What I don’t get it’s why they care now when this is an old retail strategy. Older than Amazon itself.
Target is the epitome of pushing you white label brands down your throat from the minute you step into own of their stores. And this is essentially what every retailer does.
They all check what sells the most, then they create their own brands, and then they promote and prioritize those brands over their shelved vendors.
Show me one retailer that doesn’t do this.
This strategy is the very reason why the direct to consumer model exists. Brands realized that they couldn’t compete fairly through product aggregators and their real survival and path to success was to do what retailers were already doing: to verticalize.
Can you really not distinguish Amazon, it’s market position, and their acts from brick and mortar retailers that carry private label items?
Even if you can’t distinguish Amazon’s conduct and a grocery store selling private label cereals side by side, the article really isn’t about that anyway but the fact that Amazon went before congress and was asked about prioritizing their private label products in search results over other sellers and Amazon representative lied under oath by denying they do that. I’m not aware of Target going before Congress and lying under oath about selling private label products, one would think if Amazon’s conduct was on the up and up they wouldn’t lie under oath to cover it up.
My comment is not about their lying. That's a different problem and not what my comment is about.
> Can you really not distinguish Amazon, it’s market position, and their acts from brick and mortar retailers that carry private label items?
Who do you think had the dominant market position before Amazon was a thing? Again, this play is older than Amazon itself.
My argument was just a rhetorical statement reflecting on the government's ineffectiveness and contradictory behavior when defining what harms customers or competition.
It's only now they care, because it's only now that they seem to see the political benefits from pursuing what's a rampant decades-long behavior.
Believe me, my comment is not trying to defend Amazon, is simply trying to showcase how politicians are opportunistic demagogues.
There seems to be no winning with the government actions : Act early and they’re accused of stifling “innovation”, act late and they’re accused of “ineffective ness”.
Is their argument that it harms customers and competition? It seems it benefits both. Customers get cheaper goods and Amazon is competing with the existing players. The government willingnes to act is then easier to explain: it's not defending customers (it rarely does) but it tries to shelve other established businesses from competition (which is common).
Isn’t it still the case that Walmart and similar brick and mortar stores have significantly higher revenue than Amazon’s e-commerce revenue? If anything, it’s worse for traditional stores because they have limited shelf space and so store brands can prevent name brands from even being available.
No, no it isn’t the case. Walmart is the only one with more revenue, but they don’t have AWS margins to prop up everything else. I think we’d all be better off if we didn’t have a 2-horse race for 90% of our purchases…
Target (#3)had $93b in revenue in FY2020. Amazon e-commerce had $120b.
I'd agree if we had a 2-horse race, but I don't see it, there are a ton of competing retail stores both online and offline.
And especially online, it's not like you're limited geographically where say your only store that has what you want is a big Walmart, you have access to hundreds of online retailer to choose from.
Target needs to do same day delivery and then they will win hands down. It does not take an MBA to figure this out and I don't know why they have not done it yet.
Sure, I don’t disagree about this part of the charge: I just don’t think there’s much difference between any other commerce-oriented business and Amazon on the question of prioritizing store brands.
Customers can actually see all the products at a physical store shelf to make comparisons albeit they may be placed at different heights on the shelves. Amazon essentially hides other competitors on the screen since they get the “buy box” and competition can only be seen by clicking to another screen; vast majority of users do not click to other screens.
“Do it on a computer” may work for patent attorneys but it’s bs. Just because Amazon is on a screen doesn’t actually make it different than brick and mortar.
That’s funny because that’s not far from what Amazon argued for 24 years while they didn’t charge and pay sales tax between 1994-2017. They think they are special when it benefits them and think they are the same when it benefits them.
You mean collect sales taxes on consumer behalf, obviously Amazon wouldn’t pay sales tax on anything they didn’t buy. Before 2017, consumers were supposed to pay sales taxes themselves on purchases in any state where Amazon didn’t have a presence (they of course had to collect sales tax in any state they had warehouses in). But that would be like a Washingtonian having to pay sales taxes on purchases they made in Oregon, they mostly didn’t bother.
The whole states couldn’t mandate internet retailers to collect sales taxes in states they didn’t operate in was setup by the federal government (who regulate interstate commerce) and didn’t apply to just Amazon. The taxes were still owed by consumers, but the burden of collection not being ar the retail level meant that they were mostly not paying.
