The timing of any case remains in flux, some of the people said. The commission also could opt not to proceed, and doesn’t always bring cases even when it is making preparations to do so. Amazon officials haven’t had individual late-stage meetings with each of the FTC commissioners to make their arguments against a legal challenge, those people said.
The commission in recent years has been examining Amazon practices including whether it favors its own products over competitors’ on its platforms and how it treats outside sellers on Amazon.com, according to some of the people familiar with the matter. The FTC also has been scrutinizing the company’s Amazon Prime subscription service’s bundling practices, some of the people said. Exactly which aspects of the business the FTC would target in a potential Amazon lawsuit couldn’t be learned. Amazon and the FTC declined to comment.
Remember when Amazon said it would get out of the vast majority of its’ PL brands as a token of good faith for the accusations the Govt was looking at? That never happened so here we go…
Amazon’s price fixing- Telling you that you have to violate MAP or sell at a loss because the bots say so.
Amazon forcing you to use their shipping, their advertising, their fulfilment if you want to sell and be protected
Amazon’s inconsistent application of rules especially to itself.
Amazon using 3p sellers as research as to what brands to sell
Amazon violation MAP of those brands and the brands being powerless to enforce it or risk going out of business because Amazon has driven the other brand sellers out of business.
I know I’ll be bashed for this but every single big box store does this. They bring in all the national brands and knock off what sells under their own brands. If it doesn’t violate IP, it’s legal.
Anyone selling a brand in any store / webstore needs to know this could happen. That’s life in United States retail / capitalism.
If I were Amazon, I would do the same thing.
Knock offs fuel innovation too. Getting a step ahead. Sure, it hurts real bad to work on something real hard and be knocked off and lose share but if that bothers you then do something else in life.
Believe me, if you had some great idea and it was selling awesome outside of Amazon, Amazon would knock it off anyway.
No bashing here! And I do understand this, with b&m.
Amazon has so much more data than any box store, though: on Sellers, on products, on Buyers, on suppliers, on competitors, and on advertising. That is the difference, to me personally.
Totally agree, Amazon has a HUGE advantage over everyone else but it is what they are doing illegal?
The price fixing on the other hand… That’s an issue they should be held accountable for.
This is America - If you want to sell item X for $1 or $100, that’s your business…
I hate Amazon and they do a lot of questionable shit but the knockoffs isn’t something they are going to get nailed on. I’m quite sure legal has its’ say on what they manufacturer under their own brands.
I probably have this view because of the category I love and know. It’s based on knockoffs because there’s no protection for formulations.
We find something we know we can make for nothing - we knock it off. Too bad so sad for those that can’t do it better / cheaper.
Nobody should be under the illusion that Amazon is any of our partners. Amazon is a ruthless, cold hearted beast of a business that will take every last penny all of us have to give. They don’t give a ■■■■ about any of us. Of course all of us here in this group know all this already.
What sellers need to do is take advantage of Amazon the best we can. They have assembled a couple hundred million active shoppers for us which is the only reason to be here.
I know I’ll be bashed for this but every single big box store does this. They bring in all the national brands and knock off what sells under their own brands. If it doesn’t violate IP, it’s legal.
I don’t think the issue is what Amazon is doing, so much as how they are doing it.
I’m not in private label, so not qualified to speak with authority, but it seems that the issue is them using the information that they only have access to as a result of us being sellers on their site. If Walmart saw I had a product on my website and they decided to knock it off, that’s competition.
But if Walmart invited me to sell on their site, and asked for my product components and their source, under the guise of ensuring my product meets their safety requirements or whatever, and then used that information to build their knock off on, that’s different.
That is precisely the anti-trust/anti-competetive/monopoly allegation litigation.
Amazon is not just another B&M - it is an entire fulfillment network.
We talked about this on OSFE - this is precisely why amazon is opening up Buy with Prime on DTC channels:
a. To say - anyone can use the amazon network
b. To remain competitive against attack vectors from places like shopify who are trying to move from software to platform/distribution with a decentralized fulfillment network.
That this distinction is important.
There are limits to what amazon private label teams can do - so far they haven’t been able to leverage their scale to create the best products nor are they necessarily getting the best prices - but they do tend to dump their products - which is anti-competitive - I don’t know where litigation is on that yet but didn’t they announce closing certain private label products - but that hasn’t come to full fruition yet?
You don’t think Amazon has category managers that know what they are doing? They don’t need our invoices or certificates to knock us off, all they need is google.
They find a manufacturer, send them a link to the product they want to knock off, supplier wets their pants in excitement because they just got Amazon’s business and BOOM - a month later it’s an Amazon Basics item in the top search position because Amazon cheats in this way big time. That’s unethical and potentially illegal.
