
Amazon private label brands are quietly taking over Amazon.com - NicoJuicy
https://qz.com/1414238/secret-amazon-brands-are-quietly-taking-over-amazon-com/
======
theossuary
I've canceled my Amazon Prime account for two reasons. Firstly the advertising
on Amazon has gotten out of control, I want the best product in my price
range, not the one with the largest marketing budget. And secondly, I've found
if I go to a more niche market (Cabela's for sporting goods, Lowes for tools,
branded clothing stores, etc.) I _always_ get something better, sometimes at a
more reasonable price too.

Amazon has turned into a warehouse, you have to know what you want coming in.
The only reason I kept using them was because I was lazy and didn't want to
have to manage purchases across multiple different websites. But it just isn't
worth it when I kept consistently getting inferior products.

~~~
sriram_sun
A few disparate items I've ordered from Amazon recently like a ping pong
table, 6ft. ladder, storage container all are resellers directly passing your
order through to Walmart. I've started visiting the brick and mortar Walmart
store more often. Shopping online (essentially Amazon) used to be cheap and
convenient.

Now the expectations on quality have gone down to "OK if this works great, but
do I really have the time to print the return label, package it again and ship
it back?" Basically my level of trust in stuff sold on Amazon is much lower
than what it used to be a few years back. For. e.g. 10 yrs. back - Plasma TV
on Amazon? No problem. Now its Costco all the way for expensive electronics
stuff.

On one level, Amazon is just fleecing the sellers on their platform - all
sorts of charges for combinations of ad words. A lot of sellers have figured
out how to game the system. It's just an awful mess. I have been considering
cancelling my prime membership for a couple of years now... inertia keeps me
from doing it. I've tried Ali express as well. It was an OK experience. Now
I'm browsing Etsy. Haven't really bought anything, but it's looking more
attractive for household stuff.

In summary, like theossuary, I believe figuring out your niche stores will be
beneficial. Watch out for those Asics warehouse sales for workout clothes and
shoes etc.

~~~
bootlooped
Can't believe I'm seeing Ali Express compared to Amazon, and apparently in a
favorable way.

Ali Express is overrun with sellers with identical listings, but the quality
may vary greatly between them. You will only know when you receive the item.
It's not uncommon to receive something that looks totally different than the
listing images.

Shipping something back on Ali Express is basically a total no-go. They get
killer discounts on shipping to the US. Shipping something back to China is
probably going to be more expensive than the product. With Amazon it is cheap
or free to return things.

Sorting by price on Ali Express is totally broken, because sellers can list a
variation with the lowest price that is never available. This impossible-to-
get lowest price is taken into consideration by the sort.

People complain that sometimes Prime is 3 or 4 day shipping instead of
actually 2 days. Ali Express is 2 weeks minimum. Probably 50% of the things
I've ordered have taken 1+ month. Some things take 2 months. Some things never
arrive at all.

All that said, I still use Ali Express. It's great for small, cheap and
generic items. I know what I'm getting into, and I accept the risks. There is
no way it could replace Amazon.

If you knew nothing about Amazon and only learned about it from HN comments
you would think it was basically the Mos Eisley Cantina. The real eCommerce
Mos Eisley Cantina is Ali Express.

Shopping on Amazon is still cheap and convenient. Maybe not if you
consistently buy things that are exorbitant to ship like ping pong tables or 6
foot ladders, but most people buy items that could fit in a shoe box.

~~~
Izkata
> Ali Express is overrun with sellers with identical listings, but the quality
> may vary greatly between them. You will only know when you receive the item.
> It's not uncommon to receive something that looks totally different than the
> listing images.

I see comments complaining about this and similar all the time on Amazon, and
on products with very high ratings. The strategy seems to be, sell good
quality cheap stuff for a while to get a good rating, the change the listing
completely to a low-quality expensive product. The high ratings stick around,
resulting in more sales than it otherwise would have, and more resilience to
new low ratings.

~~~
bootlooped
Yes, and on the flip side of that you have other sellers wholesale copying a
popular listing. I look at every purchase as a gamble. In the marketplace's
defense, Ali Express dispute arbitration has always led to a satisfactory
result for me, so the gamble is just on what I'm going to get, not on whether
I'm going to lose the entire cost of the item or not.

------
dcole2929
My biggest problem with Amazon at this point is Prime. The free 2 day shipping
use to justify the cost of Prime by itself, but at this point more often than
not I don't get my stuff within the 3-5 day period, so I don't even know what
I'm paying for. And it's not like I'm off in the middle of nowhere, I live in
a major US city. Then when you add in the incredibly lacking search
functionality, and the fact that you can no longer trust the reviews you get a
company that has completely lost the trust of it's users.

~~~
kirse
_but at this point more often than not I don 't get my stuff within the 3-5
day period_

If they miss their 2-day shipping guarantee then you call CS, complain, and
get a free month of Prime added. Ad infinitum. A way to increase your chances
of missed 2-day shipping is to spread out your item orders so it gives them
more opportunities to screw up. This also increases their costs of S&H across
the entire logistics chain and maximizes the usage of your Prime membership.
Plus it feels like every day is Christmas when a new random Amazon item is
coming in.

Another key is to order stuff that weighs a lot (40lbs+). Last time I did FBA
the UPS rate for Amazon shipping was ~50 cents / lb . So if you're getting a
40lb item (especially if it has weird dimensions) they're likely not paying
much lower than $15-20 to get that to your door in 2 days.