What do you think businesses do after they “collect sales tax” they pay it to the government.
What brick and mortar doesn’t charge sales tax and leaves it to the consumer to pay to the government directly?
You are making the very same bs argument Amazon made in multiple courts and lost, of course Amazon has to collect the sales tax, businesses get sales tax numbers from governments a consumer can’t exactly pay sales tax directly to governments, despite what Amazon tried to argue that’s not how sales tax works, all sales tax is reported/collected/paid based on a business sales tax account.
> What do you think businesses do after they “collect sales tax” they pay it to the government.
"Collecting sales tax on on behalf of the consumer for the government" should give you a good clue to what they are doing with that money. Consumers always paying the sales tax, not the businesses who collect them. They are still responsible for paying sales tax even when the business isn't collecting them (e.g. when I go to Portland and buy a MacBook Pro from the Apple store, I am supposed to myself pay sales tax to Washington state).
> What brick and mortar doesn’t charge sales tax and leaves it to the consumer to pay to the government directly?
The federal government created this scenario during the Bill Clinton Administration. It wasn't something Amazon decided on its own. And again, brick and mortar stores don't always collect sales tax (see Portland Apple store above, which gets way more business than is expected for the Portland area).
> You are making the very same bs argument Amazon made in multiple courts and lost, of course Amazon has to collect the sales tax, businesses get sales tax numbers from governments a consumer can’t exactly pay sales tax directly to governments, despite what Amazon tried to argue that’s not how sales tax works, all sales tax is reported/collected/paid based on a business sales tax account.
Again, Amazon didn't make that decision. It wasn't their decision to make. If you want to go after someone, go after the Clinton Administration, the congress that was installed at the time, and the Supreme Court.
> They are still responsible for paying sales tax even when the business isn't collecting them (e.g. when I go to Portland and buy a MacBook Pro from the Apple store, I am supposed to myself pay sales tax to Washington state).
That isn’t how sales tax works at all.
Good luck going to apple and trying to buy a MacBook and telling them not to charge sales tax because you are going to pay it yourself.
Paying sales tax as an individual to a state isn’t a real concept, businesses collect it because they have to by law the business is liable for the sales tax based on their receipts plus penalties, states don’t go after consumers. If businesses weren’t liable, then none of them would charge it/collect it/account for it/pay it to the state, because it’s extra work. They do it because they are liable for it.
But please I’d love for you to share your proof/receipts that you have successfully bought a MacBook without apple charging you sales tax and your proof that you paid it directly to state.
Ironically, this likely unblocked bottlenecks on delivery speed and cost for Amazon, because they previously avoided operating in new states and now are spinning up distribution centers everywhere.
The law is the law it doesn’t distinguish anything, but facts can easily be distinguished and when you apply 2 different sets of facts to the law, don’t expect the same outcome.
It’s why Amazon never makes the argument about private label brands in grocery stores/brick and mortar retailers. If it were that easy, they wouldn’t be testifying before Congress much less lying under oath about prioritizing their own products, they would have just said “of course we use data to copy the best selling 3rd party products on our site and then prioritize our own products to win the market just like everyone else.”
The problem is not the practice itself; it's that Amazon representatives told Congress they did not do it.
They lied, that's the problem. If they had said yes, we do indeed analyze what is happening in our marketplace to decide which products to launch, they wouldn't have gotten this letter.
There are other possibilities than "they lied". The most likely explanation is that the branch in India used tactics that were specifically forbidden by corporate policy formulated in the United States, that corporate management was unaware that it took place, and is now plenty embarrassed to hear that it did.
It's not necessarily true, by the way, that they wouldn't have gotten flack from Congress if they'd initially testified that they use sales and product data only they possess to find out which third-party products are both profitable and vulnerable to lower-cost competition, use it again to design competing house brands that are identical to the third party products down to the smallest detail, and follow that up by using their website to promote the knockoff products as preferable to the third party products they've ripped off. This is not a standard industry practice and would likely not be defensible as "It's just a house brand, like Safeway Soup. What's the big deal?"
Given that nearly every important member of the government that has testified before congress has flat out lied to congress... this seems like selective enforcement. How about going after all the members of the military and intelligence command structures that told blatant lies when testifying.
