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Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

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

#461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simple, Costco actually buys the inventory, and resells it. There are more advanced kinds of agreements (like buy back X number of coats of you sell less than Y) but that's largely how they operate. Amazon is much more like a digital mall in that they rent out their store features for sellers. However, Amazon would like to be seen by the customer as Costco and this causes dissonance between how they treat seller…

Okay, you've described the business models, but so what? In both cases, they still use the sales data available to them to create and sell their own products at the expense of third party sellers. In Amazon's case, that means diverting customers away from third party listings to their own. In Costco's case, that means making fewer purchases from third party sellers because the amount of shelf space available decrease…

You can't see the difference because you're conflating the terms seller and vendor. There are no third-party sellers at Costco.

The difference really comes down to three things: the layer on which the competition occurs, whose data is being used, and whether the competition is fair (which comes down to risk/reward).

At Costco, the competition occurs between manufacturers. Costco uses its own retail data as a retailer. The risk to the vendor to sell at Costco is marginal (even if they have to pay for shelf space) compared to being in the market at all. Costco can compete with a store brand, but if they want to sell the vendors products they have to go to the vendor. They can't undercut the vendor with an equivalent product unless they make an equivalent product for cheaper. The risk is spread out and Costco owns a healthy amount of it.

At Amazon, the competition occurs between retailers. Amazon uses its competitors data, which it gains by being a 'marketplace'. The other retailer carries all the risks associated with being a retailer. Amazon takes a piece of it, the size of which depends on what 'services' the retailer uses through Amazon's marketplace. If the retailer fails, Amazon loses nothing. If the retailer wins, Amazon can use the retailers' data and begin selling the same product. It can use its size and the retailers' own numbers to get a better deal with the vendor and undercut the other retailers price on the same exact product. (Store brands are also an option and an issue, but if you're focused on that, you're missing the forest for the trees.) The retailer takes the vast majority of the risk, but Amazon can, at its option, swoop in and take the majority of the reward.

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

#462
post #302

The most interesting part of the HN discussion is not about the definition of what Amazon is doing, but the occasional misunderstanding of how large brick and mortar retail businesses operate at scale (see: buying shelf space/payment dependant on sales/etc). There are lots of folks on here that understand what Amazon is doing, less who understand retail businesses mechanisms. I'm not sure what Amazon is doing is lega…

I don't think that's a fair comparison. It would be like if Amazon owned the entire mall, and would kick out competitors and establish their own stores once they become profitable. Amazon is both a retailer in the sense that they sell products, but also owns the entire marketplace as well.

How is that functionally different from identifying a product that is selling well, making your own version of it, and selling that at the identified best or lower price from the data generated by the third party? Sure they may still list the third party (in direct competition in the same marketplace) but that doesn't mean they aren't acting extremely anticompetitive for a marketplace.

This isn't one off or new either but a pattern of abuse by Amazon: https://fortune.com/2016/04/20/amazon-copies-merchants/

Or from today: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/4700-amazon-empl...

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

#463

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 Amazon and Costco situations are different.

When they start by doing independent market research, selecting a product, building/sourcing it and marketing it, then analyzing data generated by their own sales of these products in their own stores (brick & mortar or online), they are the same.

The DIFFERENCE is that Amazon also hosts other sellers and uses THEIR data.

So, an entrepreneur comes along having designed, arranged fabrication, and imports a product, then pays fees to sell it on Amazon. Amazon now uses THE MERCHANT's own data against them to notice the successful product, decide that it will be profitable, then search out the same manufacturer, offer a better deal, start selling on their own market as Amazon Basics, then kick the original seller off the market. [1], [2] It happens repeatedly enough to call it systematic.

So, if you are only marginally successful, you can continue selling unmolested.

But, if you find good success, Amazon will use your data to chop the top success zone right off of your business, after charging you for services while you spend decades building it.

It is even better than Zuckerberg's plan - at least Farcebook doesn't charge you to hijack your data for their purposes - Amazon charges you AND hijacks your data.

Just because it evades existing laws does not make it right.

I will certainly not be selling anything on Amazon that either 1) I'm 100% certain cannot be reproduced elsewhere or 2) I only intend to be a small or temporary market.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-competition-shopify-wayf...

[2] https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2020/12/24/amazon-tripod-company-...

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

#464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the right way to look at it, missing just one crucial detail. Costco pays for the items that appear on its shelves (excepting the Amazon gets paid by the distributors (aka third party sellers) on Amazon.com for handling their sales (even in instances where it is not handling fulfillment), while also competing against them. That is where the anticompetitive concerns arise. If Amazon just sold stuff through the…

Don't most large brick and mortar retailers maintain refund for unsold goods agreements in addition to defects? Generally only exercised if they are complete failures. Effectively the difference in practice is a matter of financing and grain of operation - older retail would gain more and give no extra to upfront sales of say toliet paper after a demand spike raised prices while Amazon would give them a per sale perc…

I don't know why HN is so focused on consignment sales. They are a tiny portion of the retail market, because no store (even Walmart) has the leverage to force consignment terms on their suppliers except for the tiny portion consisting of new products that distributors are trying to get stores to start selling.

Also, Amazon does not give a per sale cut of the percentage, nor would they, since that's not how consignment works. Consignment goods are still sold at retail price; the only difference is that the supplier only gets paid for goods that sold. They don't get to share in the (additional) profits if the retailer (aka "Amazon.com")charges more due to spiking prices.

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

#465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it were true... and this became public, AWS as a business would be done. Why on earth would you think that? They did worse on their storefront, which has a much smaller migration burden than AWS, and while a few big brands made a stink and pulled out, it didn't even noticeably slow growth.

... because it's a colossal breach of trust. AWS has an entire staff of people whose job it is to convince clients that they can be trusted to be a safe custodian of data that includes heavily regulated types of data. Doing this would blow a huge hole in that. Do you really think banks are going to stay in AWS if this happens? Do you really think Salesforce is going to be OK with it? Do you think they'd ever do any U…

Yes, yes (to the extent of maintaining their business relationship), and yes. I think you vastly underestimate the power of apathy. 99% of their customers won't even think about it, 90% of the customers who do think about it won't weigh its importance strongly enough to even potentially impact their decision, and 90% of the remaining customers will be satisfied with some minor deflection, platitudes, and hand-waving.

Don't get me wrong, I wish you were right, I just don't think you are.

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

#466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sorry I missed your detailed reply -- very interesting.
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