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Are they competing with their own vendors when they’re paying those vendors to make the stuff?
by mikeash 8y ago
Are they competing with their own vendors when they’re paying those vendors to make the stuff?
- ikeboy 8y agoThey aren't paying the same people. If I sell my own brand, and they make their own brand and pay someone else to make it, they're competing with me on a platform they control and they give themselves advantages - such as showing up ahead of me in search (Google got fined a lot of money for this exact practice), putting links to their products on my product page saying "buy our brands instead" (yes, they really do this, see https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/amazon-is-testing-a-new-feature-that-promotes-its-private-label-brands-inside-a-competitors-product-listing.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/amazon-is-testing-a-new-feat...), giving themselves exemptions from policies they apply to third party sellers like review manipulation bans (see Vine program), etc