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Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

atg.wa.gov

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Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#131

Post by pishpash »

throw_nbvc1234 wrote: post #38

In case others were as confused as i was about this "While they’re often confused, Sold by Amazon and Fulfilled by Amazon are two different things. With SBA, Amazon prices your products and owns any transactions that take place. When an item sells, they pass the proceeds on to you for allowing them to sell your product. With FBA, you price your products and own the transactions. It is a service where Amazon handles t…

I've realized that "Sold by Amazon" must not always be true Amazon when "Sold by Amazon" items could go in and out of stock at a frequency faster than reasonable and wondered if it was the same stock and real seller as "Fulfilled by Amazon".

Another thing Amazon does these days is real-time delivery time arbitraging on top of real-time prices. You may see an item be delivered by some date X, only to see minutes later it is available to be delivered by date X-2. To them it's another lever to pull.

They must have some game theorists/economists working on this.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#132

Post by jamesfinlayson »

Supermancho wrote: post #21
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All big corps require you to take this kind of training.

> All big corps require you to take this kind of training. I've worked at a couple "big corps" as an internal developer. JPMC, BestBuy, Experian, etc. Never encountered it. I suspect it's only for those companies in danger (or with a history of being charged with) breeching anti-trust.

Maybe it depends on the industry? I've worked in big companies with big interests in goverment-regulated industries and every single person has had to do this sort of training, regardless of role (there'll be a course every month, and big responsibilities like anti-money laundering and corruption get rehashed yearly).

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#133

Post by altcognito »

addaon wrote: post #114
dannyw wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be specific, Amazon co-mingles inventory between Amazon, Sold by Amazon, and its third party sellers that are Fulfilled by Amazon. It doesn't matter who you buy from. The picker at the warehouse picks from the same box, the actual product could come from any seller, even if it's "Sold by Amazon". Who you purchase from is purely an accounting thing, unless they manage their own stock and is not part of Prime. If yo…

They don't co-mingle inventory on everything, it varies from product to product (although the majority are indeed co-mingled). While there's no visible way to tell if a product is co-mingled, Amazon support is able to look it up. Whenever I'm buying an item that I would be unhappy with a counterfeit (so anything expensive, electronic, or that goes in my mouth or body) I contact Amazon support by live chat and ask the…

I bet they just don’t allow you to investigate this via customer service anymore.

This would be a great area for regulation as well. If Amazon did it, someone else is bound to do it in the future as well.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#134

Post by Avshalom »

Spivak wrote: post #61
clintonc wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am Amazon, and you sell cat mugs. I offer you a "sold by Amazon" contract, which you accept. I start manufacturing my own cat mugs, and sell them at a price that undercuts yours. You have no way to change your price, so your mugs no longer compete effectively with Amazon cat mugs. Most of your sales go away, because Amazon is so dominant as an online marketplace (NOT as a cat mug manufacturer). This is anti-competi…

How is this different from Kroger getting to set the prices of both Lay’s and their store brand chips?

Side note: Lays are actually a vendored product at Target. I don't know about Kroger.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#135

Post by ThrustVectoring »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #95
FireBeyond wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it can create any product that is selling well, and at any price point, because it _also_ has the right to subsequently raise _your_ price. You're selling dongles for $20. You sign a contract with Amazon. It realizes that dongles are lucrative, and starts getting them manufactured. Hey, it can sell dongles for $20, too. But then they're competing with you, because you both sell $20 dongles. So, solution, they…

Substitute Walmart for Amazon. Substitute corn-flakes for dongles. Substitute Kelloggs for "me". That is the situation right now at Walmart. Kellogg's Corn Flakes are $3.28 for an 18oz pack. Great Value (Walmart own-brand) Corn Flakes are $1.43 for the same size package.

I think the big difference here is who takes on inventory risk. If a traditional retailer wants to buy something wholesale and then not sell it because their price is too high, then well, they bought the product and it's their problem to deal with.

