{"id":8408,"date":"2021-10-17T07:48:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-17T07:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1370049"},"modified":"2021-10-17T07:48:00","modified_gmt":"2021-10-17T07:48:00","slug":"amazon-puts-its-own-brands-first-above-better-rated-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=8408","title":{"rendered":"Amazon puts its own \u201cbrands\u201d first above better-rated products"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>It took Robert Gomez about five months to get his Kaffe coffee grinder to the big leagues in e-commerce: among the first three search results for \u201ccoffee grinder\u201d on Amazon.com.<\/p>\n<p>Gomez, founder of Atlanta-based consumer goods startup 4Q Brands, said he obsessively refined his photos and description, amassed reviews from happy customers, and paid Amazon $40,000 a month on advertising to boost sales, one of the elements Amazon tells sellers will increase search ranking.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-image post-mediaBleed aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1370055 js-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/RobertGomez-5-360x240-1.jpeg\" alt=\"Robert Gomez, owner of startup 4Q Brands, in his warehouse in Buford, Ga. on Oct. 6th, 2021. For more than two years, his coffee grinder had been one of his best sellers on Amazon. Credit:Rita Harper\" width=\"360\" height=\"240\" sizes=\"(max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/RobertGomez-5-360x240-1.jpeg 360w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/RobertGomez-5-360x240-1-280x187.jpeg 280w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/RobertGomez-5-360x240-1-203x135.jpeg 203w\"><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/amazon-brands-above-better-rated-products-syndication#\" data-url=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Feditorial.thenextweb.com%2Finsider%2F2021%2F10%2F17%2Famazon-brands-above-better-rated-products-syndication%2F&amp;via=thenextweb&amp;related=thenextweb&amp;text=Check out this picture on: Robert Gomez, owner of startup 4Q Brands, in his warehouse in Buford, GA on October 6th, 2021. For more than two years, his coffee grinder had been one of his best sellers on Amazon. Rita Harper\" data-title=\"Share Robert Gomez, owner of startup 4Q Brands, in his warehouse in Buford, GA on October 6th, 2021. For more than two years, his coffee grinder had been one of his best sellers on Amazon. Rita Harper on Twitter\" data-width=\"685\" data-height=\"500\" class=\"post-image-share popitup\" title=\"Share Robert Gomez, owner of startup 4Q Brands, in his warehouse in Buford, GA on October 6th, 2021. For more than two years, his coffee grinder had been one of his best sellers on Amazon. Rita Harper on Twitter\"><i class=\"icon icon--inline icon--twitter--dark\"><\/i><\/a>Robert Gomez, owner of startup 4Q Brands, in his warehouse in Buford, GA on October 6th, 2021. For more than two years, his coffee grinder had been one of his best sellers on Amazon. Rita Harper<\/figcaption><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1370055\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/RobertGomez-5-360x240-1.jpeg\" alt=\"Robert Gomez, owner of startup 4Q Brands, in his warehouse in Buford, Ga. on Oct. 6th, 2021. For more than two years, his coffee grinder had been one of his best sellers on Amazon. Credit:Rita Harper\" width=\"360\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/RobertGomez-5-360x240-1.jpeg 360w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/RobertGomez-5-360x240-1-280x187.jpeg 280w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/RobertGomez-5-360x240-1-203x135.jpeg 203w\"><\/noscript><\/figure>\n<p>Then Amazon introduced a competitor from house brand Amazon Basics and another from a brand that sells exclusively on Amazon, DR Mills.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey ranked well right away,\u201d Gomez said, each of them appearing among the top-three results for \u201ccoffee grinder\u201d searches immediately. The reason, he said, was clear: \u201cTheir search ranking is high because they\u2019re an Amazon brand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An investigation by The Markup found that Amazon places products from its house brands and products exclusive to the site ahead of those from competitors\u2014even competitors with higher customer ratings and more sales, judging from the volume of reviews.<\/p>\n<p>We found that knowing only whether a product was an Amazon brand or exclusive could predict in seven out of every 10 cases whether Amazon would place it first in search results. These listings are not visibly marked as \u201csponsored\u201d and they are part of a grid that Amazon identifies as \u201csearch results\u201d in the site\u2019s source code. (We only analyzed products in that grid, ignoring modules that are strictly for advertising.)