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Comment by autoexec | Hacker News Reader

Grocery stores sell generic foods, but they put them on the same shelf as the name brand stuff.

They don't hide the original products in a darkened corner of the back room where no customer can see them. They don't shove their generic into your hand every time you reach for a name brand. Amazon can hide the real products from search, or push it to the bottom of results, while putting their own products at the top of search results even when you search for the brand by name.

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Can't speak for your experience, but in mine generics have often replaced name brand products in shelf-space-limited urban locations of stores like Target, etc. I should make it loud and clear that I'm completely fine with this.

there is limited shelf space. they take the original product off the shelf.

I have never once seen a store that removed the major name brands from the shelves and only offered their own generic brand.

You might argue that having generics on the shelves at all means that new small brands have to pay more for placement, but that's not the same thing as stealing product ideas and leaving no other option but the generic version of that thing on the shelves.

is your claim the shelves were empty where now stand the generic brand? something had to go.

Originally, the generics (which had plain black and white packages) had their own dedicated isles. Now the generics are put on the shelves next to the originals and all those "generic only" shelves got filled with regular products.

I've still never seen a brand new product show up in the store and become popular only to be pulled off the selves and replaced with only a generic version of that product. When I see examples of that happening, I'll accept that grocery stores are guilty of doing what amazon does.

Actually, isn't that what Bed Bath and Beyond did? Partly the cause of their failure?

Also what Trader Joe’s does. It’s kinda their whole deal, and partly the cause for their success.

The root cause of their failure was stock buybacks, which was >100% of their debt at the end.

I've seen it in the mini versions of stores in NYC.

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