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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

#321

Post by bluGill »

mFixman wrote: post #284
snow_mac wrote: post #227

One thing everyone is getting hung up on is the fact that Amazon isn't wholesaling the dongle. The contract isn't a wholesale deal, meaning if your widget doesn't sell, it's sitting on your balance sheet, not on Amazon's balance sheet. It would be like if Costco instead of buying 1000 legos, just stocked legos in it's warehouse, then paid Lego company everytime a single unit sold. Then they figured out how to make th…

Just curious: Isn't this exactly what most supermarkets do? Do merchants decide the price at which their product appear in stores?

Depends. Most of the merchant decides. However for "premium" brands the manufacture sets the price and won't let you go below it.

Weber grills rarely go on sale or clearance because you need permission to do so. Menards near me often has 11% rebate on everything sales - they do not sell Weber grills. Home Depot matches Menards 11% rebate on everything, except things Weber grills where they are not allowed to discount.

I know of one case where a golf store threw in a free hat with the full price purchase of an expensive putter. The customer was an undercover agent for the putter company and the store no longer got more product from that company.

I know there are a lot more examples, but I don't know them.

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

#322

Post by KittenInABox »

granzymes wrote: post #251
YeBanKo wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its actually right in the posted link: The “Sold by Amazon” program resulted in prices for some products increasing when Amazon programmed its pricing algorithm to match the prices that certain external retailers offer to online consumers. As a result, when prices increased, some sellers experienced a marked decline in the sales and resulting profits from products enrolled in the program. Faced with price increases,…

Yes, I read that. It doesn't address my point, which is that merchants would just leave the program if they faced declining sales.

Where would they go? Amazon is where the customers are. This is the problem.

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

#323

Post by bluGill »

katbyte wrote: post #235
colanderman wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

B&H and Adorama are increasingly my go-tos for anything with microchips. They've both branched out from photography to A/V gear to tech goods generally.

Personally I have a list I go down the more critical a component is. Amazon if it doesn’t really matter. Then newegg/Best Buy. Then b+h.

I run my list in the opposite order. Prices are generally just as good and I prefer to support those I trust first. Actually before I get to amazon I will search for small specialized vendors that might be more expensive but the staff actually knows something about their product, and so the web recommendations are good (they will of course recommend what they sell over an equally good brand they don't, but they are selling the good brands)

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

#324

Post by jsmith45 »

Closi wrote: post #233
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…

“Co-mingling” doesn’t somehow make counterfeiting easier - Amazon uses chaotic storage such that more than one sku-receipt will never go into the same pickface (co-mingling isn’t talking about mixing the same SKUs together, it’s mixing all SKUs together but tracking them by location). Amazon can still locate all products of a particular SKU received from vendor X on a particular date, or know what receipt your sale w…

Amazon may be able to determine the source of stickerless comingled inventory like this, but stickerless comingled inventory is treated as interchangeable on the fulfillment side. So if I order an item "Sold by ACME, Fufilled by Amazon" I may receive a copy that was shipped in by "Cyberdyne".

Amazon's tracking will internally tell them I got an item that was sent in by Cyberdyne, but they don't tell me about that.

This as a customer means I can order an item from ACME, that I know is extremely careful about not selling counterfeits, but end up getting a counterfeit, because Cyberdyne is super sloppy, and the one I got actually came from Cyberdyne. Even though amazon can track this internally, as a customer I have no idea the one I got came from Cyberdyne instead of ACME.

For some products the counterfeits may look the same, and even function the same, but cut a lot of safety corners etc to be cheaper to make, and I might only know that I got a counterfeit after it catches on fire, and burns my house down, possibly losing family in the process.

At this point if I complain Amazon can look it up, and point the finger at Cyberdyne, but it is a bit too late by then.

If ACME instead went with the stickered non-comingled option, I will get one of the items that ACME actually sent in, even though they might need to send it from a further away warehouse, if the closer ones only have the comingled stuff.

