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Amazon Cuts Dozens of House Brands as It Battles Costs, Regulators

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Re: Amazon Cuts Dozens of House Brands as It Battles Costs, Regulators

#3
post #2

Alternate link: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/companies/amazon-cuts-dozens...

> No new products are being ordered for the brands being phased out, which will cease to exist once their inventory is sold. Strong-selling items in brands that have been discontinued are being rebranded under Amazon Essentials or other remaining labels.

Sounds like the usual whittling of unsuccessful products and a consolidation of branding.

Unsure how much this actually impacts end users (except those thinking they’re being anti-Amazon by buying a non-Amazon product that’s aktually an Amazon product)

Re: Amazon Cuts Dozens of House Brands as It Battles Costs, Regulators

#4
I found the quality of Amazon-brand products to be inconsistent. I hoped Amazon would be able to use its scale to produce some items at lower costs and higher quality than competitors, but it just didn't work out. Often I find Amazon Basics goods at much higher prices than other retailers on their sites.

And Amazon's own-brand instant coffee is truly, truly awful, FYI. (Although their filter coffee is good)

Re: Amazon Cuts Dozens of House Brands as It Battles Costs, Regulators

#5
post #2

Alternate link: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/companies/amazon-cuts-dozens...

> No new products are being ordered for the brands being phased out, which will cease to exist once their inventory is sold. Strong-selling items in brands that have been discontinued are being rebranded under Amazon Essentials or other remaining labels. Sounds like the usual whittling of unsuccessful products and a consolidation of branding. Unsure how much this actually impacts end users (except those thinking they…

I think it's good from transparency point of view. It's one thing when a retailer has one or two house brands, like Kirkland brand at Costco. Then the consumer can know that's the retailers house brand. Amazon on the other hand had 30 clothing brands with names like Lark & Ro, Daily Ritual and Goodthreads with just a tiny "An Amazon brand" buried in the product description bullets. I'm not sure if it was designed this way to be misleading, but I can see how it wouldn't be interpreted kindly during any kind of antitrust scrutiny.

Re: Amazon Cuts Dozens of House Brands as It Battles Costs, Regulators

#6
Not much of a concession to regulators. They could just expand the breadth of offerings from their remaining brands if they wanted to, until they were selling the exact same products.

I am not an FTC regulator, but to me it seems like the shadiest thing Amazon does with its brands is to give them increased prominence in search results. They cannot tell me they don't juice the results to bubble their brands up to the top.

Re: Amazon Cuts Dozens of House Brands as It Battles Costs, Regulators

#7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No new products are being ordered for the brands being phased out, which will cease to exist once their inventory is sold. Strong-selling items in brands that have been discontinued are being rebranded under Amazon Essentials or other remaining labels. Sounds like the usual whittling of unsuccessful products and a consolidation of branding. Unsure how much this actually impacts end users (except those thinking they…

I think it's good from transparency point of view. It's one thing when a retailer has one or two house brands, like Kirkland brand at Costco. Then the consumer can know that's the retailers house brand. Amazon on the other hand had 30 clothing brands with names like Lark & Ro, Daily Ritual and Goodthreads with just a tiny "An Amazon brand" buried in the product description bullets. I'm not sure if it was designed thi…

Costco actually pioneered that approach. The traditional corporate strategy had always been to have a bunch of different house brands fpr different product categories.

Re: Amazon Cuts Dozens of House Brands as It Battles Costs, Regulators

#8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No new products are being ordered for the brands being phased out, which will cease to exist once their inventory is sold. Strong-selling items in brands that have been discontinued are being rebranded under Amazon Essentials or other remaining labels. Sounds like the usual whittling of unsuccessful products and a consolidation of branding. Unsure how much this actually impacts end users (except those thinking they…

I think it's good from transparency point of view. It's one thing when a retailer has one or two house brands, like Kirkland brand at Costco. Then the consumer can know that's the retailers house brand. Amazon on the other hand had 30 clothing brands with names like Lark & Ro, Daily Ritual and Goodthreads with just a tiny "An Amazon brand" buried in the product description bullets. I'm not sure if it was designed thi…

It's not uncommon for big-box retailers to have multiple house brands. Walmart and Target both have dozens, for instance:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Walmart_brands

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Corporation#Private-lab...

Re: Amazon Cuts Dozens of House Brands as It Battles Costs, Regulators

#9
Once upon a time you could choose to buy good products from good brands on Amazon, or import cheap crap from China via Aliexpress or whatnot.

But now that nearly every category on Amazon is dominated by cheap crap from dodgy brands in China, I'm feeling less reason to buy things from them (unless I need it tomorrow). I suppose that's what's fuelling the popularity of new marketplaces like Temu?

Re: Amazon Cuts Dozens of House Brands as It Battles Costs, Regulators

#10
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's good from transparency point of view. It's one thing when a retailer has one or two house brands, like Kirkland brand at Costco. Then the consumer can know that's the retailers house brand. Amazon on the other hand had 30 clothing brands with names like Lark & Ro, Daily Ritual and Goodthreads with just a tiny "An Amazon brand" buried in the product description bullets. I'm not sure if it was designed thi…

Costco actually pioneered that approach. The traditional corporate strategy had always been to have a bunch of different house brands fpr different product categories.

Costco is generally cheaper and top shelf products.

Not my experience with Amazon basics.

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