In the Sold By Amazon program, it sounds like there wasn't a volume minimum or an actual purchase-for-resale going on. The inventory isn't on Amazon's balance sheet at all, if it doesn't sell then that's someone else's problem financially.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#136

Post by Melatonic »

addaon wrote: post #114
dannyw wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be specific, Amazon co-mingles inventory between Amazon, Sold by Amazon, and its third party sellers that are Fulfilled by Amazon. It doesn't matter who you buy from. The picker at the warehouse picks from the same box, the actual product could come from any seller, even if it's "Sold by Amazon". Who you purchase from is purely an accounting thing, unless they manage their own stock and is not part of Prime. If yo…

They don't co-mingle inventory on everything, it varies from product to product (although the majority are indeed co-mingled). While there's no visible way to tell if a product is co-mingled, Amazon support is able to look it up. Whenever I'm buying an item that I would be unhappy with a counterfeit (so anything expensive, electronic, or that goes in my mouth or body) I contact Amazon support by live chat and ask the…

Ive also heard that they no longer comingle products multiple times so I am not sure what to believe anymore. Lots of people have told me that this is old data (in regards to Ships and Sold by Amazon).

I have noticed less counterfeits these days

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#137

Post by errcorrectcode »

pstrateman wrote: post #84
ISL wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm extra confused, as I'd interpreted "Ships from and sold by Amazon" as "Amazon supplied the goods and will vouch for their validity", whereas "Sold by ISL" would have meant that ISL was on the ultimate hook should the goods prove to be counterfeit. Learn something new (and important) every day.

Sold by Amazon and Fulfilled by Amazon seem to come out of the same box at the warehouse. Unfortunately if you really need genuine products you simply cannot buy things off Amazon anymore.

> Unfortunately if you really need genuine products you simply cannot buy things off Amazon anymore.

Untrue. Stick to SBA, and it's like any other retail store with customary supply chain integrity.

FBA can be anything because Amazon didn't purchase the goods, they're only warehousing and delivering them.

SBA and each FBA are separate bins by design. The commingling of different SBA/FBA sources at the same ASIN (item on the website the customer buys from) would be a different issue.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#138

Post by imroot »

clintonc wrote: post #67
Spivak wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this different from Kroger getting to set the prices of both Lay’s and their store brand chips?

It would be the same, except - Kroger isn't 50% of all grocery stores on earth - Kroger paid money up front for your potato chips - Kroger isn't charging you for storing your potato chips

> - Kroger isn't charging you for storing your potato chips

That's not completely correct.

Kroger will charge you if you want an End Cap display of your chips, and Kroger will charge you if you want additional shelf space for your chips.

I believe it's more limited to things like Chips, Soda, Snacks, etc, but, it does happen in the grocery industry.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#139

Post by 0x262d »

stefan_ wrote: post #22

How much revenue did that program generate? That should be the fine, obviously. Alongside the criminal prosecution.

why are we operating national, natural monopoly services on a for-profit basis that fundamentally incentivizes this in the first place (rhetorical). Amazon deserves to be taken into democratic public ownership for nominal compensation.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#140

Post by snowwrestler »

addaon wrote: post #114
dannyw wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be specific, Amazon co-mingles inventory between Amazon, Sold by Amazon, and its third party sellers that are Fulfilled by Amazon. It doesn't matter who you buy from. The picker at the warehouse picks from the same box, the actual product could come from any seller, even if it's "Sold by Amazon". Who you purchase from is purely an accounting thing, unless they manage their own stock and is not part of Prime. If yo…

They don't co-mingle inventory on everything, it varies from product to product (although the majority are indeed co-mingled). While there's no visible way to tell if a product is co-mingled, Amazon support is able to look it up. Whenever I'm buying an item that I would be unhappy with a counterfeit (so anything expensive, electronic, or that goes in my mouth or body) I contact Amazon support by live chat and ask the…

Why not just buy from somewhere else? I don’t understand why you would put this level of effort into shopping at a place you don’t trust.
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