~~~
chickenfries
It sounds like you get something out of this more than stuff, you get the fun
of gaming the system.

> Another key is to order stuff that weighs a lot (40lbs+). Last time I did
> FBA the UPS rate for Amazon shipping was ~50 cents / lb . So if you're
> getting a 40lb item (especially if it has weird dimensions) they're likely
> not paying much lower than $15-20 to get that to your door in 2 days.

This is like overeating at a buffet to feel like you got your money’s worth.

~~~
kibwen
When companies become openly consumer-hostile, we should expect consumers to
become company-hostile. It's true that this leads to an antagonistic race to
the bottom, but the alternative is a leisurely stroll to the bottom as one
party pulls the other along by the neck. I don't know of any way to really
reconcile this; trust is easy to lose and hard to earn, and in an environment
of perpetual betrayal no party is eager to be the first to risk having their
trust be taken advantage of.

~~~
chickenfries
My point is that Amazon or the buffet owner will not be brought down by a few
customers who are a net loss to them shipping wise. They have already done the
math.

You can either use amazon because you’ve decided you need it or you can
actually stop giving them money and recommend others do so. That is a much
bigger threat to them. Continuing to use prime and buying things you don’t
need from Amazon isn’t being “hostile” to Amazon.

~~~
eganist
Well it's even easier than that. They'll just ban you.

[http://time.com/money/5288702/amazon-return-policy-
ban/](http://time.com/money/5288702/amazon-return-policy-ban/)

It's like card counting at a casino. Even if you're technically within the
rules, you'll still get walked to the door.

As an aside: I canceled prime long ago. Couldn't be happier.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16937290](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16937290)

------
discreditable
I don't mind it at all. I've been relatively impressed with the price to
quality ratio and I usually seek the Amazon label brand where I can and the
price is right—just like any other store brand.

\- It started with batteries, which are awesome for the price

\- I bought a throwaway comforter + sheets to use for couch-sharing with the
dog and they're my favorite set now. Better than my Ikea set which cost 2x as
much.

I could go on but for random items the Amazon brand is often pretty decent.

~~~
user3359
The problem with this is that it's built in the backs of brands who were at
one point well recognized brands on Amazon. Amazon took their sales data,
determined it was a good market to move into, created specifications and
reached out to their hundreds of sellers for a "private label opportunity".

Cue making dozens of companies compete to supply Amazon with the manufacturing
contract and constant downward pressure and you get a good product from Amazon
at a good price. Not a problem right?

Until the private label brand forces 90% of those formerly quality-focused
small brands to shut down and due to their "algorithms" detecting less
competition, begins raising prices again. And now the expertise of small
brands is gone and no competition springs up in the market.

I've seen this happen in a couple product lines over the year and is one
reason we pulled off Amazon. Amazon customers are entitled pains in the ass,
and the margin there isn't sustainable. The only way for small brands to make
Amazon work is to aggressively sell a single SKU and put in remarketing/back-
channel outreach to customers and make the conversions to the rest of your
product line off Amazon.

This is explicitly against Amazon's policy, but their policy is in place to
ensure they profit and you never gain traction so you remain reliant on them
until they day they put you out of business with their own private label line.

~~~
crazygringo
How is that different from large supermarkets determining own-brand cereal and
peanut butter are good markets to move into?

It's just capitalism at work. Yesterday's high-quality high-price item becomes
today's low-priced low-quality commodity. Quality-focused small brands in
every industry and every market need to be constantly improving, developing
new product improvements, new niches, new products. (E.g. an even-higher
quality version for the luxury niche.)

It's extremely unlikely that Amazon will be be able to raise prices long-term
on an own-brand item with "no competition" simply because... well, capitalism.
As soon as they do, manufacturers in China or whoever sells the equivalent
product at Wal-Mart will list on Amazon for a lower price and make money... so
Amazon lowers the price again... and as always, the invisible hand of
capitalism keeps prices low for the consumer.

~~~
bigjimmyk3
I think it's different because of intent. Supermarkets and large retailers
(e.g. WMT) seek deals to relabel and sell products as "house brand" but it's
generally done in such a way that they are selling to customers who would not
have purchased the name brand in any case. That's the pitch anyway, and
judging from the longevity of these arrangements it's likely that the "name
brand" is seeing enough benefit to continue in that way. The two entities seem
to find a way to balance their interests.

With Amazon, I don't think they are seeking that balance at all. I do not
think it's a good long-term move for their retail side. The problem with
stabbing all of your friends in the back is that you also have a back.

~~~
crazygringo
> _...they are selling to customers who would not have purchased the name
> brand in any case... it 's likely that the "name brand" is seeing enough
> benefit to continue in that way. The two entities seem to find a way to
> balance their interests._

I'm sorry but I just can't buy that. Generics in the supermarket and drugstore
(at least the ones I go to) are _directly_ next to the name-brand and clearly
compete directly. There's no "arrangement" or "balancing of interests" between
the two, any more than Coca-Cola and Pepsi have an arrangement or balance of
interests to appear on the shelf next to each other -- which they of course
don't, but rather are in cutthroat competition with each other, the same way
they have been for decades.

It's flat-out competition pure and simple, there's zero difference of intent
from what Amazon is doing. And both survive, because some people prefer to pay
a little extra for name-brand or quality, and some people prefer to save a
little money and trust generics. The only balance is between pricing and
demand.

