Slashdot Mirror
Secret Amazon Brands Are Quietly Taking Over Amazon.com (qz.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Arabella. Lark & Roe. Mae. NuPro. Small Parts. You might not know it from their names, but these brands all belong to Amazon. Amazon's private label business is booming, on pace to generate $7.5 billion this year and $25 billion by 2022, according to estimates from investment firm SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. To accelerate that growth, the company is inviting manufacturers to create products exclusively for its collection of private brands. The "Amazon Accelerator Program" is hiring a senior product manager for private brands, CNBC reported. The job listing invites applicants to "invent and Think Big to take an idea from concept to reality for Amazon customers." Duties include managing and planning inventory, identifying business opportunities, and working across a wide swath of Amazon divisions, including consumables, Prime Pantry, Prime Fresh, Prime Now, and Amazon Go. Another job listing spotted by CNBC, for a private brands program leader, notes that the "Private Brands team is rapidly expanding and is looking for an exceptional product leader to grow the business." Brands created through the accelerator will be exclusive to Amazon, but not owned by it, the company said. Further reading: Amazon is Stuffing Its Search Results Pages With Ads.
Good little drones! Keep working towards making a real dystopia! One giant mega-corp that supplies you with everything. That'll work out well. Keep giving them your money, dummies. Keep on, keepin' on.
I don't respond to AC's.
They seem to get pushier by the day. Now they add on a row of "related items" THEY sell....or a row of books if they don't sell any actual related items themselves. Over half of my last search was sponsored or Amazon ads.
They have knowledge of what sells from other parties, what's popular.
They then manufacture those products and directly compete on their sales platform, with full knowledge of sales and pricing of their competitors.
What's that smell? Federal intervention.
BlameBillCosby.com
I've seen Costco and Winco do this: a name-brand is popular, so they come up with a equivalent (more or less) house branded version.
Used to be a great source, they published a nice catalog with all the details of their ball bearings and metal stock items. Not any more. Since Amazon bought them, you get what information they feel like providing and browsing the catalog is no longer an option.
Oh well...
I really don't care. As long as they don't exclude competitors, and the reviews remain honest, I'll decide based on price and reviews.
Complete with state of the art SuperMicro motherboards
...worked real well for Radio Shack.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
What I've noticed about Amazon brands, they are the cheap-ass Chinese shit that is sold for 20-30% more when they are labeled with another brand.
Look at a lot of the products. They are identical to other brands because they are made by the same Chinese factories but the pricing is different - just because.
It's not just an Amazon thing either. You'll products in every category that will look identical, have identical functionality but different brand names and prices. And some brands get premium prices - but the product is made and marketed by someone else who licenses the brand name.
Amazon is just doing what Sears & Robuck sort of did years ago - and what many retailers do now (Home Depot bought the Husky and Rigid brands and made them their own). However, Sears had their own quality control department and actually specified additional features to differentiate themselves from others - years ago before the private equity guys took over.
Note: Sears' customer base - along with JC Penny's - was the American middle class. As the Middle Class' fortunes fell, so did Sears and Penny's.
In short, as my standard of living continues to decline (I made a poor decision by getting that MSCS), I welcome Jeff doing this and may he get richer if he softens my decline from student loans, rising healthcare costs, unaffordable health insurance because I'm in a Medicaid non-expansion state (Republican), and the fact that I was aged out of tech. )
Not exactly a secret. They've been pushing "our brands" on the homepage for at least a couple of months now. They have their own brand recommendations listed in a separate grouping from the "normal" recommendations.
.
If it's immoral to do the best you can with what you have for your family, well...it gets complex fast, doesn't it. I'm sure some of the outfits who'd go out of business fast if they didn't have Amazon to re-sell their stuff for them, now that local is doing dead (due to Amazon and Walmart) - have to be selling below cost - if not, they've been really ripping us off the whole time, and just deserts is what I say. So it won't go on for long, but for now...smart people who pay attention always have an edge.
And no, I'm no fan of Bezos or his politics. What I'm suggesting is taking advantage of the outfit when they play the loss-leader game.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
respond to the Amazon invite and see your branded labels lose market share to the lower cost Amazon equivalent; end up being a low margin production house. Not respond and Amazon will go to one of your competitors and you end up losing market share anyway but without having Amazon as a customer.
Amazon can undercut since it does not have the overheads of maintaining a brand - advertising, etc.
They have knowledge of what sells from other parties, what's popular. They then manufacture those products and directly compete on their sales platform, with full knowledge of sales and pricing of their competitors.
So do grocery stores, retail stores, etc and they all sell private label goods too. I don't really see this as a problem. Kroger sells Kroger branded milk right next the other dairy brands and usually for less money. Walmart sells all sorts of private label goods at discounted prices. Amazon is doing nothing different here at all.
What's that smell? Federal intervention.
Not unless you can prove that Amazon is a monopoly first and then that they are abusing that monopoly. Good luck with that. The branded product makers are welcome to drop their prices to compete if they like. If they aren't providing enough value to justify their brand then why should I as a customer care?
