Amazon copied products and rigged search results to promote its own brands

But Amazon won't sign one.

This was recently rolled back for some vendors. https://www.kaspien.com/blog/amazon-fair-pricing-policy-whic...

Maybe identifying which product is good for the market, who is the best supplier, using social media to market the product and create a demand?

If there was no entrepreneurial risk, why wouldn't Amazon just use it's AI to predetermine all the successful combinations of product+supplier+customers ? There would be zero reason for Amazon to allow third party sellers, except for very niche areas. This is a very predatory practice and I'm amazed they're allowed to do it.

Have you never looked around to figure out where some dropshipper gets their stuff and bought direct?

Some stores manage to get their brands recognized as high-quality, but not nearly as many as you probably think. The usual consumer recognition is that they are knock-offs. So the more known brands don't see them as direct competition.

It is different because Amazon controls exposure to products. In the store if I want ketchup, Heinz and the store brand are right next to each other and easily distinguishable. Amazon can bury the original product on page 2 of the search results. Also, its not always obvious in Amazon's search results that there is a viable option other than the Amazon branded product.

A comment like this pops up every time this happens with Amazon, and it's not even remotely the same thing at all.

Amazon only "resells" a limited subset of products. Most of the products on Amazon are sold on consignment or by third party sellers with fulfillment by Amazon.

Stores buy all of their products from their suppliers, both the name brand products and the store brand products and "resell" those products to end customers. In fact, the same company (or companies) supplies both the name brand and store brand products. Store brand products are just white label variants of the name brand. The supplier deliberately offers it as part of a market segmentation strategy, with the goal of making the name brand appear (more) premium.

Suppliers also do not pay for shelf space for most products in grocery stores. Paying for shelf space is an optional marketing strategy; suppliers can choose to pay for premium placement, and if they do not the store will simply place the most profitable items in the premium locations.

Suppliers also don't share their profits, and I don't know where you got that idea from. Suppliers sell to grocery stores at wholesale prices. And the grocery stores than "resell" those items at a markup to end customers.

Finally, grocery stores very rarely sell items on consignment, because most suppliers won't put up with that shit. Only low volume or new/trial products with no sales history get sold on consignment, because the store can't and won't purchase perishable inventory without knowing how (or when) it will sell.

That being said, Amazon has taken a step in the right direction by being open about it's brands: https://www.amazon.com/b?node=17728530011

The depth of data they have is much deeper. Walmart hasn't had 3rd party sellers for as long as Amazon, and that sort of historical sales data is priceless to retailers. They don't willingly share that.

But how do you get around this? Is there a way of engaging with these big companies as a small player? Or is it just a fool's errand?

Aldi's questionable ethics are on the branding-similarity side, rather than the Amazon approach of using marketplace data to cut-out middlemen distributors. I'm not saying if their approach is right and wrong, but it's a different and distinct issue.

"It's just like $BRAND!" well yeah....

Aldi don't pretend that their brands are the famous brands and they don't stock the expensive ones so making cornflakes look a little like "Kellogs Cornflakes" is probably more about customers spotting them on the shelves than trying to get customers to buy yours instead.

If Kellogs claimed trademark infringement, it would be hard for them to prove that they are losing out since Aldi would simply say that they don't sell Kellogs and people aren't in any way being tricked into thinking any of the Aldi brands are real ones.

caveat: I'm no lawyer!

That makes the problem worse, not better.

So really every other brand has to contend with counterfeit or at least pricing arbitraged products being listed against their brand on Amazon, except Amazon.

That seems to give Amazon a monopoly driven upper hand and is materially different from what other marketplace platform players are doing.

To be a fair and transparent marketplace platform and avoid anti-trust litigation - Amazon should be allow resellers to price gouge and counterfeit Amazon brands as well.

[1] Kirkland and Target T-shirt on Amazon available from a variety of price gougers and potential counterfeiters

https://www.amazon.com/Kirkland-Signature-Mens-White-Large/d...

https://www.amazon.com/Goodfellow-Co-Standard-Lyndale-T-Shir...

[2] Amazon Essentials T-shirt on Amazon only available from - you guessed it - Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Essentials-Regular-Fit-T-Shirt...

And is it not easier than ever for a competitor to start a retail business due to the internet? All you need is a website and UPS/FedEx/USPS. Seems like a bad business to get into if your goal is to earn a lot of profits by raising prices after cornering a market.

That seems like the correct metric to use, no? The other definition didn't make much sense either.

>GOLDSTEIN: 1966, United States v. Von's Grocery - can two local grocery store chains merge in Los Angeles?

>MALONE: I don't know, merger?

>GOLDSTEIN: OK, but after the merger, they'd only have 7.5 percent of the local market.

>MALONE: Supreme Court was like, no. No, you can't do it. It would be too hard on mom-and-pop shops.

>GOLDSTEIN: OK, 1967, Utah Pie v. Continental Baking - can big national frozen pie companies sell really cheap pies in Utah and make business tough for a local pie company?

