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Comment by mjsweet | Hacker News Reader

From what I understand, it’s not that simple. Sellers need the sheer volume of Amazon to compete. There is also the risk of Amazon duplicating their product and continuing to sell it on their platform… or their competitors filling the void.

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If your product doesn’t have any value that can be protected by copyright, patent and you haven’t built any type of affinity with customers, isn’t it by definition just another commoditized product?

Well, here's a real example. About a decade ago there was a simple video conferencing system called Nautilus. A simple LCD screen that let you call other people with the device and talk to them, not having to bother with computers or smartphones. The sort of thing that is good for talking with elderly relatives who may not be very computer or phone savvy. I bought one (from Amazon) for myself and my elderly parents. It worked well, but a few years later Amazon came out with their Echo Show products which are basically the same thing, which killed the Nautilus. I'm sure it was covered by patents and what not, but you can't protect the idea. Amazon obviously saw that it sold reasonably well and used its power as both a marketplace and a technology company to undercut their own seller.

Really? That’s your example? Everyone and their mother has a video conferencing solution and the idea has been around as something to aspire to since the 60s with the Jetsons .

Do you agree with the look and feel lawsuit that Apple had against MS? Or think that Roku, Amazon, Google , etc did something untoward because they came after Apple with set top boxes?

Well, for historical accuracy, Roku was first in regard to streaming devices you hooked up to your TV. Apple and the rest copied them. And it is pretty much obvious that Microsoft copied Apple (and yes, you can argue that Apple in turn copied PARC). But what makes Amazon copying things different is that they are a marketplace for other people's products and a maker of products themselves. That has an intrinsic conflict of interest.

The first AppleTV was released in 2007. The first Roku in 2008.

As far as Amazon copying others as a marketplace owner, ever heard of the Kirkland’s brand? Store brands have been around forever.

Fortunately or unfortunately, that is something that is easy to research. ie: Amazon Basics

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/amazon-copied-produ...

> thousands of pages of internal Amazon documents examined by Reuters – including emails, strategy papers and business plans – show the company ran a systematic campaign of creating knockoffs and manipulating search results to boost its own product lines in India, one of the company's largest growth markets.

Again have you heard of the Kirkland’s brand? Have you been to a CVS and seen the knockoffs? Literally every single major retailer has house brands that compete with third parties.

Your "What about Kirkland" -ism is irrelevant.

A big company can stall a copyright lawsuit for as long as it wants. Small companies cannot win against a large compamy like Amazon in court.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-14-fi-19337-...

Especially when they can just twist the court system however they wish.

Small victories like the chain wrench lawsuit against Sears happen. But they are rare.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-bionic-wrench-sea...

Your response shows that you did no read the article. They specifically show cases where Amazon copied sizes:

> Among the victims of the strategy: a popular shirt brand in India, John Miller, which is owned by a company whose chief executive is Kishore Biyani, known as the country's "retail king." Amazon decided to "follow the measurements of" John Miller shirts down to the neck circumference and sleeve length, the document states.

It’s not whataboutism at all. Only people that don’t know that housebrands have been a thing forever would think that the evil Amazon is doing something unique.

And CVS follows the formula of name brand OTC drugs down to the very ingrediant to make house brands. You can’t copyright a shirt measurement.

And before you call me an “Amazon shill”. I got PIPed from Amazon less than two months ago. I’m the last person who has any love for Amazon. Honestly I don’t have any feeling either way. It was just my 8th job over 25 years, they gave me a nice check and I had a comparable offer within two weeks.

The major difference here is that Amazon has major market power as an online mall.

Like with the sears example, large 'mall' like organizations do outright steal designs and stonewall the original copyright holder.

A random housebrand does not have access to Amazon's statistics, logistics or reach. Amazon is looking at stats that they hide from their providers, to choose who to copy, then out-price the original seller. (Due to inhouse logistics)

They are not even remotely the same thing.

And CVS doesn’t have major power when it comes to selling drugs and knowing which ones it should knock off with home brands? Every single store knows what to knock off based on what it sells.

And Walmart sells a lot more than Amazon.

You don’t think that every store knows how to undercut other products in its own store with house brands?

“A simple LCD screen that let you call other people with the device and talk to them” sounds like a commoditized product to me.

Yes, anyone here can go out and find an ODM from China to anufacturer them, send a custom version of AOSP to the ODM, slap their brand on it and sell it on Amazon.

So what? That's how e-commerce works. Why should Amazon be obligated to fill their store with higher priced items compared to their competitors? No one is going to visit a store where every item could be purchased cheaper somewhere else. This is exactly why price match is a thing, because they don't want their costumers soliciting different stores to begin with.

The move that Amazon's price be no higher than offered elsewhere is the most pro-consumer move possible. Hilarious people are complaining about it. Any second-order effects of this are on the actual seller, not Amazon.

The market should decide. That’s commerce.

Yes, exactly. These sellers should and can just leave Amazon if they have a problem with it.

No, they should be able to set their own pricing as they see fit.

They are able to do so, but Amazon is not obligated to have them on their platform if they aren't providing the best price to their customers.

Amazon is a product search engine and should be treated as such. Vendors must have the freedom to set pricing on any platform as they see fit. If all product search engines and ecommerce platforms behaved in this anticompetitive behaviour then what would we have? A weird commercial landscape that lacks flexibility… in the end the consumer looses because free market forces are not in play.

