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This is totally false - the number of retailers who have testified before congress that they don't use seller data to compete against sellers - and then who go

This is totally false - the number of retailers who have testified before congress that they don't use seller data to compete against sellers - and then who go ahead and do just that is basically zero. Additionally, most other retailers actually BUY the third parties products and take the risk of promoting and selling it. On Amazon third parties take the inventory and many other risks and may have to pay amazon to promote their product. The story here is that amazon has testified it does not do something, has supposedly the "highest ethical principals" - yet goes ahead and does exactly that which it said it doesn't do. Do that not matter to you from a trust / credibility perspective?

fastball 7y ago
Can you link to where AMZN has said this?
- woodgrainz 7y ago
  "Nate Sutton, associate general counsel at Amazon, told lawmakers the company doesn’t tap data from individual third-party merchants to determine what new products to create." https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/16/amazon-tells-house-it-doesnt-favor-own-brands-in-antitrust-hearing.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/16/amazon-tells-house-it-doesnt...
  - grafporno 7y ago
    Ah, the hyper-specific dementi? Doesn't tap data from _individual_ third-party merchants.
    - bitxbitxbitcoin 7y ago
      No specific merchants... It's just from the aggregate data from third-party merchants. And I bet that data is "anonymized" too.
      - TimSchumann 7y ago
        And you would win that bet.
- TheCoelacanth 7y ago
  Paragraph two of the article > The online retailing giant has long asserted, including to Congress, that when it makes and sells its own products, it doesn’t use information it collects from the site’s individual third-party sellers—data those sellers view as proprietary.
dd36 7y ago
How would Amazon not use sales data of comparable products to evaluate the launch of a new white label product?
- archgoon 7y ago
  Amazon agrees that what is being reported goes against their policies. '"However, we strictly prohibit our employees from using nonpublic, seller-specific data to determine which private label products to launch." Amazon said employees using such data to inform private-label decisions in the way the Journal described would violate its policies, and that the company has launched an internal investigation.'
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    That carefully phrased language could be technically accurate but still allow them to use seller-agnostic information about the market for batteries or speaker wire to decide to launch Amazon Basics batteries or speaker wire. (Which by the way, I’m totally fine with, because there’s no reasonable way to prove you’re not doing it and any brick-and-mortar retailer is almost surely doing it as well.)
    - t0mas88 7y ago
      It's also ethically fair game to base your decisions to launch a product on the amount of consumer interest the category gets. Everyone does that. What they promise not to do is take a look at seller specific data. That makes sense because it won't get them much extra compared to looking at categories, and the sellers ethically claim it's their data.
      - thoraway1010 7y ago
        Actually - as the article described, they DO spend a lot of time looking at SPECIFIC seller data for unique products because it gives them LOTS extra that category details don't provide.
davidgh 7y ago
> This is totally false - the number of retailers who have testified before congress that they don't use seller data to compete against sellers - and then who go ahead and do just that is basically zero. I can't understand this at all. Retailers create in-house brands all the time. Do they somehow make decisions of which products to create in a black box? How would they even do that? If you go into the Walmart pharmacy, their store-brand equivalents are full of statements such as "Compare to the active ingredient in Advil".
- thoraway1010 7y ago
  Sellers at walmart a) actually sell their product to walmart, even the branded product is owned, priced and managed by WALMART. So there is much less SELLER specific data to datamine. b) sellers to walmart AGREE that the data on products priced, sold, and promoted by walmart (even branded one) belongs to walmart, and in many cases the seller has to pay extra if they want day/store level detail on sales. So in most cases it is a very upfront relationship, and walmart takes a lot more risk in pricing, promoting etc. Here Amazon has enticed sellers by reassuring them that in CONTRAST to target, Amazon will NOT use the data they provide amazon to market against them AND sellers give amazon a lot more "seller" data because the sellers are often doing their own price management etc etc.
whoisjuan 7y ago
I mean, let's be objective for a minute here. Do you really believe that Walmart, Target, Costco, Kroger, etc, are more ethical with their suppliers than Amazon? Let's not forget that many of these large retailers have moved to the practice of taking up to 90 days to pay their suppliers. 90 DAYS! That's three months before you see the money of the product you sold through their channels. And they do this because they simply can. I believe that there's not a single retailer that doesn't leverage its distribution advantage to squeeze their suppliers. If you're not Coca Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever, Procter and Gamble or Colgate Palmolive, you have little to no room for negotiation.
- thoraway1010 7y ago
  I've done consulting for small business distributing into major stories. Other stores are very very UPFRONT on what they will do. Many make the small mfg sign an agreement that not only will the store have all the data, but the mfg will need to pay the STORE if they want the data. The difference here is that a) it is all upfront and b) the mfg can make an informed decision - is this worth it. If you need store / day detail on sales because you are running promos and in-store marketing vs just being a low cost volume seller - all affect your view of this. Finally, in grocery retail - once you have the order and deliver, you DO get paid regardless of whether product sells. This is an important positive even selling through Target in some cases especially with more perishable goods. Amazon as a seller you can't plan as well - their alog or someone else paying for promo could cut your demand in half overnight. Additionally retail stores actually drive demand / discover ability when they purchase your product in a way amazon often does not.
  - TimSchumann 7y ago
    > The difference here is that a) it is all upfront and b) the mfg can make an informed decision - is this worth it. You sign the same deal when you sell on Amazon, probably even signing away more rights. I'm not sure I haven't read the full EULA when you sign up to sell. > Amazon as a seller you can't plan as well - their alog or someone else paying for promo could cut your demand in half overnight. This is about the only thing you've said I agree with. But it's not due to lack of data, it's due to barrier to entry with retail sales you have less competition. Right for the wrong reason here. > Additionally retail stores actually drive demand / discover ability when they purchase your product in a way amazon often does not. Amazon drives way WAY more discoverability than any retailer. Pretty much your entire argument contradicts real world experience, common sense, and actual reality from what I know of the situation. I can tell you for a fact your assertion that 'Amazon doesn't do this' everything you're saying is 100% false.
asperous 7y ago
Major retailers buy and sell their product line data from neilson and others. I worked on a project with one of them so I know first hand. So the idea that they don't use seller data to market their own products has to be false.
- thoraway1010 7y ago
  And amazon sellers can sell their data (and do sometimes) as well. All that is fine. Remember, for major retailers, a) THEY are the seller in most cases and b) in most cases they get mfg's to agree to whatever is going on in the agreement UPFRONT.
TimSchumann 7y ago
This comment is based on a misreading of the very testimony you're referencing. As quoted in this CNBC article. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/16/amazon-tells-house-it-doesnt-favor-own-brands-in-antitrust-hearing.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/16/amazon-tells-house-it-doesnt... "Nate Sutton, associate general counsel at Amazon, told lawmakers the company doesn’t tap data from individual third-party merchants to determine what new products to create." Of course they don't use data from individuals, they use all of the data, in aggregate, from everyone including themselves.
- LoSboccacc 7y ago
  and they don't even have to use merchant sales data to determine what product to go after, just search click troughs are enough for that.
- thoraway1010 7y ago
  Amazon has promised individual sellers it would not use the data for their products to market against them (not individual buyers). Despite the ludicrous lengths Amazon goes here to say there were multiple sellers and so this data was aggregate, we all understand (and amazon did too) that if you generate statistics such as median sale price per month / day etc where 99.95% of the data comes from one seller, you have the data from that seller.
  - TimSchumann 7y ago
    > Amazon has promised individual sellers it would not use the data for their products to market against them (not individual buyers). Again, there's that word. Individual. They get off on a technicality with that comment to congress. The second you have even 0.05% (Your example, not mine.) of any category occupied by a second reseller, you're no longer targeting individuals -- you're entering a 'product vertical'. Amazon does exactly what you're claiming they do not.
    - malcolmgreaves 7y ago
      If they aggregate data from individuals, they're using the individual's data. They didn't get off on a technicality, they're simply lying.

