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

Post by imtringued » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 10:26 PM UTC

granzymes wrote: post #309

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…

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…

Post by araes » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 10:29 PM UTC

_uhtu wrote: post #502

mountainofdeath wrote: post #456

Much of what Amazon does is what other retailers already do. Amazon just does it more overtly and with smaller businesses. In fact, various aspects of this where pioneered by WalMart and Costco. 1. WalMart determines the expected product and expected price and tells vendors to take it or leave it. The agreement often has a stipulation that the same product can never be cheaper elsewhere which is sometimes easy as Wal…

I hate that every discussion of reigning in abusive companies has to come with 1000 comments about how other companies are also being abusive, which should apparently make us just wave the white flag. Nah, let's deal with all the monopolies, and Amazon is a good place to start since like you said, they are just incredibly blatant.

Post by viraptor » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 10:32 PM UTC

darkarmani wrote: post #528

mountainofdeath wrote: post #456

Much of what Amazon does is what other retailers already do. Amazon just does it more overtly and with smaller businesses. In fact, various aspects of this where pioneered by WalMart and Costco. 1. WalMart determines the expected product and expected price and tells vendors to take it or leave it. The agreement often has a stipulation that the same product can never be cheaper elsewhere which is sometimes easy as Wal…

Isn't that totally different? I thought brick and mortar stores actually buy inventory (or commit to buy orders in this age of just-in-time) where Amazon is just the middleman connecting buyers and sellers and charging fees on both ends. If Amazon wants to commit to certain sizes of orders, I'm sure the vendors will be happy with contractual price setting.

Post by afiori » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 10:36 PM UTC

simpaticoder wrote: post #499

granzymes wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are touching on a point that Benedict Evans has made quite eloquently in the past: >There was a joke a few years ago that rent is the new [Customer Acquisition Cost], and that now applies to everything. The [Total Addressable Market] for search ads is not ‘advertising’ (let alone online advertising) but everything that is spent to reach and serve a customer, starting with retail rents. This applies to Amazon, but…

>There will be no site that does not offer advertising, because advertising allows the site to determine which sellers can afford to pay more while still being profitable. It's still possible that people exist who charge "what it's worth" rather than "what they can get". Those people can still make a fine living off of a two sided market place through flat transaction fees. Craigslist is an example that comes immedia…

Post by buffington » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 10:44 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #214

EGreg wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing people don't get about making competitors to Facebook, Twitter, and other centralized platforms as well. You don't need to boil the ocean in order to serve a single community. For example, Facebook started in Harvard and its value to everyone in Harvard was based on how many people in Harvard used it, not how many people in the world used it. Similarly, if a single product vendor and their customers…

> Similarly, if a single product vendor and their customers form a community, then a free market of fulfillment companies can spring up to stock that specific product, and then partner with the delivery companies (who have their own networks) to deliver the package. One thing that gets overlooked in this is returns. One of the big draws of Amazon is easy returns. Whenever you have decentralized fulfillment centers, r…