6 ms·

Grocery stores are not a monopoly.

by travoc 3y ago

lotsofpulp 3y ago
Neither is Amazon. Aliexpress, Walmart, Newegg are direct competitors selling cheap crap. Then there is Target/Home Depot/Lowes/Staples/Costco/Best Buy/etc
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Neither is Amazon The lawsuit that is the subject here details Amazon's durable monopoly power in two markets. But, yes, if Amazon did not have a monopoly, it could not, obviously, be illegally maintaining a monopoly.
- yomlica8 3y ago
  Doesn't Amazon prevent you from selling on other stores for a lesser price? I always thought that was a galling scam and couldn't understand why it was even allowed at all.
sib 3y ago
Nor is Amazon
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  The complaint [0] has 32 pages detailing Amazon's durable monopoly power in two relevant markets, so your claim that it lacks a monopoly might do with somewhat more of a counterargument than you've presented. [0] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.326809/gov.uscourts.wawd.326809.1.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.32...
  - sib 3y ago
    "Monopoly: the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service." Given that there are things such as Walmart.com, eBay, Shopify, and many hundreds of other online commerce stores, they are self-evidently not a monopoly. In fact, they don't even have a majority share of eCommerce in the US. And they also don't have majority share in cloud services. Nor do they have a monopoly in eBooks. I did not say they don't have monopoly power, I said, they are not a monopoly. (Other than obvious things such as "Amazon products"..., in which case every manufacturer or retailer is a monopoly in their own products.)
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > Other than obvious things such as "Amazon products"..., in which case every manufacturer or retailer is a monopoly in their own products. The way this argument is normally presented is somewhat intentionally obtuse. Obviously Nike has a monopoly on Nike shoes, but "Nike shoes" isn't any kind of sensible market definition because you go to a shoe store and there are a dozen brands of shoes that are all pretty fungible with each other. But then you get into something like "GM-compatible brake pads" and that is a sensible market definition, because if you have a GM car and you need new brake pads, they need to be compatible with your car. But you'll also notice that this isn't the same thing as GM-brand brake pads. You could get GM-compatible brake pads from a variety of OEMs that are all compatible with your GM vehicle. Or, it could be the case that only GM makes GM-compatible brake pads. In which case they would have a monopoly in that market. Not because it's a monopoly on their brand of brake pads, but because it's a monopoly on any brand of brake pads compatible with that brand of cars -- which is something else entirely. Notice that they don't even have to be the same company. If you have a Studebaker, the Studebaker Corporation is no more, and you may have trouble finding parts. It may even be the case that some independent third party has a monopoly on some such parts, even though it's a monopoly on parts for one specific brand of car.
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        > Or, it could be the case that only GM makes GM-compatible brake pads. In which case they would have a monopoly in that market. Not because it’s a monopoly on their brand of brake pads, but because it’s a monopoly on any brand of brake pads compatible with that brand of cars – which is something else entirely. > Notice that they don’t even have to be the same company. As a specific example (and note, that you also don’t have to be the literal sole supplier to have a legal monopoly under US antitrust law), the market Microsoft was found to have monopolized in their big antitrust case was the market for operating systems for IBM-compatible personal computers.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > “Monopoly: the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service.” That is not the applicable definition for US antitrust law. https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
ch4s3 3y ago
Neither is Amazon in e-commerce, they hold ~39% of the US market and their eCommerce growth lags behind total eCommerce with 9% and 10% respectively. Wal-Mart is at about 6.5% but had nearly 25% growth this year while capturing 36% of all eGrocery sales in the US. The only place where Amazon is even near 50% is in consumer electronics and office supplies. The eCommerce market as such has a very long tail and a lot of competitive players just behind Wal-Mart.
- rewmie 3y ago
  > Neither is Amazon in e-commerce, they hold ~39% of the US market and (...) From the link: > 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.
  - ch4s3 3y ago
    I obviously read the press release, but haven't read the 173 page complaint yet. But the piece about pricing is DEAD wrong. The complaint says: > Amazon uses a set of anti-discounting tactics to prevent rivals from 24 growing by offering lower prices, But Amazon's contracts with big sellers specifically state that it may only discount when competitors first lower prices, making it in effect a price follower. It goes on to say: > 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 Which belies the fact that when you sell on Amazon you agree not to offer lower prices in other places. This is simply Amazon enforce one end of the two way part of the contract. Amazon agrees not to unilaterally slash your prices and you agree not to discount behind their backs. But you aren't as an eCommerce seller obligated to do business with Amazon, they don't have sufficient market share for that. Furthermore, this statement is specifically false: > By taming price cutters into price followers, Amazon freezes price competition 11 and deprives American shoppers of lower prices Amazon is the price follower. If Wal-Mart offers a discount, so will Amazon. If B&H Photo discounts a camera, so will Amazon. The FTC is using sleight of hand here. I just don't find their arguments here to be very compelling. I'm not against monopoly enforcement, but I just don't see how Amazon actually has the pricing power they're claiming.
2023throwawayy 3y ago
In Denver they are. I imagine other places too. https://kdvr.com/news/local/kroger-albertsons-king-soopers-safeway-merger-shoppers/ https://kdvr.com/news/local/kroger-albertsons-king-soopers-s...
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  I do not see the purpose of excluding Walmart from "grocery store" when it sells the most groceries in the nation. Costco and Target are also sell huge amounts of groceries.
jlmorton 3y ago
Pretty close! Albertsons owns: Acme Markets, Safeway, Haggen, Jewel-Osco, Kings, Pavilions, Plated, Randalls, Shaw's, Tom Thumb, United Supermarkets, and Vons Kroger owns: Baker's, City Market, Dillons, Food 4 Less, Foods Co., Fred Meyer, Fry's, Gerbes, Harris Teeter, JayC, King Soopers, Kroger, Mariano's, Metro Market, Pay Less, Pick 'n Save, QFC, Ralphs, Ruler Foods, Smith's And now Albertsons and Kroger are merging together into one gigantic holy-shit mega corp.
- travoc 3y ago
  Not even close. Combining all those brands results in a 13.5% market share.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    Groceries aren't a single national market, and its quite likely that such a merger would both create both monopolies and monopsonies. Its also quite likely that the big grocery merger won't happen as planned for that reason.
  - loeg 3y ago
    Albertsons + Kroger is like 90% of the market in Seattle, where I live, though.
    - unregistereddev 3y ago
      It's very location-dependent. In my midwest metro I believe they'd be less than 5% of the market. I'm sure Albertsons and Kroger each have local monopolies in different regions.
      - plagiarist 3y ago
        I think they have a good point, though. I would like the laws to prevent a single corporation from being 90% of all groceries for an entire state even if they aren't anything close to a monopoly from a national perspective.