Amazon is not a product search engine, so the rest of your post is irrelevant. They are a store and describe themselves as such. You cannot find products on Amazon that are not for sale by them or sellers who agree to their rules, an actual product search engine would allow this.

Good luck with that! Amazon is the most powerful product search engine available. I love it and use it almost every day. Amazon will spend a lot of money trying to convince the feds they are otherwise… no amount of lobbying, PR pieces, paid ops and persistent commenting on boards like this one will stop valid questions being asked in hearings. It’s only a matter of time sorry.

I don't even know where to begin with this comment. Do you know what anticompetitive behavior is? Do you know how markets are supposed to work? Amazon is leveraging their position in the market to unfairly disadvantage their competitors, thereby distorting the market, decreasing its efficiency, and increasing end prices for consumers everywhere. Market-distorting behavior like this is why antitrust regulation is necessary to keep markets functioning efficiently.

Everything you're stating is false. Amazon is trying to do right by its customers, and they are not obligated to let sellers not give their customers the best price available. Sellers are not obligated to sell on Amazon.

Your conclusion that this increases end pries for consumers has nothing to do with Amazon, but the sellers themselves.

Amazon was already told not to do this for anti-trust reasons, and they promised to oblige. Unless the government, Amazon, and the general public are all incorrect about what constitutes monopolistic behavior, you are. The idea that Amazon is openly defying pro-consumer laws to do right by its customers is absurd.

Some would say that the way commerce works is sellers can sell anywhere at any price that a buyer wants to pay.

That's not how commerce works. Commerce works by following the rules of places that you are trying to sell at. You can't sell anything anywhere.

And Amazon needs to follow the rules and laws of the place that IT'S trying to sell at.

And which law dictates a company must allow people or sellers on its platform?

I'm not GP. I didn't make that argument. I agree that Amazon is not obliged to allow just anyone on their platform. Sellers must abide by the rules that Amazon sets in place. At the same time, Amazon must abide by the laws of the locations at which it wants to sell. So if a state says that they cannot force a seller to keep their lowest price on Amazon, then that's the way it is.

> So if a state says that they cannot force a seller to keep their lowest price on Amazon, then that's the way it is.

Yes, but at the end of the day Amazon to remove the seller for any reason, so even if the FTC succeeds here, Amazon will simply purge those sellers who are not offering the best price, even if not explicitly stated.

There is no reality where Amazon allows their site to be inundated with higher priced goods compared to competitors.

Perhaps you are right, and also then again perhaps those companies find that they have cause to file a lawsuit.

with astronomic fines (for the customers to pay)

There has been a a standard of “no duty to deal” forever. No company is forced to do business with anyone.

it would be sensible to require a reason for refusing to do business with someone. Normally it wouldn't be but if you are a repeat offender it seems a sensible requirement

Unless it's a protected class you can refuse to do business with anyone for any reason. Plenty of supreme court cases on this.

certainly, you can write anything on the form. Any reason is not without? I do doubt you can refuse one foo for being fooish but not the other. Now multiply by 10 000 and pretend you are explaining it to the judge in a context where you've been convicted multiple times.

Why not? If I'm willing to pay Amazon $6 for an item I could get for $5 at Walmart, why wouldn't Amazon want to make that sale?

this might come if the shop is large enough

Sure. The rules at the place you're trying to sell.

Dictating how you sell elsewhere is a clear step beyond that.

They are not dictating how they sell elsewhere. They are saying they need to offer the best price on their site. It is easy to detect whether or not they actually are, and sellers are simply being called out.

There is no obligation to sell on Amazon, nor a requirement for them to raise prices on other platforms. They could simply offer the lowest price everywhere. The result? Lower prices for Amazon customers. If they raise the price, then that's the seller's fault, not Amazon.

You...understand how you can't have one without the other, right?

> There is no obligation to sell on Amazon

While true, this ignores the important point that Amazon is only able to do this anti-competitive practice due to their market dominance that effectively forces many sellers to sell on Amazon.

> nor a requirement for them to raise prices on other platforms.

That is what this whole thing is about. Sellers that sell on Amazon aren't allowed to sell for lower prices on other platforms that are cheaper to sell on.

If Amazon was able to offer lower prices for its customers by offering sellers a marketplace with lower costs compared to competitors that would be great. Instead, they abuse their market dominance to prevent any competitors from offering lower prices by being more cost efficient for sellers. This is extremely nasty as it effectively prevents any competitors to Amazon from building a market share since consumers will have no price incentive to switch and sellers will not want to switch due to the smaller market share on those competitors' platforms.

It could not be more clear that this is anti-competitive behavior achieved through abuse of a dominate market position.

rules partially set by government

The move that Amazon's price be no higher than offered elsewhere is the most pro-consumer move possible.

Yet here we are with sellers WANTING to sell their items at a lower price on places other than Amazon, but if they do, they'll go out of business. That doesn't sound pro-consumer.

I'm a consumer. I'd like to be able to buy items for the lowest price the seller wants to offer me. That's not happening in some cases because if they do, Amazon will exclude them and they'll go out of business. Yeah, definitely not pro-consumer. Pro-amazon, sure.

Would Amazon be obligated to list the items regardless? Otherwise just dropping pricing conditions would only help those sellers that Amazon has enough interest to list regardless - for some products the "equilibrium" might not be great.

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