47 ms·
FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
- bannedbybros 3y ago[dead]
- smugma 3y agoTime to buy AMZN? https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/the-hedge-fund-that-made-a-killing-betting-against-lina-khan-d5b395b1 https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/the-hedge-fund-that-made-a-k...
- AlbertCory 3y agoMy prediction (you can check my results): AMZN price will be largely unchanged. There does seem to be some antitrust exposure there: ========= Anti-discounting measures that punish sellers and deter other online retailers from offering prices lower than Amazon, keeping prices higher for products across the internet. For example, if Amazon discovers that a seller is offering lower-priced goods elsewhere, Amazon can bury discounting sellers so far down in Amazon’s search results that they become effectively invisible. Conditioning sellers’ ability to obtain “Prime” eligibility for their products—a virtual necessity for doing business on Amazon—on sellers using Amazon’s costly fulfillment service, which has made it substantially more expensive for sellers on Amazon to also offer their products on other platforms. This unlawful coercion has in turn limited competitors’ ability to effectively compete against Amazon.
- WillPostForFood 3y agoConditioning sellers’ ability to obtain “Prime” eligibility for their products—a virtual necessity for doing business on Amazon—on sellers using Amazon’s costly fulfillment service Isn't Prime a fulfillment service in this context? How would a seller be Prime eligible without using Amazon fulfillment?
- AlbertCory 3y agoGood point. Weakening FTC's case still further.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoPrime is both a fulfillment service and an exclusive marketplace category. I do think the FTC should be more direct about prosecuting the vertical integration of Amazon's marketplace, fulfillment, and delivery services.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gorbachev 3y agoNah. You buy stock in the law firm(s) representing Amazon on this. Assuming they're a publicly traded.
- bpicolo 3y agoPublicly traded law firms aren't currently a thing in the US, because non-lawyer ownership (or in this case, partial ownership) of law firms has been against legal ethics codes for a long time: https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/practice-innovations-non-lawyer-ownership-law-firms-are-winds-change-coming-rule-2022-03-31/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/practice-innovat...
- kortilla 3y agoCoincidental how that worked out in the lawyers’ favor.
- _uhtu 3y agoI'm honestly not sure how you could make the case that they aren't maintaining and abusing monopoly power. I mean they literally blatantly copy the designs of other companies who sell on amazon, then put their own results for their own products higher in search results than what they copied off of. It's incredibly blatantly anti-competitive.
- tehlike 3y agoAt this point, they don't have to rank it higher and people would still buy it. They are like Kirkland of Costco most often.
- hightrix 3y agoExactly. I prefer Amazon Basics to YAYWOWND brand every day. It is one of the few brands on Amazon you can count on to not be Chinese crap. Even if it is made in China, the Amazon Basics products are generally good quality.
- munk-a 3y agoI think it's slightly better than <insert anonymous three day old Chinese company here> but just slightly. Amazon Basics within my company has earned a reputation for being extremely fragile crap that will break quickly and, occasionally, dramatically. I have had absolutely awful experiences with their surge protectors. But yes - it's a step up from YAYWOWND which is a company that probably didn't exist last week and almost certainly won't exist in a month when their product spontaneously combusts and you try and chase down damages or at least a refund... Still, I'm actually finding myself buying more and more name brand crap because at least that way I know there's a company I can reach out to when it breaks down.
- criddell 3y agoI wish they would add ebook DRM to the list. Amazon has essentially locked the Kindle so that it can only purchase from Amazon and Amazon ebooks can only be used on the Kindle. On top of that, they offer no way of transferring ebooks and, AFAIK, offer no way to remove DRM after a work enters the public domain.
- taeric 3y agoI don't know, as I never had access to that data, but I would be shocked to find that is not demanded by their agreements with the publishers. Akin to why there is no library that will give you non-DRM items. Is almost certainly part of a strategy by the publishers to bolster other marketplaces they find more favorable.
- 542458 3y agoIsn’t Amazon also the publisher for a nontrivial number of ebooks on Amazon?
- taeric 3y agoThe ones folks are buying? Not really. :D Publishers still do a good job signing on authors. Audio books, I think, are very different. Audible was far more active in building up a market and voice talent than the competition for a long time. That said, I am not aware of any actual anti-competitive practices that they do there. The examples that some high profile folks have used feel very weak. Prices are lower for customers than they have ever been, and profits for the talent are almost certainly up due to increased sales volume. Their percentage profit per sale is down, but the history could also be that keeping that percentage high would not have grown the market? Such that, they could not have gotten the larger pie without the smaller slice. But, now that the pie is big, they want the bigger slice.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoAn agreement is constructed by two parties, not one.
- adra 3y agoIt sounded like their audiobook division was acting in anti-competitive ways to push authors into single platform exclusivity. I wonder what else they're up to.
- charcircuit 3y agoAnother case of Kahn trying to go after companies for being successful.
- akira2501 3y agoAnd the police are mad at cocaine dealers just for being successful.
- charcircuit 3y agoCocain dealing is illegal.
- Justsignedup 3y agoremember that time that amazon was bleeding like 5 million a day just to make sure they can destroy diapers.com? by selling diapers at a loss, which was numbers that diapers.com couldn't compete with given that they didn't have another business to rely on, then forced diapers.com to sell to amazon because they had no other option? And this came out last time they were doing monopolistic inquiries against amazon. Yet... So I'd love to see something positive come out of it, but I have my doubts.
- loldk 3y agoThat's what these discussions are for: to discover solutions and obstacles. Have you ever heard of the monkeys and ladder metaphor? Things need to change. It's great to be skeptical, but not if you're not also optimistic at the same time. Monopolies are bad for many reasons, not just because arbitrary "rules" or whatever you think is easily dismissed, but because of the opportunity costs that even the owner of the profits incurs. We're not talking about money or status or power, but actual meaningful change of the total composition of their culture & society and the world. They are literally preventing themselves from experiencing a world that gives them everything they can't have now and clamor and hurt themselves chasing after. It's the ultimate irony. So yes, you should have hope. There is NOT a "good" reason for being a greedy parasite. People have just forgotten and/or been manipulated into believing in fake power. This false faith (fear) is literally what enables these fake leaders like Jeff Bozos the clown to succeed. Please next time contribute more to the conversation than just whine.
- yomlica8 3y agoApparently product dumping isn't illegal if you do it on the internet. This wasn't even a fuzzy digital goods or services example either.