Grocery stores are not a monopoly.

by travoc 3y ago

Grocery stores are not a monopoly.

Neither is Amazon. Aliexpress, Walmart, Newegg are direct competitors selling cheap crap. Then there is Target/Home Depot/Lowes/Staples/Costco/Best Buy/etc

dragonwriter 3y ago
> Neither is Amazon The lawsuit that is the subject here details Amazon's durable monopoly power in two markets. But, yes, if Amazon did not have a monopoly, it could not, obviously, be illegally maintaining a monopoly.
yomlica8 3y ago
Doesn't Amazon prevent you from selling on other stores for a lesser price? I always thought that was a galling scam and couldn't understand why it was even allowed at all.

sib 3y ago

Nor is Amazon

dragonwriter 3y ago
The complaint [0] has 32 pages detailing Amazon's durable monopoly power in two relevant markets, so your claim that it lacks a monopoly might do with somewhat more of a counterargument than you've presented. [0] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.326809/gov.uscourts.wawd.326809.1.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.32...
- sib 3y ago
  "Monopoly: the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service." Given that there are things such as Walmart.com, eBay, Shopify, and many hundreds of other online commerce stores, they are self-evidently not a monopoly. In fact, they don't even have a majority share of eCommerce in the US. And they also don't have majority share in cloud services. Nor do they have a monopoly in eBooks. I did not say they don't have monopoly power, I said, they are not a monopoly. (Other than obvious things such as "Amazon products"..., in which case every manufacturer or retailer is a monopoly in their own products.)
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > Other than obvious things such as "Amazon products"..., in which case every manufacturer or retailer is a monopoly in their own products. The way this argument is normally presented is somewhat intentionally obtuse. Obviously Nike has a monopoly on Nike shoes, but "Nike shoes" isn't any kind of sensible market definition because you go to a shoe store and there are a dozen brands of shoes that are all pretty fungible with each other. But then you get into something like "GM-compatible brake pads" and that is a sensible market definition, because if you have a GM car and you need new brake pads, they need to be compatible with your car. But you'll also notice that this isn't the same thing as GM-brand brake pads. You could get GM-compatible brake pads from a variety of OEMs that are all compatible with your GM vehicle. Or, it could be the case that only GM makes GM-compatible brake pads. In which case they would have a monopoly in that market. Not because it's a monopoly on their brand of brake pads, but because it's a monopoly on any brand of brake pads compatible with that brand of cars -- which is something else entirely. Notice that they don't even have to be the same company. If you have a Studebaker, the Studebaker Corporation is no more, and you may have trouble finding parts. It may even be the case that some independent third party has a monopoly on some such parts, even though it's a monopoly on parts for one specific brand of car.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > Or, it could be the case that only GM makes GM-compatible brake pads. In which case they would have a monopoly in that market. Not because it’s a monopoly on their brand of brake pads, but because it’s a monopoly on any brand of brake pads compatible with that brand of cars – which is something else entirely. > Notice that they don’t even have to be the same company. As a specific example (and note, that you also don’t have to be the literal sole supplier to have a legal monopoly under US antitrust law), the market Microsoft was found to have monopolized in their big antitrust case was the market for operating systems for IBM-compatible personal computers.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > “Monopoly: the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service.” That is not the applicable definition for US antitrust law. https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