At least, that's how I'm reading this bit of expansionism.
The golf industry got turned upside when golfers realizaed that the Costco golf balls were better than the more expensive premium golf balls.
So an industry based on an elitist rich man's game that charges outrageous markups on their equipment is pissed when someone undercuts them on price? Cry me a river.
it's begun.
At least in coffee and paper towels, Amazon has clearly labeled these under a section headed "Our Brands", or had "an Amazon brand" or something like that showing.
It was no secret, and it bothered me not at all, no more than store brands in grocery stores.
This is all part of their gran plan to eliminate ALL the competition in retail in the western world.
Eventually there will be no volume retailers left standing other than Amazon.
Stop using them. Buy local before you lose it.
I only use them as a port of last resort. But how many xxxx do the think I want eh? on xxxx will last me a lifetime.
They only price match with products sold explicitly by Amazon, meaning they wont match against these other brands, meaning they simply wont be able to compete. I just bought a JBL Charge 3, got it $30 less via Amazon Prime, rather than wait, I went to Best Buy but they said wouldn't match the price because even though it was distributed from Amazon's Warehouses by Prime, and the price info even said "discount provided by Amazon", but they refused to match because the specific vendor wasn't Amazon. For $30 less, I felt it was worth the wait. I ordered late early Friday evening, and it was in my hands first thing Sunday morning. Bye bye Big Box Store populated with clueless people wearing stupid vests
Big Marketplace creates huge opportunities for Suppliers.
Suppliers suddenly put 80% of their eggs into Big Marketplace baskets.
Big Marketplace changes rules, squeeze Suppliers.
Suppliers can't afford to leave.
Suppliers cut corners to cut costs.
Big Marketplace takes more dollars.
Suppliers innovate to create crappier crap.
Consumers lose options, forced to buy crap.
Winner: Big Marketplace.
Losers: everyone else
Enjoy.
Sometimes that's the ONLY* way to making one's dollars go farther.
*Couponing is a job unto itself, and lots of restrictions, to gain the same benefits as generics.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
I don't really see that....this is a common thing for many retailers. You see it in every day grocery stores, hell, you REALLY see this in places like Costco, and even Sam's Club.
Hell, I often buy the Costco (Kirkland brand) stuff, and it is as good, or even slightly superior to the major brands. I too believe Costo gets major labels to make them special stuff, I could swear the Costco Kirkland brand vodka is made by Grey Goose....etc.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
You know those clear plastic cakes plates that you use for between 1 and 3 minutes then recycle to get cake into your guest's cake hole, and you wife of about an hour cannot be seen delivering that via a paper plate. I bought 150 for my wedding at a cost of about 15% what the grocer wanted to charge me for them in some odd number of plates per package. 14 or something like that. Guess what, Amazon Cake plates did their job as they were 100% perfect without the grocer's odd counts. My cake plates arrived on time and had a smile on the wrapper and my fiance had a tracking number for every item on her list at 3am 4 days before the reception.
I find it wonderful some Amazon contractor is taking gross delivery and packing to the needs of a logistics company and more important the needs of the customer and not shelf space considerations at a grocery store that give us 12 hot dog buns to a package and 8 hotdogs.
How many of these labels are existing companies that were bought by Amazon? Small Parts, for example, was bought by Amazon a couple years ago. (I remember ordering from them before they were part of Amazon.) At one level, it doesn't make a difference, the profits got to Bezos. But it seems to me a legitimate business strategy for Amazon to buy successful companies that add to their portfolio of things they sell directly.
There is a legitimate concern -if- these acquisitions and private labels have an impact on competition.
There are some business opportunities here, but also I can feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Arabella. Lark & Roe. Mae. NuPro. Small Parts. You might not know it from their names, but these brands all belong to Amazon
Why does no one know these brands belong to Amazon and what happened to "Amazon Basics"? OK, they might want to differentiate another level from "Basic" but why not "Amazon Supreme" or whatever... when I got to Safeway I know "Private Selection" is the house brand, OK, no problem. At Costco, it's "Kirkland", again, no problem. WTF good are a bunch of stealth brands?
In the US, Amazon has almost 50% of ALL online sales. And abut 5% of all retail.
Neither of those numbers are anywhere close to monopoly status. They are the 800lb gorilla of online sales no doubt but a monopoly they are not. And that second number is an important one. 5% on retail is a lot of retail but it's a looooooonnnnggg way from monopoly status. And even if they are a monopoly that doesn't make it illegal to sell their own branded good. Literally every other major retailer does exactly the same thing so it's hard to argue that Amazon should be subjected to special treatment for selling private label goods.
This very much reads like a parody amazon review, funny
I find it wonderful some Amazon contractor is taking gross delivery and packing to the needs of a logistics company and more important the needs of the customer and not shelf space considerations at a grocery store that give us 12 hot dog buns to a package and 8 hotdogs.
It's 10 hotdogs and 8 buns.
"House brands" are common, but some companies such as Walmart and Amazon use them in anti-competitive ways.