> nearly every important member of the government that has testified before congress has flat out lied to congress
This is rubbish. There is a litany of recent, memorable cases. But they rarely met the legal threshold of contempt of Congress, and in the cases that did, there was seldom political will to prioritise its prosecution.
Congress, by design, is a political creature. We don't want the President (DoJ) rounding up people who speak to a co-equal branch of government because he--unilaterally--thinks they might have lied.
> What I don’t get it’s why they care now when this is an old retail strategy. Older than Amazon itself.
> Target is the epitome of pushing you white label brands down your throat from the minute you step into own of their stores. And this is essentially what every retailer does.
But Amazon isn't a simple retailer. Isn't the issue that they do this and operate a third party marketplace? IIRC, Target is a traditional retailer that doesn't operate a marketplace for other retailers to compete in.
> Target Plus Marketplace is one of the top-tier eCommerce marketplaces, along with Amazon Marketplace and Walmart Marketplace, that cater to third party retailers. Target, one of the biggest retail chains in the United States, entered the eCommerce marketing realm in February 2019 and expanded its product assortment by allowing third party retailers to sell on Target.com
>> Target Plus Marketplace is one of the top-tier eCommerce marketplaces, along with Amazon Marketplace and Walmart Marketplace, that cater to third party retailers. Target, one of the biggest retail chains in the United States, entered the eCommerce marketing realm in February 2019 and expanded its product assortment by allowing third party retailers to sell on Target.com
You spammed that quote a couple times in the thread, but never provided a source. I found it (https://thriveagency.com/target-plus-marketplace/), and your quotation seems a bit selective, the next sentence is:
> Unlike Amazon and Walmart Marketplace, however, Target Marketplace is an invitation-only platform.
That seems like a significant difference. It also goes on to say they only have about a hundred partners, which is another significant difference.
Since your source seems like some kind of weird marketing site, here it is from the horse's mouth, https://plus.target.com/:
> Right now, Target Plus is an invite-only program but we do plan to accept partner applications in the future.
I was just trying to provide people with the correct facts, as you've confirmed yourself, they have entered the game and are ramping up to be a marketplace, with already having 100 3rd party sellers onboarded and more to come, and even hinting that they might open application forms in the future.
How different is Target's relationship to its suppliers from third-party Amazon sellers really? In many cases it's the same entity that wants to appear prominently in both venues.
Target is in the business of leasing shelf space. If you are a third party and want prominent placement in the store, target will lease that shelf to you. If you notice where target's third party stuff is placed, its actually rarely at eye level. That premium placement is reserved for other brands to lease at top dollar. Target probably makes more money selling less of their store brand and leasing primo space than they do if they were to use that primo space to sell more of their store brand and lease the bottom shelves.
Amazon on the other hand doesn't work like a retail store. You aren't leasing a finite amount of space within the Amazon website. You are beholden to the search algorithm run by amazon which is a black box compared to an agreement made for shelf space in a retail store, you don't pay less for worse placement and you can't pay more for better placement, and Amazon continually tries to poach your business with low cost knockoffs and their search engines are uncannily tailored to prefer these results.
Isn't paying for sponsored results more or less equivalent to paying for better shelf space? The space may not "really" be limited, but for practical purposes, the second page of search results barely exists.
Not really because even then you could be trumped by an amazon basics result without realizing what happened unless you are checking for this constantly yourself. When you pay for premium shelf space you are paying for the explicit shelf in the explicit store, everything is exactly planned, nothing left to chance or uncertainty, its all very diplomatic in comparison.
The thing is, Amazon claims they are not a retailer, but rather a neutral marketplace matching buyer and seller. Tat's why they claim they should not be held responsible for false advertising, violations of consumer protection laws, or defective products.
However, when they misuse that marketplace data, they turn around and claim that they are just one retailer among many.
It's getting harder and harder for Amazon to maintain this legal equivocation.
In India, this is being dealt with in a different way. Amazon India and Flipkart (controlled by Walmart) are treated as a "marketplace", ie providing a platform for other sellers.
There are strict rules to limit domination of a few sellers on the platform (limits on percentage of sales by each seller). Neither of the two companies are particularly happy about it so probably it works to some extent.