~~~
tivert
> I'm sorry but I just can't buy that. Generics in the supermarket and
> drugstore (at least the ones I go to) are directly next to the name-brand
> and clearly compete directly.

Many store-brand generics are manufactured by the _exact same company_ that
manufactures the name brand. The arrangement works because the manufacturer
know that some consumers are cost conscious, some are brand conscious and
willing to pay more. If they lower the price of the name-brand to get the cost
conscious consumers, they lose out on the name brand markup. The solution is
often two slightly different brand from the same company at different price
points. For this to work, it's important that the store brand packaging have
_zero_ connection to the name brand.

Costco is especially known for doing this. IIRC, Kirkland batteries are
probably Duracells in different packaging.

------
anon4lol
I have a theory that every popular website will ultimately become MySpace
clone, ramping up advertising/revenue until it drives off all of their users.
With all of the ads, and promoted products, Amazon is stepping closer
everyday.

I've been an amazon customer since they started. I've ordered thousands of
books. However, this year, I cancelled my prime membership. I got tired of
them not delivering packages. Sometimes they were delivered to our postal box;
sometimes the front door; and sometimes not at all. I gave up and discovered
that brick and mortar stores often have better products and I can get it
immediately.

As far as people saying they get free months of Prime, my wife had packages
never delivered and we would complain, they would just apologize and refund
the purchase. Packages that were late? They just apologized. Once, the driver
couldn't find our address, so he called the technical support who called my
cell phone. I had to walk two blocks waving my arms before he found me.

Now, I find when I'm searching for something, I find that I don't get the best
price. If I search long enough, I will find the same exact item cheaper. I'm
convinced the search results are prioritized to make them the most money, not
the best price or best match.

After canceling, I bought an electronic device and paid for fast shipping. The
package was shipped out of the local warehouse, where they gave it to the U.S.
Postal Service to deliver. The shipping cost via USPS was probably around $4.
If I remember, they charged me around $12.50 for expedited shipping. They
arbitraged the postage. I felt scammed.

I only shop at Amazon as a last resort now.

------
gandalfian
My amazon usb hub blocks the wifi whenever turned on... I should have returned
it. Junk.

They are such a mess. The amount of items that have changed the product but
kept the reviews, often from a phone case but now its a video projector
pretending the 200 reviews belong to it. Not to mention one items page can
have multiple sellers selling different varieties of the item.

~~~
baybal2
Badly implemented USB 3 can jam your wifi easily. Check if rf shielding of usb
lines is done properly.

~~~
Phelinofist
I'm really curious - how so?

~~~
baybal2
Because its clock frequency comes close to WiFi, its signal being quite
wideband, and, obviously, being much more stronger than the incoming signal.

------
TheAceOfHearts
I'd never heard any of these before, I thought they would be talking about
AmazonBasics. I've been pretty happy with the quality of that so far. Are
their private label brand products generally high quality or cheap knockoffs?

The only serious issue I've had with AmazonBasics so far was with a portable
battery which was at risk of exploding or catching fire unexpectedly, so it
was recalled.

Two things to look out for are that they no longer tend to offer the lowest
prices, and you could probably receive counterfeits. A lot of companies have
changed their tune after taking a beating from Amazon, but unfortunately I
think many customers have grown used to going to them for everything, even
when it's not the best choice. To give a few examples:

You can often find electronics for the same price at Best Buy, and they allow
in-store pickup so you might get what you want even faster. Fry's takes it one
step further by price matching other technology stores. I'd also trust both to
not sell counterfeits.

If you're looking for cables or adapters, Monoprice has very competitive
prices and they've always been reliable. I've had all sorts of issues with
adapters or cables purchased through Amazon.

For home and everyday items, Target and Walmart can often be quite competitive
as well. Why pay $10 for a shower liner when a $1 or $2 one works just as
fine?

~~~
emodendroket
I think the issue is less that the goods are of low quality (actually direct-
selling private-label goods seems to partly be intended as an anti-
counterfeiting measure) and more that manufacturers who sell on Amazon are
crying foul because Amazon is undercutting them.

~~~
ams6110
> manufacturers who sell on Amazon are crying foul because Amazon is
> undercutting them

... which has been the warning to anyone selling on Amazon for at least a
decade or so?

~~~
emodendroket
How can you ignore the store that represents almost half of online sales?

~~~
ams6110
There are many, many name brands that do not allow sale of their products on
Amazon.

~~~
emodendroket
"Name brand" is the key thing, isn't it? If you already independently have
name recognition, no problem. If you're a nobody it's hard to break through.

