[lelandfe]

> 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)

[cmiles8]

Such tactics sound… illegal

[simulator5g]

Haven’t you heard? Laws don’t apply to companies

[knowitnone3]

Illegal in what way? They are not allowed to set prices lower than competitors or raise them at any time?

[arrosenberg]

Predatory pricing is illegal in the US, but difficult to prosecute under the existing laws.

[twoodfin]

What is “predatory pricing” vs. “pricing”?

[giaour]

Selling items for less than they cost to produce is known as "dumping" in international trade (where it is generally disallowed by trade organizations) and can be illegal in the US if the intent is to eliminate competition [0]. That last factor can be hard to prove, and I don't think the FTC is doing much about anticompetitive behavior these days.

[0]: https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

[twoodfin]

Yes, I can imagine it’s hard to prove, which is a pretty good indicator it’s a slippery concept to being with. Everyone wants to “eliminate the competition”, including your competition!

[bushbaba]

Selling it at cost though isn’t. And the cost to make a good is often less than 50% retail

[kay_o]

I'd be unsurprised in this case that Amazon could produce the product profitably for less than half the cost due to scale.

[krferriter]

The Biden admin went slightly harder against anti-competitive actions and anti-consumer actions by companies and all the billionaires freaked out and poured money into Republican campaigns in 2024 in order to roll all that back.

[mcmcmc]

To add onto sibling comment: it is specifically when they sell below cost to eliminate competition, with the goal of later being able to raise prices to recover those losses (and more) once they are the only player in town and can jack the prices up all they want. The later price elevations are what result in consumer harm, which is why it is illegal.

[bmurphy1976]

Predatory pricing:

A big gorilla comes in and under prices the entire market. They can do that because they already have tons of money. They do this long enough to break the market and drive the competition out of business. Once the competitors are gone they jack up the prices to unprecedented levels because there's no more alternatives available and bleed the market for all the money.

Regular pricing:

Charge a fair price based on actual costs.

[twoodfin]

This presupposes some athletic new competitor can’t enter the market and take the margin off the fat incumbent.

It’s why we have capital markets: If capturing a profitable opportunity requires spending some money, someone who wants to profit will send that money your way.

[taurath]

Which means it’s actually: legal and widespread

[conception]

No it means it’s illegal and enforcement agencies don’t have the means and/or political support to prosecute.

[selcuka]

> Amazon duped his product and sold it at something crazy, like half price

Pricing below an appropriate measure of cost is generally considered predatory pricing. It is very difficult to enforce this, but that doesn't change the fact that it could be illegal and a violation of antitrust laws.

[sincerely]

Amazon could also have the resources/know-how/volume to manufacture a comparable product that could be sold for half the cost

[spockz]

Then that is okay as long as they don’t raise the prices after the competition is gone.

[belter]

The password is Melania...

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/04/07/when-billionaire-go...

https://pagesix.com/2026/01/27/hollywood/inside-melania-trum...

[belter]

https://youtu.be/B1zKWNB2rho?t=230

[sfjailbird]

It has been their practice since forever. Look up the diapers.com case.

[Chris2048]

Did he have a patent?

[lelandfe]

I 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.

[otterley]

Can you link to the patent?

[dlcarrier]

Patents last up to 20 years, assuming all maintenance fees are paid, so having a patent far in advance of an event may mean it's no longer valid.

[lambdasquirrel]

Do you want to go up against whatever patent portfolio AMZN has?

[Chris2048]

He already had the product, what would he be going up against?

[felixgallo]

I'm not aware of any Amazon product lines or organizations that specializes in devices for truckers. Can you provide a listing?

[gamblor956]

There'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_]

Amazon 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

[gamblor956]

That'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]

> 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]

Tell that to a judge after 15 years millions of dollars and an out of date product.

[gamblor956]

It seems a lot of people on HN fundamentally misunderstand how patent litigation works.

If this trucking device actually existed, and for some reason was being sold on Amazon, and the inventor had sued, he would be living large these days off the settlement.

Yes, Amazon sellers have copied products before, but those aren't Amazon. Amazon prefers to just buy the competition (see, e.g., Diapers.com and Zappos).

[lelandfe]

Truckers are the biggest demo but it's sold under a generic category.

[felixgallo]

huh. What's the product listing? I don't think this story rings true.

[serf]

it's a known behavior of theirs[0]. sounds plausible to me.

[0]: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/amazon-copied-produ...

[NickC25]

Amazon also did this with diapers.com

They are notorious for doing this.

[lotsofpulp]

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]

The 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.

[freejazz]

You don't think it's believable that Amazon sells something truckers would use?

[pessimizer]

It'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.

[mikestew]

Then don’t believe it and go on with your day. No one owes you a link to anything, especially if you simply don’t pay attention to Amazon’s widely-reported business practices.

[llbbdd]

All of the replies to this comment: "The fact that I thought it was real says a lot" [0]

[0] https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/aaaah