fastball 7y ago

Can you link to where AMZN has said this?

woodgrainz 7y ago
"Nate Sutton, associate general counsel at Amazon, told lawmakers the company doesn’t tap data from individual third-party merchants to determine what new products to create." https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/16/amazon-tells-house-it-doesnt-favor-own-brands-in-antitrust-hearing.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/16/amazon-tells-house-it-doesnt...
- grafporno 7y ago
  Ah, the hyper-specific dementi? Doesn't tap data from _individual_ third-party merchants.
  - bitxbitxbitcoin 7y ago
    No specific merchants... It's just from the aggregate data from third-party merchants. And I bet that data is "anonymized" too.
    - TimSchumann 7y ago
      And you would win that bet.
TheCoelacanth 7y ago
Paragraph two of the article > The online retailing giant has long asserted, including to Congress, that when it makes and sells its own products, it doesn’t use information it collects from the site’s individual third-party sellers—data those sellers view as proprietary.

dd36 7y ago

How would Amazon not use sales data of comparable products to evaluate the launch of a new white label product?

archgoon 7y ago
Amazon agrees that what is being reported goes against their policies. '"However, we strictly prohibit our employees from using nonpublic, seller-specific data to determine which private label products to launch." Amazon said employees using such data to inform private-label decisions in the way the Journal described would violate its policies, and that the company has launched an internal investigation.'
- sokoloff 7y ago
  That carefully phrased language could be technically accurate but still allow them to use seller-agnostic information about the market for batteries or speaker wire to decide to launch Amazon Basics batteries or speaker wire. (Which by the way, I’m totally fine with, because there’s no reasonable way to prove you’re not doing it and any brick-and-mortar retailer is almost surely doing it as well.)
  - t0mas88 7y ago
    It's also ethically fair game to base your decisions to launch a product on the amount of consumer interest the category gets. Everyone does that. What they promise not to do is take a look at seller specific data. That makes sense because it won't get them much extra compared to looking at categories, and the sellers ethically claim it's their data.
    - thoraway1010 7y ago
      Actually - as the article described, they DO spend a lot of time looking at SPECIFIC seller data for unique products because it gives them LOTS extra that category details don't provide.

