
Got a Hot Seller on Amazon? Prepare for Amazon to Make One Too - petethomas
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-20/got-a-hot-seller-on-amazon-prepare-for-e-tailer-to-make-one-too
======
chatmasta
Watchya gonna do about it? Amazon makes merchants an "offer they can't
refuse." Fear of Amazon cloning your product (whether physical via Amazon
Basics, or virtual via AWS) is not enough reason to avoid selling on Amazon
altogether.

If your product is easily cloned by Amazon, and you cannot afford to sell it
for less than Amazon, then you do not deserve to have the dominant market
position.

A good, sustainable product is more than just marketing and engineering. It
must also be defensible, meaning you need to have an advantage in either
product-development (patents, expertise, first-mover advantages) or supply-
chain (exclusive manufacturing contracts, access to greater economies of
scale). It's almost impossible to beat Amazon in the supply-chain economics,
unless you have a highly specialized product and deals with the manufacturer,
so you are left to compete in product development. Your product needs to be
sufficiently innovative and defensible in order to avoid Amazon cloning it.

~~~
capote
> It's almost impossible to beat Amazon in the supply-chain economics, unless
> you have a highly specialized product and deals with the manufacturer

Yeah. And the opposite of a highly specialized product is exactly the example
the article gave--a piece of metal to hold up your laptop. I don't think
there's anything we stand to lose from this happening to products so simple
and generic. Or is there?

~~~
tryitnow
The biggest risk is that Amazon will act as a monopoly and jack up the prices
of the products once it's destroyed competitors.

Honestly, I don't think that's too likely as amazon's business model is built
around razor-thin margins.

~~~
dragonwriter
No, the biggest risk is that Amazon will kill innovation by reducing the
expected returns to product development expenditures so that investment in
product development is reduced.

~~~
capote
But there's nothing innovative about the original versions of the AmazonBasics
products. That's why they're called Amazon _Basics_. I'll agree with you when
we have an AmazonBasics car or smartwatch, which turn will change the entire
paradigm and probably won't happen.

~~~
dragonwriter
If that was true, that wouldn't need to free ride on other peoples product and
market development. Yeah, it's not the flashy big-picture innovation that goes
into inventing whole new product categories -- but it has a cost and provides
values, and if Amazon is swooping in to eat the returns of other firms
investments, they destroy the incentive to make the ivestments, and
improvements in the product categories at risk will be impaired.

------
DanielBMarkham
I think the mixed incentives problem is becoming more and more glaring with
each passing day.

Want to write an app that people use on their phone? Awesome. Become an Apple
Dev or a Droid Dev. It's the lottery: the providers love you playing, but only
about 1-in-100 make it, and "making it" is not about quality. The garden is
too big to be manually cultivated, so the winners are the ones that can play
the algorithm.

Have a site online you'd like people to visit? If you're advertising it,
you're going through Google or Facebook. Just be sure you don't accidentally
flip any yellow flags with them. If you do, they can yank your advertising and
you're talking to a robot trying to get it back. Unless you're big, of course.
Or you can play the algorithm.

How about if you sell a physical product? What if you've been selling it for
years? Well, you gotta go to Amazon. They own internet product sales. But
guess what? If you switch to a provider, you don't have an email list, you
don't have a unique internet address, you don't provide a unique experience,
and whatever you do has just become a commodity. And we're back to the
algorithm thing again, because if you can source, package, and sell it on
Amazon? Somebody else can too. Probably cheaper. Maybe it has high quality
parts. Maybe not. There's far too many products for Amazon to manually curate,
so you're back to worshiping the algorithm. The algorithm provides traffic, it
provides recommendations, it provides an indication of quality text content --
it provides sales.

Make a mistake in the old brick and mortar days? Go change your sign. Deal
with complaints through the BBB.

Make a mistake now? Sure, there's recourse. Sometimes. It's all about the
algorithm. And we can't tell you what's in the algorithm, because if we did?
Everybody would be gaming it. Like they are now.

The algorithm rules all.

Cross it and die.

