Amazon opens store brand data for product development…

It has been found that Amazon secretly checks transaction data of third-party brands it is selling, develops competitive products, and sells them under their own brand.

This fact was revealed according to the testimony and internal data of about 20 former employees who were in charge of their own brand business such as Amazon Basic. The referenced data includes gross sales, profit margins in Amazon, and ad revenue for brand-name stores. According to reports, data from a former employee included sales and sales data for more than 25 items, such as car storage boxes.

In the image, the Amazon Basic product launched in October 2019. If you check the comparison chart of similar products, Amazon Basic is displayed before competitors (Fortem, DRIVE, Trunkcratepro). For reference, the number of competing product reviews is 5,337, 7,544, and 5,081, respectively, compared to 238 for the Amazon Basic model. In the end, this can lead to criticism that it is manipulating algorithms to favor its brand.

Of course, the platform operator may ask if it should not work while looking at the data. However, as it is contractually stated that it will not be viewed, viewing internal data without prior notice to the seller in the platform constitutes a breach of the contract and may also be a problem with antitrust laws. This is because the act of selling similar products after obtaining the transaction data of the user using the position and location of an online shopping mall operator itself can be an abuse of its monopoly position.

Yahoo said in September of last year that it will select products that are likely to be sold based on the brand data of the store openings in the platform and release the products through testimony from two former employees. Related information can be found here .