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FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

ftc.gov

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Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#751

Post by Pikamander2 »

skeltoac wrote: post #715

FBA seller here, too. I make and sell my own patented device which nobody else makes or sells. I have competitors in the same category but my product is novel, more functional, and more expensive to make. I was doing FBM (fulfillment by merchant) because I like shipping my product directly from my place of business but I had to switch to FBA to get my sales to go up. They were already getting half but now Amazon is g…

>I also have my own site where I can sell for the same price and keep much more of the revenue, but most shoppers won’t buy if they didn’t find it on Amazon. If I leave Amazon or raise my Amazon price to recoup the costs or stop paying for FBA and Amazon ads, I lose almost all of my sales. This is all because Amazon is doing anticompetitive things with its monopoly power.

Can you expand on what you think Amazon is doing wrong here?

When I buy products online, I almost exclusively buy them from Amazon because I've had too many bad experiences with other sites. That strikes me as a case of consumer choice, not anti-competitive practices.

I once purchased a Japanese candy pack from a supposedly-reputable website that was supposed to be a Christmas gift, but they didn't give me a tracking number and wouldn't refund it after a month of no delivery until I filed a chargeback.

By contrast, I've never had any trouble getting Amazon to honor their refund policy for "Prime" products, which is why I've stuck with them.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#752

Post by LeonB »

havnagiggle wrote: post #722
abduhl wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Amazon is the 7-11 (and more)! It is the customer facing part of the business that houses and delivers the beef jerky to the ultimate customer. 7-11 sees that jerky sells, that lots of brands can sell jerky, that consumers don’t seem to care about the brand of jerky as long as it says teriyaki, and so 7-11 now sells 7-11 basics teriyaki jerky. The FBA middlemen are more like traveling salesmen - they take an orde…

If we're coming up with brick and mortar analogies, it's got to be grocery stores and generic branded items. Kraft Mac vs Great Value. It's hard for me to say Amazon shouldn't be able to do it while every grocery store can, but there seems to be a quantitative difference because of the ridiculous number of options online vs the finite shelf space of a brick and mortar. All the same economic games are played. Items ar…

I think that a lot of the same problems exist in generic brands at supermarkets. Supermarkets already have a lot of ways to pressure suppliers, and “own brand” products are weaponised extensively.

I’m all in favor of suppliers competing with each other, as that’s in the best interests of society overall. But when the platforms/marketplaces themselves participate in that competition they have tremendous advantages, which is anti-competitive, and it benefits no one but themselves.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#753

Post by cowsandmilk »

letsdothisagain wrote: post #512
abduhl wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the problem here? If you don’t have a durable competitive advantage then you’re going to get eaten up. First movers should not get a license to continue to reap a profit in a competitive market absent real innovation, which would come in the form of reputation (trademark) or technology (patent). Drop shippers who can be displaced by Amazon in the way you discuss have neither. They already made a profit on the…

The anti-competitive bit is they have all the sales information that would typically be a trade secret for a company. Go ahead, call up your local 7-11 and ask them what their sales were for the quarter. They'll tell you to fuck off.

Your local grocery store has store brands that compete with the name brands. Your local grocery store also charges for shelf placement.

Amazon is actually more open than other stores about this information, giving product rankings so that you could decide to knock off popular products too.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#754

Post by tebbers »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #691
TylerE wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And saying just don't use FBA is no solution either. Shipping large heavy stuff is expensive, and I best Amazon has much better rates negotiated with the carriers.

Storage plus shipping through FBA isn’t cheap. The problem isn’t that FBA is expensive, the problem is that selling on Amazon but not via FBA is heavily punished with placement and appearance leading to poor conversion rates.

And that hopefully will be the basis of any anticompetitive action. Sounds like logistics and commerce might need to be broken up.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#755

Post by mcfedr »

starluz wrote: post #727
ComputerGuru wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Storage plus shipping through FBA isn’t cheap. The problem isn’t that FBA is expensive, the problem is that selling on Amazon but not via FBA is heavily punished with placement and appearance leading to poor conversion rates.

Yes this is the issue for consumers as well. The first 16 pages of every search are nearly identical low quality fba products. Need a search layer to find the small sellers!