------
wooptoo
Amazon is swamped with products from China of dubious quality. Just search for
'earphones' for example. All top results are very poor products from unknown
brands. Amazon needs to handle this now unless they want to turn into
Aliexpress.

~~~
chmod775
Hmm. The top results for me are:

    
    
        Gritin           - China - 12 Euro ~ 5 stars / 310 reviews "Amazon Choice"
        KLIM             - China - 20 Euro ~ 5 stars / 864 reviews
        Panasonic        - Japan - 8  Euro ~ 4 stars / 1.335 reviews
        Beats by Dr. Dre - USA   - 22 Euro ~ 3 stars / 172 reviews
        qubbi            - USA   - 10 Euro ~ 4 stars / 48 reviews
        Anker            - China - 20 Euro ~ 4 stars / 1176 reviews
        Mpow             - China - 20 Euro ~ 5 stars / 463 reviews
    

ALL of these companies manufacture most of their products in China.

Anecdotally chinese companies appear to outperform foreign companies on
quality among the popular choices - if review scores are anything to go by.

~~~
bitexploder
You can't use review scores. They are not a proxy for quality at all. They are
a proxy for perceived value. I have noticed, subjective of course, that people
rate more expensive products more harshly. If I buy some $5 head phones and
they work alright I am really happpy. If I buy $200 head phones and they are
not perfect I am going to be disappointed, my rating will reflect that. So you
have to compare products that cost a similar amount to get a real feel for the
product quality. Reviews of vastly different costed items doing the same thing
are kind of meaningless.

~~~
vorpalhex
That is how reviews work, yes. When I buy $5 headphones for the gym, I'm happy
they generally don't have static and seem to work. If I buy $200 headphones
for the office, I'm going to complain if the 13khz range is a bit muddy.
Likewise, I'm happy when my $40 bookshelf doesn't fall over, but I expect more
from a $400 bookshelf.

------
dbatten
Presumably, you can trust that when you buy Amazon's private label brands,
you're getting the actual Amazon private label, and not a counterfeit?

If not, let's hope that this eventually creates incentive for Amazon to handle
the counterfeiting problem to protect their own brands.

If so, one would hope that Amazon is able to extend whatever tech/business
practices are protecting these private label brands to other product on
Amazon?

~~~
na412
Probably they will be the only sellers for these items, so no counterfeit
problem there. I doubt this will fix the situation for other items.

Personally I've switched away from amazon, after twice in a row getting a box
with a switched item (HDD and SSD, respectively, both replaced with smaller
and cheaper versions, and both "Sold by and shipped from Amazon"). Amazon
support was good, they replaced the product, but it's a hassle to have to
return-ship and wait. Now I either buy off aliexpress (if I'm okay with
cheap/counterfeit, which is fine for many items) or local stores (if it's a
product where I really care about quality).

~~~
snaky
> I doubt this will fix the situation for other items.

That's the point. The only way to buy genuine product, not co-mingled, will be
buy it Amazon labeled.

Many Chinese brands have official stores at Aliexpress by the way, so you
don't need to be okay with fakes if you don't want to. Not so many as at
Tmall, but still.

~~~
dazc
Explains the apparent indifference to counterfeiting, destroy trust in every
brand except amazon's own?

~~~
snaky
I don't think so. Amazon is huge corporation and most often corporations do
not follow 'The Secret Plan', but move chaotically.

~~~
wheelie_boy
Agreed. It's most likely a sin of omission, creating a broken system because
it's not in their interests to fix the general counterfeiting problem.

There may be ancillary benefits, like increased seller competition into their
monopsony, but it's not a priority for them to fix, because apparently it
doesn't affect their bottom line enough.

It's not like it's hard to come up with a solution to the problem - they have
lots of ways of surfacing prime-eligible items, you could have a similar way
of surfacing manufacturer-approved resellers for some items. And as others
have mentioned, there are no counterfeit kindles on amazon.com

~~~
ams6110
> it's not in their interests to fix the general counterfeiting problem

But really it is, because judging on comments here, people are looking at
aliexpress when they don't care that they are buying a cheap chinese product.

If Amazon is known as the place where you pay for a brand and get a
counterfeit, and aliexpress is where you can just pay less for the
counterfeit, that seems to me like a problem Amazon would want to fix.

~~~
wheelie_boy
If the hacker news crowd was the target market, then sure.

But honestly, we're probably just a blip.

------
nolok
That's super common, and not specifically a bad thing.

Unsure about other countries, but here in France super/hypermarket are even
presenting it as an advantage on various points, "XYZ own brand means the
cheapest price", ...

Eg I once consulted for the "Super U" chain and the fact that one of their own
brand is a certainty of locally produced agricultural product in relation to
each supermarket was a big thing they massively insisted on. Or "french
origin" etc ...

Like for myself, I love LIDL's "chef to go" brand for salad/smoothies, always
fresh and at a good price (their smoothies are awesome and contain nothing but
fruits). I will now look for and buy those instead of other "regular" brands.
I discovered their smoothies, because they already convinced me with their
salad earlier.

~~~
lighthazard
You're looking at the brighter side of the private label take over. What you
should be noticing is that the majority of private label sellers are simply
resellers of China-made crap. Things you can get for pennies on
AliExpress/Alibaba costs $20-$30 on Amazon to cover storage, dropshipping,
etc. The sales tactics are just as sleazy with brands being similar or
products being sold to look like Amazon inventory. I've lost faith in Amazon's
quality control and cannot trust what I am buying is the real deal.

