Amazon's Vow to Stop Squeezing Its Sellers Was Fake, Says California's Lawsuit (yahoo.com) 50
An anonymous reader shared this recent report from Bloomberg:
Amazon continued blocking sellers from offering lower prices on rival sites, despite assuring antitrust enforcers it ended its policy that artificially inflated prices for consumers, according to newly unsealed filings in California's antitrust lawsuit against the e-commerce giant.
The Seattle-based company planned to expand penalties on sellers who presented lower prices outside Amazon, even after it claimed in 2019 that it stopped punishing third-party merchants who posted better deals on Walmart, Target, eBay, and, in some instances, their own websites, according to previously redacted portions of the suit that were made public.
The newly unsealed filings include an internal document in which Amazon states point-blank that despite "the recent removal of the price parity clause in our Business Solutions Agreement... our expectations and policies have not changed."
"Many of the complaint's allegations are inaccurate," an Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg. "We look forward to presenting the facts to the court." California Attorney General Rob Bonta is seeking a court order blocking Amazon from continuing to engage in what he alleged is anticompetitive behavior, as well as compensation for consumers in the most populous U.S. state. A similar suit filed by Washington, D.C., was dismissed in 2021...
The 2022 suit came three years after Bloomberg reported that the company's policies were forcing sellers to charge more on competing sites like Walmart because Amazon would bury their products in search results if they offered lower prices elsewhere...
California's probe into Amazon's practices also highlighted concerns that ads on the platform are unhelpful for customers.
Amazon advertising revenue grew 19% in the fourth quarter, to $11.6 billion. The fast-growing revenue source helps prop up Amazon's otherwise low-margin online retail business that carries the high expense of operating warehouses around the country and delivering orders to shoppers' homes.
California's attorney general issued an official statement arguing that Amazon "has orchestrated the substantial market power it now enjoys through agreements at the retail and wholesale level that prevent effective price competition in the online retail marketplace." And it includes this fierce denunciation attributed directly to attorney general Bonta:
"As California families struggle to make ends meet, we're in court to stop Amazon from engaging in anticompetitive practices that keep prices artificially high and stifle competition. There is no shortage of evidence showing that the 'Everything store' is costing consumers more for just about everything. Amazon coerces merchants into agreements that keep prices artificially high, knowing full well that they can't afford to say no. With other e-commerce platforms unable to compete on price, consumers turn to Amazon as a one-stop shop for all their purchases. This perpetuates Amazon's market dominance, allowing the company to make increasingly untenable demands on its merchants and costing consumers more at checkout across California. We won't stand by while Amazon uses coercive contracting practices to dominate the market at the expense of California consumers, small business owners, and the economy."
The Seattle-based company planned to expand penalties on sellers who presented lower prices outside Amazon, even after it claimed in 2019 that it stopped punishing third-party merchants who posted better deals on Walmart, Target, eBay, and, in some instances, their own websites, according to previously redacted portions of the suit that were made public.
The newly unsealed filings include an internal document in which Amazon states point-blank that despite "the recent removal of the price parity clause in our Business Solutions Agreement... our expectations and policies have not changed."
"Many of the complaint's allegations are inaccurate," an Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg. "We look forward to presenting the facts to the court." California Attorney General Rob Bonta is seeking a court order blocking Amazon from continuing to engage in what he alleged is anticompetitive behavior, as well as compensation for consumers in the most populous U.S. state. A similar suit filed by Washington, D.C., was dismissed in 2021...
The 2022 suit came three years after Bloomberg reported that the company's policies were forcing sellers to charge more on competing sites like Walmart because Amazon would bury their products in search results if they offered lower prices elsewhere...
California's probe into Amazon's practices also highlighted concerns that ads on the platform are unhelpful for customers.
Amazon advertising revenue grew 19% in the fourth quarter, to $11.6 billion. The fast-growing revenue source helps prop up Amazon's otherwise low-margin online retail business that carries the high expense of operating warehouses around the country and delivering orders to shoppers' homes.