Probably not a bad idea to draw more attention to it regardless. Whether it's Walmart, Amazon, Costco, etc. If anyone can do it then they all MUST do it to compete. If we bring the hammer down on Amazon then we'll have to (ideally) bring the hammer down uniformly on everyone else.
Basically it's sketchy behaviour across the board and Amazon has just proven themselves to be better, more efficient, and more willing at it.
It's an argument worth having IMO. One side will cite consumer benefit and the other will point out that it has long term effects that reduce choice and innovation (and thus consumer benefit).
Amazon would do just fine with a level playing field.
You don’t understand. Government needs you to stop buying store brand cereals, because they unfairly compete against General Mills Cheerios. See, stores can sell store brands cheaper than Cheerios, and that’s an anti-competitive practice, which the anti monopoly law is meant to protect from. Government will protect you by ensuring that there is no cheaper competing product, so that you will end up buying Cheerios at higher price. This will reduce the monopoly, and make the cereal market more competitive. Does that make sense to you? (It shouldn’t, because it doesn’t.)
It's a different situation in retail than what goes on with the amazon website. It's not a marketplace in the sense amazon is, brands are leasing specific shelf space. They pay an agreed upon price for these shelves and that's what they receive. Amazon doesn't abide to anything like this. To use a target example, it would be like they just threw all the third party stuff to the back of the store and only left the target brand stuff at eye level in the aisles, when that's not the case since the third party stuff has the best placement in the store. Brands typically pay extra for prominent shelf space position right at eye level and receive it, they aren't getting worked here by target like brands are by amazon when their results are pushed below the fold in favor of amazon basics products.
Scale. Pointing at any one retailer and saying "that is scummy, stop it" does not work, feels arbitrary and "then go elsewhere" is actually an option. If Amazon or a number of large chains do it, there is no reasonable alternative.
Case in point from Germany. If small supermarket chains treat their suppliers badly, that is their business. If Aldi (very large chain) does, this is potentialky ruinous for many companies, so politics do get involved.
It always is a tradeoff between the possible harm, number of people affected and the desire to not intervene if at all possible.
On top of the lying, which another commenter pointed out is the major issue - Target doesn't pretend to be a marketplace. It's a curated store, some of the products are whitelabel, some are not. Amazon presents itself as a marketplace, where buyers and sellers can come together.
Imagine I owned a shopping mall, and every time a business renting from me was successful I would hike up their rent and open a copycat shop in the stall next door... I think that's a closer analogy than the Target one.
Most retail stores also price shelf space according to sales too. Amazon on the other hand doesn't have any mechanism for you the brand to get preferential shelf space. In a mall you probably want a store by the entrance where everyone walks by, in a target you want shelf space at eye level, so there might be a premium for these spaces if you would like them. Can't do anything like that on Amazon. Third party scam products and name brands are weighed equally in search results. Amazon products actually get better placement, something you'd never see in a Target with their store brands since third party brands want to buy access to better placement and target wants to lease space at a premium to these brands.
> Target Plus Marketplace is one of the top-tier eCommerce marketplaces, along with Amazon Marketplace and Walmart Marketplace, that cater to third party retailers. Target, one of the biggest retail chains in the United States, entered the eCommerce marketing realm in February 2019 and expanded its product assortment by allowing third party retailers to sell on Target.com
What difference does it make? They could still mine their data and favor their own white label products? And it's not like Amazon and Walmart and NewEgg (ya they're a marketplace too now) don't have a vetting process when someone asks to become a seller.
My bet is Target is just starting to scale up and they're simply not ready for opening it up fully yet. Though its possible that they are also hoping to differentiate themselves with having a more curated set of 3rd party sellers.
But bottom line, they've been a marketplace since 2019, so it's incorrect to say they aren't.
Bezos has been pretty honest that he can’t guarantee employees haven’t violated Amazon policy.
> “What I can tell you is we have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private-label business,” Bezos replied. “But I can’t guarantee you that policy has never been violated.”
I mean, I get your point in principle but in this case the paper quotes Bezos verbatim in an "anti-trust investigation in front of the Congress. It's also incredible easy to verify that Bezos did make that statement from multiple other sources.
