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?
Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide
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Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
All big corps require you to take this kind of training.
> All big corps require you to take this kind of training. I've worked at a couple "big corps" as an internal developer. JPMC, BestBuy, Experian, etc. Never encountered it. I suspect it's only for those companies in danger (or with a history of being charged with) breeching anti-trust.
Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
All big corps require you to take this kind of training.
> All big corps require you to take this kind of training. I've worked at a couple "big corps" as an internal developer. JPMC, BestBuy, Experian, etc. Never encountered it. I suspect it's only for those companies in danger (or with a history of being charged with) breeching anti-trust.
But the point of the argument is still valid -- it is present often enough and not only for nefarious purposes.
Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide
#44I'm confused why this is anti-trust. Isn't this how all wholesale vendor deals work? Regular wholesale: "We'll buy 200 units from you at $20 each. I'll sell them for some other amount, you don't need to care about it". Amazon in this example: "We'll buy 1 units from you at $20 each. I'll sell them for some other amount, you don't need to care about it. Finally, don't worry about the wholesale rate for a single unit,…
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. Amazon raises competitor's the price to $24, but keeps its own dongle priced at $20.
> 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, online customers sometimes opted to buy Amazon’s own branded products — particularly its private label products. This resulted in Amazon maximizing its own profits regardless of whether consumers paid a higher price for sales of products enrolled in the “Sold by Amazon” program or settled for buying the same or similar product offered through Amazon.
Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide
#45In case others were as confused as i was about this "While they’re often confused, Sold by Amazon and Fulfilled by Amazon are two different things. With SBA, Amazon prices your products and owns any transactions that take place. When an item sells, they pass the proceeds on to you for allowing them to sell your product. With FBA, you price your products and own the transactions. It is a service where Amazon handles t…
Learn something new (and important) every day.
Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide
#46Former 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.
Whether any particular thing actually is an antitrust violation is for the lawyers to decide. I guess they decided wrong?
Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide
#47It 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.
Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would assume that the count includes the huge amount of people who sell cheap, unbranded Chinese products under a random all-caps name. So, not that surprising.
Why the all-caps brands for these? Is there some belief that it stands out more or something? Because it does, and not in a good way. I skip all those when I'm browsing search results.
Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide
#49Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide
#50I'm confused why this is anti-trust. Isn't this how all wholesale vendor deals work? Regular wholesale: "We'll buy 200 units from you at $20 each. I'll sell them for some other amount, you don't need to care about it". Amazon in this example: "We'll buy 1 units from you at $20 each. I'll sell them for some other amount, you don't need to care about it. Finally, don't worry about the wholesale rate for a single unit,…
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…