Amazon owns a whole collection of secret brands | Hacker News Reader

Amazon owns a whole collection of secret brands

qz.com

What's funny about this article is:

1. It's obvious clickbait - "secret" brands - how salacious! Yeah, as though a company wants to keep things it sells secret.

2. Each time you click on a link from the Quartz article, you are given a url with a link tracker tag. For example, for the Arabella brand, you get:

16352060011?tag=quartz07-20

So basically someone sat there behind a computer, authoring an article while using words like, "expose" and "clandestine" brands, and "attacking small brands," while simultaneously setting up ad links on their Amazon account so that they would make money from Amazon every time someone clicked on said brands.

Now that is journalistic integrity at its finest, and emblematic of the world of manipulating people's fears and worries for profit that we live in.

Nice catch. I used to think Quartz had some quality standards.

I never understood the outrage behind referral links.

If somebody is linking to Amazon and users start shopping, why is it so bad that they get a slice of the pie?

But now it looks like the article only exists to get people to click Amazon links, and not because there's any actual news.

Are those polar opposites?

No, it's just not a good look for a news organization to have content so entangled with income, especially if they don't even mention it. I think http://thewirecutter.com/ does a good job, and they're also way more open about the fact that the site is covered in affiliate links.

At its heart, it is a conflict of interest and a clear violation of traditional journalistic ethics. At the very least, it is contrary to what one might assume to be a societal norm. Once one is aware of what they're doing, one feels taken advantage of and that is simply not acceptable.

Did you know all of those brands belonged to Amazon before you read the story?

Referral links are a form of advertisement. Quartz should have a disclaimer attached to the article since they mix their content with advertising.

Almost every major website is doing the exact same thing. Here is Wired's policy on affiliate links: https://www.wired.com/2015/11/affiliate-link-policy/

They are almost assuredly added automatically so the author had no clue it was happening. I used to author a Wordpress plugin that did this for bloggers so they wouldn't need to worry about generating links through the Amazon website then going back to their Wordpress dashboard.

I feel a little differently here.

1. Amazon most likely does want to keep it quiet that these are house brands, only because they have to walk the line between third party sellers, traditional retail and their house brands.

There are examples of Amazon straight up copying items and putting them under their "Amazon Basics" brand - check out their laptop stands vs the Rain Design mStand.

2. I suspect that it's just a script that adds the Amazon Affiliate tag to the URLs. This is pretty typical for large publication CMS's.

I didn't even realize that these were supposed to be secret. I vaguely recall getting emails about Happy Belly and Wickedly Prime (I guess the author left out Wickedly Prime...). I'm pretty sure I've also gotten emails and physical mailers about Lark & Ro and Scout & Ro, but maybe Amazon was targeting people (like me) that buys a lot of women's and children's clothing on the site? Amazon Fashion does their own thing all the time.

I also get targeted a lot for Simple Joys by Carter's, which is a baby clothing line made just for Amazon Prime members but not a white label product, which I find very fascinating. And the last thing I bought under that brand was so much nicer than the general Carter's experience of ripping twenty million of those plastic tags off.

Almost every major department store and big box retailer has their own white label brands. Amazon is not unique in doing this nor in making it slightly obscure. You can usually figure out which ones are which.

I don't understand this kind of callous judgement of writers trying to make money. We don't see judgement here for the Amazon engineers that wrote the ref system, or Amazon for, well, selling product. I find it frustrating - somehow the writer has no integrity because they want money for their work?

What, to you, would have been an acceptable way for this writer to present their research? Raw data handed to the internet on a silver platter as they bow out of the room and fund a server to allow us to access it?

I disagree that the article is clickBAIT. I agree that the writer picked a title that would garner clicks, and then they gave us some interesting (to me) research. It wasn't holistic, it doesn't tell us EVERYTHING about Amazon, no, but it gave me enough to Google if I'm more interested.

And if they're gonna link to Amazon products anyway, why wouldn't they use referral links? Are we going to lambast someone for seeing a harmless way to make some change and taking advantage of it?

> somehow the writer has no integrity because they want money for their work?

Writers job is writing article, spread news and knowledge, and make money.

If you write ads and claims it an article or news, you loss your integrity?

Does this sound reasonable to you?

Before you ask whether that sounds reasonable, I'd need to be convinced this is an ad. To me it is an article, one that apparently someone had to thumb through a couple hundred patent applications to write, among other research.

I used ads as an example.

The article can be described as an article embedded with Amazon afflicted links.

Put that in the disclaimer.

The article is not pro amazon. It reveals new information. The writer has done research, tracked goods to their origin warehouses, even bought some products and reached out to multiple amazon executives for comment.

Clumping it together with the typical amazon affiliate click bait that offer the minimum bare basic content and exist solely for affiliate link income is misleading and uncharitable.