- elzbardico 3y agoProduct dumping is not illegal if you have a national newspaper that can be used to target any politician and if you make sure to contribute millions and make sure your employees do the same for the political party in power.
- kderbyma 3y agoHopefully it works. Amazon has done so much damage to this world....
- hrdwdmrbl 3y agoDo Shopify next! And Apple's 30% tax is literally outrageous!
- hrdwdmrbl 3y agoAlso do the fact that you never own what you "buy". Buy means buy. Period. Amazon, Audible, Google Play, Apple TV, etc. I would like to _own_!
- rob74 3y agoThen you are in the minority unfortunately. Just look at music - you can buy DRM-free music online without problems, but people still prefer to pay for Spotify...
- hrdwdmrbl 3y agoStreaming is a different matter. I agree that you don't own anything if you stream. I also don't think lack of popularity for "buying" is a reason not to have a reasonable rule about the definition of "buying".
- softwaredoug 3y agoHow is Shopify a monopoly? There's all kinds of competitors for making online stores
- hrdwdmrbl 3y agoThey force sellers to use their payment processor. If you don't, they charge an extra 0.5% markup on top, which basically means that no 3rd party payment processor can be competitive on price. I think you can also measure their power in the same way as Amazon - The % of fees that they capture as a percent of sales volume goes up every year. Slow squeeze.
- kortilla 3y agoThat’s not a monopoly. Movie theaters also force you to buy their popcorn rather than bringing in your own.
- fasthands9 3y ago>The complaint alleges that Amazon violates the law not because it is big, but because it engages in a course of exclusionary conduct that prevents current competitors from growing and new competitors from emerging >Anti-discounting measures that punish sellers and deter other online retailers from offering prices lower than Amazon, keeping prices higher for products across the internet. For example, if Amazon discovers that a seller is offering lower-priced goods elsewhere, Amazon can bury discounting sellers so far down in Amazon’s search results that they become effectively invisible. I feel like ultimately they are accused of violations because they are big. I don't think that's the worst thing. But as others have pointed out - their tactics are very similar to deals grocery stores and retailers make with suppliers all the time. The only difference seems to be that Amazon is big enough that suppliers can't legitimately threaten to take their business to another store - because there isn't one. Their complaints that Amazon makes prices higher for products across the internet is clearly only true because they are so big.
- autoexec 3y agoMaybe they are only so big because their anti-competitive behaviors have kept alternatives from taking their users. I'd love to be able to stop giving amazon as much money as I do, and I know a lot of people who feel this way.
- fasthands9 3y agoI don't disagree with that but nonetheless it seems like the behavior they are in trouble for (telling suppliers they can only sell on Amazon if they don't offer cheaper prices elsewhere) is something that tons of other retailers do. I really don't mind their being a different set of rules if someone has the ability to dictate most of the market, but exclusive deals are routine for smaller players.
- judge2020 3y agoAlternatives in terms of sellers on Amazon.com, maybe, but people use amazon because of how good of a product Prime is (or at least, for the past few years, appears to be despite it being obvious product prices go up to offset subsidized shipping prices) and because it tends to have everything available is a fast and secure way. With e.g. a search engine showing you products, you might be sent off to one of 100k stores that all need your cc info and who don't already have your shipping address. This is partially solved by Shopify for Shopify sites, and Apple Pay/Google Pay/PayPal for third parties, but it's still often more friction to go to a 3p store.
- skilled 3y agoMaybe interesting to some, but during the recent Google updates (core and "helpful"), Amazon had more than $100M of search traffic value wiped out, https://i.imgur.com/5HpZT6Z.jpg https://i.imgur.com/5HpZT6Z.jpg Google absolutely launched a nuke at Amazon.
- rob74 3y agoWell that depends on how many people still use Google to search for products, and how many go directly to Amazon...
- topicseed 3y agoAnd nuked affiliate sites that promoted Amazon links primarily, wild.
- jedberg 3y agoWhere did that chart come from?
- summerlight 3y agoIs it a meaningful volume for Amazon at all? I thought the majority of US/EU customers begin their search from Amazon and just skip Google when it comes to shopping.
- skilled 3y agoI would say yes, for first-time customers for sure it is significant.
- jollofricepeas 3y agoFBA seller here. A lot of mom and pop businesses (~$20 million) have been built on Amazon over the past 10 years. Most of us are in the $250k to $5 million dollar range. The impact of Amazon’s monopoly power is felt big time by us as we’re being squeezed with no place left to go online especially post-iOS change. Our second option used to be the Facebook/Instagram/TikTok to Shopify connection but with that being dead in the water most of us have had to commit 100% to FBA to be able to stay afloat. With the increase in inflation and Amazon abusing its power to significantly raise its prices for FBA and force us to use its advertising services our revenues have been severely impacted. This doesn’t include their unwillingness to meaningfully fight counterfeits Or that they penalize you if you attempt to drive sales elsewhere with lower pricing on other sites Bloomberg did a write up on this a few months back: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-13/amazon-amzn-takes-half-of-each-sale-from-2-million-small-businesses https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-13/amazon-am...
- catiopatio 3y ago> post-iOS change What is the iOS change you’re referring to?
- loldk 3y ago[dead]
- likpok 3y agoATT, where apple hobbled other ad networks running on iOS. It used to be that DTC companies could use the fine-grained targeting offered by FB and Google to reach consumers without needing to go through a major distributor. Since the targeting is much less effective it's more expensive (potentially uneconomically so) to reach people. As a result, sellers are forced back to Amazon.
- lancesells 3y agoI work with DTC Shopify brands and I personally haven't found the ATT hurting ads performance in both Meta and Google. I'm sure YMMV but I've not seen it since it started. Maybe I work with very broad targeting compared to others.
- rob74 3y ago> Conditioning sellers’ ability to obtain “Prime” eligibility for their products—a virtual necessity for doing business on Amazon—on sellers using Amazon’s costly fulfillment service I'm no fan of Amazon, but that kind of makes sense - if they use another fulfillment service, Amazon wouldn't be able to guarantee next-day delivery for their products?