Yea, but be honest, you really only want to buy from FBA because that's the one that will arrive tomorrow

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#756

Post by exar0815 »

berniedurfee wrote: post #582
8note wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Amazon could destroy apple or Walmart just for kicks. Aramco? Air Canada? Samsung? Memory Express? Digikey? McMaster Carr? McDonald's? The Big R? Cantillion? Texas Instruments? "Show me a business" is quite vague

Why not McMaster Carr or even Digikey? I’m sure Amazon has put a sizable dent in their sales without even really trying. Amazon now has special search tools for buying fasteners that make it easier to find exactly what you need. Prices are cheap, risk is high, but prices are cheap.

Every cent Digikey looses they loose by being Digikey. Of all large suppliers, they are by country miles the worst and we try everything to avoid them. Farnell, Mouser, LCSC beat them handily. And their pages are already bad.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#757

Post by rewmie »

ch4s3 wrote: post #178
rewmie wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Neither is Amazon in e-commerce, they hold ~39% of the US market and (...) From the link: > The complaint alleges that Amazon violates the law not because it is big, but because it engages in a course of exclusionary conduct that prevents current competitors from growing and new competitors from emerging.

I obviously read the press release, but haven't read the 173 page complaint yet. But the piece about pricing is DEAD wrong. The complaint says: > Amazon uses a set of anti-discounting tactics to prevent rivals from 24 growing by offering lower prices, But Amazon's contracts with big sellers specifically state that it may only discount when competitors first lower prices, making it in effect a price follower. It goes…

I don't know about that. I think the FTC has a bit more insight than a random guy online who admits didn't even read the complaint, and the FCT went through the trouble of putting together a court case to sue Amazon.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#758

Post by cowsandmilk »

cbsmith wrote: post #623
notyourwork wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is drop shopping the kind of business to fight for supporting? That’s all this is.

Yeah, but if you search and replaced the part where the $88 is to pay the manufacturer, and instead say it is to pay they employees and the cost of materials, it's not like that suddenly looks like a viable business.

Except it has been for decades. In traditional retail, the split is 60% store, 40% seller. So your same $200 product would be $80 to the seller, not $88. And manufacturers have been operating with that split for a long time.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#759

Post by skeltoac »

Pikamander2 wrote: post #751
skeltoac wrote: post #715

FBA seller here, too. I make and sell my own patented device which nobody else makes or sells. I have competitors in the same category but my product is novel, more functional, and more expensive to make. I was doing FBM (fulfillment by merchant) because I like shipping my product directly from my place of business but I had to switch to FBA to get my sales to go up. They were already getting half but now Amazon is g…

>I also have my own site where I can sell for the same price and keep much more of the revenue, but most shoppers won’t buy if they didn’t find it on Amazon. If I leave Amazon or raise my Amazon price to recoup the costs or stop paying for FBA and Amazon ads, I lose almost all of my sales. This is all because Amazon is doing anticompetitive things with its monopoly power. Can you expand on what you think Amazon is do…

Amazon charges exorbitant fees to Marketplace sellers and adds to the cost of everything sold on Amazon. Are you aware of who is the seller every time you buy something? When the seller is not Amazon, do you know how much of the price is going directly to Amazon? Is it worth it for what Amazon provides you?

In my category Amazon takes 15% of every sale. That’s even true for FBM where Amazon never lays eyes or hands on the merchandise. Also still true even though I have always taken perfect care of every customer. Good luck selling anything on Amazon without paying even more for Amazon advertising, a closed system with high prices. And then there’s the Prime badge and FBA, more expenses that you can hardly afford not to pay. Buyers are trained to demand them and Amazon reaps the profits.

If you buy from my website I pay a small transaction fee, shipping, and advertising. I can afford to sell for much less, making my customers just as happy or better since I can personalize the service in ways Amazon just does not allow.

But I can’t lower my prices anywhere off Amazon because they will retaliate by burying my product where nobody will find it.

Amazon customers (I admit I am one, too) are paying higher prices for almost everything they buy. But they/we are also supporting a marketplace regime that forces prices up everywhere. Everyone, not just Amazon customers, gets to pay the higher Amazon price.

My website customers are essentially subsidizing the profits that Amazon is making from my sales on their platform.

You might think you want someone big and strong like Amazon protecting you from scammy sellers. If they wanted to do that they would get rid of them and keep the good ones. Instead they keep the bad ones around so you get to experience their protection racket. You’re sticking up for the bully and paying for the privilege.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#760

Post by eru »

omnimus wrote: post #504
notyourwork wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ding ding ding. Middlemen get squeezed and are mad about it would be equally fair headline here.

Amazon is also the middlemen.

And if someone manages to squeeze Amazon out, good for them!
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