~~~
brianwawok
So what was this like 30 years ago? No algo with no internet. You make a
business, you try to sell it around your town. If you do really awesome you
can get 75% of X business in your town. If you do really really really awesome
maybe you can franchise it across the country. But most people topped out at
ruling a town.

Now we are competing on a world market. Gains are much bigger, but everyone
has 500 competitors. You tend to get nothing or $billions.

Good for the consumer I think, as they can get the best version of X. Not so
good for the 499 other businesses that close.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Good for the consumer I think, as they can get the best version of X. //

I look around and I don't see consumers getting the best version of things I
see consumers getting what they're told they should want whilst seemingly
ignoring major improvements.

Engineered obsolescence seems like a major thing, how does it benefit
consumers (except the rich ones who're probably involved in profiting from it
themselves - even then they get the downsides of environmental damage and
wastage of resources, eventually).

I want a kettle that has the lid catches made in a resilient and repairable
way - instead all the kettles I can find (up to about £80) have plastic that
is seemingly designed to perish in a year or two at most. My first washing
machine lasted about 15 years; now washing machine repair people are telling
me that a machine 3 years old is past it and should be replaced. Progress?

Wealthy companies can see off poor companies and bury better designs.
Consumers don't tend to look beyond the end of their wallet, or can't afford
to.

We're not working together to create better products we're fighting each other
to get consumers money.

~~~
brianwawok
So I hear the washing machine story a lot. And it is true, insomuch as a 1970s
washing machine would last for 20 years, and a 2010 washing machine will last
for 6 years. Good read here:

[http://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/myth-or-legend-
the-...](http://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/myth-or-legend-the-golden-
age-of-the-indestructible-appliance)

The 1950s washing machine cost the equivalent of $5000. A modern one can be
had for $300, and wash clothes far far far better. You can buy one every 5
years for the rest of your life, and come out way ahead.. so why not?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>You can buy one every 5 years for the rest of your life, and come out way
ahead.. so why not?

For me the main reason is environmental impact which isn't accounted for
properly in the price AFAICT. I'm currently trying to recycle parts from an
old machine - many of which are polypropylene - but which despite bearing
recycling logos aren't seemingly recyclable anywhere. Not even the ferrous
seems to be wanted any more - stainless steel drum, few parts from aluminium,
rest seems to be destined for landfill.

I'm talking about turn of the millennium washing machine (front-loader, UK)
versus a current one. Price seems pretty comparable from what I recall.

~~~
brianwawok
Negative externalities are a big problem in almost any free market type
situation. This is no exception.

------
arprocter
Online retail is always a race to the bottom, as mostly all anyone cares about
is price. When I was in the business, it was a continual hunt for new/unknown
products we could sell at a decent profit before other sellers got on them and
the margin got trashed.

For a niche product it seems a little odd that Amazon would make their version
half the price. Then again, they may argue that theirs is a 'budget' version,
and thus it doesn't compete with the original.

~~~
csours
Ug. I know exactly what you are saying, but at least some people also care
about quality; however, in the race to the bottom it is very difficult for the
customer to assess quality and for the supplier/manufacturer to maintain
quality.

I don't know if there is a solution to this.

~~~
cc438
The reason AmazonBasic's offerings tend to dominate their respective markets
isn't because they are the cheapest option. They dominate because they are the
cheapest option which you can trust to work and continue working for whatever
is considered a reasonable lifespan for that category of good.

You're right in that people care about quality, it's just that quality
products don't have to cost as much as you think they do.

~~~
freyr
AmazonBasics provides a nice counter-balance to all the garbage that's
currently being sold on Amazon and propped up by fake reviews. They're
offering a solid no-frills product at a good price.

------
joemi
Amazon would do (and probably still does) this in another way, too. When I was
selling on Amazon for a bookstore, our strategy was try to find books that
Amazon didn't have on the site, then sell them, and if any sold well we'd send
massive quantities to Fulfillment By Amazon so we'd sell a lot and not have to
ship each copy individually. The first time this happened, we sold something
really well for 5 or 6 months, and then it stopped selling completely. Turns
out Amazon started carrying it and was selling it far below list price. Then
it happened again with another book after a few months of good sales. And then
again. After the third or fourth time Amazon suddenly undercut us like that,
we gave up on the practice, since between the already low FBA margins and the
cost of returning all the unsold products to us (and the publisher) since we
couldn't move them anymore, we weren't making enough for it to be worth the
effort.

