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The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

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Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#331

Post by Eisenstein »

dgb23 wrote: post #327
granzymes wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the FTC's lawsuit, Amazon no longer binds its sellers with a Most Favored Nation clause. Instead, Amazon now will refuse to promote an offer in its "buy box" space if it detects a lower price for that good on another website. The FTC alleges that this simply reconstitutes the MFA since most sales on Amazon take place from the buy box. Amazon responds that it is within its rights to not promote uncompetit…

This argument seems sound. Amazon is not a neutral entity or a public space. It's a private platform with its own interests that are very often in conflict with sellers. There is this weird cultural expectation of platforms and platform-like applications (social media, multiplayer video games, online stores, proprietary libraries/engines, even entertainment media "universes" and franchises etc.). Participants and con…

Except when you corner the entire market and use your position to stifle competition. Then it doesn't matter what you 'own'; you are breaking the law.

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#332

Post by helen___keller »

granzymes wrote: post #322
helen___keller wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone have examples of popular / name brand products that are pushed down in ranking due to this? I would love to see for myself how this looks in practice

Here's one of the examples that the FTC cites in its complaint (at page 27): https://www.amazon.com/Pilot-Retractable-Rollerball-Extra-Re... Compare it to this listing for a very similar product: https://www.amazon.com/Pilot-Retractable-Rollerball-Ultra-0-... You'll see that in the FTC's example, you need to click to see more buying details and that at the time of this comment the lowest price is $14.28 with free shi…

Thanks! I had misunderstood what “buy box” is

As a consumer I definitely avoid products with no buy box. I thought it was only related to Amazon fulfillment (which in turn I use as a proxy for being likely to receive the product on time and undamaged)

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#333

Post by OGWhales »

megaman821 wrote: post #251
0xADADA wrote: post #228

HotTake: the result of this should be to nationalize Amazon to be the defacto national provider of AWS services, delivery, logistics, and backstopped retail services.

Might as well just shut it down in that case. Amazon would be abandoned in mass if it was government run. People groan every time they see that the USPS is handling their delivery. I can't imagine how bad it would be if that same level of government competence was applied to all of Amazon's operations.

> People groan every time they see that the USPS is handling their delivery.

They do? I am usually pleased when I see it's them. They are very consistent and rarely make mistakes, in my experience. I don't know what there is to complain about, outside of pointless hatred for anything related to the government. Meanwhile, it's a crapshoot if the FedEx or Amazon driver even gets it to the right address.

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#334

Post by hyeonwho22 »

helen___keller wrote: post #312

I’m not sure I agree with the opening premise that offering “free shipping” is dangling a free lunch that doesn’t exist. Technically this is true but it makes a lot of sense by creating an analogous experience as with retail. If I walk to the corner store to pick up something I’m not paying a line item for the logistics that delivered that item from a factory in China, nor a line item for the rent to keep that item s…

Offering free shipping is not a problem. The problem is that mandating your suppliers subsidize free shipping and don't sell for cheaper prices elsewhere is blatantly anticompetitive, and has the effect of raising consumer prices on non-Amazon markets.

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#335

Post by scarface_74 »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #315
endisneigh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This grip you're describing only exists because they don't leave, and nothing is stopping them. Again, no one is forcing people to sell on Amazon. They could use Shopify or sell on eBay. People act as if you have to sell on Amazon. You don't. That assumption and expectation is why Amazon is dominant to begin with. Sellers should leave if they don't like it, and that will naturally soften Amazon dominance.

Listen, maybe you've never heard about antitrust law, but using one's dominant market position to maintain dominance in the market to the injury of consumers is pretty much the exact definition of an antitrust violation in the US. So write your local congressman complaining that antitrust law is restricting your ability to lick Jeff Bezo's boots, or run away to the Rockies somewhere and start a radically laissez fair…

Just maybe some people don’t think that the government having more power and control is a good thing?

37% is not a monopoly. If you have a differentiate product, you can set up your own website through Shopify or any number of places.

And if you haven’t been paying attention, the FTC has been laughed out of court for the last five years every time it has gone after BigTech

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#336

Post by bryan_w »

dwallin wrote: post #94
endisneigh wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your assumption here is that they have to sell on Amazon to begin with, which they do not. There are plenty of products that you cannot buy on Amazon, so your entire post is ridiculous as it shows again, you don't need Amazon to succeed to begin with.

You are a seller. Amazon makes up 40% of your sales. You have your own first party website where you can profitably offer your product for 5% less and still make an additional 10% profit but it only makes up 5% of your sales currently. What's your move in this position? You can't just imagine all companies as perfect frictionless spherical interchangeable cows. In reality companies as large as Amazon can have signifi…

> What's your move in this position?

What about taking out an ad to let people know where to buy your cheaper item? People didn't know walmart.com existed until a tv ad told them. Doesn't seem unreasonable to take some of the saving from not selling on Amazon and use it for services the platform was providing (discoverability).

Nothing changes until it changes.

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#337

Post by scarface_74 »

pnutjam wrote: post #158
cedilla wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does the opposite - it prevents the price going lower than cost plus Amazon fees. Amazon is not exactly cheap for sellers, so the price has to go up everywhere.

I read that, on average, Amazon collects 50% of the cost in fees; from sellers.

And how much do you think traditional retail marks up prices from wholesale to retail?

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#338

Post by da_chicken »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #293
thelastgallon wrote: post #17

An excerpt from: https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/ Amazon binds its sellers over to something called Most Favored Nation status. That means that sellers can't offer their goods more cheaply than they do on Amazon – even if it costs them (lots) less to sell in Target or direct from their websites. This means that every time a seller adds a dollar to their Amazon sale price, they have to add a dollar to…

It is interesting to note that the US government often requires the same kinds of MFN terms, even though it is usually much more expensive to do business with the government than the private sector. There are many ways of constructively working around MFN requirements but it creates collateral damage. For example, the practice of having very high prices that are steeply discounted for most customers is often an artif…

There's several problems with that.

It's true that the US government does make those demands, but it's very important to note that the US government organization is not a reseller of goods. It is almost exclusively a consumer. It is not in direct competition in the same marketplace with private industry outside of a few select industries (e.g., USPS, limited healthcare).

Next, MFN tariffs kind of by definition only affect international commerce. For Amazon, a 100% domestic manufacturer producing goods would need to comply.

Finally, MFN is something defined by WTO treaty. If you have to abide by MFN when importing goods into the US, it's almost certainly because your nation is also a WTO member. Because almost all of them are. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade requires WTO members to extend MFN treatment to like products of other WTO members. It's literally the the first article of the treaty agreement. [0]

[0]: https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/gatt47_01_e.htm

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#339

Post by Ensorceled »

dylan604 wrote: post #296
Ensorceled wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What value/meaning is derived from this? Someone is supporting a creator whose content they like and the creator is publicly saying thank you. How is this confusing to you?

They can say "thanks to all my supporters". it's just fallacy to think the creator actually cares. it's a simple copy&paste from a list from their patreon (or whatever) to the text editor of their editing software. it's even less if they aren't even the ones doing the editing. sure, they all say "we love our supporters". it's just like people that donate to NPR so they can have their names read out over the air. how…

> They can say "thanks to all my supporters". it's just fallacy to think the creator actually cares.

How deeply cynical and also, besides the point; even if you believe all creators don't give a shit (I believe many do), people still like being thanked.

I mean, clearly you don't ...

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