Google, Facebook, Snapchat all exist on ad income so in many ways writers, journalists and software engineers are on the same boat.

I, for one, am keenly interested in all things Amazon.

I've been following L2 Inc for a few years now. Their analysis suggests switch to voice is enabling Amazon to diminish brand value.

"How Amazon is Dismantling Retail"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MOwRTTq1bY

Any independent analysis that confirms, refutes, or adds nuance piques my interest.

"somehow the writer has no integrity because they want money for their work?"

Heck yeah, on this point, I'd much rather the writer get a few cents from anyone who chooses to buy the thing--crowd-source that revenue--than just a lump sum from a manufacturer.

> I don't understand this kind of callous judgement of writers trying to make money. We don't see judgement here for the Amazon engineers that wrote the ref system, or Amazon for, well, selling product. I find it frustrating - somehow the writer has no integrity because they want money for their work?

I don't care that they use affiliate links.

Those links need to be clearly marked as affiliate links and the article needs to disclose the use of affiliate links.

Why?

I disagree. I think all links to Amazon should be affiliate links. So if someone doesn't put them, I am disappointed in them. :)

I have never seen Quartz's CMS, but it's likely adding those referral trackers to any Amazon link in any article.

Source: have worked for a few online-native magazines and seen this feature multiple times

I don't know, it's not the story of the century, but I found it interesting and clicked around most of the links to the Amazon brands. And only among Internet nerds are affiliate links seen as sleazy.

> And only among Internet nerds are affiliate links seen as sleazy.

Given the subject matter of the article, that may be an unwarranted assumption.

I'd argue that the only reason "only Internet nerds" find affiliate links sleazy is that they're the only ones who know what they are. If the average Joe realized that merely clicking on a link and going shopping might monetarily reward the person who published the link, he'd find that sleazy too.

Affiliate link defenders: Imagine this scenario. One of your family members or a close friend has been sending you "links to a few cool/funny sites" every few weeks for the last 5 years. Your friend can find such great web sites! That last one with cats swimming in a pool was hilarious! Then all of a sudden you learn that all this time he was getting paid every time you clicked on one of those links, but never disclosed this to you. Wouldn't you feel like that was just a tiny bit sleazy?

It's literally an article about the brands. What else were they going to link to instead? I don't think you've thought this through very carefully.

How does that make the practice any less sleazy? I wonder why a publisher wouldn't want to disclose somewhere in the text (even in 6 point gray on white text in a footer) that the publisher gets paid when users browse to Amazon through the links and buy something?

Because, if one were informed of that, one probably wouldn't click on the links. This would earn the publisher less money in the form of kickbacks. As this is undesirable, they simply don't do it.

What weird planet are we on where people would avoid clicking a link they'd otherwise be inclined to click because someone might make 3 cents from the click? You guys spend way too much time thinking about this stuff.

And yet here we are, discussing this... together.

I may or may not avoid clicking, but if it happens enough, I might be motivated to install a browser plugin that strips out tracking tokens, much like I run an ad blocker full time. And yes, I know that the vendor's web site can still look at the referrer logs, but those can be stripped as well.

I don't think it's weird in any way to value one's privacy. This is shady stuff because 1. it leaks personal information and 2. most people don't know it happens and 3. they would have to actively take countermeasures to stop it.

> I might be motivated to install a browser plugin that strips out tracking tokens

That's not a bad idea. I'll make a note to check into that. Cheers

But I liked the links? Not really. The value I get from watching stupid cats has no connection to what they're getting paid.

to add to your post, that affiliate link stays active on amazon accounts that clicked it for 24hours and pays out to the owner for every product purchased in that time frame

Well that's interesting. Do new affiliate links push the old one(s) out? Do they stack?

Not the greatest story but it delivered exactly what was promised - which is brands that are known but not known as belonging to Amazon. That's what was secret.

Also who cares if there are affiliate links? It's a nice way for the publisher to make money and makes absolutely no difference to you. Do you use an adblocker too? Why the outrage?

Hello: author here! I honestly have no idea what that tracking tag is, but 07/20 was the date I started writing this story! Guessing it's just Amazon tracking to see where traffic is coming from. But if you have any other questions about the story or my journalistic integrity, I'm here to answer them!

Small Parts used to be an independent store - it was acquired in 2005[0]. I wonder how many of the other brands came in via purchase? Not that it matters; it's been 12 years, I'd expect Small Parts to be fully integrated.

[0] https://www.geekwire.com/2012/amazoncom-push-nuts-bolts/

How would Amazon know the date you started writing the article?

I'm honestly not sure ! It could've been a CMS thing — will need to enquire.

That tracking tag is an affiliate ID allowing Quartz to receive a small cut whenever someone clicks through and buys something. Most likely it was added automatically by the Quartz CMS, as is common practice.