California's attorney general issued an official statement arguing that Amazon "has orchestrated the substantial market power it now enjoys through agreements at the retail and wholesale level that prevent effective price competition in the online retail marketplace." And it includes this fierce denunciation attributed directly to attorney general Bonta:
"As California families struggle to make ends meet, we're in court to stop Amazon from engaging in anticompetitive practices that keep prices artificially high and stifle competition. There is no shortage of evidence showing that the 'Everything store' is costing consumers more for just about everything. Amazon coerces merchants into agreements that keep prices artificially high, knowing full well that they can't afford to say no. With other e-commerce platforms unable to compete on price, consumers turn to Amazon as a one-stop shop for all their purchases. This perpetuates Amazon's market dominance, allowing the company to make increasingly untenable demands on its merchants and costing consumers more at checkout across California. We won't stand by while Amazon uses coercive contracting practices to dominate the market at the expense of California consumers, small business owners, and the economy."
Good start. (Score:3)
Now look into the widespread price gouging (buying a $1.50 item at Walmart and reselling it on Amazon for $30), the widespread review fraud (taking a listing for a Golden Girls T-Shirt with a five-star rating and merging it with a listing for a set of lawn darts), etc.
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Now look into the widespread price gouging (buying a $1.50 item at Walmart and reselling it on Amazon for $30)
Reselling products for more than you paid is not illegal.
If it's not worth $30 to you, then don't buy it.
"Price gouging" is restricted only after natural disasters or other supply shocks, and even then, the restrictions often do more harm than good by encouraging hoarding and reducing incentives for suppliers.
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Like with the toilet paper situation during the first six months of the pandemic.
Once supermarkets got off their arses and put purchase limits as well, people were finally able to get toilet paper.
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Yeah and? The OP was asking for government to step in. Is that something you want? The government dictating how much bog-roll you can purchase?
There's a very good reason governments do not step in and "fix" the problem.
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Dipshit.
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There's a very good reason governments do not step in and "fix" the problem.
Also, not really. I'm not one of you fucking libertarians who thinks "gubmint is ALWAYS bad", leaving no room for discussion or nuance.
In extreme cases, governments must step in to fix the problem, because the free market doesn't handle disasters well.
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The toilet paper shortage was almost entirely artificial and driven by consumer panic. A few people were panicked over COVID and bought a l
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Re: Good start. (Score:2)
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The toilet paper shortage was almost entirely artificial and driven by consumer panic. A few people were panicked over COVID and bought a lot of TP which caused a shortage and lead to everyone overbuying in the next wave of panic. No one was going through any more TP than they initially did and there wasn't any major manufacturing decrease ahead of that.
It absolutely was driven by consumer panic, but it was not entirely artificial. People working from home and going to school from home suddenly use more toilet paper, and businesses use less. Businesses don't buy their toilet paper at Walmart and Target, so those channels were unaffected by the reduction in business consumption, but were affected by the increase in home consumption.
The best thing the government could have done was told people that COVID isn't going to give you the shits so there's no need to stockpile excess toilet paper.
Except that for one in ten people, it does.
The government isn't always bad, but they can fuck things up and make a far bigger mess out of a bad situation because reality doesn't care about well meant intentions or a desire to help solve a problem.
Yup. Government is a big hammer. It should be avoided when what you need is a sc
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A better solution to the toilet paper "crisis" would have been for the manufacturers to raise prices.
Higher prices would have paid for overtime wages for extra shifts, thus increasing the supply, while simultaneously discouraging hoarding.
The problem would have been solved in far less than six months.
Re:Good start. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem was supermarkets running out of stock too quickly, because they don't account for panic buying patterns. All they needed to do was to implement purchase limits, and when they did, the problem was fixed.
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There was no supply issue.
Nonsense. If you have empty shelves, there is a supply issue. It may have been for stupid reasons, but that doesn't make it "not an issue."
implement purchase limits, and when they did, the problem was fixed.
Not really. Purchase limits assume everyone needs the same quantity of TP.
Some people live in remote areas, so buying toilet paper in small batches once a week doesn't work for them. They may also be buying for neighbors. Other people run businesses big enough to need extra toilet paper but small enough that buying through wholesalers doesn't make sense. And some people
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Nonsense
No, what you're talking about is nonsense. Why would you increase manufacturing of toilet paper when the manufacturers weren't even close to running out?
but that doesn't make it "not an issue."
I didn't say it was "not an issue". I said the issue was not one of supply, in the context of your comment, from manufacturers. LEARN THE DIFFERENCE.
Purchase limits assume everyone needs the same quantity of TP.
