4 ms·

This is what Amazon does. See Amazon Basics? Sellers sell on Amazon, Amazon tracks what sells well, enters market with same cheaper product and puts you out o

by ProAm 7y ago

This is what Amazon does. See Amazon Basics? Sellers sell on Amazon, Amazon tracks what sells well, enters market with same cheaper product and puts you out of business. You are doing a large part of the market research for your competitors by using cloud services and platforms. You just pray they are good actors and ethical.

lozaning 7y ago
I used to sell something like over 50% of all the HP LTO cleaning tape that got bought in the US through our FBA setup with amazon. The 3rd month in a row we grossed more than 80K in sales, guess who started stocking and selling LTO cleaning tape 'shipped from sold by Amazon'. Thankfully my HP oem pricing had them beat by a mile when it came to cost and we still did pretty well until the market fell out for the product. Their entire business model at this point seems to charge other business for the right to figure out what a good business for them to get into it.
bredren 7y ago
All retailers, that can, do this though. Safeway, Fred Meyer, Costco, you name it there is a Select or some other generic offering of their competitor’s goods.
- oldmanhorton 7y ago
  Except many of those stores haven't fostered distrust in their market place with fake products. I found myself buying Amazon basics because I felt like I could trust them in ways I couldn't trust anything else on the site.
  - nacs 7y ago
    Are you saying you got counterfeit Amazon Basics products? I'm pretty sure Amazon Basics items are only stocked and sold by Amazon and not any of their "marketplace" fronts so I don't see how you would have got fakes. Amazon Basics is just like the grocery store brands that have become popular. They're basically rebranded products by a different company at a cheaper price with some level of quality endorsed by the retailer (Amazon, Costco, Kroger/Publix grocery stores, etc)
    - rhcom2 7y ago
      Amazon's problem with fake products means trust in non-Amazon sellers is lessened which gives the Amazon Basic products an advantage. Like if I was to go to a brick and mortar store and there was a 10% chance that the brand name cereal I bought could be counterfeit but a 0% chance if I bought the store brand.
    - gingabriska 7y ago
      He's saying Amazon allows fake selling of product on their store which erases user's trust in other sellers. Then Amazon comes up with Amazon Basics brand through which you only get genuine products. And guess what is reinforced in users mind? That Amazon Basics is only true source of legit stuff rest all businesses selling on Amazon are fraudsters. Who profits from allowing fake on their store? Amazon.
Stratoscope 7y ago
> See Amazon Basics? Sellers sell on Amazon, Amazon tracks what sells well, enters market with same cheaper product and puts you out of business. Or they contract with you to sell a private label version of your own product. For example, Ergotron makes a very nice quality monitor arm: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00358RIRC/ https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00358RIRC/ Amazon Basics has a monitor arm that looks just like the Ergotron, except it's all black instead of silver and black. https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00MIBN16O/ https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00MIBN16O/ I have a couple of the Amazon arms. The reason they look the same is because they are made by Ergotron. It says so right on the box: Ship From: Ergotron Inc - Private Brands - US
- deleted 7y ago
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- jjeaff 7y ago
  Sure, they partner with you and force you to sell the same thing for less money, with less brand recognition. All under the implied threat that if you don't partner with them, they will go to a competitor and push that product before yours.
quirmian 7y ago
Interestingly, I think we saw (seeing?) a version of the same playbook being used at AWS - see the debacle around the AWS managed Elasticsearch service.
- pdelgallego 7y ago
  I don't think is the same case. AWS playbook will to abstract any customer operational cost into manage service ELK, MongoDB, Kafka, Redis, etc I am sure there are hundreds of companies that were asking AWS to offer a fully managed Kafka service. I asked for it many times to my account manager when they where pitching Kinesis.
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by ProAm 7y ago

lozaning 7y ago

I used to sell something like over 50% of all the HP LTO cleaning tape that got bought in the US through our FBA setup with amazon. The 3rd month in a row we grossed more than 80K in sales, guess who started stocking and selling LTO cleaning tape 'shipped from sold by Amazon'. Thankfully my HP oem pricing had them beat by a mile when it came to cost and we still did pretty well until the market fell out for the product. Their entire business model at this point seems to charge other business for the right to figure out what a good business for them to get into it.

bredren 7y ago

All retailers, that can, do this though. Safeway, Fred Meyer, Costco, you name it there is a Select or some other generic offering of their competitor’s goods.

oldmanhorton 7y ago
Except many of those stores haven't fostered distrust in their market place with fake products. I found myself buying Amazon basics because I felt like I could trust them in ways I couldn't trust anything else on the site.
- nacs 7y ago
  Are you saying you got counterfeit Amazon Basics products? I'm pretty sure Amazon Basics items are only stocked and sold by Amazon and not any of their "marketplace" fronts so I don't see how you would have got fakes. Amazon Basics is just like the grocery store brands that have become popular. They're basically rebranded products by a different company at a cheaper price with some level of quality endorsed by the retailer (Amazon, Costco, Kroger/Publix grocery stores, etc)
  - rhcom2 7y ago
    Amazon's problem with fake products means trust in non-Amazon sellers is lessened which gives the Amazon Basic products an advantage. Like if I was to go to a brick and mortar store and there was a 10% chance that the brand name cereal I bought could be counterfeit but a 0% chance if I bought the store brand.
  - gingabriska 7y ago
    He's saying Amazon allows fake selling of product on their store which erases user's trust in other sellers. Then Amazon comes up with Amazon Basics brand through which you only get genuine products. And guess what is reinforced in users mind? That Amazon Basics is only true source of legit stuff rest all businesses selling on Amazon are fraudsters. Who profits from allowing fake on their store? Amazon.

Stratoscope 7y ago

> See Amazon Basics? Sellers sell on Amazon, Amazon tracks what sells well, enters market with same cheaper product and puts you out of business. Or they contract with you to sell a private label version of your own product. For example, Ergotron makes a very nice quality monitor arm: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00358RIRC/ https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00358RIRC/ Amazon Basics has a monitor arm that looks just like the Ergotron, except it's all black instead of silver and black. https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00MIBN16O/ https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00MIBN16O/ I have a couple of the Amazon arms. The reason they look the same is because they are made by Ergotron. It says so right on the box: Ship From: Ergotron Inc - Private Brands - US

deleted 7y ago
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jjeaff 7y ago
Sure, they partner with you and force you to sell the same thing for less money, with less brand recognition. All under the implied threat that if you don't partner with them, they will go to a competitor and push that product before yours.

quirmian 7y ago

Interestingly, I think we saw (seeing?) a version of the same playbook being used at AWS - see the debacle around the AWS managed Elasticsearch service.

pdelgallego 7y ago
I don't think is the same case. AWS playbook will to abstract any customer operational cost into manage service ELK, MongoDB, Kafka, Redis, etc I am sure there are hundreds of companies that were asking AWS to offer a fully managed Kafka service. I asked for it many times to my account manager when they where pitching Kinesis.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]