- MarCylinder 3y agoAmazon does currently have a "seller fulfilled" Prime service. They disabled for awhile, and recently brought it back Consumers pay for Prime, and with it the 2 day shipping on eligible items, and so they prefer buying items with Prime eligibility. I must disagree with the "costly" description, as cost incurred shipping with Amazon and drastically lower than shipping with other services. Having worked with dozens of businesses on establishing their Amazon account, there are very few that can move the volume needed to achieve the economies of scale necessary to match the costs of using FBA services.
- xyst 3y agoDecouple Amazon Warehouse division from Amazon Web Services (AWS largely subsidizes losses incurred by warehouse division), then we will see change. Right now FTC going after low hanging fruit. But we all know Amazon will challenge it in court, appeal, appeal, appeal, pay the reduced fine, slow roll any changes, and business will continue as usual. Break up the tech giants and each individual unit cannot survive as-is.
- SoftTalker 3y agoYep. I'd say Amazon should be split at least four ways: AWS, their delivery/fulfillment operation, the web shopping platform, and the "Amazon Basics" and other product brands. Edit: just saw that ihaveajob posted the same idea in another reply.
- dawnerd 3y agoJust breaking off AWS would be enough to see change. I see people saying they should spin off their house brands but that wouldn’t fly when other big retailers also sell their own brands along side third parties.
- xattt 3y agoDoes AWS include the Prime streaming platform? It sends a chill down my spine to see that one of the perks of being a Prime member is unlimited photo storage. It’s sickening to realize there’s a bunch of Gullible Guses and Ginas that are holding off cancelling their Prime subscription because their pictures are held hostage by Amazon. I bet dollars-to-donuts that half of those folks don’t know how to articulate the sentimental attachment to their Prime subscription either.
- marcod 3y agoI bet the number of peeps actually using amazon for photo storage is negligible ;)
- lots2learn 3y agoFunny because alot of sellers are complaining about high fba fees eating into their profits. If you remove the subsidy (assuming there is one which I doubt) those fees would rise to hurt sellers more.
- r00fus 3y agoLoving this action by FTC. Amazon is the worst kind of predatory market provider - they are literally aliexpress + "steal good ideas from real companies" kind of grift.
- atlasunshrugged 3y agoMerits of this specific case aside, I find it really interesting that the FTC is going after Amazon now. They have pretty limited resources (especially relative to a massive tech co which can pour money into litigation) and have to pick and choose their battles carefully... I have to admit I'm a little frustrated that they're choosing to go after Amazon, which yes, imo the case definitely has merits and they do shady stuff like with dark patterns for trying to cancel accounts and the like, but there are so many other things more important to my life that seem broken that I wish the FTC would prioritize. How about more of a focus on insurers who refuse claims, drug companies flouting the law, PE firms jacking up the cost of housing or contractors gouging the government (and therefore all of us)?
- bogwog 3y agoThe FTC is bringing a lot of cases, not just the few big ones like this that make headlines. The DOJ also brings antitrust cases. See: * FTC: https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings * DOJ: https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-case-filings https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-case-filings
- atlasunshrugged 3y agoI know, and I applaud the one they recently filed against Anesthesia Partners which is directly at the intersection of PE and healthcare, but they do have limited resources and have to make tough choices about cases they bring and ones they don't, and I wish they would focus on ones that are more impactful for my life (e.g., healthcare, education, housing) than marginal ones like Amazon or the one against Meta acquiring a VR company. I understand their rationale and am generally supportive, I just disagree with the prioritization.
- janmo 3y agoThere are many insurers, so this would mean many cases. There is only one Amazon and I am sure the FTC is receiving a ton of complaints against them.
- TheCaptain4815 3y agoThis seems extremely weak, even by recent FTC standards. Just in the past 2 years we've had the following e-commerce changes: - Shopify small store explosion - Google search adding products DIRECTLY to the search engine results - LLM vs Search Engine battle. Whoever controls the LLM controls the product listing. - Temu & Shein exploding onto the scene. WSJ just had an article on this yesterday. My real annoyance with the FTC is why they refuse to go after REAL monopolies that actually hurt consumers, such as Apple and their closed App Store.
- Spivak 3y ago> after REAL monopolies that actually hurt consumers, such as Apple and their closed App Store I find this a funny comparison because Amazon and Apple are so similar in the business practices people complain about. Are you sure you're not just on the supplier side of Apple and the consumer side of Amazon?
- wordsarelies 3y agoThe measure of these services shouldn't be if you can sell a new product and make money. It should be that you can sell a cheaper, better version of an Amazon basics product and overtake it. If there is literally no way to do that... Amazon is clearly a market manipulator.
- spandextwins 3y agoWhere does the fine go? Seems to be a great recipe.
- jdminhbg 3y agoNowhere, once the FTC loses (again).
- ihaveajob 3y agoIn my opinion, Amazon needs to be split into at least 4 independent entities: - Online marketplace - Consumer products - Internet infrastructure - Delivery logistics Similar to the three-tier distribution system for beer in most states (a brewer cannot be a wholesaler or a retailer). This makes it easier for smaller players can compete with the big ones on quality at least, if not price or recognition. (Edit: format)
- kiney 3y agoAs someone living in germany: We don't have a three tier system. But we have literally thousands of breweries selling better beer at waaay lower prices than in the US. So your three tier systems sucks...
- edgyquant 3y ago> we have literally thousands of breweries selling better beer This may have been true a decade ago, but today there is an entire microbrewery scene in the US where there are hundreds of them inside individual states. Better is subjective, sure, but any kind of beer you get in Germany you will find a few dozen US microbreweries making the same.
- InSteady 3y agoIf you like expensive, over-hopped IPA made with mediocre ingredients and specially bred hops that are so potent they (kinda) overpower the taste of beet sugar and inferior malts, then America is a great place to pay more money for beer. There some genuinely good beers around, but they are few and far between and WAAY more expensive than great beer in Germany. And from elsewhere in the thread, it sounds like our 3-teired system does indeed majorly suck for microbreweries. It may be a big part of why they have to cheap out on ingredients and try to cover it up with palette-dominating hops in order to turn a profit and stay afloat.
- mywittyname 3y agoEurope has plenty of mediocre "craft" beer. I've had tons of beer in Europe that tasted like homebrew - one dimensional. American craft brewers lean heavily into hoppy IPAs because that's what craft beer buyers like. IPAs are almost always the best selling beer that a craft brand makes. If you talk to them, they will say they'd love to make more varieties of other styles of beers, but IPAs keep the lights on, thus 40% of their product portfolio ends up being IPAs. I hate IPAs and the style of hops American brewers use, so I tend to drink imported German/Czech lagers and pils a lot.