~~~
mindotus
Ouch, what did you guys end up doing? Move to your own platform?

~~~
joemi
We stopped shipping things to FBA. Sadly we still had to sell on Amazon since
it's the best way to sell books online, even with their shenanigans. But
without FBA benefits there's no way to compete with Amazons deep discounts on
new books, so we pretty much only sold used books.

It feels absolutely horrible knowing that the only way to make any money
online with books is to sell on your biggest competitor's site.

------
bitL
Yes, it happens all the time on Amazon. Not only Amazon itself, but also other
companies observing hot sellers (there is an API for that), then "cloning" the
item and ordering manufacturing in Shenzhen. If you complain to Amazon, your
selling privileges might be removed... Amazon desperately needs a competitor.

~~~
knowaveragejoe
In theory though, if Amazon is making a superior product that's cheaper, isn't
that what competition is supposed to achieve? I've bought a few
AmazonBasics(cables, mostly) and have been pleased with the quality, but it
could be radically different with other products.

~~~
Bjorkbat
But that's the thing, it's a little bit questionable for Amazon to be a
competitor. They started out as a partner that offered a retail platform for
Rain Design, only to turn around and come up with a cheaper product. Even
though it's perfectly legal, there's still an expectation of trust, which
they've violated.

Would you sell products on a platform knowing that if you were too successful
the people operating the platform would turn around and come out with a
cheaper product? I wouldn't.

~~~
paulgb
Grocery chains have had store brands since before the internet, so this
conflict of interest is not novel.

~~~
arien
Lots of those are manufactured by the same companies that make the branded
ones. So they can still get their cut.

~~~
wernercd
What's to stop the "same companies" from working with Amazon to do the same?
Amazon Hair Conditioner (made by Pantene"

~~~
arien
Perhaps that is already happening, with a select few manufacturers. But
consider that many marketplace sellers are third parties (e.g. an electronics
shop). Or other manufacturers with different costs (many factors affect
this... location, workforce..). What happens with these?

I do wonder if Amazon are making any kind of profit on these items. With their
long term strategy they can very well afford to make a loss just to undercut
the competition and put their products out there, make a name.

~~~
bitL
They can do cost/benefit analysis. They don't have to pay themselves 15% of
the price including shipping in fees, they have good relationships with cheap
overseas manufacturers (in China you pay literally pennies for plastic stuff
in large quantities) utilizing economy of scales, they know the exact
demand/sales of their competitor/"partner", probability they can convert
competitor's sales into their own sales, control the visibility on their
platform etc. I am sure they make larger profit than what they would get by
taking a cut from a 3rd party seller. Or they are irrational, which I don't
believe.

------
chrisgd
Is there anything different with Costco offering a Kirkland Signature anything
after they see that product flying off the shelves? Kirkland signature olive
oil, balsamic vinegar, coffee, shirts, shoes, peanut butter. Even newer
products like air popped quinoa chips or coconut water. If you see something
new in everyone's cart one day, two months later there is a kirkland signature
brand.

~~~
aroch
I think one way it is, at least a little, different is Costco is frequently
purchasing those products from the original vendor in bulk and handling the
packaging / distribution themselves. As a result, $NameBrand is making money
on both the branded and generic versions of ProductX.

~~~
EdHominem
One $NameBrand is, the rest are not. So for all companies except that chosen
one, this is the same; brand-name products being undercut by (someone else's)
no-name.

------
tmaly
For me there are positives and negatives to this type of move. The small mom
and pop stores are supporting local jobs in some cases. In other cases where
the product is mass produced overseas, I would prefer the lower priced Amazon
Basics product.

CVS a pharmacy in my area does something like this. The slot on the shelf for
the brand name product you want is usually empty. The generic CVS brand of
that same product is fully stocked right next to it. I sometimes just go to a
non-chain pharmacy just so I can get the brand I want.

~~~
learc83
>I sometimes just go to a non-chain pharmacy just so I can get the brand I
want.

Is this for drugs or something else? Generic drugs are regulated by the FDA
and have to be completely identical to brand name drugs.