No it doesn't. Purchase limits are like "one per customer". The "one" could be a pack of 4, or a pack of 32.
so buying toilet paper in small batches once a week
That's why supermarkets sell many different sized packs. Where the fuck do YOU live?
Raising prices would work better than rationing for all these people. They would pay a bit extra but still get what they need.
No it wouldn't. Di
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I didn't say it was "not an issue".
Dude, you did it publicly in the post before the one you are replying to. Thats what you did.
Lie much when defending something you dont understand but were told you were supposed to have a position on, fuckface?
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I didn't say it was "not an issue". I said the issue was not one of supply, in the context of your comment, from manufacturers. LEARN THE DIFFERENCE.
I was CLEARLY referencing the context.
Read through the fucking reply chain, you dumb cunt. It is EXACTLY as I said - IN THE CONTEXT OF MANUFACTURING SUPPLY.
Do you know why CONTEXT exists? So people don't have to repeat the entire state of the conversation in every fucking reply. When you leave things out, it's because it was ALREADY COVERED IN THE PRECEDING CONTEXT.
Learn how normal humans communicate, you FAUXTISTIC PIECE OF SHIT.
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Re: Good start. (Score:3)
Business never had a toilet paper supply issue. They stick up for months at a time. And didn't panic buy. If you knew where businesses buy toliet paper you never had an issue.
The issue broke down to two issues
Consumer panic bought a years supply
Manufacturing capacity is at 90-95% for consumer toliet paper. There is no room for emergency production.
The purchase limits basically slowed down buying long enough for that production to refill the stock levels.
Chip shortage was basically the same thing.
Except ma
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Not quite.
It is possible to go into a store multiple times and get different checkers. Or employ family members to each do the limit. The supply was fine, I agree. The demand was insane, I also agree. The solution is trivial? Dude, have you MET humans? They will game things so bad it gives Deities headaches.
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eg, by the time they get in again, there might not have been enough left. Or maybe the lines were too long to bother again. Or maybe they were afraid enough of other shoppers calling them out. Or maybe trying to score another pack just robs them of the time to buy other stuff that may also seem to be running out. Many other factors that reduces the
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That's the sort of thing you see with gasoline rationing - they've found that people actually end up using MORE gas because they spend gas going to multiple stations, cycling back through queues. Because more people are trying to get gas more often, queues are longer, and of course people don't turn their cars off while waiting.
In my case, it was tough for a bit. Fortunately, my family tends to be "stockers", as I wouldn't go so far as to say "preppers", so when it hit we actually had a large supply. For
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No, there was a supply issue. The balance of residential to commercial rolls suddenly shifted so that commercial rolls had near-zero demand. That demand for commercial shifted to residential. They are often not made at the same plants. So there were lines of trucks waiting to pick up, because all of the loading bays were full.
Re: Good start. (Score:2)
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After Hurricane Sandy I was going to rent a box truck in NH and fill it up with generators available all over here and drive it to NJ where I know folks.
Even if I sold them at break-even as a volunteer effort the State of NJ would have arrested and jailed me. The only legal price was pre-disaster big-box store pricing. Because "gouging!"
"Fuck those people" was my natural response.
It's what they call "cutflower politics."
The majority of citizens praised their Governor for such a "bold" stance.
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Now look into the widespread price gouging (buying a $1.50 item at Walmart and reselling it on Amazon for $30)
That is literally not price gouging, it is just arbitrage.
Price gouging is when corporations' costs go up 15%, and they raise prices 50%, during a global pandemic. Which, by the way, describes basically every large corporation. Fuck Amazon, antitrust EVERYONE
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I'd argue that even that isn't properly gouging, because the price increases provide signals to consumers to not consume as much, and allows them to spend extra money to produce more as well.
I'm not sure that costs only went up 15% though.
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It's gouging when it occurs during a state of emergency.
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I'd argue that even that is stupid. Because it encourages shortages and waiting.
Basically, by allowing prices to rise during an emergency, that enables people for whom the product will be a nicety, not a necessity to go "fuck that shit, I'll wait". Those who REALLY need the product can pony up the extra money. It also encourages waiting before hand - if they KNOW prices may rise(more than just possible shortages), they're more likely to buy earlier.