- jacooper 3y agoLets hope this doesnt become a secret trial like the google one.
- lvl102 3y agoOut of all the natural tech monopolies, Amazon is the ONLY one that did the opposite of exercising market power. They actually brought fast shipping to the market. A decade ago, you had to pay a crap ton of money to ship things even two days. They forced the incumbents such as Walmart to change. They’re constantly improving e-commerce. Heck they even opened up aws and created an entire industry. Amazon did more to reshape commerce in the US than anyone in the past two decades. What more does US govt want?
- sschueller 3y agoThey straight up copied products in their store an then listed theirs higher in search results. There was a famous instance of a bag. You can't be more monopolistic than that. They also got insight into every states future plans (which are secret for some reason ) when they offered to build new HQs but then decided not too. This gives them a huge advantage over anyone else who wants to setup a nation wide logistics service.
- hrdwdmrbl 3y agoThat's not what the word "monopoly" means though...
- tristan957 3y agoYou don't have to have > 50% market share to be prosecuted for anti-trust practices.
- jessriedel 3y ago> They straight up copied products in their store an then listed theirs higher in search results. There was a famous instance of a bag. You can't be more monopolistic than that. Almost every major grocery store and convenience store chain does this. These are the store’s generic brands, they are specifically designed to be copies of the name brand, and they are positioned more favorably on the shelves. (They often say “compare to [name brand]”.) In general, this is highly beneficial to competition and the consumer. If you want to make an argument that Amazon’s high market share makes this strategy damaging when it would otherwise be good, then sure go ahead and do that. But the argument needs to be specific and quantitative.
- reilly3000 3y agoEven if this action turns out to be toothless, it should still go a long way to shape public perception. I cancelled Prime 3 years ago and really haven’t looked back. I simply shop elsewhere, and between Target and eBay I don’t miss a thing. The Echos got unplugged, the AWS certs didn’t get renewed, their music service got canceled. I am all out and I hope others will do the same. For me this was driven by their anticompetitive behavior as well as terrible treatment of staff from warehouse workers to web developers. This FTC suit brings a new level of attention and gravity to their insidious practices. Obviously a firm that massive can’t be all bad. As a consumer, the only thing I have is choice in how I spend my time and resources based on the information I have.
- vagabund 3y agoI don't know, your easy access to alternatives that've let you not "look back" kind of undermines the argument that they wield monopolist power, doesn't it? And should FTC suits really be vehicles for shaping public perception, even if, as you suggest, the claims are either not defensible or don't constitute violations?
- reilly3000 3y agoThe fact that competition exists does not mean that AMZN isn’t engaging in anticompetitive behaviors. FTC should be consistently enforcing law in their domain i.e. The Sherman act of 1890 and others. “Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $100,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $1,000,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding 10 years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.” Public perception isn’t their motive, I’m just cheering for it. Moreover I’m glad that antitrust enforcement has ramped up of late. I wish it had started sooner, I believe we would have a healthier internet ecosystem if that was the case.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoThey only passively mentioned fulfillment. The fact that Amazon owns the market and fulfillment and even last-mile delivery is the most obvious case of vertical integration I have ever heard of, and I personally interact with it in some way at least once every week!
- hrdwdmrbl 3y agoIs vertical integration illegal?
- thomastjeffery 3y agoIs monopoly illegal? That's very nearly the same question.
- granzymes 3y agoBoth questions have the same answer: it is not illegal to vertically integrate and it is not illegal to have a monopoly.
- cosmonoot 3y agoWhy now?
- gigatexal 3y agoWas there a similar action taken against Walmart when they were crushing small and large suppliers alike?
- sparrc 3y agoNope, the FTC has been historically toothless from 1990-2020 or so. Some people (such as Lina Khan and Joe Biden) are trying to turn that around. Doesn't seem likely to fully turn around as the next Republican president will likely appoint another toothless chair of the FTC. Democrat presidents for the foreseeable future will probably be going after big companies more than their predecessors in the 90s and early-2000s did.
- junofan 3y agoThe FTC is an independent, bipartisan agency. It’s not something a future president should be using to “go after” anybody to further his or her party’s agenda.
- runako 3y agoWithout engaging the merits of this particular case, I do think there is an interesting takeaway about which companies wield even more power than Amazon (and Big Tech more generally, since Google and Meta are also discussed as likely targets of similar suits). Notably: health insurers. They're an oligopoly whose revenues total something like 4% of US GDP. They engage in anticompetitive practices, and the end result is far more consumer harm than Amazon can do. (Because people generally spend a lot more on health insurance premiums than they do on Amazon in a year.) Similar could be written about e.g. airlines. Lobbying works. Tech will eventually figure this out.
- tqi 3y ago> Lobbying works. Tech will eventually figure this out. Tech is well aware of this, and is spending accordingly[1]. However I think politics are a bigger motivating factor, and taking "tech" to task is viewed as a good way to score points (probably helps that legacy media views tech as direct competitors, and covers them accordingly). [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/23/apple-ramped-up-lobbying-spending-in-2022-outpacing-tech-peers.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/23/apple-ramped-up-lobbying-spe...
- runako 3y agoThey kind of get it, but are not at the magnitude yet where it would be effective enough to squash these types of interventions. By comparison, healthcare lobbying spends more every quarter what Big Tech did in all of 2022.
