Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by passivate » Mon, May 03, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #36

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?

There should be an investigation into why they can make a far better offer than their competition. Most answers are likely exploitative in some way.

What does that mean - Investigation of what? By whom? and on what basis/framework? Can you propose something workable?

In any case, there are many reasons a company can offer a better deal - they have invested money and developed a new product/service that the competition cannot simply copy or negotiated a better deal with a supplier, or they're simply a better managed company, or about a million other things businesses can do to gain leverage over competition.

Also, like a closely fought game - the advantage could just be temporary. These things are very fluid.

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

#312

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, May 03, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

an_opabinia wrote: post #177

sharklazer wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Money talks and BS walks” Consumers may not be fed up with Amazon, but if this is SOP then the sellers WILL leave and a competitor with better SOP will come in. Getting f’ed in the arse as a consumer is one thing. Getting f’ed in the arse by Jeffy B as a business is another. It is trust which makes this world go ‘round.

If sellers want their sales information to be private, they should make a compelling retail experience they control. That is where they obtain real competitive advantage. Changing from Amazon to another online retailer - that retailer will still analyze third party sales data. It still isn’t clear if it matters. You have little perspective or experience on selling easily cloned $10-100 items (Amazon Basics) anywhere.…

Great argument, could be used to rebut anything:

If someone wants their mobile phone data and photos to be private, they should make a compelling mobile os they control.

If someone wants a water supply that is not polluted with toxic runoff they should start their own waterworks, lay their own pipes, and potentially buy their own lake because some pollution is unremovable.

If someone wants not to be discriminated against they should start their own country.

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

#313

Post by awillen » Mon, May 03, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

rossjudson wrote: post #285

awillen wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just isn't really true. It depends on what type of product you're selling, but there are a huge number of independent ecommerce stores that do extremely well. I sell dog treat mix (coopersdogtreats.com) - I do much better both in terms of margins and overall sales on my own website (with traffic coming primarily via paid FB ads) than on Amazon. That's not even including other huge marketplaces like walmart.com,…

I'm curious about how you would compare Amazon vs your own site. Things like Amazon's buyer-friendly return policy comes to mind...which clearly come at a cost for sellers (and buyers, fairly directly).

I have a very small number of returns on Amazon, since my product can't be used and then returned.

Amazon isn't terrible, but it has two big problems for me. First, margins are lower because I'm not only paying them a cut of every sale, I'm also paying for Amazon advertising. Second, I don't have a relationship with the buyer, which is the real killer. I do really well with repeat sales via email, and those are where the real margin is since I'm not paying to acquire those users again. On my site, I can afford to break even (or even lose a little money) on the first sale, where I must make money on each sale on Amazon.

I will say the one big difference between my product and many on Amazon is that it's not something that you seek out - very few people are searching for "dog treat mix" on Amazon (or Google/Bing/etc.). Amazon does have some types of advertising that work well for targeting other luxury dog goods, but my volume is going to be limited there. Facebook advertising works better for me, because I can target people by demographics and explain the product in an ad.

To that point, it may be important to be on Amazon if you're in a commodity business. On the other hand, it sucks to be in a commodity business for so many other reasons that I hardly think it's reasonable to pin the blame on Amazon for the difficulties there.

The one thing I will say about Amazon vs. Shopify that surprised me is that Amazon's support tends to be quite competent (at least if you call them - you get nothing but canned responses via email), while Shopify's is just terrible. They can help with basic issues using the software, but when it comes to real problems, like bugs in reporting (or more recently in my case, a bug where they undercharged a customer), they just say they'll get back to you and never do unless you are incredibly aggressive about hounding them.

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

#314

Post by cwkoss » Mon, May 03, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

TheCapn wrote: post #238

bsch wrote: post #150

I'm a third party seller and I just left Amazon. When you buy a book, for example, are you aware that 40% of the sale goes to Amazon? Many sellers sell cheap items at a steep loss just to keep their sale metrics up. A couple bad reviews, etc. and your business is kicked off with little explanation and cold or no way to appeal. Third party sellers are not treated well and I'm not surprised Amazon steals seller data me…

>A couple bad reviews, etc. and your business is kicked off with little explanation There's got to be a dark underbelly to Amazon going on at the same time. My wife is bored enough that she's taken up a fight with Amazon over some bluetooth earbuds she returned. The earbuds themselves just simply didn't work; they'd do things they're not supposed to and not things they are supposed to so she posted a review saying su…

Amazon has structured their reviews to enable unethical behavior by sellers.

Any review which comments on the seller or seller's behavior is removed because the product page is supposed to be a page of seller-agnostic reviews of the product. There is a separate page of reviews for each seller, but it is buried to the point that no-one looks at it.