In turn, by allowing higher prices, that allows companie
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Now look into the widespread price gouging (buying a $1.50 item at Walmart and reselling it on Amazon for $30)
That is literally not price gouging, it is just arbitrage.
Price gouging is when corporations' costs go up 15%, and they raise prices 50%, during a global pandemic. Which, by the way, describes basically every large corporation. Fuck Amazon, antitrust EVERYONE
Some third-party sellers took it to new lows (highs?). The problem is, Amazon has said publicly that "price gouging has no place in our stores" [aboutamazon.com], yet it is still rampant on their platform. They state one policy and then enforce a wildly different policy, and consumers suffer. And that is what makes it reasonable for the government to investigate that price gouging.
Monopolistic company exploits its advantage (Score:4, Insightful)
In other news, the Pope has not applied for membership of the Lutheran church, and ursine faecal material is being found in forests.
Here's hoping the courts will punish Amazon severely; anything less than tens of billions of dollars will be a smack on the wrist.
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>In other news, the Pope has not applied for membership of the Lutheran church
But he is free to buy a silly hat on Amazon.
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But he already got one.
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I found a silly hat shop next door to the vatican. So he doesn't even need an online silly hat vendor. He can just pop around the corner.
Read the filing! (Score:5, Informative)
The filing mentioned in the summary is pretty interesting despite redactions. It makes it quite clear that Amazon is forcing prices to stay higher than they need to be through other online sales channels using anticompetitive agreements with merchants that sell on Amazon. It also mentions that competition with brick and mortar stores is not of interest to Amazon.
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If by "these companies" you mean Amazon, Google and the likes, they're monopolies. Monopolies believe in competition so much they do their best to kill it and stay in control.
One day maybe (unlikely, but one can dream), the US will stop the doctrine of qualifying monopolies solely on the basis of price, - something which began during the Reagan era - and will Sherman the asses of our current crop of gigantic abusive corporations. It's been high time for at least two decades.
i expect amazon to crash & burn someday (Score:2)
Scamazon (Score:3)
They don't call it scamazon for nothing.
On the backside it is criminal how Amazon treats their sellers. Taking tie up their money and have zero customer service. If you want to complain arbitration is your only hope or hiring an Amazon seller consultant. They accuse sellers of selling fake products, strong arming them into storing their merchandise in Scamazon warehouses (scamazon fulfillment), and constantly raising fees.
Amazon is like the Borg and wants to assimilate everything.
At the end of day for the final mile delivery there are Scamazon drivers whizzing in trucks because they aren't allowed to take a bathroom break.
As an ecommerce small business I absolutely refuse to sell on Scamazon.
https://feedvisor.com/resource... [feedvisor.com]
https://knoza.com/revenuerecov... [knoza.com]
https://sellerinvestigators.co... [sellerinvestigators.com]
https://socialnomics.net/2022/... [socialnomics.net]
Would like to see it go (Score:2)
What about Amazon's Fake Produces and Reviews? (Score:3)
Down with Amazon! To the Guillotine! (Score:1)
Amazon is officially on the Left's shitlist. Who knows if all these lawsuits are legit. The main purpose is not to help consumers, but to screw Amazon, because, yes, Amazon is on the Left's shitlist.
besides price; amazon censors on location (Score:2)
Not infrequently, I will find products that inexplicably cannot be shipped to
my location. While some I recognize as being the CA Air Resources Board's restrictions, but
many have no conceivable source and, importantly, can easily find availability on other sites. Amazon needs to come clean on why they censor locations, which seems capricious and in some cases, another type of money ploy as they try to get me to ship to an amazon locker instead of my house.
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There's a specific 27" 4K monitor that can't ship to my address but can easily ship to a nearby town. And they've also started treating autoinjector pen needle tips as medical supplies that can only be sold to medical suppliers, even though they're used for at home prescriptions. They're haphazardly trying to comply with some sort of law restricting sale of medical things but completely messing it up. I have to order direct from the manufacturer's web site.
Amazon is not the only one that does this... (Score:2)
Major travel booking sites are also known for having rules that limit the ability of those selling through their site from selling elsewhere cheaper.
It should be outright illegal for retailers to say "if you sell through us, you can't sell elsewhere cheaper" (as well as being illegal for a supplier to tell a retailer that it can't sell a product below a certain price or advertise that product for sale below a certain price)
Amazon is evil... (Score:1)