Probably just ignore the guy questioning your journalistic integrity.

Confirmed through several sources that `tag=` links are definitely referral links.

How would Amazon change the URLs on your article? More likely, if you didn't do it on purpose, is that Quartz's CMS automagically appends that tag into any Amazon.com links.

Likely the writer is just that - a writer. He has demonstrated (harmless) ignorance of how tracking tags work. The other posters betting on the website he writes for automatically adding affiliate tags to amazon links is the most likely guess here.

Or Amazon may have added the tags as the writer was copying the URLs.

Honestly, it doesn't seem like something to fault the writer for.

Hi Mike - can you clarify this sentence from near the end of the article? I'm only seeing two payments to Amazon.

It’s now gotten to the point where it’s quite easy to pay Amazon three times in one order: for shipping, which you get access to through Prime, and for a product that’s actually just an Amazon-made product.

Depends on how you're shipping, but if you do overnight/expedited shipping, you still have to pay for that on top of the cost of your Prime membership.

The way I understand it is that Prime membership doesn't just pay for shipping (even if many people only use it for that).

As others have mentioned, this was likely added automatically by Quartz to get a few extra cents/dollars from any story linking to an Amazon product/page.

Quartz probably has a page somewhere disclaiming their affiliate linking policy (which is likely: "we have affiliate links. They are separate and do not change the content of a story.") You can see an example of Wired's policy here: https://www.wired.com/2015/11/affiliate-link-policy/

Not clickbait bro.

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

>Large companies wanting to reach a new demographic may use a secret brand to establish clout among that demographic. This imprint brand may use the distribution network of the parent brand, but ship from a dummy company.

In the real, non-tinfoil hat, world those affiliate links are automatically added by the CMS and the writer has nothing to do with it, sees no revenue from it, and has no idea it's happening. This is Quartz, not some dude's blog.

Sorry, not everything is a conspiracy to get you.

Amazon isn't doing some sneaky business here, just regular business. I'm not going to wear an Amazon branded polo, but I might wear a GoodThreads branded polo.

Lots of stores have house brands and others have manufacturers make a specific product line for their store. Walmart has the Great Value house brand and several others [1]. Kohls has a licensing deal with Rock & Republic jeans to sell a "budget" version [2]. Target recently announced that they are dropping their Mossimo brand for a dozen new brands [3]. Best Buy owns the Insignia brand [3]. Amazon isn't doing some sneaky business here, just regular business. I'm not going to wear an Amazon branded polo, but I might wear a GoodThreads branded polo.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Walmart_brands [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_and_Republic [3] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/target-ditching-merona-mossim... [4] https://www.insigniaproducts.com/

I think the author was calling it "sneaky" because they haven't once publically associated themselves with these new brands. Many of the examples you've attached are products that are associated with the company, even if it's through minor press statements or warranty support. There's no page for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amazon_brands :)

Ok, so Amazon is doing what grocery stores have done for 30+ years with their own store brands. Big deal. If the product is good, sells for a reasonable price, and I have a need for it, I will buy it.

What's actually shady is the practice common among electronics and mattress sellers of having exclusive model numbers for what amounts to the same product at other retailers. This is done to deter price matching and comparison shopping.

There was an article a while back about a company in New York which was run by a group of Orthodox Jews (the article focused on this fact quite a bit, it's not a personal observation) - which was one of Amazons top sellers, and they explained their business model: to look at products that sold really well, then leverage their network of Chinese manufacturers to create a generic branded version of the same product, fight the margins, and sell that product at a lower price... and it talked about how successful they were at doing so.

I think one the main example products was a Bluetooth speaker...

I'll see if I can find the article, it was a couple years ago..

Edit: found it: "Amazon whisperer"

https://www.fastcompany.com/3021229/chaim-pikarski-the-amazo...

Don't all companies do this? wayfair.com has like ten different sites that all sells the same stuff with a different name. It's annoying as hell. You'll never know who actually makes the stuff.

I have now learned that the best way to price compare something is to do a google image search and find out what they are selling it for on their other sites.

I had to do this for a set of curtains I bought that went out of stock. Oddly, when it went back in stock, it was on the same site, under a different name. As a consumer, that is a ridiculous cat and mouse game to play.

Funny enough, a lot of it times it leads me back to Amazon, where it's the cheapest.

It's not limited to online stores, either. Best Buy has a few house brands that don't use the Best Buy branding. Walmart has so many house brands that it merits its own Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Walmart_brands

Welcome to the world of brands. Where Adidas and Burberry are owned by the same company:

https://www.fossilgroup.com/who-we-are/brands/

I kind of feel like this is deception, and shouldn't be allowed (though I agree it'd be very difficult to outlaw)....

Adidas is not owned by Fossil: https://www.adidas-group.com/en/investors/share/shareholder-....