~~~
willglynn
Bioequivalence and pharmaceutical equivalence are different.

It's true that generic drugs have the same active ingredients in the same
dosage and form, and they're tested to have the same general absorption
characteristics. This does not necessarily mean that a brand drug and its
generic version are completely identical. For example, many patients prefer
Synthroid (a brand-name synthetic thyroid hormone) over levothyroxin (its
generic equivalent). The _inactive_ ingredients sometimes affect how a drug's
active ingredients behave within an individual, and these are allowed to
differ between brand and generic drugs.

This usually doesn't matter; most of the time, brand drugs and their generic
versions are close enough. However, generic drugs aren't exactly just a
different label on the same medicine, and the differences can be clinically
significant. Thus, the medical world has the ability to specify "dispense as
written" on prescriptions and on the corresponding insurance claims.

~~~
DougWebb
My wife had this problem; she took Neoral, a brand-name immuno-suppressant,
for many years. CVS, especially their mail-order-specialty pharmacy that my
insurance plan forced us to use, kept trying to substitute generic
cyclosporine. The problem is that she learned years ago that the generic
didn't have the same effect at the same dosage, putting her transplanted liver
in jeopardy. Yet month after month, no matter how often her doctors
intervened, CVS kept trying to send her the generic.

Last year her transplanted liver failed. She was lucky to get another one; she
barely survived and she's still recovering. She's on a different immuno-
suppresant now, which the hospital arranged for her to get from an affiliated
transplant-specialist pharmacy in NY. CVS' horrible service wasn't responsible
for her liver failing (transplants don't last forever) but the incorrect
medication and missed doses definitely took its toll, and cost us a lot more
than it should have when we had to pay out of pocket to buy emergency doses
in-store at whatever pharmacy would supply them.

~~~
EdHominem
I wonder if the best way to get them to change though, isn't to sue for
damages suffered from their deceptive business practices.

It's also definitely a licensing issue for their pharmacists. If they can't
store and handle customer records (special needs, interactions, etc) they
shouldn't be in business.

~~~
DougWebb
It's pretty much impossible to gather the resources needed for a lawsuit
against a huge corporation that's got health insurance companies in their
pocket, when you're trying to acquire the drugs needed to _not die this week_.

------
danvoell
Not sure why this leaves such a bad taste in my mouth. Obviously, a lot of
major retailers already do this. It just seems like Amazon can do this at a
much bigger scale and/or at the same scale as Walmart and end up putting a lot
of people out of business.

~~~
themartorana
Because Amazon claims to be your partner in business when they're really using
you until they have no more need for you.

Other major retailers may compete with each other with similar items, but
they're not partners, they're competitors.

------
gmantom
Amazon is a lot like China.

You go make your stuff in China it's cheap, they have the factories, the
facilities. You do well.

Once they, in China and at Amazon, notice that what you're doing is selling
quite well they make the same thing and cut you out.

Edit: Spelling.

------
awinter-py
AMZN's growth prospects increasingly resemble abuse.

Half their success at breaking into new business is consumer trust / lock-in.
('they already have my address & payment info, let's do business with them
again').

The situation isn't as nice for their merchant customers; this is amazon's
achilles heel. Companies like crowdsupply are the leading edge of a trend to
use logistics & sales smarts to help merchants rather than compete with them.

amazon has ridden the wave of consolidation until now, but let's cross our
fingers that the tendency will toggle to diversification.

~~~
massysett
'they already have my address & payment info, let's do business with them
again'

I had hoped Apple Pay would help here. I order a lot on the phone. No way I am
going to input address, payment info, and create a password just so I can
spend $15 on something from the phone. I will just buy Amazon or wait to go to
the store.

With Apple Pay I would think the address info could be transmitted to the
merchant and I could pay with my thumbprint. The hoopla on Apple Pay was on
point of sale transactions, but that was a yawn to me--saves me a swipe, who
cares? It's shopping on the phone that needs a boost. But it seems few online
merchants take Apple Pay and Apple has no easy way to find those that do.

I guess Google Shopping is going for this problem but it doesn't deliver to my
area.

------
fabulist
Why is this legal? Aren't they using their dominance in one market to enter
another market? Isn't that what antitrust suits are for?

I'm not being rhetorical, I'm actually asking.