<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-image post-mediaBleed aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-featured_img wp-image-1370059 js-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.27.05-796x520.png\" alt=\"We used machine learning to try to predict which product Amazon put first in search results based on various factors. Source: The Markup\/Amazon.com\" width=\"796\" height=\"520\" sizes=\"(max-width: 796px) 100vw, 796px\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.27.05-796x520.png 796w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.27.05-280x183.png 280w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.27.05-207x135.png 207w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.27.05-413x270.png 413w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.27.05.png 811w\"><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/amazon-brands-above-better-rated-products-syndication#\" data-url=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Feditorial.thenextweb.com%2Finsider%2F2021%2F10%2F17%2Famazon-brands-above-better-rated-products-syndication%2F&amp;via=thenextweb&amp;related=thenextweb&amp;text=Check out this picture on: We used machine learning to try to predict which product Amazon put first in search results based on various factors. Source: The Markup\/Amazon.com\" data-title=\"Share We used machine learning to try to predict which product Amazon put first in search results based on various factors. Source: The Markup\/Amazon.com on Twitter\" data-width=\"685\" data-height=\"500\" class=\"post-image-share popitup\" title=\"Share We used machine learning to try to predict which product Amazon put first in search results based on various factors. Source: The Markup\/Amazon.com on Twitter\"><i class=\"icon icon--inline icon--twitter--dark\"><\/i><\/a>We used machine learning to try to predict which product Amazon put first in search results based on various factors. Source: The Markup\/Amazon.com<\/figcaption><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-featured_img wp-image-1370059\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.27.05-796x520.png\" alt=\"We used machine learning to try to predict which product Amazon put first in search results based on various factors. Source: The Markup\/Amazon.com\" width=\"796\" height=\"520\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.27.05-796x520.png 796w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.27.05-280x183.png 280w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.27.05-207x135.png 207w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.27.05-413x270.png 413w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.27.05.png 811w\"><\/noscript><\/figure>\n<p>When we analyzed star ratings and number of reviews, neither could predict much better than a coin toss which product Amazon placed first in search results.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.house.gov\/meetings\/JU\/JU05\/20190716\/109793\/HHRG-116-JU05-20190716-SD038.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">told Congress<\/a> in 2019 that its search results do not take into account whether a product is an Amazon-owned brand.<\/p>\n<p>Sellers say it doesn\u2019t seem that way to them. Gomez said Amazon\u2019s brands have \u201cunfair advantages\u201d that make it harder for small merchants like him to compete\u201d on its open marketplace. \u201cWho bears the cost are those entrepreneurs and small businesses that don\u2019t have the means to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Markup found Amazon placed its Happy Belly Cinnamon Crunch cereal, with four stars and 1,010 reviews, in the number one spot ahead of cereals with better and more reviews including Cap\u2019n Crunch (five stars, 14,069 reviews), Honey Bunches of Oats (five stars, 5,205 reviews), and Honey Nut Cheerios (five stars, 11,702 reviews). A vacuum cleaner from Amazon\u2019s exclusive Noisz brand was placed on top, ahead of models from Bissell, Eureka, and Hoover with higher ratings and more reviews. And the Amazon-exclusive Concept 3sneaker from Skechers placed number one, four spots ahead of a similar but not exclusive to Amazon Skechers sneaker with the same star rating but 77 times more reviews.<\/p>\n<p>A former Amazon employee told The Markup that the company used to give its new house brand products an unearned place at the top of search rankings when they first launched. He said the practice has since stopped.<\/p>\n<p>However, we found that Amazon brands and exclusive products overall received an outsized portion of the top spot on search results, one that was far out of line with their proportion of the sample.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not what shoppers expect.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-image post-mediaBleed aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-featured_img wp-image-1370061 js-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.32.21-796x419.png\" alt=\"We commissioned a national panel of 1,000 adults. We included (non-Amazon) competing brands Champion and Brooklinen as a control. Source: The Markup\/YouGov\" width=\"796\" height=\"419\" sizes=\"(max-width: 796px) 100vw, 796px\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.32.21-796x419.png 796w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.32.21-280x147.png 280w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.32.21-256x135.png 256w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.32.21-513x270.png 513w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.32.21.png 822w\"><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/amazon-brands-above-better-rated-products-syndication#\" data-url=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Feditorial.thenextweb.com%2Finsider%2F2021%2F10%2F17%2Famazon-brands-above-better-rated-products-syndication%2F&amp;via=thenextweb&amp;related=thenextweb&amp;text=Check out this picture on: We commissioned a national panel of 1,000 adults. We included (non-Amazon) competing brands Champion and Brooklinen as a control. Source: The Markup\/YouGov\" data-title=\"Share We commissioned a national