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FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
521–530 of 930 posts
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#522Earlier 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?
Your case is interesting because your publisher was fine with it. So yeah, it probably was done by a third party seller. Or you triggered some automated system and will never find out why. There are cases where third party sellers bribed Amazon employees to penalize their competitors:
> "(b) using their inside access to Amazon’s network to suspend competitors’ 3P accounts; and (c) providing consultants with information about Amazon’s internal algorithms, which allowed the consultants to flood competitors’ product listings with fictitious negative product reviews."
https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/six-indicted-connection...
There's another thing where well known brands will hire a company like https://amazzia.com/brand-protection-2022/ for "brand integrity." In reality, what this means is that they monitor Amazon for listings of the brand's products that violate the brand's Minimum Advertised Price policy and then report them a bunch of times as counterfeits or contact some Amazon employee they have a (potentially corrupt) relationship with.
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#523Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon is basically allowing sellers to carry all the risk while product testing and marketing a product. If it does well enough, Amazon can use the same manufacturer and release a branded "Amazon Basics" version that pops up in the same search for the same product but cheaper as Amazon doesn't have to pay someone else $112 for the listing and warehousing, and the original seller that did all of the actual "work" (as…
What’s the problem here? If you don’t have a durable competitive advantage then you’re going to get eaten up. First movers should not get a license to continue to reap a profit in a competitive market absent real innovation, which would come in the form of reputation (trademark) or technology (patent). Drop shippers who can be displaced by Amazon in the way you discuss have neither. They already made a profit on the…
They aren't being eaten because of innovation, they are being eaten because of monopolization.
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#524Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#525Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apparently product dumping isn't illegal if you do it on the internet. This wasn't even a fuzzy digital goods or services example either.
Product dumping is not illegal if you have a national newspaper that can be used to target any politician and if you make sure to contribute millions and make sure your employees do the same for the political party in power.
??
You mean the (left-leaning) newspaper that Bezos bought in 2013 vs Diapers/com that Amazon bought in 2010?
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#526I'm honestly not sure how you could make the case that they aren't maintaining and abusing monopoly power. I mean they literally blatantly copy the designs of other companies who sell on amazon, then put their own results for their own products higher in search results than what they copied off of. It's incredibly blatantly anti-competitive.
I get the sentiment behind this reaction that most people have. I just have a hard time understanding how it is any different than brick and mortar companies using their sales data to determine which products they should have a store brand version of. Costco, Walmart, Target, etc. all do this, and have been doing it for decades. At a Costco, they'll often stop selling the brand name product if they introduce a "Kirkl…
At a Costco, they'll often stop selling the brand name product if they introduce a "Kirkland Signature" version.
This is false. The Kirkland Signature versions are just the white-label version of one of the brands that are sold in Costco. For example, the Kirkland batteries are white-labeled Duracells; the Duracells are frequently sold right next to the Kirkland ones. The KS coconut water is just white-labeled Vita Coco and is sold right next to the VC coconut water. The point of the white-label product is to segment the market: the higher price of the branded version will make it seem like a more premium product while cost-conscious customers will purchase the white-label brand. Either way, the manufacturer gets paid.
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#527Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It just gets passed down to the customers. That's a common but not an accurate belief: As a business owner pricing a product or service, if your costs increase you can either take the marginal cost out of your net income or increase the price. Taking it out of your net income is simple: You keep prices the same, revenue remains the same, and profit drops a bit. Increasing the price is more complex; you are changing…
It's not just elasticity. The main weight on your prices is your competitors' prices.
And the quality of your product and what customers are willing to pay, though that seems a fading requirement when customers are 'everywhere.'
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#528Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the Bloomberg article : "Chuck Gregorich, who sells fire pits and outdoor furniture, says turning a profit on Amazon is getting harder. One of his popular fire pits costs $200, of which Amazon takes $112 for its commission, warehouse storage, delivery and advertising. That leaves him with $88 to pay the manufacturer, ship the product in from China and cover his overhead." I have a hard time sympathizing here. Th…
I know that there's the "5x rule" -- BOM cost is supposed to be 5x less than retail. Is there such a rule for fulfillment and delivery? Of course, 56% seems monstrously high to me, but then again, so did 5x BOM cost before I had that explained.
Food cost in restaurants in similarly shocking. They operate on metrics similar to BOM. Might shock you to find out how much that $40 pizza cost in dough, sauce, cheese and toppings. (Probably just a couple bucks).
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#529Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#530Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon is basically allowing sellers to carry all the risk while product testing and marketing a product. If it does well enough, Amazon can use the same manufacturer and release a branded "Amazon Basics" version that pops up in the same search for the same product but cheaper as Amazon doesn't have to pay someone else $112 for the listing and warehousing, and the original seller that did all of the actual "work" (as…
Yes, but the argument is that drop-shippers aren’t really producing any value. It’s not like they’re putting banners over their product pics saying “hey, you know you can buy this exact same product for like half the price on alibaba if you’re willing to wait a couple more weeks for it right?”. I don’t like Amazon consolidating this much power either but if they can push you out of your business that easily you weren…
Show me a business that Amazon couldn't destroy just for kicks.
Also, it's not like you have any choices. If you manufacture your products yourself, you have to fund a massive venture to handle the workload. If you outsource the products, then the companies you pay to manufacture your stuff can easily make knockoffs and then let drop shippers undercut you with inferior versions of your own products.
Look at a lot of the stuff for sale on Temu for instance. There are hundreds if not thousands of products that were invented, tested, and designed by Western companies that you can now buy a reasonable facsimile of on Temu for a quarter of the price.
This includes art work, enamel pins, battery packs, woodworking tools.
You're on a hard path either way, but if you make it to the point where you have a standout product knowing that at the final step Amazon can easily step in and price you out of existence, even if they had to take a loss on it just to destroy you, they could and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
That should be broken up. Monopolies are bad. Monopsonies are bad. They are bad for the country, bad for the people, and bad for the flow of money.
I hope we see record fines against them and that everyone affected by this gets to be part of an earth shattering nuclear verdict.