101–110 of 727 posts
I’m not an Amazon fan boy, but I am a Costco fan boy, and they do the same thing, so I don’t really think I can be too upset about this. Retail is ruthless.
The solution isn't hoping the free market would solve this with a competing platform. The solution is to create regulations & laws that prevent this behavior. You're either a platform/retailer or you're a manufacturer. You don't get to be both because we see the perverse incentive that happens when it's allowed.
What really is the issue? That Amazon is leveraging its success to be successful? It's unfair that Amazon is able to see that a product category is doing well so it invests its own money into manufacturing a product to sell through its site? Do you really think that if Amazon couldn't use the data from its own site that it wouldn't procure it elsewhere? Before any product is developed there is extensive market resear…
Stating the obvious I guess. All retailers do this and create their own white-label brands to squeeze profit from well-performing categories. Target, for instance, is very upfront about it and they have like a gazillion white-label brands that compete in hundreds of categories, which makes it very gray for the customer. Does anyone really think that any retailer launches a competing product in a category without look…
I really don't think Target is that upfront. How am I supposed to know Mossimo and Goodfellow are Target brands. I do however understand that Kroger groceries are made by the kroger store.
Interesting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossimo#IPO_(1996)_and_relatio...
>On March 28, 2000, Mossimo, Inc announced a major, multi-product licensing agreement with Target stores, for $27.8 million.
>In 2017, Target underwent a makeover, introducing new smaller lines and eliminating bigger billion-dollar lines, including Mossimo.
>Target distanced itself from Mossimo amid Mossimo Giannulli's alleged involvement in the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal, saying that Target had not been involved with Giannulli in over a decade
Stating the obvious I guess. All retailers do this and create their own white-label brands to squeeze profit from well-performing categories. Target, for instance, is very upfront about it and they have like a gazillion white-label brands that compete in hundreds of categories, which makes it very gray for the customer. Does anyone really think that any retailer launches a competing product in a category without look…
I really don't think Target is that upfront. How am I supposed to know Mossimo and Goodfellow are Target brands. I do however understand that Kroger groceries are made by the kroger store.
Stating the obvious I guess. All retailers do this and create their own white-label brands to squeeze profit from well-performing categories. Target, for instance, is very upfront about it and they have like a gazillion white-label brands that compete in hundreds of categories, which makes it very gray for the customer. Does anyone really think that any retailer launches a competing product in a category without look…
This is the same situation that happens on most platform plays. You can see this in how Salesforce and Shopify are leveraging their platforms to learn what is popular and produce/buy their own products to sell to their customers to capture 100% of the value, rather than 30% of the value of the solution to the customer.
Any seller will do this, it is natural. Watch how WholeFoods for years has replaced successful independent brands with "365" competitors. Any seller will act this way; only regulation will prevent it.
This very easily defeated regulation is a perfect example why they aren’t a silver bullet. Throwing your hands up and saying “just make government fix everything” isn’t realistic, there is overhead and cost and bad precedent in that.
The solution isn't hoping the free market would solve this with a competing platform. The solution is to create regulations & laws that prevent this behavior. You're either a platform/retailer or you're a manufacturer. You don't get to be both because we see the perverse incentive that happens when it's allowed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the same situation that happens on most platform plays. You can see this in how Salesforce and Shopify are leveraging their platforms to learn what is popular and produce/buy their own products to sell to their customers to capture 100% of the value, rather than 30% of the value of the solution to the customer.
This questionable business practice is neither new nor limited to online companies. Brick and mortar companies like Costco do have their own products competing from other vendors, and I am sure they analyze sales data before jumping on selling their own.
Sometimes I wonder if Shopify’s long-term plan is to do something like this. It's probably the leading direct-to-consumer platform out there right now, it’s touted sometimes as the anti-Amazon. The leading D2C brands I’ve seen are on there (Allbirds, Atoms, Untuckit) as well as random drop shippers. Shopify is also expanding into a fulfillment network too: https://www.shopify.com/fulfillment