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I feel like they artificially made their prices super low for the last couple years and intentionally operated at a loss as a business tactic to force out compe
by randycupertino 9mo ago
I feel like they artificially made their prices super low for the last couple years and intentionally operated at a loss as a business tactic to force out competition and kill off local grocery stores. There were instances of their prices being lower than Walmart or other budget stores. The avocados were $0.25 each and carrots were half price of ones in Safeway, even ground beef was weirdly cheap. One time as a comparison I put the same items in my cart for Amazon fresh and Walmart and it was $21 at Amazon fresh and $36 at Walmart. WAY cheaper than Instacart too.
- lelandfe 9mo ago> operated at a loss as a business tactic to force out competition and kill off local grocery stores Wouldn't surprise me. I know a guy who invented a device for truckers that became ubiquitous in truck stops across the US. This would've been like 2014. He refused to sell on Amazon, so Amazon duped his product and sold it at something crazy, like half price, until he agreed to list (at which point they dropped their competing product)
- felixgallo 9mo agoI'm not aware of any Amazon product lines or organizations that specializes in devices for truckers. Can you provide a listing?
- lelandfe 9mo agoTruckers are the biggest demo but it's sold under a generic category.
- felixgallo 9mo agohuh. What's the product listing? I don't think this story rings true.
- serf 9mo agoit's a known behavior of theirs[0]. sounds plausible to me. [0]: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/amazon-copied-products-rigged-search-results-promote-its-own-brands-documents-2021-10-13/?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/amazon-copied-produ...
- pessimizer 9mo agoIt's good to ask for a link (although not good to give one if this is your friend and it may affect their relationship with Amazon that you're talking about this in public), but you can't expect people to waste time thinking about your ringing ears.
- NickC25 9mo agoAmazon also did this with diapers.com They are notorious for doing this.
- lotsofpulp 9mo agohttps://archive.is/2020.07.29-212026/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-29/amazon-emails-show-effort-to-weaken-diapers-com-before-buying-it https://archive.is/2020.07.29-212026/https://www.bloomberg.c... >“We have already initiated a more aggressive ‘plan to win’ against diapers.com,” longtime Amazon retail executive Doug Herrington apparently wrote in an email released by the committee. “To the extent that this plan undercuts the core diapers business for diapers.com, it will slow the adoption of Soap.com,” another company owned by Quidsi. >Herrington called Quidsi Amazon’s No. 1 short-term competitor. “We need to match pricing on these guys no matter what the cost,” he said in the email. I bet Quidsi was also selling the diapers at a loss since they were using UPS and Fedex, so not sure what the difference is if Amazon sells diapers at a loss or Quidsi was selling diapers at a loss. The innovation would have been in the logistics buildout, which Quidsi obviously wasn’t doing.
- to11mtm 9mo agoThe logistics buildout is arguably Amazon's biggest retail lynchpin. However, it's built on a few fragile external costs. First that comes to mind, is the comingling, which will theoretically resolve one way or another with their ending of comingling. Comingling almost certainly lowered logistics costs however... Second being, the externality of how both warehouse and delivery workers are treated in the name of the almighty metrics. NGL I feel like the public's acceptance of their labor practices has ironically only accelerated the erosion of labor rights and worker treatment.
- gamblor956 9mo agoThere's no listing. The story is made up. While the general premise is true (big company will try to rip off small company), Amazon doesn't have the magical power to get around patent law and the economic penalties are fairly harsh, which is why most companies don't do it. And no war chest of tech patents is going to get Amazon around a patent in the trucking industry because the inventor of the trucking gizmo couldn't care less about whether Amazon patented the right to make Alexa speak in tongues. It's possible, and likely, that Alibaba vendors decided to rip off the product, but again...patent law is a useful tool for those who use it, and Amazon can be held liable for the sales of infringing products on its storefronts.
- _DeadFred_ 9mo agoAmazon currently sells fake fuses that have probably already killed people. Amazon cares just slightly more about breaking the law then they about killing people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU
- gamblor956 9mo agoThat's because criminal prosecution and product tort liability are not meaningful deterrents. Patent litigation is a different thing entirely. The burden of proof is lower, and the payouts are higher. To put things in perspective, Apple, Amazon, etc., have lost patent lawsuits worth hundreds of millions over trivial aspects of their devices that are just tiny parts out of thousands compromising the phone/tablet/whatever.
- worik 9mo ago> criminal prosecution and product tort liability are not meaningful deterrents. > Patent litigation is a different thing entirely Wow! Infringing my idea is "worse" than infringing my body...
- ipaddr 9mo agoTell that to a judge after 15 years millions of dollars and an out of date product.
- cmiles8 9mo agoSuch tactics sound… illegal
- belter 9mo agoThe password is Melania... https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/04/07/when-billionaire-government-contractors-are-also-media-moguls/ https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/04/07/when-billionaire-go... https://pagesix.com/2026/01/27/hollywood/inside-melania-trumps-alleged-movie-maneuvers-with-amazon-chief-jeff-bezos/ https://pagesix.com/2026/01/27/hollywood/inside-melania-trum...
