Earlier quoted context omitted.
TLA = Three Letter Acronym
TIL TLA’s meaning
TIL = Today I Learned
Sorry, couldn't resist :)
FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
431–440 of 930 posts
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#432Earlier quoted context omitted.
What especially rankles is how Amazon doesn’t give a fuck about counterfeits. So they’re allowing counterfeits (amplifying the mentioned effect) to discourage direct-sellers from attempting to compete on price. Meanwhile, I have to order from direct sellers to be sure I will get a genuine, new product. So I don’t even get Amazon’s lower-but-still-higher-than-optimal price, but a yet higher one. As far as I’m concerne…
You might still be getting products from the same inventory pool in an Amazon warehouse when ordering directly if the company uses Amazon's Multi-Channel Fulfillment offering. They sell on their site, tell Amazon about the sale, then Amazon ships it to the customer. They even offer the option to ship it in unbranded boxes so that customers don't know the order is being fulfilled by Amazon.
So tired of being on the shit-end of a drop-ship.
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#433Yeah I’m kinda on the fence about this. On one hand, I see the case that this diminishes the open market. On the other hand, Amazon is doing this all within their own ecosystem. So it’s a bit disingenuous for the FTC to say that this has nothing to do with their size. The problem the FTC keeps skirting around on anticompetitive is the fact that the internet favors power differentials, so we’d have to ding any company…
I'd argue that anti-trust is a fundamentally flawed concept - it's a matter of time frames, but no company without significant government intervention has had a 'monopoly' for more than a few years. Hell, Standard Oil was only 64% market share when it was broken up.
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#434Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sadly, no it isn't. Them calling out that they are not going after Amazon because they are too big, but because they did thing X is very problematic for the clear definitions. That is, as well defined as some concerns are, this complaint actually throws out a ton of that and makes it even less clear.
fortunately, it was, hence the existence of the complaint if the FTC didn't know whether their rules applied, they wouldn't have been able to draft a complaint explaining how they do penalizing suppliers for offering lower prices elsewhere, for example, is pretty clearly anticompetitive
Don't confuse criticism of the FTC with praise for Amazon here. The FTC seems to be continuing weak cases, and at least some of us view that as very problematic.
If we are going to rebuild some of the surrounding rules such that these practices are illegal, I'm all for it. If it turns out that I'm wrong and they do manage to make the market healthier with a suit against Amazon, great.
This doesn't look strong in that direction, though. This reeks of populist appeal from folks that know it is a politically savvy move to bash Amazon.
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Amazon refused to enter that agreement, would the publisher simply refuse to sell ebooks on Amazon? I sincerely doubt that. If Amazon was actually motivated to refuse DRM, then we would be in an entirely different situation. The reality is that the opposite is true, and that Amazon itself is one of the publishers requiring DRM!
You do know there was an antitrust against the publishers and Apple where they did collude and force changes to the agreement onto Amazon, right? This isn't even hypothetical. Literally happened. Amazon absolutely cannot live without publishers right now.
But can publishers live without Amazon?
My point is that that question was never asked: practically all of the publishers that sell on Amazon's marketplace - including Amazon Publishing - agree that they want DRM incorporated into Amazon's digital marketplace platform.
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#436"most customer-centric company" I don't think anybody actually buys that line. Do they believe that internally?
Some do, some don't.
I know some folks who really genuinely believe that Amazon is a force for good, the criticism is exaggerated, will talk about how lucky they are to work for the World's Best Employer, and will get a bit sulky if you say anything negative about the company.
Generally though, I think it's understood that "most customer centric company" doesn't mean "we will put the customer before ourselves because we are such good people", but instead "strategically keeping the customer happy is better for the shareholders in the long run".
It's the same with most of the LPs. They're packaged in a way that makes Amazon sound like this amazing company that really cares, but they boil down to "16 ways YOU can enrich Amazon's shareholders (you won't believe number 15!)".
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#437Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 52% is dominated by small crap items that basically cost $0 in bulk from China (cables, phone cases, etc) On these items Amazon fully realizes they can charge 90% and the seller is still making a profit, so they do. If you're selling appliances or TVs or computers the % is not nearly that bad.
Would be curious to see numbers on the bigger items. Have you used FBA? The warehouse and shipping fees on such large & heavy items would be onerous would be my guess.
> Would be curious to see numbers on the bigger items. Have you used FBA?
Yeah, I've done enough FBA to rank somewhere between a serious hobbyist and an actual lifestyle business.
There is a sweet spot. If you're selling lightweight crap items, even the small shipping and fulfillment costs still tend to dominate. If you sell huge stuff, the shipping will bite, but not as bad as you'd expect -- Amazon has very good rates. The big problem for bulky items tends to be warehouse fees, and also the logistics of getting it to the FBA warehouse in the first place.
I'd say around 1 cubic foot is exactly where you want to be (with the dimensions carefully chosen to keep you in a favorable category, of course). I believe 18"x14"x8" is the biggest legal standard package.
Somewhat counter-intuitively, if you miss that standard cutoff, you might as well go big (3+ cubic feet) since you're paying the same oversize rate either way, the only drawback is warehouse costs. There's sort of a no-man's-land in between toaster-size and microwave-size.
Anyway, here's the actual fulfillment fees, if you're curious (notice how reasonable the rates are in the "Large Standard" range):
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external...
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external...
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#438I 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…
Your story is a true tragedy and hearing such stories makes me feel sad. I believe it’s, mostly, these unfair, monopolistic practices that made those companies giants because they can, technically, crush anyone willing to swim in their red ocean . Normally, you could easily file a lawsuit against them and got them pay you 10x the damage they caused.
tragedy … giants … red ocean …
Manchurian commenter activated … proceeding to step 2 …
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity, EXCEPT when money is involved The FAANG corollary: When you make it a point of pride to only hire the smartest, most elite engineers on the planet, presumption of stupidity no longer applies.
No one knows how to hang onto a dumb idea like a smart person.
Just because the average person can't prove them wrong by argument doesn't mean their right.
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#440Earlier quoted context omitted.
fortunately, it was, hence the existence of the complaint if the FTC didn't know whether their rules applied, they wouldn't have been able to draft a complaint explaining how they do penalizing suppliers for offering lower prices elsewhere, for example, is pretty clearly anticompetitive
Don't confuse criticism of the FTC with praise for Amazon here. The FTC seems to be continuing weak cases, and at least some of us view that as very problematic. If we are going to rebuild some of the surrounding rules such that these practices are illegal, I'm all for it. If it turns out that I'm wrong and they do manage to make the market healthier with a suit against Amazon, great. This doesn't look strong in that…
there's no need, as the practices are already illegal, and the rules are already built, and the FTC is already filing strong cases like this one
the criticism of this latest case, however, reeks of corporate worship from folks that know that Amazon is in the wrong (as the complaint documents)