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Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

atg.wa.gov

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Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#141

Post by galago »

cmroanirgo wrote: post #89
bo1024 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounded to me like the problem part was where Amazon sold competing products, then used the agreement to price-fix between their own products and the third party's. Example: Amazon sells a dongle for $20, the competitors sell them for $20. Amazon makes a deal with each competitor, then raises all the prices to $25. (edit) I think this kind of example also: The competitor's dongle is priced at $24 on Best Buy. Amaz…

"Loss Leader" is the term and the problem. A wholesaler sells to a reseller at their usual price. Reseller deliberately sells less than RRP & sometimes less than their buy price. It's a good way to guarantee the reseller "owns" the market. Then, if the reseller is big enough and has captured the market, has the leverage to tell the wholesaler to lower the wholesale price and/or the reseller gets it made elsewhere and…

There used to be a restaurant chain called "Boston Market" (there are a few left). One of their signature products was cooked rotisserie chickens. What killed them was not a direct competitor, but the fact that Costco did, and still sells a similar product at a one dollar loss per chicken. The loss leader is going on forever.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#142

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

galago wrote: post #141
cmroanirgo wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Loss Leader" is the term and the problem. A wholesaler sells to a reseller at their usual price. Reseller deliberately sells less than RRP & sometimes less than their buy price. It's a good way to guarantee the reseller "owns" the market. Then, if the reseller is big enough and has captured the market, has the leverage to tell the wholesaler to lower the wholesale price and/or the reseller gets it made elsewhere and…

There used to be a restaurant chain called "Boston Market" (there are a few left). One of their signature products was cooked rotisserie chickens. What killed them was not a direct competitor, but the fact that Costco did, and still sells a similar product at a one dollar loss per chicken. The loss leader is going on forever.

They have over 300 locations…

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#143

Post by glenngillen »

lesuorac wrote: post #113
kortilla wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? A huge chunk of sexual harassment training is about stuff that is perfectly acceptable in non-work environments (asking someone on a date, flirting, etc). If sexual harassment training was just obvious stuff that needs counseling to fix (e.g. harassing people after having advances declined), then corporations likely wouldn’t need sexual harassment training at all. It’s mandatory precisely…

> If sexual harassment training was just obvious stuff that needs counseling to fix (e.g. harassing people after having advances declined), then corporations likely wouldn’t need sexual harassment training at all. [Citation Needed] I'm pretty sure don't take the team out to a strip club as a work outing is always on the training because people keep taking the team out to a strip club.

Which is the point the person you’re replying to is making: Taking people to a strip club is a normal (personal preferences & judgements aside) and legal thing to do… outside of a professional setting.

The training is “please don’t do these things at work so we can limit our liability to claims” and not “these are completely unacceptable behaviours so please stop doing them”.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#144

Post by tjalfi »

lucas_membrane wrote: post #35

It was pretty obvious what Amazon wanted from its business partners if you look at abebooks, a site owned by amazon, but not visibly if you just look at abebooks.com. 'Independent' booksellers sell used books through abebooks, but never for less than amazon sells the same books.

I have found that sometimes Abebooks and foreign Amazon sites have lower prices for books than Amazon.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#145

Post by jtbayly »

addaon wrote: post #114
dannyw wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be specific, Amazon co-mingles inventory between Amazon, Sold by Amazon, and its third party sellers that are Fulfilled by Amazon. It doesn't matter who you buy from. The picker at the warehouse picks from the same box, the actual product could come from any seller, even if it's "Sold by Amazon". Who you purchase from is purely an accounting thing, unless they manage their own stock and is not part of Prime. If yo…

They don't co-mingle inventory on everything, it varies from product to product (although the majority are indeed co-mingled). While there's no visible way to tell if a product is co-mingled, Amazon support is able to look it up. Whenever I'm buying an item that I would be unhappy with a counterfeit (so anything expensive, electronic, or that goes in my mouth or body) I contact Amazon support by live chat and ask the…

So you keep buying from them? Seems a bit crazy to me. I’d rather find a reputable seller for things where it matters.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#146

Post by errcorrectcode »

altcognito wrote: post #133
addaon wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't co-mingle inventory on everything, it varies from product to product (although the majority are indeed co-mingled). While there's no visible way to tell if a product is co-mingled, Amazon support is able to look it up. Whenever I'm buying an item that I would be unhappy with a counterfeit (so anything expensive, electronic, or that goes in my mouth or body) I contact Amazon support by live chat and ask the…

I bet they just don’t allow you to investigate this via customer service anymore. This would be a great area for regulation as well. If Amazon did it, someone else is bound to do it in the future as well.

"Investigate" what? Amazon would never disclose or discuss proprietary bizops.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#147

Post by luckydata »

organsnyder wrote: post #37
valar_m wrote: post #9

Former Amazonian here. When i was there, they made us take this antitrust training course that had things like "don't use terms like 'market share' in internal communications", but all along there were people doing this? I mean...

> "don't use terms like 'market share' in internal communications" Sounds like the training was teaching you how to avoid leaving an audit trail rather than how to prevent illegal activity.

duh, what do you think training is for?

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#148

Post by luckydata »

urthor wrote: post #32
valar_m wrote: post #9

Former Amazonian here. When i was there, they made us take this antitrust training course that had things like "don't use terms like 'market share' in internal communications", but all along there were people doing this? I mean...

That's actually surprisingly cunning. Run a very in depth training program on how "not" to do antitrust. Secretly, it's just a training course in antitrust. Gotta respect the level of commitment to evil.

every large company does it. I've done those courses at Microsoft, Facebook and Google. It's just run of the mill corporate training.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#149

Post by addaon »

snowwrestler wrote: post #140
addaon wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't co-mingle inventory on everything, it varies from product to product (although the majority are indeed co-mingled). While there's no visible way to tell if a product is co-mingled, Amazon support is able to look it up. Whenever I'm buying an item that I would be unhappy with a counterfeit (so anything expensive, electronic, or that goes in my mouth or body) I contact Amazon support by live chat and ask the…

Why not just buy from somewhere else? I don’t understand why you would put this level of effort into shopping at a place you don’t trust.

It takes a minute, they often have the best price, and vetting a new vendor -- with their own unknown challenges -- is non-trivial.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#150

Post by awakeasleep »

kortilla wrote: post #97
BizarroLand wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reads to me like the sexual harassment trainings. Those specifically tell you what not to do to limit the legal liability of the company. Nowhere in any sexual harassment training video have I ever seen anything saying that if you have the urge to sexually harass people to seek a support group or find another, less socially harmful outlet for your energies, not anything. It's strictly about treating the symptoms a…

What are you talking about? A huge chunk of sexual harassment training is about stuff that is perfectly acceptable in non-work environments (asking someone on a date, flirting, etc). If sexual harassment training was just obvious stuff that needs counseling to fix (e.g. harassing people after having advances declined), then corporations likely wouldn’t need sexual harassment training at all. It’s mandatory precisely…

Anti harassment training is mandatory because its a requirement for the Farragher-Ellerth defense. (Absolves corporations from paying damages to victims of harassment.)

https://content.next.westlaw.com/Document/I0f9fbe84ef0811e28...

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