~~~
baybal2
> What you should be noticing is that the majority of private label sellers
> are simply resellers of China-made crap. Things you can get for pennies on
> AliExpress/Alibaba costs $20-$30 on Amazon to cover storage, dropshipping,
> etc.

And on top of that Amazon themselves barely spend a penny developing their own
private brands or run their operations. There are companies specialising in
exactly that - "private brands as a service." You can outsource basically
everything till the moment goods get to the shelves, an in case of e-Commerce,
even that is irrelevant.

Their logic - if we can't win against Aliexpress and Co., we will become
Aliexpress and Co. This is them acknowledging that the entire business model
they had had weakness at root - no matter how successful and sophisticated
they are at selling stuff, the stuff they sell still comes from China.

~~~
baxtr
That’s interesting. Can you name a few of those companies?

~~~
baybal2
Long time ago, I worked in one called Yameen in Singapore. Named after the
owner. I'm sure that they are not around anymore as I been googling what has
became of the company for last 10 years without any result. The second one I
worked with was AMR International HK (aka AMR Global Sourcing).

Just any other trade company would also do that - Marubeni, Sojitz, Itochu,
Canada Export Centre - (the later should be really called Canada Import
Centre) and others

~~~
baxtr
Thank you. I googled AMR. Would they do any kind of product or do they focus
on commodities?

~~~
baybal2
Yes, they are "making a coherent product line from what is possible to
customize or source as is" they will not pick a project developing a complex
product from scratch.

------
daxterspeed
Seems like a great time for someone to make an extension to show the "true"
brand of products on Amazon. Nestlé is a great example of a company that
people have tried to boycott and failed because of the sheer amount of brands
at its disposal (2000+ according to Wikipedia[0])

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nestl%C3%A9_brands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nestl%C3%A9_brands)

~~~
tcbawo
I scanned through that list. Granted, I don't buy much coffee, candy, bottled
water, cookies, yogurt, cosmetics, or processed foods in general. But I think
I could avoid their brands quite easily. Maybe I'm and outlier.

~~~
yial
I read through the list as well, and I don’t buy any of those brands normally
pretty much.

However, I would see more the issue being if I wanted to boycott nestle
remembering all those brands are nestle when I’m at the supermarket shopping
etc.

------
baybal2
>Arabella. Lark & Roe. Mae. NuPro. Small Parts.

And all are the same rebranded Chinese stuff.

Used to work in a few companies doing "sourcing agency" work for this style of
operations. Made some brands for big retailers, Amazon included: Adreama,
Trigse, Avani etc, as well as trying at that myself during college years.

Nothing complicated: you pick something sounding vaguely Italian or French -
Whopani Schmopani etc, make a convincing looking website, and order the most
banal plasticky goods from dudes on 1688.com with your "brand" silk screened
on it. Then you list that stuff on ebays, amazons for $200 each. And once a
day, there will be few misfortunate dudes buying into that.

~~~
rasz
aka white van speaker scam
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_van_speaker_scam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_van_speaker_scam)

------
IB885588
I love quality private labels. One more is good news. Competition keeps price
low and quality higher. I buy a lot of Kirkland stuff at Costco, some Great
Value stuff at Walmart, and increasingly more AmazonBasics stuff on Amazon.

My rule of thumb tends to be: Always try the cheaper private label at first,
and only if it's not good enough do I move on to branded stuff. With most
things, the private label stuff is just as good.

------
raesene9
Not really a surprise, why would Amazon constrain it's ambitions to being the
store front, when it could control the whole product lifecyle from
manufacturing to delivery.

Perhaps not great news for people who sell on amazon though. It would be very
easy for amazon to tilt the table on their site in favour of their own brands.

~~~
snaky
> why would Amazon constrain it's ambitions

They should ask Alibaba why they don't have their own private labels.

------
dilatedmind
I've found that ordering products through Amazon is a much better experience
then ordering through a company's own website.

One click ordering, reliable order tracking, and faster shipping times.

I recently tried to purchase a pair of shoes from steve madden. They canceled
my order without even notifying me, and I didn't notice until I checked my
order status. Turns out they were failing to process my payment, and they
couldn't even explain why.

They also sell through Amazon. One click later and I'm getting the same
product faster and cheaper from the same seller.

------
BucketSort
Many retailers, supermarkets, etc do this. Best Buy for example has the brands
Insignia, Dynex, Rocket Fish, etc. Given that Amazon owns Whole Foods and has
several retail locations, it makes sense that they are adopting this classic
strategy.

~~~
decasteve
I still buy Staples branded stuff for the office.

I don’t see it as anything shocking. It’s a logical move.

~~~
criddell
Staples' in-house products are generally branded as _Staples_ , right? I like
that because there's no confusion or deception.

When BestBuy sells _Insignia_ or Amazon sells _Arabella_ , I think there is
some deception happening. They should at least at "by Amazon" to the name.