It makes it leaving reviews about sellers doing unethical things like paying for reviews fruitless: either you put it on the product and it is removed quickly, or you put it on the seller and no one sees it.

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

#315

Post by alias_neo » Mon, May 03, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

shiftpgdn wrote: post #173

alias_neo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more than a little disturbed by that response, can you back that bold accusation up with some references? I _need_ to read more about this (about to begin a migration to AWS, not retail though).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19734261 https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/news/ovh-ceo-unlike-amazo... https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/amazon-literally-s... https://fortune.com/2016/04/20/amazon-copies-merchants/ https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2019/9/19/20874818/amazon-allb... I can't find the most recent set of posts about peering into customer's AWS instances to research what they could copy but con…

Thank you for the effort of posting those. Unfortunately they don't really indicate any data being taken from AWS specifically, all of the copying behaviour appears to be Amazon storefront copy-cat tactics.

As for govcloud, it exists because regulatory requirements for running things for gov are more strict than your average user/business requires and such cloud offerings require certain levels of hardening and software security and assurances. I happen to work in the space so I understand the need for an alternative offering for government requirements. There's really nothing nefarious going on there and its more about govs not wanting to run alongside regular users. I see nothing concrete I could take to my superiors.

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

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Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, May 03, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #123

ghusbands wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody can know for sure. Whether or not they were secretly mining data from AWS servers, they would say they don't and nobody on the outside would be able to tell. Even if it's unlikely, many people are simply choosing not to risk it.

This is at the level of a conspiracy theory right now, and one that doesn't even make any sense. If it were true that Amazon were taking sneaky peeks at data inside AWS related to retailers, and this became public, AWS as a business would be done. The loud banging you'd be hearing would be the door closing as the last customer exited, followed by all the engineering staff who work on AWS as they see the writing on th…

Its always a conpiracy theory untill it happens, and then it becomes obvious all along.

People who predicted the 2008 crash used to get tinfoil hats in the mail.

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

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Post by hnburnsy » Mon, May 03, 2021, 5:12 PM UTC

PoignardAzur wrote: post #299

carlps wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not intimately familiar with either side, but I see it as: - Costco buys x amount of product at y price from seller and then sells it in its store. - Amazon provides a platform for sellers to sell with a cut going back to Amazon. There is a fundamental difference between being a retailer and providing a retail platform. All Costco would really have access to is how much they've bought and how that has performed f…

> I'm not intimately familiar with either side, but I see it as: - Costco buys x amount of product at y price from seller and then sells it in its store. - Amazon provides a platform for sellers to sell with a cut going back to Amazon. This isn't really how it works. Retailers very often have arrangements to defer payments until after the product is sold. In fact, in France, retail margins are so thin that supermarke…

With short term interest rates in the negative in France, I wonder what their business model is now...

https://data.oecd.org/interest/short-term-interest-rates.htm

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

#318

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, May 03, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

rualca wrote: post #18

amelius wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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?

If they are offering, you buy it. Regulation would affect their legal ability and/or willingness (depending on the style of regulation) to make the offer.

For instance, a regulation addressing this could involve a tax on gross receipts (not profits) in a defined market segment that was 0% at up to 8% share, and 50%×(10 - share in %) above that point.

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

#319

Post by tlogan » Mon, May 03, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

jasallen wrote: post #205

Gasparila wrote: post #175

Thought exercise because I legitimately struggle with this. Is this fundamentally different than Costco using sales data to choose which Kirkland products to launch/sell? If so, how? If not, then why do we not pursue Costco with the same gusto as Amazon? To me this behavior by Amazon seems worse, but I can't figure out why.

The difference is between retailer and marketplace. Both Amazon and Costco are retailers, and both could use that knowledge to decide what products to self-source for better retail margins. Either way, still a retailer, but maybe also a manufacturer / wholesaler. But Amazon is also a marketplace. In that role it acts as a "rentable retail space". Using the data of the retailers in your marketplace to decide what to m…

Majority of big retails also rent majority of their shelves to vendors. This is called consignment contract.

So no big difference...

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

#320

Post by soperj » Mon, May 03, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

mrandish wrote: post #248

NegativeLatency wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Costco sells a product they’ve already bought it (a retailer) on the other hand when Amazon sells something they’re just acting as a middle party for the item in most cases.

That's often not the case. Retailers like Costco, Walmart, Best Buy etc have a wide variety of different selling arrangements. I've sold products through all three and often did so on terms that gave them full right of return for any unsold product as well as significantly delayed payment. This combination basically nets out to be financially the same as pure consignment. They won't pay me for my product until well a…

>(and they always drag out the payment beyond the already-extended due date)

That's pretty much their business model isn't it? Make money on investing for the days between product sold and payment.