~~~
djrogers
It's not an anti-trust case because there are literally thousands of other
retailers - both online and brick&mortar. Amazon has nowhere near a monopoly
on anything here, they are running a store. Just like walmart, target, costco,
Safeway, etc - all of which have their own house brands.

~~~
fabulist
I find it incredibly hard to believe that Amazon is not a monopoly. This
Forbes[0] article from 2013 states that Amazon had more sales than it's next
12 competitors combined, and that it's sales were growing faster than overall
online sales. If we take this as read, that means Amazon is probably more
dominant in 2016 than it was in 2013.

That doesn't seem like meaningful competition, that seems like the other
retailers are keeling over.

[0]
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/09/01/fascinati...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/09/01/fascinating-
number-amazon-is-larger-than-the-next-dozen-internet-retailers-
combined/#15e9fc00581b)

------
vblord
Unfortunately this type of behavior is not uncommon with Amazon's business
practices. The book "The Everything Store" by Brad Stone was a very good book.
But it also shows how Amazon deploys these types of business practices. With
the huge market share Amazon has, it has crushed many smaller business just by
selling cheaper products. For example, it took a huge loss on selling Diapers
just to destroy a competitor. Because it has so many resources, it can do
these types of things.

------
JustSomeNobody
Isn't this similar to what Grocery stores have done for years? Cereal, pasta,
bread, canned goods, you name it, there's a store brand.

~~~
overcast
Big difference with food, is that it's usually not quite as tasty. They cut
corners to make it cheap. Whether that translates into some silly plastic
thing Amazon is taking over production of, I don't know.

~~~
joemi
I always thought the store brands of things like that weren't independently
developed, but just batches of the product it's cloning that didn't pass that
company's standards or something like that.

~~~
overcast
Either case, they certainly don't taste the same in my experience.

------
personlurking
Also relevant from 2 months ago:

"Company Makes $70M Selling Random Stuff on Amazon"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11186289](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11186289)

I also remember another somewhat 'recent' article about a secretive company
doing what AmazonBasics is doing now but I can't locate it.

~~~
ikeboy
[https://www.fastcompany.com/3021229/chaim-pikarski-the-
amazo...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3021229/chaim-pikarski-the-amazon-
whisperer)?

~~~
personlurking
that's the one!

------
kristianc
AWS is a gigantic platform for doing just this. It's not just a retail thing.

~~~
shostack
Is there any evidence of this? I have to admit, the amount of data Amazon
would have about the intimate inner workings of companies using AWS is
terrifying.

~~~
kristianc
It's hard to be sure that that's what Amazon is doing with AWS, but Simon
Wardley has done some detailed and compelling analysis to suggest that they
are and why.

One of Wardley's central theses is that it would make little sense for Amazon
to do AWS if not to act as a sensing engine:

[http://blog.gardeviance.org/2014/03/understanding-
ecosystems...](http://blog.gardeviance.org/2014/03/understanding-ecosystems-
part-i-of-ii.html?m=1)

------
6stringmerc
Yikes. Makes me wonder what kind of recourse could be possible. Often I see a
lot of "death to IP protections!" chants around here, which makes this
situation all the more interesting. In my view this is a pretty clear
'derivative' infringment, and if there's enough of them, could there be a
class-action approach to signing up those who can make the connection?
"Ripping-shit-off" isn't a very pleasant business model in my opinion.

~~~
brianwawok
Except in many cases there was no rip off involved.

Very common example: Someone sees something on alibaba that looks cool. Say an
apple peeler for $.50. So they buy 10k of them, slap on a label that says
BlahBlah Inc, and sell on Amazon for $10. Maybe they give away 500 of them on
review sites to build up some reviews for the brand BlahBlah Inc apple
peelers.

Other people buy the same thing from alibaba, slap a different label on, sell
for $8.

If Amazon goes straight to the manufacturer and asks for it in a different
color to sell for $5 under the "Amazon Basics" label.. who really got ripped
off? The invention was already there. The wholesaler was already there. It is
just shifting around who gets what piece of the profit pie.

Can see 100s of these kind of sellers on /r/FulfillmentByAmazon