panel of 1,000 adults. We included (non-Amazon) competing brands Champion and Brooklinen as a control. Source: The Markup\/YouGov on Twitter\" data-width=\"685\" data-height=\"500\" class=\"post-image-share popitup\" title=\"Share We commissioned a national panel of 1,000 adults. We included (non-Amazon) competing brands Champion and Brooklinen as a control. Source: The Markup\/YouGov on Twitter\"><i class=\"icon icon--inline icon--twitter--dark\"><\/i><\/a>We commissioned a national panel of 1,000 adults. We included (non-Amazon) competing brands Champion and Brooklinen as a control. Source: The Markup\/YouGov<\/figcaption><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-featured_img wp-image-1370061\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.32.21-796x419.png\" alt=\"We commissioned a national panel of 1,000 adults. We included (non-Amazon) competing brands Champion and Brooklinen as a control. Source: The Markup\/YouGov\" width=\"796\" height=\"419\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.32.21-796x419.png 796w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.32.21-280x147.png 280w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.32.21-256x135.png 256w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.32.21-513x270.png 513w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-15-at-16.32.21.png 822w\"><\/noscript><\/figure>\n<p>In a national survey we commissioned from <a href=\"https:\/\/today.yougov.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">YouGov<\/a>, only 17 percent of respondents said they assumed Amazon put its own products first. Half said they expected the first non-sponsored product on Amazon\u2019s search results page to be the cheapest, highest rated, or bestselling.<\/p>\n<p>By giving its brands top billing, Amazon is giving itself a significant leg up in sales. The first three items on the search results page get 64 percent of clicks, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/amazon-search-engine-ranking-algorithm-explained\/265173\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">according to<\/a> one ex-Amazon-employee-turned-consultant.<\/p>\n<p>In a short, written statement, Amazon spokesperson Nell Rona said that the company does not favor its brands in search results and declined to answer any of the dozens of specific questions posed by The Markup.<\/p>\n<p>She said the company identified its brands to shoppers by adding \u201cAmazon brand\u201d to the list of product features on the product page and sometimes to the listing title as well. We only found this to be the case in 23 percent of products in our sample that were Amazon-owned brands. She said brands that are exclusive to Amazon would not carry the disclosure because they are not owned by the company.<\/p>\n<h2>Invisible tags<\/h2>\n<p>A signal, invisible to the public but coded into the listings, suggests that most of the Amazon brand and exclusive products that were listed first were ads. In 87 percent of cases, the listing\u2019s source code identified them as \u201csponsored\u201d\u2014though that label isn\u2019t shown to the public. Instead, Amazon labels the products \u201cfeatured from our brands.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rona, the Amazon spokesperson, said the company considers \u201cfeatured from our brands\u201d listings \u201cmerchandising placements\u201d and not \u201csearch results,\u201d despite their presence in the search results grid. She also said they are not ads, despite the \u201csponsored\u201d label in the source code. Rona said they are \u201cclearly labeled to distinguish them from search results\u201d but did not respond to questions about whether the company believes such disclosures were clear enough under Federal Trade Commission requirements.<\/p>\n<p>Mary Engle, who retired as the FTC advertising practices associate director last year, said that what Amazon calls \u201cmerchandising\u201d is actually advertising.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAmazon\u2019s placement of its own products on its own site is advertising, whether or not money changes hands,\u201d she said. She said it would require an investigation to determine whether \u201cfeatured from our brands\u201d is sufficient disclosure under the FTC\u2019s rules.<\/p>\n<p>Bill Baer, a former assistant attorney general in charge of the antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice and former director of the Bureau of Competition at the FTC, said if consumers expect Amazon\u2019s product search results to be neutral, but they are not, and the site is essentially a monopoly, that could be a violation of the FTC Act of 1914, which prohibits unfair competition and unfair or deceptive practices in commerce, or the U.S. Sherman Antitrust Act, which prohibits monopolies from using their market power to harm competition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf basically you\u2019ve got somebody with market power that is restraining competition both in terms of site access or where things appear on the site,\u201d he said, \u201cthat is potentially problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Amazon\u2019s online marketplace garners more than five times more sales than its closest online competitor, Walmart, which also allows third-party sales.<\/p>\n<p>Congress <a href=\"https:\/\/themarkup.org\/ask-the-markup\/2021\/07\/13\/what-is-congresss-plan-to-crack-down-on-big-tech\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">is considering<\/a> a package of anti-monopoly bills aimed at big tech, including the Ending Platform Monopolies Act, which would make the practice of platforms giving their brands a leg up explicitly illegal.