- nebula8804 3y agoThere was one lasting lesson I learned from AOC's first election and the subsequent attempts to challenge many seats at all levels of government. That incumbents have organizations that will spend as much money as they can to stop a challenger. In the case of the Queens DA race(which is the first time AOC endorsed somebody), I seem to recall that the local democratic council had to blow their entire budget to try and stop Caban(AOC's endorsed candidate). They did manage to defeat her by 60 votes but the lesson I learned is that we should be running candidates in every single seat in every single race in every single election. Some groups like Brand New Congress have attempted this but it is tough to challenge all 435 members of the house. Unfortunately all these groups are on retreat since Biden got elected. It took a candidate like Trump to make people realize that they had hit a new low and to start doing something. Biden and the party is using the fear of Trump coming back to now suppress any dissent. Yes the overwhelming majority will lose but it makes continuing business as usual as expensive as humanly possible. There is no way all these companies can recover every last penny if this is continually done every election. (There are small time elections happening every year so there really needs to be challengers at all levels)
- say_it_as_it_is 3y ago"anti-discounting tactics" > One set of tactics stifles the ability of rivals to attract shoppers by offering lower prices. Amazon deploys a sophisticated surveillance network of web crawlers that constantly monitor the internet, searching for discounts that might threaten Amazon’s empire. When Amazon detects elsewhere online a product that is cheaper than a seller’s offer for the same product on Amazon, Amazon punishes that seller. It does so to prevent rivals from gaining business by offering shoppers or sellers lower prices Price competition conflated as punishment. The FTC's mandate is to promote competition. Here, they attack Amazon for competing effectively. Also, advocating for other online superstores is playing the world's smallest violin. Walmart has decimated mom and pop stores. They're unable to beat Amazon at the online game. Truly remarkable achievement, really. Why are redactions even permitted in a lawsuit involving a government agency and a corporation? Don't mention Project Nessie at all if you can't tell the public what you're arguing about. "Trust us, they were monopolists" isn't the same as laying out the facts for all to see.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoBuying your competition is competitive? Bullshit
- lolinder 3y agoDoes anyone know more about Project Nessie? There's a portion of the complaint [0] that is heavily redacted from page 123 to 126. The only information that isn't redacted is this: * Project Nessie is an algorithmic pricing system * "Amazon's Project Nessie has already extracted over [redacted] from American households." * "this scheme belies its public claim that it “seek[s] to be Earth’s most customer-centric company,”" * It's related to Section VI.A.3 (Amazon maintains its monopolies by suppressing price competition with its first-party anti-discounting algorithm) Amazon themselves identify Nessie as the system that monitors spikes or trends [1], so my hunch is this is some sort of surge pricing system. Does anyone here know more? [0] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/1910129AmazoneCommerceComplaintPublic.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/1910129AmazoneC... [1] https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/amazon-offices/the-surprising-stories-behind-the-peculiar-building-names-at-amazon https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/amazon-offices/the-surprisi...
- capableweb 3y agoGuessing this is also related, from page 10: Amazon has implemented an algorithm for the express purpose of deterring other online stores from offering lower prices. [redacted] Rather than trying to compete, Amazon uses [redacted] Ultimately, this conduct is meant to deter rivals from attempting to compete on price altogether-competition that could bring lower prices to tens of millions of American households. As a result of this conduct, Amazon predicted, "prices will go up."
- hotnfresh 3y agoWhat especially rankles is how Amazon doesn’t give a fuck about counterfeits. So they’re allowing counterfeits (amplifying the mentioned effect) to discourage direct-sellers from attempting to compete on price. Meanwhile, I have to order from direct sellers to be sure I will get a genuine, new product. So I don’t even get Amazon’s lower-but-still-higher-than-optimal price, but a yet higher one. As far as I’m concerned the whole company’s a giant scam and I can’t believe it still hasn’t caught up with them. They benefit so very much from enabling bad actors, and have for so long clearly without any serious attempt to stop it, that I’ll do a happy dance the day they go under or get broken up. I just wish the eventual consequences could force Bezos to have to work for a living again, since he’s built his empire on fucking people weaker than him. Shouldn’t get to keep a penny of it.
- Modified3019 3y agoFucking finally
- costco 3y agoAmazon makes more gross profit in a day than the FTC has revenue in a year. Good luck!
- brianstorms 3y agoI signed up as a Seller on Amazon a while back, with one primary goal: sell extra copies of my book, published by Pantheon Books in 2017. The publisher offered me boxes of them at dirt-cheap prices and I took them up on their offer. So I started selling on Amazon, and I set my price as the lowest possible for "New" condition hardcover. For a while my price got listed on the main book product page. Only briefly though. Then it disappeared, and another seller got the glory of the link for a "New" 3rd party seller, and their price was HIGHER than mine. Amazon does not want to advertise your price if you are too low for their liking... Suddenly, in July, my mom dies. I have to travel to the east coast for the funeral, etc., so I put a hold on the one and only item in my inventory -- my book. Effectively this takes me offline temporarily as an Amazon Seller which was fine. BUT . . . when i get back home, I try to re-activate the account and find I cannot. INSTEAD, I get this notice from Amazon that my account is suspended, and that it's mandatory I go watch all these training videos about COUNTERFEIT products, how to spot them, why not to sell them, why it's illegal, etc, and that I do not have permission to sell counterfeit "Pantheon products." And I'm like, WTF? I'm selling the real deal, from Pantheon, and I AM THE EFFING AUTHOR AND THESE ARE MY OWN BOOKS. I try to communicate with Amazon Seller Program and get nowhere (I think they deliberately hire only people who don't understand English). They refuse to explain anything about this absurd counterfeit stuff. So I contact Pantheon. They just laugh. They had nothing to do with it, but weren't surprised -- they kind of hate Amazon. THEN I get a new notice from Amazon that my account is disabled permanently due to lack of use. WTF!? So: here is my theory. They were pissed I had a super-low price, and when they saw me temporarily disable my inventory as I'd be away for a week for a funeral, they swept in and shut me down, with some kind of made-up lie about COUNTERFEIT (I mean, can you believe these guys!?). And nothing is resolved, and we're on the verge of October. Amazon sucks.
- bombcar 3y agoYou haven't even begun to enter the world of unscrupulous activity, and Amazon is mostly 'hands off' because they don't care - but other 3rd party sellers DO and they know all the tricks about how to pump alternative sellers off the page, etc. The whole thing is a worthless Alibaba ripoff now.
- iteratethis 3y agoWhat this world needs is pro-active legislation. The current state of Amazon is the result of a very slow trajectory taking 20 years. It happened in plain sight and still we allow it to grow until it's a monster where most of commerce has to submit to. We allow Google to become the leading search engine, advertiser, browser maker, mobile operating system maker. Effectively owning the internet. These should be 4 companies, not one. And even the 4 companies should not be of the current size. Stop allowing companies to grow into platforms, gatekeepers, monopolists that squeeze everybody dry. The current state is anti-market and anti-capitalistic. There no longer is any market when you allow these monstrosities.
- shadowgovt 3y agoHm. From an American law standpoint, this suit is thin on the ground for consumer harm. I can see the competitor harm, but IIUC US antitrust is generally grounded in consumer harm. I'll have to see the argument they actually make in court.
