[scohesc]

I hope they include Amazon's practice of taking popular products on their storefront, making generic "Amazon Basics" versions, and selling them to undercut the popular options. Simultaneously owning a marketplace, approving who can and can't sell products on it, and then putting your own products on it to undercut other sellers is so scummy and muck rake-y.

I hope they also include Amazon allowing thousands of Chinese retailers to stock Amazon's warehouses with counterfeit, faulty products, and potentially dangerous out-of-spec parts - with no way to meaningfully report or bring the offending product to Amazon's attention.

[psunavy03]

You mean you don't like having the choice between ZOSLRD-branded stuff and TUMACO-branded stuff, both of which have descriptions that look like someone put Mandarin Chinese through an LLM, because that's probably what they did?

[shitlord]

Why is it so common for Chinese sellers on Amazon to have uppercase company names?

[kmeisthax]

Selling on Amazon requires a registered trademark. If you're a random factory in Shenzhen you don't care about branding, you just want to be able to sell your stuff on Amazon, so you just put together random letters in the hope that your registration won't conflict with anything else. You don't want to have to deal with back-and-forth with USPTO, you don't care about having a meaningful, memorable, or interesting name, you just want an Amazon listing.

Coincidentally the majority of USPTO trademark submissions are literally just random strings of letters now for this reason.

[unmole]

> Selling on Amazon requires a registered trademark

This is not true. A trademark is only required for Amazon's brand registry which gives brand owners control over who is allowed to sell their branded products.

[shitlord]

That explains the random names, but what's with the upper case lettering?

[johnnyanmac]

if I had to take a blind guess: Chinese doesn't have a concept of casesensitivity. It's a logographic language so casesensitivity is almost irrelevant.

[ApolloFortyNine]

Idk how you fix that without effecting store brands at grocery stores.

And I think store brands are pretty mostly a win for the consumer (this is important for any monopoly case).

[zizee]

Do I understand that you like/appreciate grocery store brands, but dislike Amazon's store brand? If so, what is the distinction you see between the two?

[ApolloFortyNine]

>Do I understand that

No I didn't say that.

[tzs]

So let's say they aren't allowed to both own a marketplace and sell their own generic product in that marketplace, and so they have to spin Amazon Basics (AB) off into a separate company that is not treated any differently than any other seller on Amazon the marketplace (AM).

AB can still look at AM listings in a category and note what is popular (just like anyone can do since that is part of the details AM generally includes in listings), and make a generic version (just like anyone can do), and then sell that on AM. AB products are usually pretty good and usually quite reasonably priced and so even if treated exactly the same as everything else in their category are still likely to end up being included in the products that get algorithmically recommended as alternatives.

It's not clear to me how this would improve competition.

As far as your point on Chinese retailers goes, you are arguing that Amazon should allow fewer sellers and those sellers should be more regulated. That may be a good thing but I'm having some difficulty seeing how it is an antitrust thing.

[macinjosh]

Not every one can afford the name brand.

- Sincerely a kid raised on everything store brand.

[saltymug76]

I dont think anyone's arguing against generic alternatives of name brand items. The issue here is Amazon using up-and-coming and popular products as fodder for them to generic-ize and push to the top of results, essentially knee capping the original seller.

[lovethevoid]

All retailers do that. It's called private labels. None of the products are made by the retailer either. As unfortunate to those who might genuinely believe Trader Joes products are unique to them, or that Great Value was Walmart using its massive distribution systems to quickly scale core products like Milk out. It's all private labelling.

[tpxl]

Amazon is not a traditional retails, it's a marketplace. Walmart buys stock, puts it on sale, gets data and makes decisions upon that. Amazon just skips the expensive first 2 steps by taking data from other retailers on their platform.

[wvenable]

Is there a business with a "house brand" that doesn't do this?

[tomschlick]

Does Walmart/CostCo/BestBuy/Kroger/etc not do this exact thing?

[johnnyanmac]

I think the algorithms make the difference here. You can't really make a cereal box stand out on a physical shelf in any unique way (or you can, but it'll be a cost expense. Ruining the point of undercutting). IME with online storefronts for traditional brick and mortar their own brands never seem to come on top.

Meanwhle I will almost always get an AmazonBasics if it exists as a first result.

[lotsofpulp]

> Meanwhle I will almost always get an AmazonBasics if it exists as a first result.

99.9% of buyers prefer this over having to wade through innumerate random brands and try to discern quality.