------
AcerbicZero
I guess I'm in the minority here, since my Amazon experience has been pretty
decent still. Its certainly worse than it was in ~2010 or so, but every time a
package gets lost, or something goes wrong, Amazon corrects it. My perception
might also be insulated by the fact that I live in an apartment building
without open access, so packages are somewhat secure (unless someone in my
smallish building wants to be a dick).

I still order most of my PC hardware off Amazon, and unless its significantly
cheaper to go else where, I'm sticking with them.

------
saudioger
Large retailers do this with store brands (Walmart), but it's generally more
opaque to the consumer.

It's really quite clever, you sell third-party products, but also control all
transaction data — so you see which products are successful, somewhat well
reviewed, and profitable... then you just steal the business.

It's kind of how Apple/Google adopt features. Watch which utility apps are
popular, then just build the features into the OS.

If you're relying on a third-party to sell your product in a marketplace, you
can't get too comfortable.

~~~
teh_klev
> but it's generally more opaque to the consumer.

Are you sure you mean "opaque" but actually meant "transparent"? Over here in
the UK we have ASDA which is owned by Walmart. They have their own store
brands such as "George" for clothing and home/domestic goods such as
electricals. It's pretty clear, or transparent, that stuff labelled George is
ASDA's own-brand goods and no secret is made of this by ASDA.

As another example, Tesco have their own clothing brand, "F&F" and like ASDA
they don't hide the fact that it's their own in-house brand.

~~~
saudioger
I mean opaque when it comes to 'this is a successful third-party product we
sell, let's hijack the business' rather than the clarity of what a store brand
is in general.

Stores do distance themselves a bit further though — Walmart has "Best Value"
brand or whatever, which isn't as explicitly a Walmart brand.

------
nosleeptill
The biggest reason I use Amazon, and I'm careful to only buy from Amazon is
because of their logistic velocity.

I ordered electrical switch plates from a company that specialized in
electrical switch plates, it's all they sell. After 5 days the product hadn't
shipped, I cancelled the order and place a prime Amazon order and received the
wall plates the next day. I paid a slightly higher price from Amazon but I
actually got the product.

~~~
darpa_escapee
The problem with Amazon is that you can't be sure that you got the product you
intended to buy.

Yes, there are hoops you can jump through to confirm the seller and item you
received are legit, but as a customer, you shouldn't have to do that.

------
bsaul
Anyone here knows what makes amazon that efficient ? What is the thing they
managed to do right, that their competitor couldn't , that makes them the
giant of online shops they are today ?

i have the intuition it is related to supply chain, but i'm not an expert at
all, so i don't understand what someone could invent in that field that make
them unreachable by competitors.

~~~
mimischi
I highly recommend this article that explains some of Amazon's strategies
related to your question: [https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/14/why-amazon-is-
eating-the-w...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/14/why-amazon-is-eating-the-
world/)

Basically, the services they offer (AWS, handling of storage and shipment of
goods for third-party retailers) are using the systems and workflows they
build for themselves. If it is something others use, then it is the best
system that can be built and is most profitable.

~~~
bsaul
But then why hasn't it been copied since ?

~~~
taormina
I view the original competitive edge to be the "Warehouse as a Service".
Anyone can sell their products without having to own an online store or get
the bulk shipping logistics figured out, just ship it in to Amazon, and they
can load balance your product out across the US to make that 2 day delivery
possible.

They also did have the original patent on "1 Click Purchase" which I'm sure
has always helped sales.

EDIT: So the only reason I think it hasn't been copied is the high barrier to
entry and market inertia as the other commenter said.

------
JustThrowMeAway
I think that one of the main reasons for Amazon to grow so fast is that the
competition fails to integrate into the web.

Do _any_ product related search on Google and then look at the sites that come
up. They almost _all_ link to Amazon when it comes to the question where to
buy the product.

And its not like Amazon is paying particularly much for that. From 0% to 10%,
depending on the type of item purchased. As an affiliate, I average around 3%.

That is low. I know what companies spend to acquire customers via other
channels. Adsense and other types of advertising. Several times more.

Why is the competition not in that game? I guess because they don't have the
expertise to correctly track the value of the visitors.

My message to them: You cannot just stand on the sideline of the web and hope
for people to pave their way to your online shop via a miracle. You _have_ to
integrate. You _have_ to build that expertise.

------
dreamcompiler
The "law of the pipe" strikes again. No pipe company wants to be in the pipe
business--they always want to be in the content business. At the first
opportunity, they will start creating their own content and deprecating
everybody else's.

This is what anti- net neutrality looks like with atoms rather than electrons.

~~~
savanaly
I've heard it as "commoditize your complements". When you're the heavyweight
in a certain market (e.g. discovery and delivery), you want nearby markets to
be competitive and prices to be low. You can greatly contribute to bringing
that about by getting into it yourself like Amazon has with Amazon basics.
They know they'll never make loads of money from those-- it's a highly
competitive market after all-- but the better they can make it for consumers,
the more consumers will use their actual product, the Amazon website.

[https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-
letter-v/](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/)

~~~
softawre
Google does the same by offering lots of `free` products to get people on the
web. More web users == more web ad revenue.

------
ausjke
Don't compete with your customers...

