mountains of data –
Amazon is a competitor to its own third-party merchants, and probes abound.
Amazon in a written statement to the WSJ agreed that “like other retailers, we look at sales and store data to provide our customers with the best possible experience, “adding,” however, we strictly prohibit our employees from using nonpublic, seller-specific data to determine which private label products to launch. ” The incidents the WSJ described to the company violate Amazon’s internal policies, and it has launched an internal investigation, the company added.
However Amazon determines which private-label brands to launch, it has been busy getting them live in recent years. The company now has more than private-label brands as well as exclusive sales arrangements with another brands, according to research firm TJI. Some, like Amazon Essentials or Amazon Basics, are obvious to shoppers. Others — such as kids’ clothing line Scout Ro, women’s clothing brand Hayden Rose, or furniture line Stone & Beam — are anything but.
Altogether, those private labels account for about 1 percent of the company total sales, Amazon told Ars
Amazon’s sometimes contentious relationships with third-party vendors on its marketplace are already the subject of several regulatory probes in the United States and abroad. The European Union’s competition bureau opened an investigation (in 2020 probing Amazon’s use of “competitively sensitive information about marketplace sellers, their products, and transactions on the marketplace” to boost its own retail business.
Congress, too, specifically asked Amazon for information about its use of marketplace vendor data as part of its massive ongoing antitrust probe into potentially unlawful anticompetitive behaviors by Amazon and other Big Tech firms. At a hearing last July, a witness for Amazon explicitly told Congress that Amazon “doesn’t use individual seller data directly to compete” with its marketplace vendors.
Antitrust subcommittee chair Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) And House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jerrold Nadler (DN.Y.) had sharp words for Amazon over the apparent contradiction revealed by the new report. “This is yet another example of the sworn testimony of Amazon’s witness being directly contradicted by investigative reporting,” Cicilline said in a written statement. “At best, Amazon’s witness appears to have misrepresented key aspects of Amazon’s business practices while omitting important details in response to pointed questioning. At worst, the witness Amazon sent to speak on its behalf may have lied to Congress.” (Read More
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