every major retailer has store brands, and I fully expect they all use their sales data to inform their generic products business, and all of their suppliers expect that too. As a consumer, I like that Amazon is upfront about what products come from their brand. Good luck browsing through the plumbing and electrical fixtures at Home Depot or Lowes and figuring out what crappy store brand stuff and whats not.
Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
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Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#82Sometimes 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
Maybe. But I think the first step is that Shopify creates a means of unified discovery across its many merchants. Maybe not quite a unified store front like Amazon, but maybe a unified search listing, like Google Shopping. Probably also get into recommendations across stores as well. There is a lot of related opportunities here once Shopify starts to link data and search and recommendations (and eventually ads) across their various stores.
Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
In this case it's shitty to be a supplier but isn't this great for the consumer?
No, this is not great for the consumer. It lowers the bar for everyone. What I find mostly on Amazon in the past year or so is cheaper imported versions of decent products. The decent products are hard to find or I have to look outside of Amazon. They've pushed out the quality and replaced it with higher profit junk. Its kind of the same thing with Home Depot. I used to be able to buy quality hardware from a local st…
The Amazon Basics products I've purchased have been of acceptable quality - and at least I know they're not counterfeit.
Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#84Wow, lots of comments stating that it was common knowledge, but some fact doesn't become common knowledge simply because everyone knows it. Everyone should also know that everyone knows it and know that everyone knows that etc. which only becomes true after the article is published. The situation is materially different - this is illustrated e.g. by the famous 'island with a blue eyed population' puzzle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_knowledge_(logic)
In this case one of consequences could be that previously during negotiations with Amazon suppliers couldn't effectively use the fact that Amazon would scoop them (even if both parties knew that it was true), and now they can.
Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#85Stating 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.
Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#86Hmm, I see a lot of people here mad and arguing for regulation to stop Amazon from making their own white label products, but it seems like selective outrage.
When the discussion is about censorship online (demonetizing, blocking people who they don’t like but have done nothing against explicitly stated rules, banning anyone critical of the WHO) the argument often becomes “They’re a private business, they can do whatever they like and you don’t need to use them”.
How is the solution if you don’t like what Amazon is doing with white label products (that almost all major retailer does) to just not use Amazon?
Even if you consider Amazon a monopoly, they don’t prevent the name brand product from being sold there. If they did it would be a similar issue.
This really seems like a Rorschach test for a political ideology.
Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s regulation like this that causes industry monopolies by raising the complexity of entering the space. Outside of dealing with negative externalities, regulation is a poor-man’s trust busting anyway.
The alternative to introducing this regulation is not going to a system with no regulation, it's continuing with the current framework where Amazon is actively driving competition out of the market. Opposing this regulation without an actual alternative is just defending the status quo.
If the free market has overly concentrated power in a party, the solution is to create competition by dividing that party.
Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every retail store does this.
Many retail stores do this to their vendors. Amazon does it to it's "sellers", which are really just a category of "customers". As an amazon seller, you pay for the privilege of selling through their platform.
Plenty of vendors pay for shelf space
Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#89every major retailer has store brands, and I fully expect they all use their sales data to inform their generic products business, and all of their suppliers expect that too. As a consumer, I like that Amazon is upfront about what products come from their brand. Good luck browsing through the plumbing and electrical fixtures at Home Depot or Lowes and figuring out what crappy store brand stuff and whats not.
> figuring out what crappy store brand stuff and whats not.
Don't they usually have only one store brand? Or maybe two, if there's a premium option? I don't think I've ever questioned which is the store brand. I know I've questioned which non-store brands are of dubious origin though (e.g., knockoffs)
Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
In this case it's shitty to be a supplier but isn't this great for the consumer?
No, this is not great for the consumer. It lowers the bar for everyone. What I find mostly on Amazon in the past year or so is cheaper imported versions of decent products. The decent products are hard to find or I have to look outside of Amazon. They've pushed out the quality and replaced it with higher profit junk. Its kind of the same thing with Home Depot. I used to be able to buy quality hardware from a local st…
Tip- check out Fastenal. They don't tend to have small retail packages, so you need to buy larger quantities, but it's really nice not to have to wait for shipping. They're an industrial supplier, but all the stores I've been in were perfectly happy to sell to the general public.