Amazon Labeled a Grocer by UK Watchdog, Must Abide by New Rules (bloomberg.com) 71
Britain's antitrust regulator designated Amazon.com as a grocery retailer, subjecting the online retail giant to the same rules followed by U.K. supermarket chains, such as Tesco. From a report: The Groceries Supply Code of Practice prohibits companies from making changes to supply contracts at short notice, and requires retailers to give appropriate period of notice if they no longer want to use a supplier and give reasons for ending contracts. It means that Amazon could now face a fine of as much as 1% of its U.K. revenue if it's deemed to have mistreated vendors. The Seattle-based company sells groceries online under its Amazon Fresh banner, as well as through a partnership with supermarket chain Wm Morrison Supermarkets. It has 15 Amazon Fresh stores and seven Whole Foods stores in Greater London and has a minority stake in food delivery service Deliveroo. "Today's decision to designate Amazon helps to ensure a level playing field for companies active in the groceries sector as people's buying habits evolve," said Adam Land, senior director of remedies, business and financial analysis at the Competition and Markets Authority.
That will end that (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Wait what do you mean I can't live in Spain for my retirement anymore? They told me Brexit would get rid of all those bothersome brown people!
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, all them damn Indian Europeans and their European curries.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There's a reason the concept of an "English Restaurant" hasn't caught on in other areas of the world.
Except maybe for Fish & Chips.
Re: (Score:2)
And even Fish and Chips isn't all that popular over here, which makes me sad because I love it. You rarely see just a fish and chips place, and the only big chains that are everywhere have terrible and tiny pieces of fish. We did have a fish and chips shop in my local mall when I was a teen, "London Fish & Chips" (no, not "London's Fish & Chips [londonsfishnchip.com]", I'm fairly sure it is/was a franchise but they had really nice crispy beer battered cod for a quite reasonable price. And in a totally non-british way, the
Re: (Score:2)
Of course it has. In Greece and the Canary Islands where English tourists go they need the warm comforting blanket of some truly nasty cheap beans and horrid tasting sausages for breakfast :-)
Honestly though I think you're being unfair. There are plenty of English Restaurants all over the world. Heck go visit Rotterdam sometime. There's a lighthouse boat floating next to the maritime museum converted into an english pub where you can get all manner of horrible tasting beer to go with your tasty English Sund
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know how it was across the pond, but there Amazon food delivery was a God sent during the pandemic.
I had to avoid Costco. Shoppers would just squeeze their heads in front of you, and our local one had *all* their cashiers got covid. Their delivery was abysmal, and then I "discovered" Amazon fresh.
Yes, things have changed. I now shop in store. But losing online food delivery would be really bad a year ago.
Re: That will end that (Score:2)
Most of the major supermarkets in the UK do delivery, so losing Amazon wouldn't be an issue.
At the start of the pandemic when lots of people switched to using it they did have trouble meeting demand as it took a while for them to scale up.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would you get food delivered from Amazon rather than from an actual grocery store? That's just mental.
Re: (Score:1)
Why would you get food delivered from Amazon rather than from an actual grocery store? That's just mental.
Amazon partners with Morrisons to deliver in areas Morrisons doesn't normally do so. But every supermarket of any size delivers in the UK.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Better logistics for groceries than the likes of Tesco, Asda, Sainburys etc. LOL. You clearly have no idea what so ever about the UK groceries sector. There was well established online shopping as well as click and collect (like online but you have to drive to the store to pick it up) that had existed for many years (well over a decade) prior to the pandemic.
Admittedly it can be difficult to book a slot for a delivery tomorrow due to the service being much busier than pre-pandemic. However you can book your
Re: (Score:2)
how do they handle it when you order something and its not in the store? how do they handle substitutes, do you actually always get what you want. In my experience with delivery (particularly with the supply chain issues we have had recently) we often order things and then the shopper cannot get in the store and then don't end up getting it.
