select the product they believe you will like the best. This is different from the service offered by traditional grocery stores which offer many different products, but are not arranging those products in relation to a particular request.…

> different from the service offered by traditional grocery stores which offer many different products, but are not arranging those products in relation to a particular request

That is incorrect. You may be surprised to learn that grocery stores sell prime shelf space to distributors/brands.[0]. In this case, it's the distributer's request - not yours.

[0]https://cspinet.org/news/supermarkets-%E2%80%9Crigged%E2%80%...

Re: Amazon’s New Competitive Advantage: Putting Its Own Products First

#157

Post by miguelmota »

sosuke wrote: post #129
miguelmota wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only see Google routers and cameras in that link. Can you provide a link to an actual Google Home or Google Nest Mini (Alexa competitor)?

Shrug, I see what you're saying but we can't be sure they are trying to list those items and are being told "no". https://smile.amazon.com/stores/Google+Inc./page/080B7645-82...

Being told "no" by who? Google? It doesn't make sense that Google would allow Amazon to sell all their products except for things like Google Homes and Google Nest Cameras which Amazon has direct competing products (ie Amazon Alexa, Amazon Ring Doorbell). If people can buy Google Homes and sell them on eBay but not on Amazon then Amazon is not an open market because Amazon is restricting selling specific products that compete with their product line.

Re: Amazon’s New Competitive Advantage: Putting Its Own Products First

#158

Post by Shivetya »

saltedonion wrote: post #13

I don’t see what’s wrong with this. Many retailers reserve some of their best shelves paces for their private label products, both as a form of differentiation and to extract higher margins. You could argue that Amazon is unique in that it is large and potentially has a monopoly over eCommerce, but it is hard to say that in the end, consumers are on the loosing end. Most amazon basic products are commodities, and pri…

At least Amazon isn't hiding that an item is a store brand unlike most if not all grocery chains who go out of their way to disassociate a brand with the store name.

Now that is not to say there isn't a brand being sold on Amazon that isn't labeled as such. While I have bought many Amazon branded items there have been a few I skipped because of reviews.

Re: Amazon’s New Competitive Advantage: Putting Its Own Products First

#159

Post by curryst »

saltking112 wrote: post #121
Beached wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, Walmart is also mega huge, and also allows 3rd party sellers on their website. is it troublesome that Walmart also promotes their own items or the items where they make the most profit first?

Walmart eCommerce is relatively small, so not really comparable in terms of anti-trust concerns.

In the physical space, Walmart is still king though, so the same concerns that apply to Amazon's ecommerce would also apply to Walmart's in store product placement.

The anti-trust concerns would also apply to Walmart's own ecommerce. They're effectively leveraging their brick and mortar presence to establish their ecommerce business (which is presently the 2nd largest in the US). The 3rd largest is eBay, which leaves one to wonder how much of the hole left by Amazon would be absorbed by Walmart.

Re: Amazon’s New Competitive Advantage: Putting Its Own Products First

#160

Post by raz32dust »

wwarner wrote: post #152

Haters gonna hate. Every retailer has a store brand. Why is it a public good that I have to pay a premium price for a cable from a pre-approved seller? Why should anyone selling on Amazon think that they have an exclusive relationship with their customers? Sellers can, and always have, cannibalized one another's products. Yes, in school it's cheating, but in retail it's called competition. Every retailer can compete…

This has been discussed in threads below, but the jist of the issue is that Amazon is pretty much a monopoly as an online product discovery service. If they put their own products at the top, people will end up with no way of discovering other companies. It would be using its monopoly position as a product discovery service to profit its own manufacturing subsidy.

> Every retailer can compete with Amazon on any axis they want to, whether it's selection, price or service. Walmart does, IKEA does, and Ebay and Etsy and FreshDirect and Target and Powells. I buy online from all of these companies.

That's the crux of the debate IMO - whether or not Amazon is a monopoly. You say that other retailers can compete effectively as a product discovery service. I am not sure. I think the vast majority just searches on Amazon at this point, so it is sort of a monopoly.

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