~~~
6stringmerc
Okay, a first-to-market scenario like you describe doesn't fit with the 'rip
off' mentality, and I get that. It's simply herding toward a new market by way
of being the first to get traction. Sure, if Amazon Basics sells a 'household
paper shredder' it's not like the concept was lifted whole cloth, and the
manufacturing diversity is already inherent. That's fine, I see that.

But, that's not at all what I'm describing though, and which is far more
destructive: if an actual, innovative product gets copied. If such cases are
rare with Amazon as the copying entity, it still matters from a recourse
standpoint. So, in a different example, if a company creates an innovative
paper cutter, unlike any other on the market, patents it, makes it, and it
sells well, this is the scenario: if 15 months later Amazon Basics has a
design and functioning clone at a price that undercuts the original, then that
should be a case to hash out in court and if violating trade / patent
protections, slapped with punitive fines.

~~~
brianwawok
Sure anyone who violates a patent and sells it should be punished. I am sure
it happens, but it doesn't seem to be what most of Amazon Basics is doing...

------
merb
I don't see the competition, I would still buy the non Amazon Basic one. The
only time I grab a Amazon Basic product when I don't need it a "long" time.
actually even the amazon basic batteries are worse than any cheap vatra. if
people would care about quality they would mostly spend less money on rebuying
the same damn thing.

btw. on the german website the amazon basic thing looks very different when I
search for laptop stands (only a direct search 'AmazonBasic laptop stand'
would give me the thing in the news and actually even then there is another
competitor that isn't Amazon and 10 € cheaper than the Rain Design). it is
more close to a product by hama which was there LONG LONG before the Rain
Design product. Also Rain Design has sometimes flaws. According to buyers,
sometimes you get scratches or rough edges. For 50 bucks thats definiv a NoGo!

------
mesh
Related PlanetMoney episode:

Episode 586: How Stuff Gets Cheaper
[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/11/28/366793693/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/11/28/366793693/episode-586-how-
stuff-gets-cheaper)

------
jamescun
I feel for Rain Design (I love my mStand); however is this any different to
your average supermarket offering lower priced own-brand competitors to their
other stock?

~~~
goldbrick
To me, the mStand was going a more premium market segment, you know, the
"stand Apple forgot to make" kind of thing. The Amazon knockoff looks like
shit.

~~~
takno
Agreed. I'm not really seeing that much similarity in the products at all.

------
rdl
I'm wary of business models built around just selling hardware, long term --
it seems like hardware + service combination is the way to prevent this kind
of activity from vendors, ghost shift manufacturing, other counterfeiting, and
such. Also good for the consumer in a lot of cases. The problem is the
products run the risk of being orphaned if the manufacturer stops supporting
them at some future date.

------
thesmileyone
They have been doing stuff like this for ages.

If you sell a product on amazon and they decide they want in, you are forced
to give them your source or they terminate you. Then they go to your source
(or more likely their source) and buy in bulk then undercut you or minimise
your listing... and so you are priced out of the market.

------
sunstone
Like Bezos needs to move in on a niche aluminium computer stand business. Pick
on someone your own size Jeff.

------
programminggeek
Pretty much everybody selling on amazon should expect this. It's not exactly
news.

------
mooreds
> Rain Design’s Tai has resigned himself to the competitive threat from Amazon
> and says he can withstand it if he’s able to foster customer loyalty.

And how do you best do that?

 _Build your own channel_ and don't depend on Amazon.

~~~
willholloway
What's needed is a competitor to Prime thats federated.

I would love a one click payment processor that had my cc and shipping info
that was low fee, and available on independent web sites.