I'd be more surprised if they didn't lie, frankly. Lying during congressional testimonies and confirmations is a time honored tradition that applies in nearly every case. I can name plenty of cases where people either lied outright or lied by omission, but can't name any significant repercussions anybody experienced for lying. Ergo, I don't see why people would tell the truth that's disadvantageous to them, rather than lies that are advantageous.
> Lying during congressional testimonies and confirmations is a time honored tradition that applies in nearly every case
No, it isn't. This statement falls in the same category as "everyone commits insider trading; I should buy out-of-the-money options." You can recount specific cases because they remain exceptions.
But it is. Here's how things typically go: person in front of the Congress has a certain political affiliation, perceived or official. So one party (their own) runs down the clock asking them ultra-softball questions they can easily answer truthfully, while the other side asks difficult question which, if they answered them truthfully, would doom their appointment or invite further legal scrutiny, so they lie instead. On some occasions (Clapper or Clintons to mind) they just blatantly and unceremoniously lie to both parties, with impunity. On other occasions (Zuck, Pichai, others) they lie by omission or promise answers later, even when it's quite obvious they know them at the time. Nobody in the press ever checks what answers they provided "later", or whether they have provided them at all, or whether those answers were "truthful" or not.
And yes, everyone in Congress is quite into inside trading too (often holding large positions in companies they "scrutinize"). Multimillion dollar fortunes can't be built on $174K/yr otherwise.
This is a caricature of open hearings scripted for popular consumption. They're coördinated campaign events where, in essence, both parties agree to suspend legislation to win points with the uneducated.
With respect to "political affiliation" and related biases, you're ignoring the significant areas of bipartisan agreement with respect to potential (note: not proposed) legislation. (Our political culture goes to shit when legislation is actually proposed.)
> that they faced no repercussions for doing so is not an exception, it's the rule
This is playground logic. No enforcement mechanism is perfect. Permitting nullification on the hope of perfect enforcement is a straight line to anarchy.
Congress isn't a court. Its purpose is to legislate [1].
If you lie to a Congress and it impedes the legislative process, you can get boned, provided there is political will to refer you to the DoJ and sufficient evidence for them to pursue and convict you. But it's not analogous to contempt of court. (In particular, there is Constitutional risk around the executive interfering with people talking to Congress. Even at the request of some of its members.)
> This is playground logic. No enforcement mechanism is perfect.
Straw man argument. It doesn't need to be perfect.
There is a fairly wide difference between perfect and "a rule that is really only ever used to punish people when political will allows Congress to do so, and everyone else can just ignore it completely". Either it should be punishable to lie to Congress or it should not. But, if it is punishable, then it shouldn't be acceptable for high level government officials to do it publicly and overtly, then face no repercussions.
> it should be punishable to lie to Congress or it should not
That's a political view. If you feel strongly about it, I guess make it your single issue.
You won't, because nobody would, contempt of Congress is really only something people in Congress care about inasmuch as it thwarts their ability to write legislation. Congressional hearings, while managed in modern politics as public theatre, are technically only for the benefit of the Congress.
Impeachment and Congressional disciplinary procedures are political processes. So contempt of Congress is. It's not statute. It's barely a rule. It's a right the Congress may, at its discretion, exercise. (And even in that it's limited to passing a referral to the Department of Justice for consideration.)
There is a high bar for enforcing contempt of Congress [1]. For good reason. It requires both unlawful behavior to motivate the executive [2], and political animus to motivate the legislature.
Unlike in every one of the cases you mention, there is popular support for skewering Facebook, and, to a lesser degree, Amazon [3][4]. That satisfies the second condition in a way it didn't for your other examples.
From [3]: "Thirteen percent of respondents who were familiar with the brand had unfavorable opinions of Amazon, compared to just 9 percent in 2020."
That does _not_ sound like "popular support for skewering"! That sounds like "Amazon is one of the most popular, well-liked, and trusted organizations in the world".
> That does _not_ sound like "popular support for skewering
Skewering doesn't mean destroying.
Amazon is better liked than Facebook, Twitter or TikTok. The first will be skewered, and the careers of those associated to it will follow a familiar pattern. Twitter and TikTok will probably be fine, though they will suffer some wounds.
Amazon will--in my opinion--also be okay. But they will suffer wounds. The 7% of Americans who think they negatively impact society and 23% neutral are geographically concentrated, and passionate and organized, in a way that gives them political weight. Not enough to decapitate. But enough to enable the Congress to e.g. credibly threaten contempt charges.