>MALONE: No way.

>GOLDSTEIN: OK, but what if the local pie company controls most of the local market and keeps making a profit through most of the price war?

>MALONE: Still no, nope.

>GOLDSTEIN: So in case after case, the court kept ruling for the little guy, kept ruling for team David, and expanding the definition of what was illegal, what was bad for competition.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/696337392

>which is very easy to promise and temporarily deliver for the merging corporations. Then you just start rachetting up prices once you're a year or so out because unwinding a merger is tough.

But amazon didn't get here by a series of mergers?

I really feel this should be considered an outdated view. Software, technology, and automation has changed things, and companies can exert market and monopoly power much more easily with less market share than previously found in monopolistic practices.

If we read the Justice Department’s own documents, we find:

> The Supreme Court has defined market power as "the ability to raise prices above those that would be charged in a competitive market,"(8) and monopoly power as "the power to control prices or exclude competition."(9) The Supreme Court has held that "[m]onopoly power under § 2 requires, of course, something greater than market power under § 1."(10) Precisely where market power becomes so great as to constitute what the law deems to be monopoly power is largely a matter of degree rather than one of kind. Clearly, however, monopoly power requires, at a minimum, a substantial degree of market power.(11)… antitrust law does not regard as illegal the mere possession of monopoly power where it is the product of superior skill, foresight, or industry.(14) Where monopoly power is acquired or maintained through anticompetitive conduct, however, antitrust law properly objects.

> Monopoly power is conventionally demonstrated by showing that both (1) the firm has (or in the case of attempted monopolization, has a dangerous probability of attaining) a high share of a relevant market and (2) there are entry barriers--perhaps ones created by the firm's conduct itself--that permit the firm to exercise substantial market power for an appreciable period.(16) Unless these conditions are met, defendant is unlikely to have either the incentive or ability to exclude competition.(17)

If we follow these definitions and discussions, it’s clear firms like Amazon and Apple have incredibly substantial market and monopoly power. To me, the fact that they may not have even majority market share in certain markets is inconsequential. If one keeps reading the linked Justice Department document, there’s discussions about percentages of market shares that the courts have typically gone off of. These are seemingly arbitrary and obviously rooted in businesses of a different type. Through technology and scale, firms like Amazon and Apple are among the richest and most powerful corporations ever, despite not necessarily having high percentages of market share in the relevant market, but they absolutely meet the definitions above. So these percentage of market share ideas are outdated and need revamped, in my opinion.

https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-...

We don't hear about Wal-mart deciding to place Procter & Gamble's laundry detergent on the fourth row down and their private label at eye level in the store, do we?

They can put brand option on the bottom shelf while the store brand generics on the mid/top shelf so its easier for customers to pick up.

“With its billion-dollar private labels, Target has become a master at spotting trends, copying them, and capitalizing on them”

“Target, for its part, seemed to see the C9 contract’s expiration as a chance to do what it increasingly does best: develop and launch a stylish brand internally—and keep all the revenue for itself.”

https://www.fastcompany.com/90661935/retail-thrives-on-copyi...

If Walmart is 10% of brick-and-mortar sales it's hard to argue that store brands are too competitive. 90% of that market is not walmart.

When Amazon approaches the majority of all ecommerce sales, it starts to become a bigger problem when they control the marketplace and start to undercut your products.

In general I think the fair thing to do is to make the marketplace distinction (even for store brands, which are often white-labeled third-party generics sold under multiple names anyway). You run the marketplace that allows others to sell their products, or you sell your products directly... you shouldn't be able to coordinate both as one business.

This gives every non Amazon brand a massive disadvantage because they will be associated with scams.

But this is exactly what is done at innumerable retailers like Walgreens and Safeway. The retailer is a "marketplace" (they sell multiple brands for each product) who controls "search placement" (where each product is displayed, e.g., eye height vs. near the floor) and have insider information on how well the different products sell. They use this advantage to make their own knock-off brands, and its generally a win for the consumer.

Anti-trust ignores situations with CLEAR customer harm, and goes after folks like Apple (which many consumers like) for blocking scammers from doing the noncancellable subscriptions and other things in the store.

This diminishes confidence in govt and unfortunately increases confidence in big business.

Literally thousands of folks getting scammed daily online - govt does nothing. Some business hurt (and consumers SAVE money) -whammo.

I'm also not saying that this is certainly 100% fair. I just doubt the motives of the media on this point because they knew that major retailers were doing this, and they never said a word about it.

In Amazon’s case, all sellers know they’re hoovering up their sales data and have done so since day one. Now whether they should have a more expensive, “don’t mine my data” option is debatable. But if it’s anything like the TV industry there’s just no viable market for it. The price difference would allow someone who doesn’t care about the long term to undercut you.

Like what? Ebay, Alibaba, Etsy, Newegg, Abebooks...these seemingly cover most use-cases...