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FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

ftc.gov

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Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#341

Post by teruakohatu »

brianstorms wrote: post #305
bombcar wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't even begun to enter the world of unscrupulous activity, and Amazon is mostly 'hands off' because they don't care - but other 3rd party sellers DO and they know all the tricks about how to pump alternative sellers off the page, etc. The whole thing is a worthless Alibaba ripoff now.

Do you think some other seller falsely "reported" me, claiming my copies my be counterfeit, for surely there was no way I could offer them so cheaply to beat out the next cheapest seller by, what, 50 cents?

> Do you think some other seller falsely "reported" me, claiming my copies my be counterfeit

That seems the most likely reason. I am sure there are services to automate these kind of blackhat actions.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#342

Post by m-ee »

kiklion wrote: post #323
losteric wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The trouble with this argument (which gets made a lot) is that this is basically every large retailer. Alternatively: there's no trouble at all, Walmart/Safeway/etc are all clearly engaging in this anti-competitive practice and must be reigned in. Marketplaces need to be regulated as neutral grounds for sellers, the marketplace cannot double-dip and compete against sellers or engage in practices that reduce competi…

How is it clearly anti-competitive if they are providing a better value for the consumer? When a name brand has market power and charges a premium for a basic product, then another company entering the market and undercutting them is great for the consumer. We can make regulations to ensure that a distributor, advertiser, retailer and the product owner engage in arms length transactions but there’s nothing inherently…

From what I understand the FTC is shifting away from the doctrine that consumer benefit/harm as the deciding factor for an antitrust case.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#344

Post by YeBanKo »

arbuge wrote: post #288
YeBanKo wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard some stores switched to Shopify, would be interesting to learn why it is not an option for stores like yours.

Shopify and Amazon are quite different things. Amazon is a marketplace and provides exposure - in other words, they bring you traffic besides providing ecommerce functionality. Possibly a lot of traffic if there's not much competition already in your space. With Shopify you have primarily an online store solution. It's up to you to do your own marketing somewhere to drive traffic. Shopify does have what they call "Sh…

What about shipping logistic and warehousing? Afaik this is something what Amazon FBA helps with as well?

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#345

Post by smugma »

m463 wrote: post #316
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WOWZAMGO makes quality products. I bought their portable usb battery and it only caught fire after the 20th charge cycle. PARTUE, on the other hand… don’t ask!

What's funny is that I couldn't tell if this was serious or sarcastic at first glance. (caught fire -> sarcastic) Thing is, these silly UPPER-CASE-NONSENSE-COMPANIES are winning against established brands with quality products. Except there is a trend now where a brand with products of known good quality like YETI can now charge outrageous amounts of money - like 10x or more.

It’s hard to find that value niche in the middle. They do exist within categories eg Anker for USB related things.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#346

Post by shopifyeocks »

jollofricepeas wrote: post #52

FBA seller here. A lot of mom and pop businesses (~$20 million) have been built on Amazon over the past 10 years. Most of us are in the $250k to $5 million dollar range. The impact of Amazon’s monopoly power is felt big time by us as we’re being squeezed with no place left to go online especially post-iOS change. Our second option used to be the Facebook/Instagram/TikTok to Shopify connection but with that being dead…

What’s do you mean exactly about the Shopify tiktok Facebook connection being dead?

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#347

Post by blibble »

karaterobot wrote: post #215
jollofricepeas wrote: post #52

FBA seller here. A lot of mom and pop businesses (~$20 million) have been built on Amazon over the past 10 years. Most of us are in the $250k to $5 million dollar range. The impact of Amazon’s monopoly power is felt big time by us as we’re being squeezed with no place left to go online especially post-iOS change. Our second option used to be the Facebook/Instagram/TikTok to Shopify connection but with that being dead…

I had to look this up, so for other ignoramuses like me: FBA is Fulfillment by Amazon, where you sell things on Amazon and they handle payments and shipping to customers.

it's a genius business for a "retailer"

normally they'd need to pay for storage, stock, liquidation of stock they didn't sell, returns etc

and instead now you pay for all of that for them

and what do you get in return?

   - a listing on page 17 of their ever increasingly shitty website behind legions of MINFARTO, PATRONICS and GIBRANKER aliexpress garbage
   - customer service staff with an inability to understand simple english or basic problems
   - your genuine stock mixed with counterfeits, that then they penalise you for
   - paying to give your sales information to them as a potential competitor, as if you do well they'll ripoff your product
and they take essentially absolutely no risk whatsoever

not a good deal at all

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#348

Post by loeg »

dublinben wrote: post #251
loeg wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Albertsons + Kroger is like 90% of the market in Seattle, where I live, though.

That doesn't seem likely. According to this source, Frey Meyer (18.4%) + Safeway (17.3%) would be the clear market leader with over 35%, but there's still robust competition from Costco, Walmart, and others. https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2023/04/24/seattle-favor...

Note that Fred Meyer (18.4) and QFC (14.1) are already both owned by Kroger. So that would be 49.8% post-merger, per those figures.

These figures seem to be for the Seattle metro rather than the city itself. Costco might be a competitor in some sense but it doesn't serve the area I live -- the nearest one is a 45 minute drive away. WinCos are even further away -- they serve some of the suburbs, but not the city of Seattle. Ditto Walmart. I've never heard of or seen Campeon. Whole Foods / PCC exist, but are expensive. Trader Joe's is fine but not really a full grocery store.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#349

Post by naikrovek »

brianstorms wrote: post #287

I signed up as a Seller on Amazon a while back, with one primary goal: sell extra copies of my book, published by Pantheon Books in 2017. The publisher offered me boxes of them at dirt-cheap prices and I took them up on their offer. So I started selling on Amazon, and I set my price as the lowest possible for "New" condition hardcover. For a while my price got listed on the main book product page. Only briefly though…

never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity, EXCEPT when money is involved. if money is involved, and it can be explained by malice, then it is malice, every time.

the other seller likely reported you as counterfeit, and Amazon believed them.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#350

Post by adamsb6 »

shopifyeocks wrote: post #346
jollofricepeas wrote: post #52

FBA seller here. A lot of mom and pop businesses (~$20 million) have been built on Amazon over the past 10 years. Most of us are in the $250k to $5 million dollar range. The impact of Amazon’s monopoly power is felt big time by us as we’re being squeezed with no place left to go online especially post-iOS change. Our second option used to be the Facebook/Instagram/TikTok to Shopify connection but with that being dead…

What’s do you mean exactly about the Shopify tiktok Facebook connection being dead?

Probably that Apple's privacy changes made those advertising channels far less effective.
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