> Amazon's problem is in the use of data metrics on its giant store to create products that compete with its partners. The Amazon Essentials line is anticompetitive IMO, because as the operator of such a large platform, Amazon has a responsibility to the US economy.

Curious on your thoughts about Kroger/Great Value/Archer Farms (Target) brand items? At least Amazon marks them clearly as house-brand, Archer Farms is practically camouflaged at Target among the brand names, and it's placed pretty prominently too.

Personally I think it's hard to draw a distinction between the two cases - either they're both fine or they're both not. My line would be closer to: if Amazon noticed a certain thing was selling really well, created their own version of that thing, and then de-listed the original thing from their store, that seems like the point at which it becomes anti-competitive to me.

Store brands are an age-old practice so it's interesting to revisit them in the context of mega-corps like Amazon. Although WalMart+Great Value is probably a similar scale.

> and then de-listed the original thing from their store

While they don't delist items, their algo favors products they sell directly to the extent that Amazon will get the buy box over a third party seller even when that seller is reputable and cheaper. Add that the 3rd party seller has to pay a sales fee to Amazon, often making it impossible to compete with them without approaching zero margin.

It's not delisting but it's the next best thing. If Amazon starts selling something you sell, your sales are gone, you were just free market research for them.

>While they don't delist items, their algo favors products they sell......

Which is still the same in the Target example where their own brand product get much favourable placement. This practice has been going on for so long possibly before all of us on HN were born.

I would argue its not similar at all. Finding those reputable sellers can be more difficult whereas this would be similar to the same target item showing up four or six different times on the shelf intermixed and tagged multiple times. No?

Not really, Visual Merchandising and placement is a field on its own. Target knew precisely where to put items if they dont want that brand to do any sales, to the point where it could be 30% to 40% drop even from a Reputable brand and sellers, and 70%+ from lesser known brands, effectively killing it.

It is a tactic often used in dispute, that is why Brands needs to work on Branding to combat this stronghold from Distribution. And one reason why small brands likes the Internet so much rather than working with conventional distribution channel.

If you're selling to Target they can certainly hurt your sales with unfavorable placement, but the impact isn't really comparable to the buy box on Amazon, the overwhelming majority of sales are buy box clicks.

A direct comparison would be target putting your product behind their product on the shelf where the shopper can't see it without digging for it.

I agree that all major retailers have store brands that are not easily distinguishable -- but Amazon kind of takes it to a whole new level:

https://www.vox.com/2018/4/7/17208804/amazon-private-label-b...

All they are doing is learning what is worth white-labeling. They still need to manufacture a product that is equal to or better than what it is competing with. The overwhelming majority of these products are absolutely generic things for which there are already many alternatives and Amazon is adding one more.

So, I though Amazon mostly got to where they are by exploiting the poorly-designed concept of sales tax by selling things across state lines, knowing full well that no one cruelly pays "use tax", and so was able to sell things much cheaper than brick and mortar stores; and then when people tried to "fix" sales tax (still a broken concept) by charging Amazon in as many situations as they could, Amazon pushed back hard until they could see the two major brick and mortar book companies failing, and then said they would comply but only if they could have one more tax free year. Like, I certainly remember people I knew even say out loud they were buying books on Amazon due to the lack of sales tax, but it could be that they just didn't know that there was some other thing about "democratizing writing" that was causing their experience to be cheaper somehow.

I though -> I thought

cruelly -> actually

> Amazon's problem is in the use of data metrics on its giant store to create products that compete with its partners.

Walmart and Costco do it too, should that it be banned when customers get the product at a cheaper cost?

I wonder if Amazon Essentials also plays into the quality problems that they have. I often buy Amazon Essentials because it's the easiest way to find a product that isn't a fly by night knock off.