Adidas Group own the Adidas brandmark, and they license it to anyone willing to pay enough. Seeing "Adidas" on an item is not an indication that the thing was made by Adidas, designed by Adidas or has anything to do with Adidas beyond a fee to use the logo.

You need to really dig in to the background of where something comes from to understand what you're actually paying for. This is why paying more for brand name goods is often a bit silly.

the license the name from the brand owner to make watches

you'll be shocked to find out every single pair of sunglasses at Sunglass Hut is made from the same company.

It's not so surprising when you realize that Sunglass Hut is owned by that company.

Speaking of watches, these are the brands that make up the Swatch Group:

    Balmain
    Blancpain
    Breguet
    Calvin Klein
    Certina
    Flik Flak
    Glashütte Original
    Hamilton
    Harry Winston
    Jaquet Droz
    Léon Hatot
    Longines
    Mido
    Omega
    Rado
    Swatch (of course)
    Tissot
    Union Glashütte

Swatch movements (ETA) are also used in Hublot, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Panerai, Piaget, Tag Heuer, Vacheron Constantin, and others.

Just like all of the jewlery stores in the mall are owned by the same company - Sterling

    JB Robinson
    Sales
    Jared
    Kay
    Ostermans
    Leroys

I think Fossil only makes watches under these brands, They don't own the brands themselves.

Adidas and Burberry are separate companies. Burberry is registered on the London Stock Exchange. Adidas is based in Germany. The page you're looking at refers to watches manufactured by Fossil under those brand names.

Thanks! I didn't know that!

There are enough real luxury brand conglomerates (LVMH, Luxottica, Richemont, etc.) to be aware of without making things up.

Owning a brand and licensing the brand name for a specific product line (in this case watches) is an important distinction. Fossil Group does neither own Burberry nor Adidas as a brand, but rather licensed it to use their name to produce watches. This is prevalent in fragrance/cosmetics where a branded perfume is rarely produced 'in-house'.

...Quartz discovers own label and private label brands. It's not like Costco trumpets that Kirkland is Costco owned, or 365 Everyday Value is Whole Foods, or all of these Target brands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Corporation#Private_lab...

It's almost unfortunate they'd hide that the products are made by Amazon. Amazonbasics products have treated me well enough that I am more inclined to buy Amazon brand where the price is right. I remember looking over some tools recently and I might have given Denali more thought if I knew it was them.

I've had the opposite experience. I had one electronic item from Basics and it was so crappy that I swore off the brand forever.

Presumably, whether it's truly unfortunate or not will be discovered by A/B testing equivalent products under both the AmazonBasics and the more pseudonymous brands. (And even if it does turn out that AmazonBasics has more cachet right now, the brand might be destroyed at some point by negative press—at which point the pseudonymous brands will act sort of as a hedge.)

Same here, I'm wondering now if I have passed over buying one of these items because it didn't use the Amazon branding I trust. I suspect their marketers have tested this and found it increased conversions overall, and we are outliers.

I remind others to re-read Amazon's strategy of undercutting its own sellers. The article mentions another example, but the Rain Design laptop stand is another example: http://business.financialpost.com/technology/amazon-com-inc-...

The title is a bit misleading. It should say "Amazon secretly owns a whole collection of brands".

It is the ownership of the brand that the article suggests Amazon is keeping a secret. Almost by definition a "brand" cannot be secret in the eyes of the consumer. A "brand" is not necessarily the same thing as the owner or the manufacturer of a product.

Don’t forget the "Wickedly Prime" snacks. (The popcorns are actually really good)

Amazon has been pretty direct about some of these brands being theirs, like Happy Belly was on their box tape a few months ago.

Maybe product development and distribution to a host of brands is an example of doing something that doesn't scale.

So, this is like Lidl, Aldi, Sportsdirect or Poundshops. Pretty normal stuff really.

Always thought Aldi & Lidl mostly do private-label deals (so essentially you have the same product in the package).

Seems AZ builds products from scratch: „...decide to work with manufacturers to make the product itself...“.

edit: spelling

Makes sense, brands don't mean anything themselves.

Isn't the entire point of a brand name to mean something?

The point of a brand is to acquire cachet over time as people have experiences with products marked with those brands. Brands start out meaningless, and continue to be meaningless by default unless/until they become respected as a reliable signal for something.

Brands have meaning only through the associations people make with that brand over time. This is determined by advertising, PR, word of mouth, products/services the brand offers, and more. The actual brand is just an empty container for these associations.

Pinzon (by Amazon)

Top. Secret.

From the article:

    Only one of the brands makes clear that it’s an Amazon product: Pinzon

"Car companies own whole collections of secret brands"

Holy crap did you know Lincoln and Ford are the same company? So nefarious!

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