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

#325

Post by granzymes »

KittenInABox wrote: post #322
granzymes wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I read that. It doesn't address my point, which is that merchants would just leave the program if they faced declining sales.

Where would they go? Amazon is where the customers are. This is the problem.

They’d go back to selling outside of this program. They don’t need to leave Amazon to do that.

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

#326

Post by bluGill »

colinmhayes wrote: post #12
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...

Why would they waste employee time on antitrust training if they were innocent?

One of my companies competitors (I'm not told which) was caught red handed bribing a government official someplace. Because of a very close look at all their practices - including the anti bribe training - the courts concluded this was a rouge employee doing something the company didn't want him to do (even though it would have greatly benefited the company) and so the company is still around.

Training is a part of a robust process to ensure that your company only does legal things at all levels. It is a given in any large company that somebody will do something immoral/illegal. The real question is it one person and so the company can fire the bad person and be done, or is it the whole company and firing one person is just making a scapegoat.

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

#327

Post by munificent »

comice wrote: post #36
munificent wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giant cheap plastic things are essentially a worst-case use for Amazon because the individual delivery cost is most of the price. When you get a 5$ sled at Walgreens, it's cheap because you get in your car and do the last-mile logistics yourself.

there is truth in that but it does not cost 65 dollars to stock and deliver a sled.

Sure, but if $70 is what someone is willing to pay to not have to drive to Walgreens, why would they price it lower?

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

#328

Post by msrenee »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #305
msrenee wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if JC Penneys counts as a large retailer anymore or if petsmart ever did, but both of those stores do eat the cost of unsold goods to my knowledge. Lowes does as well, except for certain types of products such as live plants from certain suppliers. Clearance is almost always the store trying to recoup any money from a product that they can't sell and is taking up shelf space. That certain suppliers take…

I was under the impression unsold plants were taken out back and destroyed and evidence returned to the vendor (usually a photo and the UPCs). When I worked at a store that sold books and magazines we would rip the covers off and send those back, the rest going into the trash.

I honestly don't know the details of what happens to the physical plants. I can't imagine they're worth the shipping to physically send back, especially for dead plants which the company was also reimbursed for. They were likely destroyed. Generally, part of the deal with the supplier reimbursing the retailer for unsold product is that the retailer then needs to prove they didn't sell the product.

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

#329

Post by jiveturkey »

snow_mac wrote: post #227

One thing everyone is getting hung up on is the fact that Amazon isn't wholesaling the dongle. The contract isn't a wholesale deal, meaning if your widget doesn't sell, it's sitting on your balance sheet, not on Amazon's balance sheet. It would be like if Costco instead of buying 1000 legos, just stocked legos in it's warehouse, then paid Lego company everytime a single unit sold. Then they figured out how to make th…

Amazon didn't invent this, they are copying from B&M retail. So they're all bastards. It's unfair to single out Amazon.

Some of the stores do this because they have the market reach and leverage to do so. Some of them switch to this out of desperation. Two recent and famous examples that I can think of are Fry's and Toys "R" Us. Now they didn't do it as a proactive strategy, but still. I believe Best Buy is an example of a successful retailer using this sales model.

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

#330

Post by bogwog »

granzymes wrote: post #251
YeBanKo wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its actually right in the posted link: The “Sold by Amazon” program resulted in prices for some products increasing when Amazon programmed its pricing algorithm to match the prices that certain external retailers offer to online consumers. As a result, when prices increased, some sellers experienced a marked decline in the sales and resulting profits from products enrolled in the program. Faced with price increases,…

Yes, I read that. It doesn't address my point, which is that merchants would just leave the program if they faced declining sales.

Are you asking if a seller would leave, or could leave? To the former the answer is obviously “yes they would”, to the latter idk.

But regardless, even if they are allowed to leave the program, that doesn’t make it any less illegal.

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