ch4s3 3y ago

Neither is Amazon in e-commerce, they hold ~39% of the US market and their eCommerce growth lags behind total eCommerce with 9% and 10% respectively. Wal-Mart is at about 6.5% but had nearly 25% growth this year while capturing 36% of all eGrocery sales in the US. The only place where Amazon is even near 50% is in consumer electronics and office supplies. The eCommerce market as such has a very long tail and a lot of competitive players just behind Wal-Mart.

rewmie 3y ago
> Neither is Amazon in e-commerce, they hold ~39% of the US market and (...) From the link: > 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.
- ch4s3 3y ago
  I obviously read the press release, but haven't read the 173 page complaint yet. But the piece about pricing is DEAD wrong. The complaint says: > Amazon uses a set of anti-discounting tactics to prevent rivals from 24 growing by offering lower prices, But Amazon's contracts with big sellers specifically state that it may only discount when competitors first lower prices, making it in effect a price follower. It goes on to say: > 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 Which belies the fact that when you sell on Amazon you agree not to offer lower prices in other places. This is simply Amazon enforce one end of the two way part of the contract. Amazon agrees not to unilaterally slash your prices and you agree not to discount behind their backs. But you aren't as an eCommerce seller obligated to do business with Amazon, they don't have sufficient market share for that. Furthermore, this statement is specifically false: > By taming price cutters into price followers, Amazon freezes price competition 11 and deprives American shoppers of lower prices Amazon is the price follower. If Wal-Mart offers a discount, so will Amazon. If B&H Photo discounts a camera, so will Amazon. The FTC is using sleight of hand here. I just don't find their arguments here to be very compelling. I'm not against monopoly enforcement, but I just don't see how Amazon actually has the pricing power they're claiming.

2023throwawayy 3y ago

In Denver they are. I imagine other places too. https://kdvr.com/news/local/kroger-albertsons-king-soopers-safeway-merger-shoppers/ https://kdvr.com/news/local/kroger-albertsons-king-soopers-s...

lotsofpulp 3y ago
I do not see the purpose of excluding Walmart from "grocery store" when it sells the most groceries in the nation. Costco and Target are also sell huge amounts of groceries.

jlmorton 3y ago

Pretty close! Albertsons owns: Acme Markets, Safeway, Haggen, Jewel-Osco, Kings, Pavilions, Plated, Randalls, Shaw's, Tom Thumb, United Supermarkets, and Vons Kroger owns: Baker's, City Market, Dillons, Food 4 Less, Foods Co., Fred Meyer, Fry's, Gerbes, Harris Teeter, JayC, King Soopers, Kroger, Mariano's, Metro Market, Pay Less, Pick 'n Save, QFC, Ralphs, Ruler Foods, Smith's And now Albertsons and Kroger are merging together into one gigantic holy-shit mega corp.

travoc 3y ago
Not even close. Combining all those brands results in a 13.5% market share.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  Groceries aren't a single national market, and its quite likely that such a merger would both create both monopolies and monopsonies. Its also quite likely that the big grocery merger won't happen as planned for that reason.
- loeg 3y ago
  Albertsons + Kroger is like 90% of the market in Seattle, where I live, though.
  - unregistereddev 3y ago
    It's very location-dependent. In my midwest metro I believe they'd be less than 5% of the market. I'm sure Albertsons and Kroger each have local monopolies in different regions.
    - plagiarist 3y ago
      I think they have a good point, though. I would like the laws to prevent a single corporation from being 90% of all groceries for an entire state even if they aren't anything close to a monopoly from a national perspective.