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon refers to its own brands and brands developed by others that sell exclusively on Amazon as \u201cour brands.\u201d They peddle everything from snack chips and vitamins to fashion and furniture.<\/p>\n<p>Using public records from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and Amazon\u2019s own statements, we identified more than 150 brands registered by or owned by Amazon. These include both brands with an obvious connection, such as Amazon Basics and Amazon Commercial, and those that are generally known to be owned by the company, including Kindle and Zappos. But they also include dozens more, such as Happy Belly, Daily Ritual, and Society New York, where the connection to the company is not obvious. Those are in addition to the estimated <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/kirimasters\/2019\/07\/30\/amazon-launches-its-first-b2b-private-label-brand\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">hundreds<\/a> of third-party brands that are exclusive to the site.<\/p>\n<p>We analyzed search results on Amazon for 3,492 popular internet product queries in January 2021 and looked closely at what Amazon placed in the first spot. In 60 percent of cases, Amazon sold this spot to an advertiser and added a public label indicating the listing was \u201csponsored.\u201d Of the rest, Amazon gave half to its own brands and brands exclusive to the site, and the other half to competing brands. But Amazon brands and exclusives made up only 6 percent of all products in the sample, and competitors made up 77 percent. In short, Amazon was hogging the top spot.<\/p>\n<p>In more than a quarter of searches in which Amazon gave its brands the top spot, it placed its products above competitors that had both better ratings and more reviews than the Amazon brand or exclusive product.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018They would shut us down\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>Sellers said there\u2019s no mistaking the effect on sales of Amazon\u2019s choices in search results.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the customers are not seeing [our products] in the top five offers, then it makes it really hard for us to reach customers,\u201d said Gabriela Mekler, a Miami mom who co-founded the organizational products company Mumi in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Mumi\u2019s top product\u2014a set of color-coded packing cubes\u2014struggles for visibility on Amazon, even after more than two years on the site. She said the coronavirus pandemic decimated her sales\u2014they dropped by more than 68 percent\u2014costing the company a hard-won \u201cAmazon\u2019s Choice\u201d badge on its packing cubes.<\/p>\n<p>Mumi has not been placed on the first page of our search results for \u201cpacking cubes\u201d for months. At the time of this writing, Amazon Basics took up eight spots on the first page; one was labeled \u201cfeatured from our brands.\u201d None were visibly marked \u201csponsored.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTheir product will always show before yours,\u201d Mekler said.<\/p>\n<p>One Mumi product has still been selling well despite the pandemic, she said: reusable pill pouches. For now, there is no Amazon Basics pill pouch, and Mekler hopes there won\u2019t be anytime soon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re a small company,\u201d she said. \u201cThey would shut us down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some a<span>nnotated <a href=\"https:\/\/themarkup.org\/amazons-advantage\/2021\/10\/14\/amazon-puts-its-own-brands-first-above-better-rated-products#amazon-mainstory-product-grid\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">examples<\/a> of popular searches we collected in January 2021. Source: The Markup \/ Amazon<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, which represents more than 30,000 distributors, submitted a <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.house.gov\/meetings\/JU\/JU05\/20200729\/110883\/HHRG-116-JU05-20200729-SD008.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">letter<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.house.gov\/meetings\/JU\/JU05\/20200729\/110883\/HHRG-116-JU05-20200729-SD008.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"> to members of Congress<\/a> in July 2020, complaining that Amazon \u201cabuses its position\u201d to give preferential treatment to its house brands.<\/p>\n<p>But when The Markup asked to speak to some of the sellers the group had quoted anonymously, NAW\u2019s vice president of government relations, Blake Adami, demurred.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur members are still very hesitant to speak out against Amazon for fear of retaliation,\u201d he said in an email, \u201ceven anonymously.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Many sellers whose products we found were placed below Amazon products with fewer sales or ratings also declined a reporter\u2019s request to be interviewed for this article, saying they were concerned it would negatively affect their livelihoods.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody\u2019s so scared of Amazon,\u201d said Paul Rafelson, executive director of the Online Merchants Guild, which represents Amazon sellers. \u201cTheir whole livelihood relies on them.