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Hmm. I'm a big fan of breaking up Amazon, but that's not the line I'd draw and I'm curious why Basics should be removed from Amazon. Most large retail outlets h

Hmm. I'm a big fan of breaking up Amazon, but that's not the line I'd draw and I'm curious why Basics should be removed from Amazon. Most large retail outlets have the "store brand" for value shoppers. Walmart, Target, Meijer, Home Depot, Staples, etc, they all have the store brand. I'd certainly split Amazon Marketplace and AWS apart from the rest of Amazon, but I'm curious why Amazon shouldn't have their own store brand?

tantalor 7y ago
When you own the platform then you have complete access to data like user behavior and sales. With that (unfair) advantage you can more efficiently sell your own alternatives. This happens on every platform (app store, web search, social media, etc.) but it's problematic on Amazon because it can stifle small businesses on and off their platform. Amazon is utilizing its knowledge of its powerful marketplace machine — from optimizing word-search algorithms to analyzing competitors’ sales data to using its customer-review networks — to steer shoppers toward its in-house brands and away from its competitors, say analysts. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/23/business/amazon-the-brand-buster.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/23/business/amazon-the-brand... This data is much more powerful than large retail outlets have with their store brands: “I can’t just walk into a store and say, ‘Excuse me, did you look at this brand of cereal this morning and decide not to buy it?’ Amazon has that data. They know you looked at a brand and didn’t buy it and they’re not going to share that data with any other brands.”
- icebraining 7y ago
  > This data is much more powerful than large retail outlets have with their store brands: “I can’t just walk into a store and say, ‘Excuse me, did you look at this brand of cereal this morning and decide not to buy it?’ They definitively can, and are. Granted, it's a fairly new development.

tantalor 7y ago

When you own the platform then you have complete access to data like user behavior and sales. With that (unfair) advantage you can more efficiently sell your own alternatives. This happens on every platform (app store, web search, social media, etc.) but it's problematic on Amazon because it can stifle small businesses on and off their platform. Amazon is utilizing its knowledge of its powerful marketplace machine — from optimizing word-search algorithms to analyzing competitors’ sales data to using its customer-review networks — to steer shoppers toward its in-house brands and away from its competitors, say analysts. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/23/business/amazon-the-brand-buster.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/23/business/amazon-the-brand... This data is much more powerful than large retail outlets have with their store brands: “I can’t just walk into a store and say, ‘Excuse me, did you look at this brand of cereal this morning and decide not to buy it?’ Amazon has that data. They know you looked at a brand and didn’t buy it and they’re not going to share that data with any other brands.”

icebraining 7y ago
> This data is much more powerful than large retail outlets have with their store brands: “I can’t just walk into a store and say, ‘Excuse me, did you look at this brand of cereal this morning and decide not to buy it?’ They definitively can, and are. Granted, it's a fairly new development.