I agree that there is a small minority of elites in certain domains which would like to weaken or destroy Amazon (& those other listed companies) for a variety of reasons, and are exerting some effort into making that happen. I simply disagree with the characterization that this constitutes "popular support", especially when contrasted to the amount of popular support that would be mustered for imposing consequences on the individuals listed in the comment you're replying to for lying to Congress.
> simply disagree with the characterization that this constitutes "popular support"
Fair enough, point conceded. I should have said political support. There is a well-organized constituency pushing for this, and no organized opposition apart from Amazon itself. (And characterizing that support as being limited to "a small minority of elites" is wearing three pairs of Silicon Valley filter goggles. Yes, the New York Times editorial board seems to hate Amazon. But it's also built a well of badwill in rural America.)
> It requires both unlawful behavior to motivate the executive [2], and political animus to motivate the legislature.
But... it shouldn't. If you get caught lying to Congress, the hammer should come down on you. Period. If you can't answer the question without lying, then just don't answer the question. This selective enforcement should not be allowed, because all it means is that anyone that can cause problems for the members of Congress can lie without any penalty.
> it shouldn't. If you get caught lying to Congress, the hammer should come down on you
Congress is a political creature. What is and isn't a lie is, within its context, a political question. This is--very partly, it's mostly a matter of convenience [1]--why contempt of Congress isn't a charge a Congress brings, while contempt of court is one the court regularly--unilaterally--brings.
Dragging random people before congress always seems to be a politically motivated media circus of some kind or another. Why should these affairs hold any legal weight whatsoever?
there are senate and house hearings all the time, and they all publish read outs after the fact. That you generally only hear of the politicized ones is not surprising. I have some subcommittee feeds in my news reader in a low priority folder to look at sometimes. Their legislative abilities are nearly nil at this point but they sure know how to hold hearings.
I went to look the Physics prize up, and got sidetracked by the winner of the Peace prize - Elihu Root.
First of all, the name sounds like a Neal Stephenson character. Then, I'm reading his page and it says things like:
- He got his start as defense counsel for Boss Tweed
- Went on to be a prominent corporate lawyer
- Was a lifelong opponent of feminism
- Was an advocate for American imperialism in the Philippines and elsewhere
- As secretary of war, was the "leading modernizer of the Army"
- Tried but failed to make an alliance between the US and Russia just after their revolution - may have inadvertently caused the rise of the Bolsheviks by allegedly inciting the provisional government to do something stupid
- Supported the amendment to the US Constitution allowing an income tax
- His "mentor" was Joseph Hodges Choate, who made the cover of Vogue in April 1898...
The winner of the Physics prize "was blinded in an acetylene explosion during a test of maximum pressure" the same year.
This made people fondly recall the disregard for personal safety in pursuit of explosive technology of Alfred Nobel himself, hence the prize, so it is claimed.
I don't actually understand why anyone has an obligation to answer honestly to congress. Who cares what congress wants? They aren't a judge. They're supposed to represent YOU.
Congress isn't a judge, and when they summon someone, they aren't on trial. When you're answering questions before a judge you have to answer honestly.
Not when some elected official from some random state I don't care about decides to posture for CSPAN. Why do they have any right to my time in the first place?
Bear in mind, you may not care about a congressperson from Alabama, but the people in Alabama who elected him do, and he's there to represent those people... you have your own representative representing you. The fact that it's someone else's representative doesn't make them any less important because they aren't there for you personally.
And yes, Congress can effectively put someone on trial (see: impeachment) and the fact finding processes they use before creating legislation is similar to a court proceeding. You are legally bound to respond honestly.
The fact that Congress and the courts have different roles, doesn't mean lying to one should be okay and lying to the other should be illegal: Lying to both is illegal. Testifying before Congress is part of the process of sourcing truth for laws to be passed to address issues with our society. It's critical that people answer honestly.
They all check what sells the most, then they create their own brands, and then they promote and prioritize those brands over their shelved vendors.
Show me one retailer that doesn’t do this.
This strategy is the very reason why the direct to consumer model exists. Brands realized that they couldn’t compete fairly through product aggregators and their real survival and path to success was to do what retailers were already doing: to verticalize.