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Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

politico.eu

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Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#51

Post by libertine »

kishinmanglani wrote: post #11

Literally every retailer ever does this. From Macy’s to Target to Walmart to Shoprite

Doesn't make it right though.

Every brand must estimate their competitors market shares, sales volumes, media spend, and actively track promotional activity - while retailers have a massive slice of this information, namely Amazon. Not only that they control their own "shelves".

In my point of view they shouldn't be allowed to compete if they are using competitors data without their consent... and that's the catch, it's Amazon data as well, so the only solution is: either Amazon is a market place or a retailer.

Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#52

Post by nerbert »

LightG wrote: post #39
spaceribs wrote: post #2

Amazon should be nationalized. All these 3rd party companies want is a "farmers market", a stall to sell their wares. Give them the municipal software infrastructure they need to do so and maintain it as a public good.

It's a catch-22 ... would Amazon be this innovative had it been nationalised? At what point do you nationalise? Is there a next technology which will be stifled if it was nationalise? Does nationalisation sttifle innovation? I've been wrestling with these questions as I actually don't like Amazon for all the reasons that have been well publicised ... but their customer service is excellent. Which sets me against a st…

Amazon the marketplace isn’t terribly innovative. It’s a marketplace supported by fantastic logistics, and most of it is backed by USPS anyways. There’s only so much you can do to remove the pains from buyers, sounds like we’re there.

Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#53

Post by ekianjo »

amelius wrote: post #10
spaceribs wrote: post #2

Amazon should be nationalized. All these 3rd party companies want is a "farmers market", a stall to sell their wares. Give them the municipal software infrastructure they need to do so and maintain it as a public good.

Stallman said it too: https://stallman.org/amazon.html > We should not allow a company to have a share over around 10% of any market. If in a certain field a single dominant company is beneficial for society, that means it is a natural monopoly, and should be served by a regulated utility.

RMS is right about many things but not this one. Competition naturally leads to few companies capturing a market over a long period of time. What's however important is to prevent actively regulatory capture of said markets.

Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#54

Post by mellavora »

spaceribs wrote: post #2

Amazon should be nationalized. All these 3rd party companies want is a "farmers market", a stall to sell their wares. Give them the municipal software infrastructure they need to do so and maintain it as a public good.

We have that in Luxembourg. Problem is finding the site. You have to know it is there.

Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#55

Post by ekianjo »

jononomo wrote: post #15
syshum wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea I am going to go ahead and say No to that.... Amazon has issues, but "nationalizing" it would not ease those issues in fact in most ways it would make them worse.

I completely disagree. Amazon should be nationalized. This would make life better for citizens.

Products more expensive is better?

Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#56

Post by ceejayoz »

logicchains wrote: post #33
ceejayoz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For one, large government software projects are almost always disastrous, even in developed countries. The same tends to be true for large corporate software projects. As a fairly recent example: https://www.theregister.com/2019/04/23/hertz_accenture_lawsu...

>The same tends to be true for large corporate software projects. Yes, but it's not true for Amazon, the topic of conversation.

Isn't the topic of conversation that Amazon's successful software projects have had potentially disastrous side-effects?

Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#57

Post by ahiknsr »

mk89 wrote: post #21

Well, it's something that is slowly backfiring. It's under the eyes of everyone, and not enforcing such policy will only make it even worse for Amazon itself that eventually will end up selling only non-branded products. Finally it will be only another e-commerce like "ebay" used to be, and something else will replace it. Just enjoy the ride until you can. PS: speaking out of experience, I had one time a talk to a di…

> I had one time a talk to a director from an important online shop (top 3 in the country in that specific field) and "this sort of things" was exactly the reason why they chose to use MS Azure instead of AWS. Imagine how deep it can go

This seems to be very common. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobevans1/2018/07/18/walmart-ci...

Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#59

Post by pc86 »

jedimastert wrote: post #42
beforeolives wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that Stallman agreeing adds as much credibility to the idea as you might think.

As much I dislike Stallman's outreach "strategies" and general public efforts, I'll freely admit he's been right a LOT. The problem is that no one will listen to him because he's an ass about it. I imagine he thinks himself a modern day Cassandra...

Even if he is right a lot (not a point I'm conceding by any stretch), why pick such an asinine thing as "11% market share means we should treat this market as a regulated utility?" It's an extremely fringe belief, which is saying something given the source.

Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#60

Post by pc86 »

alfonsodev wrote: post #38
rualca wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should not allow a company to have a share over around 10% of any market. If a company was already at said 10% limit and you wanted to buy something out of them because to you their offer is by far so much better than any of the alternatives, in your opinion what should happen?

The price would regulate itself by offer/demand balance and you would still be able to buy it if you can afford it. With no limits, they can actually create artificial lower prices that competition can’t match, and they become exponentially more powerful and dominating. And sometimes you end up as a customer having less options and lower quality.

Price dumping is already illegal.
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