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Businesses United States

Amazon Probed by US Antitrust Officials Over Marketplace 31

Posted by msmash from the it's-happening dept.
A team of FTC investigators has begun interviewing small businesses that sell products on Amazon to determine whether the e-commerce giant is using its market power to hurt competition. From a report: Several attorneys and at least one economist have been conducting interviews that typically last about 90 minutes and cover a range of topics, according to three merchants. All were asked what percentage of revenue their businesses derive from Amazon versus other online marketplaces like Walmart and EBay, suggesting regulators are skeptical about Amazon's claims that shoppers and suppliers have real alternatives to the Seattle-based company. One merchant, Jaivin Karnani, said he was surprised the FTC returned his call the very next day.

The interviews indicate the agency is in the early stages of a sweeping probe to learn how Amazon works, spot practices that break the law and identify markets dominated by the company. The length of the interviews and the manpower devoted to examining Amazon point to a serious inquiry rather than investigators merely responding to complaints and going through the motions, antitrust experts say.
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Amazon Probed by US Antitrust Officials Over Marketplace More

Amazon Probed by US Antitrust Officials Over Marketplace

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  • Amazon and other large online companies had best go to war. They are winning the sales wars. which is exactly what a business should do. Has anyone even given a thought to the idea that small businesses, with brick and mortar stores also sell products on Amazon or Ebay? Maybe some thought should be applied to banks, unwilling to fund new businesses to the point of being able to enter the market and be competitive.

    • Most feel it won't be worth trying to compete with Amazon Marketplace, which is filled with overseas suppliers selling goods that are often counterfeit and always being offered at prices they can't match.

      Consumers that are online are online because they are price sensitive or because they can't find what they want locally. A small business doesn't typically compete on price or selection, they compete on relationship, service, presenting a unique local option, or a desire for a few consumers to do business i

      • Counterfeiting becomes pretty meaningless when it's done by the same Chinese factory and they do change the brand labelling.

        • The difference was the return policy.

          I write "was" because "reputable" (I'll use that word loosely here) vendors increasingly have the same shitty return policy that we're used to from china sellers (i.e. ship it to us at your expense, wait 12+ weeks and if we feel like it, we'll send the broken item back).

          Which doesn't exactly increase the likelihood to shop with them. I mean, if the only thing that's really different anymore is the price...

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • You are completely right, and I feel terrible that the Sorny television you bought caused you so much heartache.

            • What? But Sorny's description said it guaranteed "exquisite colour of light clarity", and came with 9573 5-stars review all saying "such good !". How should I have known it wasn't good ?

          • Riiight, you're retarded.

            You're conflating fake with counterfeit.

            You can be a moron and buy something that ends up being a box filled with rocks to add weight.
            Or, you can be not a moron and buy something that's functionally identical to the name brand item, because it's made by the same exact process with the same exact parts in the same exact factory by the same exact slaves, just with a different, generic name and label.

      • Most feel it won't be worth trying to compete with Amazon Marketplace, which is filled with overseas suppliers selling goods that are often counterfeit and always being offered at prices they can't match.

        Consumers that are online are online because they are price sensitive or because they can't find what they want locally. A small business doesn't typically compete on price or selection, they compete on relationship, service, presenting a unique local option, or a desire for a few consumers to do business in their community. Amazon isn't the place for them.

        Amazon is definitely dominant, and small businesses may have trouble competing- but there are several big players out there on the online scheme. Walmart/Jet is trying hard to break Amazon's hold. Google Express (or whatever name they use now) has the might of Google behind it, and is a conglomerate of different retailers. There is ebay still (which really dropped the ball to allow Amazon to rise like this).

        One or more of these alternative options really need to figure something out to break the consumer

        • Amazon and other large online companies had best go to war. They are winning the sales wars. which is exactly what a business should do.

          I don't know what you mean by "should". As is very well known in economic theory, when a single company (or a cabal acting together) achieve market dominance, they can use their size to drive other players out of the market. This has been well understood since Adam Smith. Monopoly power is bad.

          Quoting Yang [medium.com]: "The enemy to both free market libertarianism and socialism is a monopoly. It creates a new form of feudalism. Without any structure, philosophy, or rules, societies can move toward monopolies where

        • "There is ebay still (which really dropped the ball to allow Amazon to rise like this)."

          I joined an ecommerce startup operating out of a bedroom in 2010. 9 years later we have a staff of 30.
          3 dozen stores across a dozen marketplaces.


          There is only one username and password for the ebay account. ebay doesn't support user delegation. Do we bottleneck everything through the owner? Or do we trust that employees won't shut down the store by clicking the wrong link? No use complaining on the ebay forums, mos

    • I think it is a big leap to assume that small vendors will make the effort to list their products in multiple marketplaces all implementing different sales systems. This is not a problem with Amazon, it is because they are SMALL vendors. Many of these are single person businesses. it is a lot to expect these one person business to master four or five ecommerce platforms.

      I'm actually in favor of cracking down the other way and weeding out all of the small vendors selling or reselling products that can't pass

      • You cannot sell it anywhere as a small vendor because of their "you can't sell it cheaper anywhere else" policy. How do you want to do this on multiple marketplaces? They all have different policies, requirements and pricing schemes, there is no way you could come up with a "one price fits all" system in a world with razor thin margins. So the only thing left for you is to only offer your goods at one place.

        And that's gonna be the one where you may expect the biggest profit.

    • Every FTC investigation looks like a Dilbert comic. These guys are always late and clueless. Ah, that's the intention.

  • Trump hates Bezos so yeah this will be fast tracked. Not because he ordered it, but because the culture is one of pleasing Trump or be fired. Also kings of tiny domains get to feel powerful.

    • I'm conflicted because I hate Trump, but I still think that Amazon needs to get done for Antitrust, and I'm not convinced that Amazon would be seriously investigated by another president. So while I'd still rather have a better president, in this particular case Trump might do the right thing — albeit for the wrong reasons. But given that another president would probably do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons, I suppose I'll still cheer.

    • Trump hates Bezos so yeah this will be fast tracked. Not because he ordered it, but because the culture is one of pleasing Trump or be fired. Also kings of tiny domains get to feel powerful.

      Antitrust actions take so long that it's unlikely that this will be complete by the 2020 election.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • The US ain't that tiny.

  • Most sellers probably aren't even in the country, so don't have to abide by the US consumer protection laws (or at least can't be found or legally prosecuted). It seems shady to me that Amazon is allowed to do this to US citizens. Amazon should be on the hook for every such sale.
  • It seems like if Amazon was burning vendors, the vendors would stop coming to them.

    I don't understand why this is getting probed.
  • Amazon without a doubt has market clout based on its name and distribution strength. But it doesn't prevent small businesses from competing with Amazon directly through their own websites and distribution. Some in fact do both, selling on Amazon and through their own sites. Pending any strong-arming or other anticompetitive behavior by Amazon to these sellers (e.g. exclusivity contracts, punishing vendors over things like selling on eBay, forcing them to use their distribution channels at high costs, etc

  • How about supermarkets putting their own brands in eye-height and cheaper than the other brands, who sometimes even have to send their own people to stock the shelves at the supermarket?

  • Amazon's 3rd party vendors have consistently been growing faster over their 1st party products.

    Hard to reconcile with this investigation. I'm not sure what's going on.

    https://blog.aboutamazon.com/c... [aboutamazon.com]

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