- jupp0r 3y agoI find the premise that Amazon has a monopoly to be pretty far fetched. I order goods online from various shops all the time.
- pmarreck 3y agoI don't like it, but I kind of don't blame them because it's, frankly, a rational act. Everyone vies for control/power. Once you have control, you can exert pressure to get more from less (this is essentially what "bullying" is). There's nothing (but any laws set up to counteract this) stopping you, so you do it, because relative to you, there's only upside. Can you really blame these entities for taking advantage? Literally, the thing we all want more of (success and control), will turn us into bullies. Veeeeery few people, or companies, get to that point and then continue to "play fair", at least completely. So we set up the system with rules we think will limit this, but it's not perfect, so rules get exploited. In games (which are systems and sets of rules), one of the most fun things is to discover an "exploit". Sometimes this comes from a developer oversight, sometimes this comes from rule complexity leading to unexpected states, sometimes from bugs. I remember figuring out how to get an extra enchant on a weapon in Neverwinter Nights (I somehow got 1 past the supposed limit) and how fun that felt. But there was no cost to other people in doing this. (At worst, if I found too many exploits, the game would stop being fun due to not being challenging, and I would just "cheese" through it.) Amazon is a bully that is cheesing its way through the rules, at some unknown but probably large success cost to many other people vying for the same control. Perhaps it's time to dismantle the bully dominating the schoolyard lunches.
- josh_carterPDX 3y agoI hope this works. There hasn't been a big monopoly break up since the 1982 break up of AT&T. And with this conservative supreme court, I'm not holding my breath that this will actually go through.
- Mistletoe 3y agoIt feels like things are getting better.
- skinkestek 3y agoGood! Does this mean FTC got a new spine (or have I misunderstood and they had one all the time)? If so: Can I also suggest someone looks into: - Googles abuse of market position to take over the browser market - Microsoft trying to abuse their market position to take over the browser market (again) ?
- talent_deprived 3y agoWhen Microsoft was accused of monopolistic behavior for integrating IE into the OS IIRC it was the DOJ who went after them. In this case, it's the FTC, seems like it should be the DOJ to go after Amazon based on Microsoft's case.
- tantalor 3y ago"most customer-centric company" I don't think anybody actually buys that line. Do they believe that internally?
- InitialLastName 3y agoThe funny thing about slogans is that you can almost always count on the sloganeer to embody the opposite: - Don't be evil - Drain the swamp - Hope and Change
- Nevermark 3y ago- “Free”
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago"Unlimited"
- ashbee 3y agoSome do, some don't. I know some folks who really genuinely believe that Amazon is a force for good, the criticism is exaggerated, will talk about how lucky they are to work for the World's Best Employer, and will get a bit sulky if you say anything negative about the company. Generally though, I think it's understood that "most customer centric company" doesn't mean "we will put the customer before ourselves because we are such good people", but instead "strategically keeping the customer happy is better for the shareholders in the long run". It's the same with most of the LPs. They're packaged in a way that makes Amazon sound like this amazing company that really cares, but they boil down to "16 ways YOU can enrich Amazon's shareholders (you won't believe number 15!)".
- Xeronate 3y agoI've never met anyone that thought the LPs were meant to imply Amazon "really cares". I like Amazon because it seems more straightforward than other companies. It's a business and it wants to make money. The only way I've ever interpreted "customer obsession" is that it's mutually beneficial to do what's best for the customer.
- onebot 3y agoWill they ever go after Ticketmaster?
- kypro 3y agoAmazon should just change their business model. Instead of requiring sellers sell their products for a competitive price on Amazon they should do the same thing Apple does and just charge sellers a large margin on sells on their platform. Obviously this would mean higher prices for consumers but if the problem here is that Amazon is forcing sellers to price products lower than they'd like then that would fix the issue.
- thisgoesnowhere 3y agoWell yeah but that's the whole point. They don't want to do that because they would make less money because you could always go to the seller directly to get the product for less.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoYou can always go and use Alibaba to buy more directly, although still not direct. Small scale producers in China learned the value of an e-commerce platform a long time ago, you can't usually find them direct anymore.
- billy99k 3y agoI was an Amazon seller 10 years ago. I noticed that as soon as I started getting some traction, Amazon would start selling alternatives and undercut me. At some point they started asking for proof of sales. This was then further used to compete against me. At some point, I had a complaint, refunded the customer completely, and they outright banned my account and held my money for 90 days (I got all of my money back after the 90 days). It completely wiped my business out and I never looked back. I was banned to the point where if another seller was associated why my account at all, they were also banned. All of my calls went nowhere and I was pushed to automated responses. 12+ years later and I have my seller account back. Not like I'm ever going to sell anything on Amazon again.
- jongjong 3y agoAt the root, the problem with big tech is the monopolization of people's attention. There is essentially no way to gain any meaningful exposure to users without going through big tech platforms and they limit the exposure. Even if you buy ads from them, you never know if your product is being put in front of real users or bots. They seem to favor big, established companies. I also blame modern journalism for being heavily centered around corporate interests. They won't cover any product or tech which isn't backed by big corporations. That is a major source of anti-competitive dynamics. It feels like every journalist has been bribed to the eyeballs to only cover products from certain companies.
- vhiremath4 3y agoYeah I’m kinda on the fence about this. On one hand, I see the case that this diminishes the open market. On the other hand, Amazon is doing this all within their own ecosystem. So it’s a bit disingenuous for the FTC to say that this has nothing to do with their size. The problem the FTC keeps skirting around on anticompetitive is the fact that the internet favors power differentials, so we’d have to ding any company that has massive market distribution and tweaks their platform to favor participants exclusively on their network Network effects have not been accounted for in antitrust. That’s the core of the problem. Not the fact that Amazon is tweaking algos. Every major player is doing that. I like Jerry Chen’s piece on “The New Moats” (ahead of its time published in 2017) that calls out the progression of tech going from systems of engagement -> systems of record -> systems of intelligence. It feels like this is one (of many) consequences of that progression: https://news.greylock.com/the-new-moats-53f61aeac2d9 https://news.greylock.com/the-new-moats-53f61aeac2d9
- dantheman 3y agoI'd argue that anti-trust is a fundamentally flawed concept - it's a matter of time frames, but no company without significant government intervention has had a 'monopoly' for more than a few years. Hell, Standard Oil was only 64% market share when it was broken up.
