The Bezos Bulldozer and One of Its Charming Quirks
October 22, 2021
Amazon is the Bezos bulldozer. I know. I know. He’s into space and making the world better. Nevertheless, the “trust” outfit Reuters is not buying the PR. “Amazon Copied Products and Rigged Search Results to Promote Its Own Brands, Documents Show” provides an interesting look at Amazon’s ecommerce business strategy.
The write up asserts:
… Thousands of pages of internal Amazon documents examined by Reuters – including emails, strategy papers and business plans – show the company ran a systematic campaign of creating knockoffs and manipulating search results to boost its own product lines in India, one of the company’s largest growth markets. The documents reveal how Amazon’s private-brands team in India secretly exploited internal data from Amazon.in to copy products sold by other companies, and then offered them on its platform.
Navigate to the source document for quotes, names of bulldozer drivers, and the specifics of the retail ants crushed under the steel tracks of the snorting behemoth.
Why would Amazon copy and boost its own products?
Gee, that’s a tough question. Pick from these possible reasons:
[a] Executive compensation incentives engineer rapacious methods into the ecommerce processes
[b] Because Amazon could. Hey, what’s power for if one doesn’t use it.
[c] Increasing profit results in higher stock prices and juicier bonuses for high-performing Amazon professionals
[d] It’s fun because business is a game
[e] The companies and products are little more than tests for Amazon. Follow the data.
I like the “It’s fun” answer. Because business is a game to be won.
Stephen E Arnold, October 22, 2021
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