Ebay does not compete with its customers, sadly it lost the fight.

Amazon knows which products are the most profitable based on its own selling
data collection, then it will make its own white-labelled version to compete,
what a strategy! again, sadly, it has no competitors these days so it can do
whatever it wants.

~~~
rthomas6
Ebay is still good. You can often find what you want for much cheaper than on
Amazon, often with free shipping. Shipping usually takes 3-4 days instead of 2
days, but it's almost always cheaper. Unfortunately Ebay can't get its act
together regarding product listing organization and reviews, so much so that
I'll often check reviews of matching products from other sites before I buy it
from Ebay. There are now shady sellers on Ebay and Amazon, so the comparison
is a wash in that area. They also have comparable buyer protection if a seller
does something dishonest.

~~~
s0rce
At least with ebay its clear what product you are getting and from which
seller from the listing. There aren't a dozen counterfeit products from
various sellers and SKUs lumped together with combined reviews.

------
kkotak
open a store selling niche items.

START

If successful, add more items. If successful, add more stores. If successful,
add more items. If successful, sell top shelf space at premium. Gather and
analyze ALL data. Identify highest selling and most profitable items. Find
manufacturers of those items. Seed those products directly from manufacturers.
Create own brands. Sell those products under store/new brands. Use your
foot/online traffic, reputation, edge, consumer behavior data to cut out the
middle man in select products. Continue to offer sellers a superior
marketplace to sell their goods. Experiment with your product placements, ads
and optimize. Gather and analyze ALL data.

REPEAT

Nothing new here. For more info see - Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, Target, Whole
foods, Safeway, Costco, et al.

------
QuantumGood
Reading so many "frustrated shopper" posts is... frustrating.

• Search problems?

Also use Google to search Amazon. And clicking through to similar products in
Amazon's comparison section is one of the best ways to find things. Of course
don't ONLY search Amazon...or any other online vendor. I've listed some
extensions that do a lot of heavy lifting. Yes, manipulating placement in
search result is sub-optimal for the end user, but with some browser
extensions and an overall strategy, Amazon will always have a place in my
overall search strategy.

• Quality problems?

Install the Fakespot Chrome browser extension. Avoid products with few reviews
initially. Read the 1-star reviews to see if there's a problem you can live
with (e.g. complex installation). And Amazon is NOT right for some kinds of
products.

• Price?

Check WalMart and local stores online first. Many stores make in-store pickup
painless, e.g. Home Depots lobby lockers. Enter code, grab your stuff and go.

Install the WikiBuy and official Amazon Chrome extension. WikiBuy often shows
you the same product cheaper on eBay, and Amazon will sometimes give you a
coupon if you follow it's link back to Amazon it when you are shopping
elsewhere (e.g. Walmart).

I like to always look for a used fulfilled by Amazon product. There is often
no significant issue, and small issues can be overlooked. But even if you get
a backwards or missing part the return is pretty painless.

For simple stuff, of course check AliExpress and Ebay first.

• Overall experience?

Amazon should not of course be relied for everything, by anyone, ever.
Microcenter (as several have pointed out) is currently great and reliable for
computer parts.

• Shipping speed?

Yeah, don't trust the two-day shipping. But the (sometimes) free one-day
shipping option is awesome. And complain from time-to-time and get discounts
on your Prime. Sure, some people are dropped for complaining too much, which
really sucks. But it's pretty rare.

------
toss1
This is a great move insofar as it help manage their huge problem with
counterfeits, knockoffs, review scams, etc.. This is the is the antithesis of
those fly-by-night Chinese+ scammers.

As long as they go for high quality and well-managed, this is an excellent
idea. Also great that they base it on 3rd parties.

Seems that they might have figured out that what people come to Amazon for is
convenience -- to get a solid product at an ok price, delivered soon and free
(w/Prime) -- and that the influx of cheap knock-off/counterfeit goods and
review cheating is ruining that experience.

Something to keep an eye on.

------
cyberjunkie
The masses want one place to buy from a variety. Marketplace models want to
offer these masses, a vast assortment. A fully functional ecosystem is now
online.

This is particularly beneficial to brands with little to no presence. They
invest in these marketplaces, buy prime spaces on the marketplace.

Once you have the masses captured, you have a lot of people looking for low-
priced, value-for-money products.

