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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

#91

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

nickff wrote: post #52
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't about prevention. It's training to avoid recording damning evidence. The bad behavior can continue as long as it isn't written down. Preferably implemented in pieces that lend plausible deniability.

I thought it was generally accepted that changing verbiage/language has a huge impact on the way people think. Do you disagree with that notion?

Data retention training is always about limiting liability. These are the sort of companies that delete emails after 18 months no matter how much that kneecaps the employees. No amount of training will change the behavior of the sociopaths calling the shots. They need their underlings to not ruin everything for them with careless mistakes. Any other story is just a cover because they can't state their true intentions.

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

#92

Post by blocked_again »

bee_rider wrote: post #86
blocked_again wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the competitor did agree to sell the items to Amazon. Nobody forced them. They did it for economic benefit. So I don't understand the problem here.

Our system is not a totally free market, we have consumer protection and antitrust regulations to avoid some of the possible negative outcomes there.

I don't really buy that consumer protection and antitrust regulations actually result in a better free market. I think the market is better off doing it's thing rather than a bunch of politicians trying to make it more efficient.

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

#93

Post by judge2020 »

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.

The abebooks login page is clearly a carbon copy of Amazon, and the ‘about us’ page says

> We're a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. after being acquired in December 2008.

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

#94

Post by maxk42 »

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.

No, but $20 - $30 might be reasonable, and anything cheaper than $70 might be sold out by then.

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

#95

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

FireBeyond wrote: post #79
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make any sense to me. If the argument is that Amazon is a dominant retailer and sells its own brand goods to dominate particular segments then exactly the same applies to, say, Walmart. How does the "sold by Amazon" contract relate to that?

Because it can create any product that is selling well, and at any price point, because it _also_ has the right to subsequently raise _your_ price. You're selling dongles for $20. You sign a contract with Amazon. It realizes that dongles are lucrative, and starts getting them manufactured. Hey, it can sell dongles for $20, too. But then they're competing with you, because you both sell $20 dongles. So, solution, they…

Substitute Walmart for Amazon. Substitute corn-flakes for dongles. Substitute Kelloggs for "me".

That is the situation right now at Walmart. Kellogg's Corn Flakes are $3.28 for an 18oz pack. Great Value (Walmart own-brand) Corn Flakes are $1.43 for the same size package.

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

#96

Post by ineedasername »

clintonc wrote: post #67
Spivak wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this different from Kroger getting to set the prices of both Lay’s and their store brand chips?

It would be the same, except - Kroger isn't 50% of all grocery stores on earth - Kroger paid money up front for your potato chips - Kroger isn't charging you for storing your potato chips

In order

1) But most supermarkets do this in similar ways. Not quite the same as a single entity, but close enough (more like a cartel?) that I'm not sure I see much of a difference.

2) This is the major difference in my mind, but other vendors can still sell for less, so I'm not sure how much competition is stiffled.

3) Well, they actually are. It's called slotting fees. They can simply be for warehouse storage and a place in the store, or at higher levels can be paid to have products placed in specific locations, e.g., eye-level on shelves. This seems similar to signing up for the program in the OP to have your product highlighted as an Amazon-sponsored product.

I don't like many of Amazon's practices, but I'm not convinced this particular one rises to anti-trust.

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

#97

Post by kortilla »

BizarroLand wrote: post #58
skybrian wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like pretty ordinary corporate training. The idea is that you don’t want ordinary workers saying things that sound bad in discoverable messages, which is very likely if there is the ordinary amount of speculation about things they don’t really know about. Whether any particular thing actually is an antitrust violation is for the lawyers to decide. I guess they decided wrong?

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 because it’s a bunch of behavior that is completely normal outside of work. Suggesting people get counseling if they feel the urge to ask someone at work out on a date is ridiculous.

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

#99

Post by floxy »

clintonc wrote: post #67
Spivak wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this different from Kroger getting to set the prices of both Lay’s and their store brand chips?

It would be the same, except - Kroger isn't 50% of all grocery stores on earth - Kroger paid money up front for your potato chips - Kroger isn't charging you for storing your potato chips

>Kroger isn't charging you for storing your potato chips

Well, slotting fees seem pretty close to that:

https://qz.com/807723/inside-the-secret-backroom-deals-big-b...

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

#100

Post by Supermancho »

wenc wrote: post #76
Supermancho wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I worked at two Fortune 250s (both publicly listed) in completely different industries. Both had antitrust training for all corporate employees not just leadership. I believe —but have no data—that this is common among publicly listed companies.

The discussion hasn't been circling back to "all big corps have this kind of training" in a more general sense, but in a more specific one.

There's antitrust training and there's ANY training that says "never use these words", which are wildly different.

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