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A lot of the beef with Amazon seems to be "welcome to retail". I don't think Walmart even has third-party logistics for its stores -- or if it does it's of the
by likpok 3y ago
A lot of the beef with Amazon seems to be "welcome to retail". I don't think Walmart even has third-party logistics for its stores -- or if it does it's of the "hire contractors and squeeze them hard" variety.
Personally I've found the customer experience of non-FBA merchants on amazon is often pretty bad: long shipping times and weird return policies. This gets at a sort of core problem with this: where is the line between anticompetitive behavior and just "making good products". I was very happy when google did it's hotels thing, the hotel aggregators are by-and-large unpleasant. And as much as there was wailing and gnashing of teeth here about amp, when I was doing a mobile search I would preferentially click amp sites -- they tended to work much better.
Of course all of this depends on what specifically the FTC is arguing, and we won't see that until they actually file.
- no_wizard 3y agoAmazon can have pro consumer policies (free shipping & returns. Easy return process) without predatory practices though. It would be silly for the FTC to argue that good consumer experience is anti-trust behavior. What they could argue is about the myriad of ways that Amazon uses its market power to put others out of business or force them to sell (diapers.com comes to mind on this[0]). [0]: https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/amazon-book-how-jeff-bezos-went-thermonuclear-on-diapers-com.html https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/amazon-book-how-jeff-be...
- mywittyname 3y agoAmazon's retail arm isn't the grounds of anti-trust action. Their ownership of AWS, Twitch, MGM, Gaming studios, windfarms, lenders are problems. If they want to be an retail giant, that's fine, but they shouldn't be producing and selling games & movies as well. They need to pick a lane and spin off unrelated entities that only exist because of Amazon's dominance in retail. Their expansion into all of these market segments make sense in isolation. Amazon builds a better service internally, then begins to offer it for sale to others. But at some point, they've crossed over into abusing their monopoly in one area to expand into another.
- pessimizer 3y agoi.e. break it into IT infrastructure, logistics, marketplace, and manufacturing. I'd also break out payments. Amazon can stay just as it is, but it needs to be multiple companies negotiating the best deals with each other.
- likpok 3y agoA big complaint I've seen in the past is AmazonBasics, where amazon copies successful products and sells them for slightly cheaper. This is identical to brands like Great Value (walmart), Up&Up (target), Nice (walgreens) and Safeway Select. Similarly, I have seen a lot of complaints that amazon charges for ad space in the search, and you therefore need to pay to get out of page two. This, again, is widely practiced in retail. The cereal aisle doesn't look like it does because the store manager is making it up, general mills and post rent the space and decide how to arrange their sections. New retail products need to explicitly or implicitly pay for placement: either with cash or with free / discounted product.
- silisili 3y agoWalmart has been working on their logistics. I haven't quite figured it out yet - most things in store they will just deliver from the store, ask for tip, etc. Some things are only available for 'shipping', but that shipping is often same day delivery, and it's apparent someone just brought it from the store. And some things are 1 day shipping, where it looks like they're moving items from a WM a couple hours away to your local store, then delivered as described above. In the latter two, tips are not even asked for.
- Projectiboga 3y agoWalmart acquired JET a long time ago. That created their own logistics and ecommerce efforts.