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FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

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Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#811

Post by edgyquant »

joe_the_user wrote: post #502
runako wrote: post #188

Without engaging the merits of this particular case, I do think there is an interesting takeaway about which companies wield even more power than Amazon (and Big Tech more generally, since Google and Meta are also discussed as likely targets of similar suits). Notably: health insurers. They're an oligopoly whose revenues total something like 4% of US GDP. They engage in anticompetitive practices, and the end result i…

Much as I might see health insurers and private medical companies in general as often bad actors, I don't think "more competition" is at all a reasonable suggestion for any part of the health sector. Health insurance companies naturally need to be regulated - just one reason among many is that anyone could take people's money, pay claims for a bit and then vanish with money paid to shareholders who aren't liable for…

They may need to be regulated, but that doesn’t change the fact that something is seriously broken and real competition would help. Regulation is surely part of the problem but maybe not all of it. The entire idea of “networks” seems designed to allow them as little competition as possible.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#812

Post by cbsmith »

cowsandmilk wrote: post #758
cbsmith wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but if you search and replaced the part where the $88 is to pay the manufacturer, and instead say it is to pay they employees and the cost of materials, it's not like that suddenly looks like a viable business.

Except it has been for decades. In traditional retail, the split is 60% store, 40% seller. So your same $200 product would be $80 to the seller, not $88. And manufacturers have been operating with that split for a long time.

You're talking about gross margin/mark up, and there really isn't a "traditional retail margin". It varies a lot by product, but, as an example, the typical mark up for grocery stores is 15%. I used to do retail sales for appliances, including BBQs. The markup could get as high as 50%, even more for high end BBQs that sell in the $800+ range, but was generally more like 30%... and discount outlets or online retailers, it was much more like the grocery store mark up. A $200 BBQ with a markup of 150% like you're describing is not a thing I ever saw.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#813

Post by manicennui »

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…

By "mom and pop businesses" do you mean people selling cheap crap from China that is the same as the crap sold by a dozen other "mom and pop businesses"? Hard to feel sorry for businesses that are contributing to the rapid decline in the quality of all product categories.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#814

Post by megaman821 »

cbsmith wrote: post #812
cowsandmilk wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it has been for decades. In traditional retail, the split is 60% store, 40% seller. So your same $200 product would be $80 to the seller, not $88. And manufacturers have been operating with that split for a long time.

You're talking about gross margin/mark up, and there really isn't a "traditional retail margin". It varies a lot by product, but, as an example, the typical mark up for grocery stores is 15%. I used to do retail sales for appliances, including BBQs. The markup could get as high as 50%, even more for high end BBQs that sell in the $800+ range, but was generally more like 30%... and discount outlets or online retailers…

Are talking about markup from cost of goods? The manufacturer costs usually take into account their overhead; assembly line, warehousing, transport, running the business, profit etc. Amazon is taking over some of those things for sellers, so yes they take a bigger percentage than a normal retail store.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#815

Post by ToucanLoucan »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #716
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know when the astroturfing checks come in by the way? Also is that W-4 income or am I contractor?

You are human? You must be amazon's first gen astroturfing infra, mechanical turk style. I'm part of amazon's skunkworks Astroturf-LLM service. Automated, at scale astroturfing. I believe we will make it public facing via AWS soon.

Fucking AI taking our jobs

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#816

Post by megaman821 »

skeltoac wrote: post #759
Pikamander2 wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I also have my own site where I can sell for the same price and keep much more of the revenue, but most shoppers won’t buy if they didn’t find it on Amazon. If I leave Amazon or raise my Amazon price to recoup the costs or stop paying for FBA and Amazon ads, I lose almost all of my sales. This is all because Amazon is doing anticompetitive things with its monopoly power. Can you expand on what you think Amazon is do…

Amazon charges exorbitant fees to Marketplace sellers and adds to the cost of everything sold on Amazon. Are you aware of who is the seller every time you buy something? When the seller is not Amazon, do you know how much of the price is going directly to Amazon? Is it worth it for what Amazon provides you? In my category Amazon takes 15% of every sale. That’s even true for FBM where Amazon never lays eyes or hands o…

Is there something that says you can't make a special SKU with minor changes to the box or badging that you only sell on your website?

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#817

Post by grvdrm »

no_wizard wrote: post #416
m463 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The truth about consumer buying patterns is most purchases are treated as lowest cost commodity, unless the buyer is aware or the price threshold is high enough[0]. When you don't have subliminal[1] and limited selection pressure (both of which exist in brick and mortar stores), coupled with a UI that makes it pretty easy to discover other brands, and coalesced signals (reviews placement etc), lowest price wins. [0]:…

> The truth about consumer buying patterns is most purchases are treated as lowest cost commodity, unless the buyer is aware or the price threshold is high enough[0]

Well said. Also, let's not forget time. I've spent countless hours researching many things I intended to buy only to give up partway down the road. It's in part because of the endless results on Amazon (referenced here) but also elsewhere.

Let's say, for example, I'm trying to find the best saute pan. Amazon gives me thousands of results, but so does Google. My search results are littered with tons of X-best SEO-optimizing websites that don't help narrow down choices. So, in that situation, it's less about the price and more about the time: I'll just buy whatever seems reasonably rated and not outrageously expensive and move on.

I really enjoyed the earlier days of the Wirecutter - tell me the thing to buy in my search category even if it's not the cheapest or most commoditized.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#819

Post by tacker2000 »

moneywoes wrote: post #719
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 is the biggest barrier to moving to the second option, customers?

Amazon has around 60-80% market share in ecommerce, depending on where in the world you are.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#820

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

taeric wrote: post #810
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #797

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I'd like a meaningful rebuttal of the actual behaviors and why they foster competition vs. stifling it. I've already listed one (Amazon penalizing suppliers for listing lower prices elsewhere). Again, pretty clearly anticompetitive. Your excuses of "so and so did it too" are meaningless, as are any slippery slope fallacies, as are your personal anecdotes and observations (the latter of which, no fault to yo…

My main rebuttal is largely that Amazon has been going to shit, oddly. They claim that search is getting worse on Amazon. And that the old "organic search results" are worse now. I agree it is getting worse. I disagree that it was ever good. Largely the problem is one of volume there. They have claims that some algorithms push sellers down. I actually am interested in seeing that explored more. My gut is that it is j…

> I agree [search] is getting worse. I disagree that it was ever good

I disagree with this disagreement, and can see it getting worse, and given it seems the search was intentionally punishing sellers for anticompetitive reasons, I'd be interested in seeing if Amazon can present a convincing explanation otherwise.

> They have claims that some algorithms push sellers down. I actually am interested in seeing that explored more.

That does indeed seem like anticompetitive behavior, I'll wait to see if Amazon has a convincing explanation for it that fosters competition vs. stifling it.

> My "excuse" of the favored vendor clauses existing is, I confess, largely sour grapes that that is allowed at all.

Turns out, it isn't in this case (hence the suit). Makes sense, this also seems anticompetitive. I'd be interested in seeing if Amazon has a convincing explanation for how this fosters competition, vs stifling it.

> Can they show that losing a preferred location will lead to reduced sales for a vendor? I'd be shocked if they couldn't. The question there is why did Amazon do it?... If we want better rules around that sort of thing, I'm all for that.

The answer is explained in the complaint. I'd be interested to see if Amazon has a convincing explanation for how this fosters competition vs. stifling it. And as for the rules, turns out we don't need "better" ones, as the existing ones seem to be enough (hence the suit).

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