The small amount of friction of putting in shipping address/cc makes me look
to Amazon first.

~~~
incongruity
The other big draw to Amazon, for me, is the reviews. I know it's not perfect,
but by and large, items with 4 or 5 star reviews tend to be good. Going
outside Amazon leaves me without that, most of the time. Add that to your
federated system and I'm sold.

------
Kiro
I've never understood how that Rain stand could cost so much and still be so
popular (I have one myself). At first I thought it was an official Apple stand
but no.

------
MicroBerto
I have it on good authority that supplements will be coming too. Probably
starting with basics like a multivitamin.... No clue how deep they'll go
though.

------
morgante
Welcome to capitalism, supercharged.

There's a reason that in the long run economic profit of firms is
theoretically 0. If you're making substantial margin off a product, and doing
so in volume, other companies will naturally want to compete with you to sell
it. You either have to innovate faster than them (and thus win customer
loyalty) or get into a brutal price competition which pushes both your profits
to 0.

Keeping your products off Amazon isn't even a defense against this. It's hard
to keep a lucrative product secret for long. Cash cows eventually moo.

Your margin is Amazon's opportunity. Get used to it.

------
tn13
If you have a successful product there will always be a competitor. I think
that is a good thing.

------
drpgq
I wonder what happens when people give low ratings to Amazon basics items.

~~~
joemi
If you're suggesting giving low ratings as a reaction to what Amazon's done
and not because it's actually a bad product, I really wish you'd reconsider.
Seems like a rather slippery slope, to start basing product reviews on
something other than the products.

------
transfire
Anti-trust action is going have to come down on Amazon eventually.

------
dubcanada
This isn't exactly news... This has been happening since we began selling
stuff.

You know how to combat that, keep the price the same, and make a name for
yourself as the best laptop stand around.

People still buy all kinds of US made products even though there are China
made versions for 50-70% off.

~~~
tamana
This isn't really a Made In US vs China thing. Almost nothing sold in US is
made in US.

~~~
dubcanada
Yes it is, this is the exact same thing.

There are shop out there that sell knock off purses and watches (exactly the
same as on Amazon) yet people still go to Louis Vuitton and buy their purses.

It's a free market, people are welcome to remake a product with a slight
change and sell it.

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thefastlane
everyone hates banks but, come on, AMZN is about as filthy of a corporation as
they come.

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cylinder
E-Tailer was an odd word choice in the headline. I read a few paragraphs in
still trying to learn more about the company "E-Tailer."

~~~
vnchr
Agreed. Seems like they were dancing around naming Amazon in the title.

~~~
tantalor
Huh? "Amazon" is the 6th word of the title.

~~~
bryanlarsen
The title makes more sense as: "Got a Hot Seller on Amazon? Prepare for Amazon
to Make One Too"

~~~
pwython
Or even "the e-tailor."

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imaginenore
Good. Competition is what keeps the quality high and prices low.

~~~
thesmileyone
No, because when the competition goes bankrupt, they put their prices up and
quality no longer matters.

And thus, evil corporation monopolys form.

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tomp
So... one company is upset that another company has entered their market,
after they've been scamming consumers, selling a $20 item for $40 for years?

Color me shocked.

~~~
ericabiz
Just like Shake Shack is "scamming" people by selling an $8 burger when
McDonald's sells a burger for 99 cents. What _scammers!_ (sarcasm)

~~~
tomp
Shake Shack doesn't complain about McDonald's entering its market.

~~~
EdHominem
Right - if Shake Shake complained about the $0.99 hamburger, it would be
implying "... which is a perfect substitute for our $8 burger."

The issue isn't two laptop stands. It's that one laptop stand is claimed to be
a rip-off of another - ie too similar. But it's cheaper so if it's too similar
than the first one _was_ a rip-off for the consumer. (ie same product, worse
price.)

Yes, one man's rip-off is another man's profit margin but nobody is owed their
margin. They can't expect anyone else to cry when their market-control is
broken.

~~~
fabulist
I think the issue is that Amazon has access to their sales numbers. Normally a
competitor would have to put in work to infer your sales numbers from, say, an
incrementing identifier in the receipt, and you would have some recourse
(prevent information from leaking as best you can).

It seems to me there is an obvious conflict of interest.

Consider this; if an employee left to work for a competitor and took such
precise information about online sales with them, it would be illegal.