That never happens with amazon, so what I will often do is a large order from a store and then some targeted orders from Amazon to supplement. If Amazon says they hav
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like you have very poor grocery stores. Amazon definitely doesn't beat any of our local grocery stores in price, quality, stock, or delivery time. ... by promising a service that a Dutch company started in 2000... Same with Amazon providing literally nothing new or better than any other option we
Is Amazon the best in the USA because absolutely everything else there is shit? Honestly half the USA business that startup in Europe leave us scratch our head. Like Uber eats disrupting the catering industry
Re: That will end that (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
> The 5 major supermarkets in the UK weren't offering home delivery
Bollocks. I had groceries delivered every single week and still do. I went into the store once for each Christmas as delivery slots around then are always booked up early, but I do that every year anyway.
There was a brief and hilarious time during April 2020 when you had to join a queue of over 5000 to merely get into the Ocado site, with no guarantee there'd be any delivery slots when you finally did.
Re: (Score:3)
We've had good online delivery of groceries from supermarkets since the 1990s.
A while back Amazon tried to come in and disrupt the market here with algorithms and whatnot only to discover that there was a mature market with well established players in strong competition who were not in fact a bunch of rubes.
Re: (Score:2)
No more groceries from Amazon in the UK.
What do you mean?
1. "This is why we can't have nice things" - because of meddlesome government overreach
2. It wasn't right that Amazon Fresh was able to undercut other grocers who abided by stable-supply-chain rules that contributed better to a smooth-functioning society, so it's good that Amazon Fresh will no longer be able to undercut them.
3. Amazon's grocery business must have been a low enough profit-maker that it'll be cheaper for Amazon to forego those profits than to find alternatives
4. Grocery is a
Re: (Score:2)
I was thinking 4, myself, but I suppose 3 is a possibility.
Re: (Score:3)
So, I gather you're more in favor of an Anarchic form of government, or would you prefer Feudal? ...
Spoken like a true Monopolist - or at least, someone who aspires to be one someday. Please Google the phrase "Anticompetitive Practices" - we'll wait.
That's funny. I didn't express a single opinion of my own. I instead asked the original poster which of two opposite views they were implying by their too-terse-to-understand post. Despite the two views being symmetric opposites you managed to bridle at both - and do so in a condescending way!
(As for my own opinion? ... I reckon that regulating commerce is a great activity for government to do, and that if one provider achieves dominance and puts the others out of business through a race to the bottom then
Re: (Score:1)
It was more an irritant that Amazon Fresh could undercut. It simply isn't big enough to be anything other than that for the major retailers. I doubt that Tesco in particular really gave a shit about them.
Put it this way: if Amazon Fresh was remotely a serious contender this classification would have come a lot sooner. If all the Amazon Fresh stores closed, the staff would just get an equivalent job at whichever store of the big 5 took over the location.
Re: That will end that (Score:2)
Redundant? NOW it's redundant. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In other words, spoiled child takes his toys and goes home. He's special and unique and those rules simply don't apply to him.
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon has accepted regulation in the past. A good example is California requiring Amazon to collect sales tax on purchases. Amazon claimed that it didn't have a business presence in California, so it didn't have to collect taxes. California argued that selling on behalf of associates based in state gave it enough presence in California that it needed to collect sales taxes. After some back and forth, Amazon gave in and started collecting sales taxes.
What's really interesting is that this had the exac
Re: (Score:1)
After some back and forth, Amazon gave in and started collecting sales taxes.
Because they were not the ones paying it. It's the customers.
To Amazon, it only sucked because they now had to adjust their checkout flow and keep track of the ever-changing state, county, and local municipal taxes.
But, as you rightfully state:
Once they started collecting sales taxes, their motivation for avoiding brick-and-mortar businesses disappeared, too.
Re: (Score:1)
It's a bit more than that. In theory, customers who avoided sales tax by buying online were supposed to pay it with their income tax; most tax preparation software asks about this. In practice, few people paid, which is exactly why California wanted Amazon to collect the tax for them. Sales tax in California is substantial- it's 9.5% where I am- so shoppers could save real money buying online and not paying tax on the purchase, even accounting
It's fun to call bluffs (Score:3)
In 100% of the cases where workers try to Unionize employers threaten to leave.
They only actually leave in 1% of the cases.