- belter 9mo agohttps://youtu.be/B1zKWNB2rho?t=230 https://youtu.be/B1zKWNB2rho?t=230
- simulator5g 9mo agoHaven’t you heard? Laws don’t apply to companies
- NickC25 9mo ago[flagged]
- groundzeros2015 9mo ago[flagged]
- free_bip 9mo agoYou are on a website called HackerNews, where people are encouraged to comment on articles or "posts". You are seeing this because you are looking at the comment section of one such post.
- groundzeros2015 9mo agopolitical quips with no insight or information used to be considered against the rules and removed.
- Chris2048 9mo agoDid he have a patent?
- lambdasquirrel 9mo agoDo you want to go up against whatever patent portfolio AMZN has?
- Chris2048 9mo agoHe already had the product, what would he be going up against?
- lelandfe 9mo agoI just looked it up - yes, and far in advance of the timeframe This is (or was) a very small business. An office and a warehouse, basically.
- sfjailbird 9mo agoIt has been their practice since forever. Look up the diapers.com case.
- noboostforyou 9mo ago> I feel like they artificially made their prices super low for the last couple years and intentionally operated at a loss as a business tactic to force out competition iirc that's exactly what Amazon did to destroy diapers.com over a decade ago
- gamblor956 9mo agoAmazon did not destroy diapers.com. Diapers.com aka Quidsi was already operating at a loss when it was acquired by Amazon. It's whole business model was using VC-funding to offer products below sustainable costs with the goal of eventually jacking up prices once they drove out smaller/local competitors. Amazon used its own business model against it by dropping prices even lower, knowing that the VC investors couldn't afford it. Walmart passed on buying Quidsi when Walmart was thinking about launching its own e-commerce platform because the business model was unsustainable. Walmart decided they would rather spend several hundred millions building out their own platform then to buy an existing website with millions of customers.
- pasttense01 9mo agoWalmart bought out jet.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet.com
- gamblor956 9mo ago5 years after it passed up on buying Quidsi, and after it's first disastrous e-commerce attempt...
- kkukshtel 9mo agoThis is basically the playbook of every "disruptive technology" startup or FAANG initiative of a similar stripe - set prices incredibly low to bleed out competition and gain market share, then raise them once you are in the dominant market position.
- HPsquared 9mo agoAt a certain point it's not about technology anymore, but access to cheap finance. See also: Uber.
- groundzeros2015 9mo agoUber is far better for me than the old taxi system.
- direwolf20 9mo agoMaybe the one where you flagged down a car on the street, but you could always call to book a taxi and those companies worked exactly like Uber — over the phone, because it was the pre–app era.
- warkdarrior 9mo agoUber also gives you a price upfront, and that is the most you will pay (+ tip, if you feel like it). I don't remember pre-mobile phone taxi system that gave you a price upfront. They used to list the price per mile, and then it was up to you to figure out the distance and make sure the driver took a reasonably short route. So no, the old taxi companies did NOT work "exactly like" Uber.
- llbbdd 9mo agoI've seen more than a few people on this forum assert that the old taxi system was/is comparable to Uber or somehow better. I even got some shit for referring to it as old, legacy, I forget the exact verbiage I used. But it is old, and it is worse. I get the price upfront, I can adjust the "class" of car I order if I'm going to the pharmacy alone or to a nice dinner. Calling ahead to preorder a taxi feels like calling to order a pizza over the phone at this point. If I called, would they even know how to handle it?
- pessimizer 9mo agoWalmart isn't a budget grocery store, though. Its prices are higher than actual grocery stores (like Safeway.) Also, everyone is WAY cheaper than Instacart.
- pixl97 9mo ago>Walmart isn't a budget grocery store, The answer to this is complex, it has any number of products that are cheaper than products of similar quality from any other store. Places like Safeway/Aldi typically beat on price on very generic items that may or may not have similar quality. The biggest thing to watch for at Walmart is price discrimination dependent on location. Back in the days I used to shop with them (read made less money) picking a store in a poorer neighborhood could save $10 to $30 dollars on the same car of items.
- silisili 9mo agoI found Lowes (hardware) to be one of the worst about this. I lived in an area with 4 Lowes, and never shopped at my local one because of how much more expensive everything was, and never clearance. I'm not talking a couple dollars, in some cases 4x the price of one just 15 minutes away.
- pixl97 9mo agoIn the days before places started requiring ID for returns an acquaintance of mine would pick up rifle scopes at one Walmart and return them at another Walmart on a route he took. Only once every few weeks to give employees time to rotate out. He could pay for a few days of gas with that arbitrage.
- classichasclass 9mo agoNot in the areas of California I frequent. Walmart is usually the cheapest around here; heck, even Target beats Safeway on some items. On the other hand, Walmart is also usually the worst at stock rotation.
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- knowitnone3 9mo agoThat's literally their MO. They've been doing that forever.
- mattmaroon 9mo agoAnd then they can’t figure out why the economics don’t work. Phase 1: bankrupt the competition Phase 2: ??? Phase 3: profit!