If a product is tweaked and rebranded, it makes it harder to comparison shop.
A store can have a low price guarantee, and offer to match any advertised offer by a competitor or even an additional 10% off. But that is meaningless because they can insist that it is a different product due to the rebranding. Even for products sold under the original brand, Walmart often has unique model numbers that are sold no where else.
Honestly, I'd rather buy an Amazon house brand versus some of the random crap coming from a questionable Shenzhen copycat shop.
Wow...what do you have against people that do well...or like a particular sport?
I have nothing against people who do well - I've been pretty lucky myself compared to some and I'm enthusiastically pro-doing-well. I have a problem with people who behave like they are better than others when they do well. I like all kinds of sports and I don't care what anyone plays - doesn't matter if it's my chosen sport or not. Get out there and be active and have fun. I'm not thrilled about sports that are too expensive for lots of people to play but I can live with it to a point. However I have a BIG problem when people use those sports to exclude others particularly minorities and women and golf is legendary for excluding disadvantaged groups. How could it be that you aren't aware of these problems?
I suppose you think everyone that has more money than you, and plays golf is an asshole or otherwise horrible person?
Not at all. I honestly could not care less how much money someone has and I wish you and everyone else well. I play golf myself from time to time and most people who enjoy it are perfectly decent folks. But if you aren't aware that there are some serious racism, sexism, and elitism problems within the sport of golf and with the country clubs that host the sport then you have been living under a rock.
So Bezos made his own essential stuff like monitor cables and salty snacks. You whined, and got what you wanted. Now you whine more! Our civilization needs to stop paying any attention to whiney assholes.
Why is this crap posted on slashdot?
We usually buy Hebrew National - those come seven to a package.
#DeleteChrome
tell me a store that does not sell their own private brands? what store would not place their own brands in a prominent location in order to sell? Why is the story about Amazon but not Walmart, Target, Kroger, or other major chains that does the same online and in their brick and mortar store?
Netflix openly pushes its own content. Meanwhile, content from other providers that Netflix used to build its customer base is dwindling on Netflix.
I don't really see that....this is a common thing for many retailers. You see it in every day grocery stores, hell, you REALLY see this in places like Costco, and even Sam's Club.
Hell, I often buy the Costco (Kirkland brand) stuff, and it is as good, or even slightly superior to the major brands. I too believe Costo gets major labels to make them special stuff, I could swear the Costco Kirkland brand vodka is made by Grey Goose....etc.
Grey Goose probably isn't cost-compeditive, although to their credit they do have their own distillery. Probably someone like Citrus Distillers or Spooky Beverages. A lot of the "Big Brands" are nothing more than paper companies that design bottles and market.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Comes up all the time when you are searching for stuff for DIY builds and fixing stuff. I just bought a 24 foot spool of 8 gauge stainless steel wire off of Amazon and it was branded "small parts". You search for bushings, bearings, metal dowels and rods, odd sized or material bolts or nuts your hardware store won't carry, and that brand comes up.
The thing is, as much as I despise Amazon as company, the stuff they offer through Small Parts are incredibly useful, but hard to find.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is ridiculous because the manufacturing has already consolidated to the point that most products have 1 to 3 manufacturers in the world. The vast majority of brand names exist as shell companies that have their label slapped on a slight variation of a product all coming out of the same factory to suggest it has more or less features/value for the price.
Buying local only works for niche products or services, anything mass produced is all about value for the dollar and that works entirely in Wal-Mart of Amazon's favor.
I hate house brands... usually. When they're not named for the company that sells them, it feels like the store is trying to trick me into believing that they're selling an industry-forged item. If Performance Bike sold "Performance Bike" branded bicycle saddles and tools, I wouldn't have a problem. But re-branding them as "Spin Doctor" to compete with the likes of Pedro's and Park Tool seems wrong. Why? Because I'm fairly certain that most house-brands are lower quality than national brands. Sometimes the lower quality is insignificant, but the discount is sufficient to make going with the house brand, but if you don't know the entire industry (as it is with most bicycle riders), you think you're getting a strong competitor's product at a reasonable price.
I like the "Amazon Basics" branding. I would be happy if Amazon's brand "NuPro" was actually "NuPro, an Amazon Brand" for a couple years until all the regular Amazon shoppers KNEW that NuPro was an Amazon brand and THEN they dropped the "an Amazon Brand" part.
I would 100% support a measure from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that would require such labels.
we keep electing people who are opposed to gov't regulation, which Anti-trust laws are. We shouldn't act surprised when said laws are either weakened or unenforced.
You can't have a functioning government that only functions when you want it to. Not unless you're rich enough to bribe yourself to one. If we want effective government regulation we have to start electing people who say and do those things.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
That is not anti-competitive. Finding ways to charge more for a product is the exact opposite of anti-competitive. Well, at least in how that word is typically used, because in a more generic use sure, it is anti-competitive in that the store is no longer competing with its competition and everyone has just gone to the store that sells the same things for less.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Their batteries are made by Duracell.
J