This makes perfect sense. Moving a short distance won't help. Moving a long distance is so expensive they'd need cheape
Re: (Score:2)
And just like with Facebook, nothing of value will be lost by them pulling out.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Similarly, inefficient businesses should go out of business. Maybe that seems harsh, but few here would argue that coal and oil should get to stick around forever just because they exist now. Poor farmers shoul
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is that the free market doesn't place any value on clean air, water, etc. and doesn't value relationships people have developed (consumers with products and businesses and businesses with suppliers, etc.).
Enterprises are free to screw anyone (and the environment) anytime in the quest for profit.
These regulations are an attempt to incorporate some stability to the market.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
People value clean water and air and people value relationships.
The problem is that corporations only value profit and don't pay the cost of dirty air and water and a dysfunctional society.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A free market is not some path to an ideal utopia and people who think of it as such are fools. It's only the most efficient route to humanities greatest desire, as ugly as that may be. Until we as humans change, nothing else will.
The inefficiency in the free market comes from people's inability to consistently factor in external costs in their decision making process. Some of this is because of imperfect information, since knowing all the external costs of buying a product or service is not possible. Knowing the price in USD is much easier to know. But some of it is also our inability to delay gratification and a slew of other failures in our ability to act perfectly rationally.
This is why I feel the best way for regulation and the
Re: (Score:2)
The reality is that there is no free market, there never has been and there never will be.
Things like trademarks, patents, and copyrights make a free market utterly impossible. An actual free market is prefaced by the concept that every good is fungible, that buying a widget from company A is the same as buying a widget from company B is the same as buying it from company D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K. For a free market to happen, literally everything MUST be generic, of absolutely equal quality, and of absolute
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Why does England (Score:5, Funny)
I've heard rumors that some rebels who were fed up with British rule went and started their own country. Can you believe it?
Re: (Score:2)
I've heard rumors that some rebels who were fed up with British rule went and started their own country. Can you believe it?
It will all end in tears.
Re: (Score:2)
have so many rules?
In this case? To fix market failure.
Re: (Score:2)
At the moment the regulators have just started to notice that these behemoth tech companies are capable of manipulating markets and sucking up data at a prodigious rate. It's just a new focus for them. If they work really hard at it, they'll surely be able to regulate the country back to the twentieth century or even the nineteenth.
Re: (Score:2)
Remember: Friends don't let friends post drunk.
(Because everyone remembers how much more regulation there was back in the 19th and 20th centuries compared to the 21st century)
Re: (Score:2)
How are all those countries with fewer rules doing these days?
Re: (Score:2)
I assume he's posting from his mansion in the libertarian paradise of the Congo.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah yes those all inclusive resorts where they specifically tell you not to leave the property, which is oddly enough guarded by private security.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah yes those all inclusive resorts where they specifically tell you not to leave the property, which is oddly enough guarded by private security.
Private security which will 100% guaranteed fuck right off if any serious threat appears. They don't live there and they're not getting paid enough to die.
Re: (Score:2)
The USA has plenty its self, including trade barriers (The USA is not a free market by any standards), subsidies, and other market distortions
When you go to another country, their rules apply, not the US ones.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Why does England (Score:1)
Because they are civilized society and civilized societies have rules.
Re: (Score:1)
So the populace doesn't get your growth hormone infused meat and chlorinated chicken sold to them. That shit isn't allowed to be fed to dogs.
Re: Why does England (Score:3)
Just Groceries? (Score:2)
Are they applying these regulations to everything Amazon sells, or only to the grocery portion of their business? If it's only the food section, then that makes sense, but if they want to apply the grocery regulations on clothing, books, home repair items, etc., that's nuts.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Do brick and mortar (BnM) grocery stores only have regulations on the food items they sell? If a BnM grocery store is selling gardening items are those exempted from the grocery regulations? If BnM groceries need to abide by the regulations when they sell gardening items then Amazon should have to follow the regulations for all the items they sell. If they don't like this they could always branch out the Amazon Fresh items as a separate business.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
... if they want to apply the grocery regulations on clothing, books, home repair items, etc., that's nuts.
It sounds perfectly reasonable to me. What I would like to see is Amazon behaving like a proper retailer, where they take some responsibility for the quality of the goods they sell. My recent experience of non-books purchases from Amazon is that I might as well have been buying cheap tat from some dodgy bloke with a van.
Ooops (Score:2)
Amazon, meet the real world.