davidgh 7y ago

> This is totally false - the number of retailers who have testified before congress that they don't use seller data to compete against sellers - and then who go ahead and do just that is basically zero. I can't understand this at all. Retailers create in-house brands all the time. Do they somehow make decisions of which products to create in a black box? How would they even do that? If you go into the Walmart pharmacy, their store-brand equivalents are full of statements such as "Compare to the active ingredient in Advil".

thoraway1010 7y ago
Sellers at walmart a) actually sell their product to walmart, even the branded product is owned, priced and managed by WALMART. So there is much less SELLER specific data to datamine. b) sellers to walmart AGREE that the data on products priced, sold, and promoted by walmart (even branded one) belongs to walmart, and in many cases the seller has to pay extra if they want day/store level detail on sales. So in most cases it is a very upfront relationship, and walmart takes a lot more risk in pricing, promoting etc. Here Amazon has enticed sellers by reassuring them that in CONTRAST to target, Amazon will NOT use the data they provide amazon to market against them AND sellers give amazon a lot more "seller" data because the sellers are often doing their own price management etc etc.

whoisjuan 7y ago

I mean, let's be objective for a minute here. Do you really believe that Walmart, Target, Costco, Kroger, etc, are more ethical with their suppliers than Amazon? Let's not forget that many of these large retailers have moved to the practice of taking up to 90 days to pay their suppliers. 90 DAYS! That's three months before you see the money of the product you sold through their channels. And they do this because they simply can. I believe that there's not a single retailer that doesn't leverage its distribution advantage to squeeze their suppliers. If you're not Coca Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever, Procter and Gamble or Colgate Palmolive, you have little to no room for negotiation.

thoraway1010 7y ago
I've done consulting for small business distributing into major stories. Other stores are very very UPFRONT on what they will do. Many make the small mfg sign an agreement that not only will the store have all the data, but the mfg will need to pay the STORE if they want the data. The difference here is that a) it is all upfront and b) the mfg can make an informed decision - is this worth it. If you need store / day detail on sales because you are running promos and in-store marketing vs just being a low cost volume seller - all affect your view of this. Finally, in grocery retail - once you have the order and deliver, you DO get paid regardless of whether product sells. This is an important positive even selling through Target in some cases especially with more perishable goods. Amazon as a seller you can't plan as well - their alog or someone else paying for promo could cut your demand in half overnight. Additionally retail stores actually drive demand / discover ability when they purchase your product in a way amazon often does not.
- TimSchumann 7y ago
  > The difference here is that a) it is all upfront and b) the mfg can make an informed decision - is this worth it. You sign the same deal when you sell on Amazon, probably even signing away more rights. I'm not sure I haven't read the full EULA when you sign up to sell. > Amazon as a seller you can't plan as well - their alog or someone else paying for promo could cut your demand in half overnight. This is about the only thing you've said I agree with. But it's not due to lack of data, it's due to barrier to entry with retail sales you have less competition. Right for the wrong reason here. > Additionally retail stores actually drive demand / discover ability when they purchase your product in a way amazon often does not. Amazon drives way WAY more discoverability than any retailer. Pretty much your entire argument contradicts real world experience, common sense, and actual reality from what I know of the situation. I can tell you for a fact your assertion that 'Amazon doesn't do this' everything you're saying is 100% false.

asperous 7y ago

Major retailers buy and sell their product line data from neilson and others. I worked on a project with one of them so I know first hand. So the idea that they don't use seller data to market their own products has to be false.

thoraway1010 7y ago
And amazon sellers can sell their data (and do sometimes) as well. All that is fine. Remember, for major retailers, a) THEY are the seller in most cases and b) in most cases they get mfg's to agree to whatever is going on in the agreement UPFRONT.

TimSchumann 7y ago

This comment is based on a misreading of the very testimony you're referencing. As quoted in this CNBC article. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/16/amazon-tells-house-it-doesnt-favor-own-brands-in-antitrust-hearing.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/16/amazon-tells-house-it-doesnt... "Nate Sutton, associate general counsel at Amazon, told lawmakers the company doesn’t tap data from individual third-party merchants to determine what new products to create." Of course they don't use data from individuals, they use all of the data, in aggregate, from everyone including themselves.

LoSboccacc 7y ago
and they don't even have to use merchant sales data to determine what product to go after, just search click troughs are enough for that.
thoraway1010 7y ago
Amazon has promised individual sellers it would not use the data for their products to market against them (not individual buyers). Despite the ludicrous lengths Amazon goes here to say there were multiple sellers and so this data was aggregate, we all understand (and amazon did too) that if you generate statistics such as median sale price per month / day etc where 99.95% of the data comes from one seller, you have the data from that seller.
- TimSchumann 7y ago
  > Amazon has promised individual sellers it would not use the data for their products to market against them (not individual buyers). Again, there's that word. Individual. They get off on a technicality with that comment to congress. The second you have even 0.05% (Your example, not mine.) of any category occupied by a second reseller, you're no longer targeting individuals -- you're entering a 'product vertical'. Amazon does exactly what you're claiming they do not.
  - malcolmgreaves 7y ago
    If they aggregate data from individuals, they're using the individual's data. They didn't get off on a technicality, they're simply lying.