- IshKebab 3y agoGoogle has had >90% market share for decades. Windows had >90% market share for several decades.
- miguelazo 3y agoNice to finally see this, so many years after online retailers (read: Amazon) were given total exemptions from sales tax in order to not “stifle innovation”. We subsidized the destruction of brick and mortar retail, and by extension, many of the retail spaces that served as community anchors. It will take decades to recover, if it’s even possible at this point.
- talldatethrow 3y agoPeople say Temu is garbage, but every time Im about to buy an 80 cent flashlight on Temu, or motorcycle googles, or 100 amp 12v circuit breaker for $6... I go to Amazon and find the EXACT same part for 300-800% more money with THOUSANDS of reviews. Amazon still has decent things obviously. But if you're going to buy junk, atleast buy it straight from the source for pennies on the dollar.
- adventured 3y agoIt's not a coincidence that Bezos ran for the hills exactly like the Google founders did, with the anti-trust writing on the walls. Bill Gates did the same thing as well (although he stuck it out a bit longer), exiting with the anti-trust heat. They're all terrified of the invasive investigations and what could be revealed, the scrutiny they'd be persistently under, and the time demands involved (it's no doubt miserable battling the government in a major anti-truist suit).
- whiddershins 3y agoI don’t understand this point: >>> For example, if Amazon discovers that a seller is offering lower-priced goods elsewhere, Amazon can bury discounting sellers so far down in Amazon’s search results that they become effectively invisible. >>> This means if Amazon sees a lower price elsewhere they effectively make the product unavailable on their site? Or is it more complicated than that. On the face of it, while I am open to the stance this is monopolistic, I can naively understand why Amazon wouldn’t want to offer a product at a price that isn’t competitive. I’m sure there’s more to it, can someone explain?
- ctvo 3y agoAmazon has a “buy box” where users can see the default seller for an item and quickly add it to their cart or buy it now. This is prime real estate as most customers won’t think twice about adding the default, pre selected option. I believe the way it works is as a seller you’re no longer eligible for the buy box if your item is found to be sold cheaper elsewhere.
- carlotte 3y ago[dead]
- what-no-tests 3y agoWhat's the alternative? Nationalize all online selling, and have a central pricing authority? Where does one draw the line, with an interest in not taking it to the extreme?
- innocentoldguy 3y agoIn my opinion, as an ex-employee, Amazon is intentionally abusive to its sellers, content creators, customers, and employees. I'll never buy or sell anything on Amazon again (or patron their related businesses, like Zappos, Abe Books, etc.), but I hope this lawsuit changes things for those who do.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago27 Sept 2023 Interview with FTC Chair Lina Khan https://26043.mc.tritondigital.com/OMNY_SOUNDON_P/media-session/324b6a56-2d97-409a-a050-e2d604d9b6f6/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/6b40fb94-6e91-42bd-98be-ae3c00026970/d8848081-fd2a-4a38-ab31-b0890145a8c6/audio/direct/t1695757865/BONUS_FTC_Chair_Lina_Khan_Talks_Amazon,_Anti-Trust.mp3 https://26043.mc.tritondigital.com/OMNY_SOUNDON_P/media-sess...
- dgreensp 3y agoThere are always so many blindly pro-business comments on stories like this, like when the Theranos stuff was happening, people were saying "come on, she was just pitching big returns and innovations like any start-up does," ignoring the difference between pitching and straight-up lying or deliberately misleading investors about current facts. Similarly, it seems like many commenters are defending Amazon not based on the facts or legalities of the situation, but just from a place of being more emotionally sympathetic to a giant corporation trying to make a lot of money through various business tactics. We don't have a surplus of regulation in the US (contrary to what Republicans who want to get rid of the EPA, FDA, etc would say). When we actually have laws that say things like, you can't union-bust, you can't defraud investors, you can't behave monopolistically--and there may be subtleties to those laws that most people don't understand--and companies go so far as to violate those laws, it's a very good thing when they face consequences.
- rottencupcakes 3y agoVC Twitter's crazy right now. It's as if Amazon was everybody's best friend. User xattt says in a different thread on this story (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37667379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37667379) > I bet dollars-to-donuts that half of those folks don’t know how to articulate the sentimental attachment to their Prime subscription either. It seems that applies up and down the population.
- jdminhbg 3y ago> There are always so many blindly pro-business comments on stories like this Where? All of the comments above yours are anti-Amazon. Regardless of which “side” is “right,” I don’t think you can argue that HN has a blind pro-big-business slant.
- jplusequalt 3y agoMaybe not a "blind" slant, but there is a slant nonetheless. I frequent programming communities on twitter, reddit, etc. and HN is consistently the place with the most sympathy for corporations. (In my experience it's also the community that has the most anti-intellectualism/distrust of science as well, but that's a discussion for another time)
- karanlive 3y agoLong overdue. Amazon charges unfair seller fee for listing, closing and referral. We end up paying 27-32% for each apparel sold. We've been advertising on their website since 2021, every day and lately the results are just poor. Amazon should be held accountable for their business practices. It has become a platform that doesn't favour the seller one single bit.
- KETpXDDzR 3y agoAre there any useful alternatives? I tried Walmart+, but they make you feel guilty to tip the drivers and their search function is mediocre. Also, comparing to Amazon, the prices seem higher or equal.
- baseline-shift 3y agoGood news for a change. Government is supposed to protect us from business.
- cm2012 3y agoThe lawsuit is a joke and I'd bet $100 that the government will lose.
- xyzelement 3y agoThis rings a little hollow to me because as a consumer, wouldn't I have noticed a lack of non-amazon options? My family buys on Amazon a lot but I am well aware that I can buy any of that stuff, including at times for a lower price, elsewhere - from company website to Costco to Walmart market, via Google shopping, etc. Doesn't the existence of these infinity choices make claims of monopoly a bit farfetched? I am sure it's more complicated than this, but... is it?
- Given_47 3y ago> This rings a little hollow to me because as a consumer, wouldn't I have noticed a lack of non-amazon options? You haven’t? What sorts of products do u typically browse/shop for?
- xyzelement 3y agoAll kinds of house hold stuff, appliance parts, whatever. What would be an example of something I can only get on Amazon?
