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But no real world grocery chain has anything near a monopoly. The whole point of antitrust law is that businesses in dominant positions have additional limits t

But no real world grocery chain has anything near a monopoly. The whole point of antitrust law is that businesses in dominant positions have additional limits to what they can do.

pitaj 7y ago
And neither is Amazon.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  During Black Friday, Amazon on its own represented a sizable, double-digit portion of all sales in the US. On its own. Amazon doesn't need to be a monopoly to be an antitrust concern. It just needs to have a dominant market position (a monopoly is just a per se example of such).
  - repolfx 7y ago
    "Dominant market position" would be something like more than 90% of retail sales. Clearly, their market share is nowhere near that. I don't really get why everyone is bashing Amazon here. They sell a lot of stuff, and they sell it well. By the very act of selling they get data on what is being sold - what kind of retail business could last more than 12 hours without knowing data about its own sales operations? But apparently in the EU that's now illegal. Or more realistically, it's illegal if you're rich enough to pay huge fines directly into the pockets of the EU Commission, which is desperate for money and can directly levy fines without needing to win a court case in front of a neutral judiciary.
    - gamblor956 7y ago
      No, at that % they would be a de facto monopoly. Dominant generally means >50%, though depending on the market it could be an even letter percentage than that. I'm not bashing on Amazon, I'm a regular customer. But I'm trying to explain how antitrust generally works. EU has more rigorous antitrust rules than the US. If Amazon has antitrust issues under US laws, then it has a serious antitrust problem under EU laws.
Nasrudith 7y ago
And Walmart is bigger than Amazon in the United States. I don't have numbers at hand of the EU as a whole to compare but I would be surprised if Amazon were bigger than leading grocery store chains.
- malka 7y ago
  there is no "leading grocery store chains", there are A LOT of them. Of course, many of them belong to the same group, but even with that, we are nowhere near a monopoly.
  - jklinger410 7y ago
    Kroger and Walmart are certainly leading grocery store chains. I would argue that Amazon is also not near a monopoly. Google, Ali Express, eBay, NewEgg, Overstock, and so many direct to consumer brands and marketplaces also are healthy competition.

But no real world grocery chain has anything near a monopoly. The whole point of antitrust law is that businesses in dominant positions have additional limits to what they can do.

pitaj 7y ago

And neither is Amazon.

gamblor956 7y ago
During Black Friday, Amazon on its own represented a sizable, double-digit portion of all sales in the US. On its own. Amazon doesn't need to be a monopoly to be an antitrust concern. It just needs to have a dominant market position (a monopoly is just a per se example of such).
- repolfx 7y ago
  "Dominant market position" would be something like more than 90% of retail sales. Clearly, their market share is nowhere near that. I don't really get why everyone is bashing Amazon here. They sell a lot of stuff, and they sell it well. By the very act of selling they get data on what is being sold - what kind of retail business could last more than 12 hours without knowing data about its own sales operations? But apparently in the EU that's now illegal. Or more realistically, it's illegal if you're rich enough to pay huge fines directly into the pockets of the EU Commission, which is desperate for money and can directly levy fines without needing to win a court case in front of a neutral judiciary.
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    No, at that % they would be a de facto monopoly. Dominant generally means >50%, though depending on the market it could be an even letter percentage than that. I'm not bashing on Amazon, I'm a regular customer. But I'm trying to explain how antitrust generally works. EU has more rigorous antitrust rules than the US. If Amazon has antitrust issues under US laws, then it has a serious antitrust problem under EU laws.

Nasrudith 7y ago

And Walmart is bigger than Amazon in the United States. I don't have numbers at hand of the EU as a whole to compare but I would be surprised if Amazon were bigger than leading grocery store chains.

malka 7y ago
there is no "leading grocery store chains", there are A LOT of them. Of course, many of them belong to the same group, but even with that, we are nowhere near a monopoly.
- jklinger410 7y ago
  Kroger and Walmart are certainly leading grocery store chains. I would argue that Amazon is also not near a monopoly. Google, Ali Express, eBay, NewEgg, Overstock, and so many direct to consumer brands and marketplaces also are healthy competition.