Stores absolutely use placement to promote one product over another. Eye level shelves are prime space, low ones near the floor are for cheap products with low margins. And “end caps” (the short end of an aisle of shelving) are for high visibility product placement.

The brick and mortar equivalent of pushing search results to page 2 is to just stop carrying the product—considerably worse than being on page 2.

>The brick and mortar equivalent of pushing search results to page 2 is to just stop carrying the product—considerably worse than being on page 2.

But no plausible deniability.

No, that is not the brick and mortar equivalent at all.

Amazon does not purchase most of the inventory listed in its search results.

Retail stores actually buy (almost) everything they sell (albeit at lower "wholesale" prices), and "resell" to end customers. So when a retail store stops carrying a product, they stop buying the product from the supplier, and that is always because the item was not profitable to sell.

(In rare cases, they sell on consignment, but such arrangements would apply to less than .001% of products sold at retail. Selling on consignment has a whole host of separate issues, which is why it is so rare even though it would seem most profitable to retail stores.)

> Retail stores actually buy everything they sell

This is true in general, but not absolutely true.

In some cases, manufacturers rent shelf space from stores, then pay the store a commission for each unit sold.

Various power tool manufacturers use this model, the name of which eludes me at this moment. I think Moleskine also does it.

Yes, in rare cases, such as for low volume goods (or new goods with an unproven sales history), manufacturers might sell inventory on consignment through a retail store.

But that is the exception that proves the rule, and suppliers go into those situations with the option of simply selling to competing retail stores.

Yep. Then the vendor has to add the responsibility of covering “shrinkage”, as the store doesn’t care when the product is stolen, as it doesn’t belong to them!

???

Vendors do not cover shrinkage, except for the rare items sold on consignment. Shrinkage losses are either absorbed by the store or handled by insurance.

Rack jobbing means the vendor stocks the shelves, sometimes literally. The vendor isn’t paid until the item sells. That’s common for a variety of merchants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rack_jobber

What I've noticed is many retailers only carry one or two name brands and flank them with their store brands of which they usually have three tiers.

So for example you only find Ryobi tools at the Home Depot but Craftsman and Black+Decker are exclusive to Lowes. Grocery stores do similar exclusivity with certain brands, Sargento's cheese comes to mind.