4 ms·
Yes but EVERY retailer does this. Every single store brand product you see (Costco, Target, Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, etc.) is a result of this. Cheaper products
by kevinsundar 7y ago
Yes but EVERY retailer does this. Every single store brand product you see (Costco, Target, Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, etc.) is a result of this. Cheaper products that meet the same demand as brand name vendor goods.
In fact customers are already trained for this. I walk into a store and I immediately price compare against the store brand. So if people doing the same on Amazon, why shouldn't Amazon be allowed to fulfill that? This was a thing in retailers a long time before Amazon started doing it.
If you look around in retail stores today its easy to see how everyone strong arms vendors just the same. For example, ever notice that all of Target's pen section all have a certain color and text printed on the bottom of their packaging indicating the type of pen (Gel, ballpoint, etc)? Target has forced every single vendor (massive companies like Bic, Sharpie, etc.) that sells writing implements in Target to change their packaging, create new SKUs, do different production runs, and handle the logistics of different versions of the same pen. All to be undercut in price by the Target brand pen.
- __jal 7y ago> why shouldn't Amazon be allowed Antitrust law used to address this. Monopolies are not allowed to do things that non-monopolies are allowed to do, because the effects of monopolies doing them are different than the effects of non-monopolies doing it. Of course, Bork rewrote monopoly policy in a way that opens the door to exactly the sort of monopolies we now have. But it isn't as if this is some new notion invented because people hate Amazon; it used to be the rule.
- kevinsundar 7y agoMonopolies weren't allowed to do things that non-monopolies are allowed to do because they would have an outsized ability to harm consumers as a monopoly. But Amazon has repeatedly shown that it isn't harming consumers. In fact, it's pushed other retailers to better the customer experience or go out of business. Should a company be split up just because it's doing its customers good and got too big because... they're doing their customers good and people like that and want to give them their money?
- shard972 7y ago> But Amazon has repeatedly shown that it isn't harming consumers. Oh so that whole dash buttoon thing where they doubled the price of your items without telling you, that wasn't harming the consumer, it just knew they wanted to spend double on those amazon basics batteries.
- __jal 7y agoThat is a reasonable restatement of parts of the Bork doctrine, yes. Suffice to say this is a recent legal innovation, and many, many people believe ignoring other monopoly effects is myopic.
- kevinsundar 7y agoAgreed. It basically comes down to if you agree with his viewpoints on M&A and monopolies. Looks like thats where we differ :)