- neycoda 3y agoFinally. This is the kind of thing that needs to happen to all of these giant corporations and utilities fighting for monopolies. Incidentally I heard today how many laws against anti-competitive behavior were stripped with Carter and Reagan onward, and it's become a trend in our hyper-corporatist world now that's hurting workers and income classes below the highest. Watch "DEF CON 31 - An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Ensh*ttification - Cory Doctorow" on YouTube https://youtu.be/rimtaSgGz_4?si=bZRjT1eeu4YBZJJJ https://youtu.be/rimtaSgGz_4?si=bZRjT1eeu4YBZJJJ
- joshribakoff 3y agoGood. Amazon lies to customers too. They will tell me things like go down to UPS and buy a box and we will refund the cost, then when you chat back they waste hours and request screenshots and then still refuse to issue the refund. They started treating customers like dirt and refusing to honor their own policies within the last year or so. Additionally they will do things like end the chat abruptly or transfer you around 15x repeating the same questions over and over. In another case they promised a full refund and only after I returned the item told me I wouldn’t get a refund due to “restocking fees”. Its too egregious to not be intentional. I will specifically spend more money just to avoid them because the wasted time and frustration isn’t worth any marginal savings.
- viking1066 3y agoFTC is misguided. They just punish Amazon for being successful. On the other hand, they (DOJ) should use the maximum might of the criminal law to prosecute using fraud statutes for sellers (and Amazon itself) when ratings have been manipulated, resulting in decades in prison.
- jiveturkey 3y agohuh. i didn’t know the FTC did this. i thought anti trust was federal territory with DOJ. is TFA just borrowing the word monopoly and this isn’t an anti trust case?
- syndicatedjelly 3y ago> “We’re bringing this case because Amazon’s illegal conduct has stifled competition across a huge swath of the online economy. Amazon is a monopolist that uses its power to hike prices on American shoppers and charge sky-high fees on hundreds of thousands of online sellers,” said John Newman, Deputy Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition. “Seldom in the history of U.S. antitrust law has one case had the potential to do so much good for so many people.” Really, really hope this isn't another woke crusade by Lina "0-2" Khan that promises to delivery a random victory to "the common person" and then ultimately fail to do anything meaningful.
- user_named 3y agoThis is a classic antitrust case. Like the film studios in Hollywood controlled talent, finance, production and distribution, Amazon controls too many parts of the process giving them undue market power with which they abuse their so called partners. They should absolutely be broken up.
- skeltoac 3y agoFBA seller here, too. I make and sell my own patented device which nobody else makes or sells. I have competitors in the same category but my product is novel, more functional, and more expensive to make. I was doing FBM (fulfillment by merchant) because I like shipping my product directly from my place of business but I had to switch to FBA to get my sales to go up. They were already getting half but now Amazon is getting more than half of my revenue. I also have my own site where I can sell for the same price and keep much more of the revenue, but most shoppers won’t buy if they didn’t find it on Amazon. If I leave Amazon or raise my Amazon price to recoup the costs or stop paying for FBA and Amazon ads, I lose almost all of my sales. This is all because Amazon is doing anticompetitive things with its monopoly power. Enforcement is needed. I don’t know what the injunctions will propose to do but I’m eager to find out. What really kills me is knowing how my customers would feel if I told them how much of their purchase price is being kept by Amazon. They value my product enough to buy it for that price. The few who really understand Amazon always offer to buy it directly from me so I get to keep more of the money. If only everyone understood that. I have to spend some more time and money optimizing my Amazon listings and then I will turn my focus onto my site and spend all my effort building my business to survive in spite of Amazon. Literally in spite.
- Pikamander2 3y ago>I also have my own site where I can sell for the same price and keep much more of the revenue, but most shoppers won’t buy if they didn’t find it on Amazon. If I leave Amazon or raise my Amazon price to recoup the costs or stop paying for FBA and Amazon ads, I lose almost all of my sales. This is all because Amazon is doing anticompetitive things with its monopoly power. Can you expand on what you think Amazon is doing wrong here? When I buy products online, I almost exclusively buy them from Amazon because I've had too many bad experiences with other sites. That strikes me as a case of consumer choice, not anti-competitive practices. I once purchased a Japanese candy pack from a supposedly-reputable website that was supposed to be a Christmas gift, but they didn't give me a tracking number and wouldn't refund it after a month of no delivery until I filed a chargeback. By contrast, I've never had any trouble getting Amazon to honor their refund policy for "Prime" products, which is why I've stuck with them.
- sfmike 3y agoMade a purchase that was cancelled with shop with points. The points won't return and are "stuck in limbo". Cancelled Order doesn't show in order history either. I've contacted support with at least 50 support agents over several months and the standard you won't be charged if it's cancelled templated response is all they can muster to reply with. There's no way to contact anyone besides the templated responses. Essentially 900 dollars are gone and no support possible.
- 1-6 3y agoThese lawsuits are simply performances designed to rid the next administration’s power to do a real lawsuit. It will give Amazon a slap on the wrist and keep the company in monopoly.
- lots2learn 3y agoI used to be an FBA seller and made an exit via sale to private equity (i.e. an aggregator). The FTC will likely fail on all or most fronts imo. Amazon's price fixing helps consumers because they simply don't show you the product if it's not the best price on the web. FBA fees are not "profits" taken by Amazon because logistics is not a profit-center for their business. Copying successful third party sellers' products, as annoying as it is (it happened to me more than once), doesn't appear to break any laws. Advertising costs keep rising yes, but again, how is that illegal? At some point, there may be an opportunity for some young entrepreneurial minded person to create their own marketplace open to third party sellers and undercut Amazon's commission (currently 15pct in most categories) and have cheaper advertising costs due to lower competition. The reason why currently this is likely not viable is that FBA is still faster and cheaper than any other existing fulfillment service last I checked. The margin difference between lower commission+cheaper advertising vs more expensive (and slower) fulfillment is still - I believe - in Amazon's favor. FBA, by the way, is open to use even if you sell on your own website. The service is called Amazon MCF (multi channel fulfillment), but the cost and speed is not as good as real FBA. I often wondered what Amazon gains by offering MCF and can't help but think it has something to do with making the appearance of not being anti-competitive.
- HiVisVestStukOn 3y ago[flagged]
- HiVisVestStukOn 3y ago[flagged]
- HiVisVestStukOn 3y ago[flagged]
- HiVisVestStukOn 3y ago[flagged]
- HiVisVestStukOn 3y ago[flagged]