Now, when you have the prime product positioning in your control, for free,
and the enormous margins in place for your private labels, you can start
reeling in the bumper prize.

~~~
GarrisonPrime
Probably. Although plenty of people are starting to notice that Amazon is
often no longer the lowest price source for many name brand items. But the
majority of the public probably won’t think to check and just automatically
assumes Amazon is the place to buy everything now. Kind of how some older
folks think of Facebook as “the internet” itself. Sigh.

------
perpetualcrayon
I've seen enough cases to be worried where their prices are substantially
marked higher than other sites. I used to be able to safely assume Amazon was
the best price. Now I don't feel it's safe to do that. You really do need to
shop around to make sure you're not getting a bad price. On the other hand I
still have too many bad experiences with other merchant websites to go with
the other merchant if price is comparable. Amazon is still just too reliable
IMO.

------
duxup
I've found the Amazon branded non electronic generics pretty good. Generic
cases for electronics and etc... although they're noticeably less cheap than
they used to be. I feel like over time their price has risen to match other
brands after they were established.

The actual Amazon electronics and such... are decidedly bare bones and wonky
even for a generic electronics brand. I've had mice and other Amazon generics
not just feel cheap, but don't work at times.

------
mrbill
Article mentions smallparts.com - however, SmallParts was an independent
company that Amazon bought years ago (2005). I remember getting their
(awesome) catalog in the mail before the takeover.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Amazon)

------
madengr
Does Amazon copy or undercut successfull products?

A few years ago I bought some high quality monitor arms; heavy duty cast
aluminum, etc. for about $150 each.

A couple years later I go to buy another, and now there is an Amazon branded
clone for $100. The only difference is black painted vs. the original polished
aluminum.

------
tmaly
I still like the book selection the best.

But I think edging out third party sellers may present regulatory problems for
them as they are already 50% of the e-commerce market in the US.

I read some statistic a few months back that said something like 30% of all
items on Amazon were manufactured in China.

------
dukoid
At least I'd expect that there you can be sure that it's not a fake / clone.

~~~
zip1234
I got an HDMI cable and an audio cable that were Amazon's brand. They have
both since broken. It may not have been fake but it was bad quality.

------
therealdrag0
Does anyone have a good list of alternatives to Amazon, perhaps labeled by
category?

The few times I've wanted something and checked Jet.com first, what I wanted
wasn't there. Only successful gotos I have are backcountry.com and rei.com.

------
Jack5500
There is nothing secret about it. Private labels are very common in retail.

------
fatboy93
I love their USB-C cable. I've gotten their 6ft cable and it's amazing. No
damage since I bought it in the past year.

It also seems that Benson has labelled it adequate for phones.

------
wprapido
Private labels are somewhat the norm in retail, and retail had become the core
business to AMZN. So, not surprising at all.

------
Narkov
As a consumer, isn't this a good thing?

~~~
snarfy
Home Depot sells their in-house HDX brand. They used to sell nitrile gloves
from various brands. Now they only carry HDX nitrile gloves.

Their in-house brand gloves are extremely thin and pretty much worthless.
Because of that, I no longer buy nitrile gloves from Home Depot.

~~~
fencepost
If you're looking for another option check what Costco carries. They seem
pretty good to me (certainly better than what I've seen in many medical
offices) and when I was price shopping a bit they turned out to be well
priced.

------
dreamcompiler
Companies that lost my trust a long time ago:

Uber

Facebook

Wells Fargo

Microsoft

Ebay

Companies that are rapidly losing my trust today:

Apple

Google

Amazon

Companies that are slowly gaining my trust today:

Microsoft

Ebay

------
graphememes
Amazon is only useful if you live in the city without a car.

------
Salamat
1

------
arthurofbabylon
Antitrust violations?

~~~
adventured
Not even close. Walmart at its peak - prior to Amazon acquiring serious scale
- had a dramatically greater dominance over retail than anything Amazon has
reached so far. Currently Walmart has retail sales three times that of Amazon.

Walmart's version of this, is Great Value products. They have dozens of
product categories it covers. They use it to restrain branded products from
being able to easily raise prices. If Kraft Velveeta decides to raise its mac
& cheese box to $2.99, Walmart will sell their Great Value brand version right
next to it for $1.29. It's extremely consumer friendly and introduces price
competition into the market place.

~~~
astura
Walmart has Great Value, but that's not their only private label. They also
have Mainstays, Equate,and plenty others.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Walmart_brands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Walmart_brands)

~~~
cowpewter
Yep, my glucose monitor is ReliOn, one of Walmart's brands. The test strips
are cheap and the monitor works well.

------
kbos87
I’m sick of seeing the lazy argument that moves like this are in the best
interests of consumers. Yeah, the prices may be a little lower and the buying
experience a little easier right now. But those are tiny short term benefits
relative to the medium to longer term impact a move like this can have as we
allow a massive centralization of commerce to take place. The long term impact
is that wealth, power, and control are all centralized in the hands of a small
number of people, with fewer and fewer opportunities for anyone else to build
a thriving business. Platform capitalism has us headed for a dystopian future
and the saddest thing is that few people seem to be able to imagine anything
better.

~~~
petra
A lot of this depends on how far Amazon takes this.

Online, you have an infinite shelf space. So many people have used that to
create those so called "private labels" that contribute nothing of value and
just add confusion and cost to the market.

So if those we're gone, it would be great.

But maybe we can be optimistic, given that Bezos thinks long term:

Maybe the goal is to create a thriving, competitive market of brands that only
belong to Amazon ? Maybe, as long as you can provide significant new value to
consumers, you'd get access, and you'd get all your logistics,customer
service,and marketing taken care for you ? And who knows, maybe one day, your
supply-chain and a lot of your manufacturing ?

And this would advance us towards a world where most companies are more
focused on r&d(similar to what AWS did for software), and many startups will
thrive.

Sure, we would have to find ways to decrease concentration for power in
certain companies, but it won't be all bad.

------
kome
Amazon shows that planned economy works. Let's nationalize Amazon. ;)