[johnnyanmac]

Consumers like a lot of short term factors that turn against them in the long term. That seems to be the theme of the 21st century.

I'd rather these perverse incentives not exist and simply have a more educated consumer base learn to search "Amazon basics X" instead of maximizing conviniece to enable monopolies. We've clearly been shown that we can't handle the latter

[tbrownaw]

Yes, how dare they use their scale to make more cost-effective versions of popular things.

[consteval]

It doesn't really count when they:

1. Have access to immense amounts of data about these products that the manufacturers don't. Because they own the marketplace.

2. Can freely advertise, push, or even force their own products as much as possible. Because they own the marketplace.

[johnnyanmac]

how dare they use their algorithms to make sure all their cost effective versions will show up first.

That's probably the more pressing issue.

[megaman821]

Those original sellers mainly just look like drop-shippers to me. So Amazon just going straight to the source and selling at lower margin is better for me as a buyer.

[Mistletoe]

My Amazon Basics RCA cables and many other items are the best versions of those items I own. The quality is very very good. I actually like that feature of Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Basics-Speaker-Subwoofer-Gold-...

[the_gorilla]

I don't think it's part of an antitrust case, but I am tired of seeing every item being sold from 200 chinese companies with randomly generated names and fake/bought reviews. Walmart has started to do something similar with their online store. I'll use their words.

> It's easy to sell online with Walmart.com. Partner with the largest multi-channel retailer and put your products in front of millions of Walmart shoppers.

Americans are used to American storefronts going through American regulations, but now you're essentially being dropshipped hazardous unregulated products. I generally try to buy from companies directly but this hasn't stopped my family from buying chinesium children toys for me that go straight into the trash.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

> you're essentially being dropshipped hazardous unregulated products.

How did we end up here? Like why the hell can I buy things on Amazon that can't legally be sold on shelves in the US? Why aren't retailers suing?

[lovethevoid]

The CPSC has sued and won https://www.cpsc.gov/Newsroom/News-Releases/2024/CPSC-Finds-...

Amazon used the excuse it wasn't acting as a distributor and thus shouldn't be held responsible for protecting the public from these products

[esskay]

> Why aren't retailers suing?

Because Amazons wiped a lot of them out, and the ones that remain are either doing the same thing, or stand zero chance of comign out of it anything less than bankrupt.

Amazon for all its convenience has decimated likely close to if not more than a million businesses at this point across the world.

[Loughla]

>I generally try to buy from companies directly

This is the secret today. Find the product you want, buy straight from that company. Anymore the storefronts are all uniform and shipping (which used to be Amazon's advantage) is the same.

The days of massive online retailers dominating is over at my house. I just wish more people would figure that out.

[tiltowait]

I find Amazon’s shipping to be fastest about 9 times out of 10—and that 1 is just the direct seller matching, not beating. With Prime, shipping is also “free” (so long as you’ve saved enough on shipping to recoup the cost of Prime itself).

But aside from that, Amazon almost always has a better return process, and you only need to give one site your payment details rather than many.

(That said, I often buy outside of Amazon, because for certain specialty items, Amazon is pretty lacking.)

[Loughla]

>Amazon almost always has a better return process

Every company so far, I send an email or click the return link on the confirmation email they sent when I ordered. Print the label and send it back. I haven't had any problems yet.

>need to give one site your payment details rather than many.

Either use PayPal or your credit card. If it gets compromised, cc companies are really good at making sure you don't get screwed.

I have been doing this for 5 years now and haven't had any problems.

[oblio]

How does it work with refunds and returns?

[Loughla]

Every company so far, I send an email or click the return link on the confirmation email they sent when I ordered. Print the label and send it back. I haven't had any problems yet.

[richwater]

> I hope they include Amazon's practice of taking popular products on their storefront, making generic "Amazon Basics" versions, and selling them to undercut the popular options.

I guess you hate every grocery store ever then

[adventured]

And competition. One of the ways companies like Walmart hold their popular brand name companies in check on pricing power is through their store brands.

Why should I feel bad about Kraft being under permanent pressure by Walmart's Great Value brand?

More competition is needed, not less. Along with more transparency. Banning Amazon from competing would be a mistake. They need a more level playing field, not fewer players.

[_DeadFred_]

Selling carrots is much different than developing a store brand product based on the algorithms only you have access to. Amazon is basically outsourcing R&D and market research to startups then taking the market away once they have a success.