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018This was a knockoff\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>Some of Amazon\u2019s competitors have accused the company of knocking off their products to sell under its house brands.<\/p>\n<p>Williams Sonoma settled a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.courtlistener.com\/docket\/8418854\/136\/williams-sonoma-inc-v-amazoncom-inc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">lawsuit<\/a> that included the claim that Amazon was copying West Elm furniture and selling it under the Amazon house brand Rivet. Allbirds co-CEO Joey Zwillinger <a href=\"https:\/\/joeyzwillinger.medium.com\/dear-mr-bezos-e691f6d6d705\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">wrote<\/a> an open letter to Jeff Bezos when Amazon\u2019s 206 Collective brand copied his company\u2019s wool sneaker, urging Amazon to adopt Allbirds\u2019 sustainability practices in addition to its design.<\/p>\n<p>In March, Amazon Basics started selling the Everyday Sling, a camera bag with a similar design, the same name but a much lower price than a product from Peak Design.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt wasn\u2019t like they took some styling cues from it. This was a knockoff,\u201d CEO Peter Dering said in an interview. The smaller company <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2021\/3\/3\/22311574\/peak-design-video-amazon-copy-everyday-sling-bag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">produced<\/a> a parody video that now has 4.6 million views on YouTube. Within hours, Amazon changed the product\u2019s name.<\/p>\n<p>Dering said he wasn\u2019t worried about losing sales because Peak Design mainly targets wholesalers and customers who want a high-end brand. Still, he said he found the move \u201chighly distasteful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rona, the Amazon spokesperson, said the company \u201cdid not infringe\u201d on Allbirds\u2019 or Peak Design\u2019s \u201cdesign rights\u201d&nbsp;and \u201cstrictly prohibit[s] our employees from using nonpublic, seller-specific data to determine which store brand products to launch.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Hard to spot<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Identifying all of Amazon\u2019s brands and brand exclusives to the site for this investigation was cumbersome. The company does not provide a complete list. The Markup\u2019s reporting team used various filters on the site, reviewed the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records, and reviewed Amazon bestseller lists\u2014but even then we likely missed some.<\/p>\n<p>Consumers would have an even harder time. We found Amazon does not consistently label its brands and exclusives.<\/p>\n<p>Of the products in our sample that Amazon considered \u201cour brands,\u201d about two in five were not labeled as such in search results nor did they carry a name that many people would understand was connected to the company, such as Amazon Basics, Kindle, or Whole Foods.<\/p>\n<p>Inconsistent labeling, combined with an almost endless stream of its own private brands, leaves customers in the dark to decide whether Amazon highly ranked a particular product because it was a good buy or because it benefited the company\u2019s bottom line.<\/p>\n<p>Nine in 10 respondents to the national survey The Markup commissioned in July didn\u2019t know that Amazon\u2019s highest-selling house brands, apart from Amazon Basics, were owned by the company.<\/p>\n<p>Even there, 24 percent of respondents could not identify Amazon Basics as an Amazon brand, and half didn\u2019t know Amazon owned Whole Foods.<\/p>\n<p>To test your knowledge, Select all products from Amazon brands and exclusives: <a href=\"https:\/\/themarkup.org\/amazons-advantage\/2021\/10\/14\/amazon-puts-its-own-brands-first-above-better-rated-products#amazon-mainstory-brand-quiz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">link<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Alex Harman, competition policy advocate at Public Citizen who has studied Amazon\u2019s marketplace, said that to him, the strategy of creating a stream of brands without a clear affiliation to Amazon feels \u201cdeceptive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Large brick-and-mortar retailers also have house brands. Costco has Kirkland Signature. Target has Up&amp;Up, among others. Historically, he said, when large stores create brands they have been clearly affiliated with the store.<\/p>\n<p>And Amazon\u2019s search results are different from a store shelf.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnlike a retail store where you see everything on the shelf, the platform may be in a position to elevate its goods in a way that is harder to do in a retail outlet,\u201d said Baer, the former FTC official, and assistant attorney general at the Justice Department.<\/p>\n<p>By creating more than a hundred trademarked brands, most without an obvious connection to the company, Amazon can preserve its reputation if one of its homegrown products flops. This happened in 2015 when customer reviews for its newly launched Amazon Elements diapers included complaints about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2015\/jan\/21\/amazon-nappies-soft-cozy-diapers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">leaks<\/a> and \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/gigaom.com\/2015\/01\/21\/amazon-pulls-its-diaper-brand-after-6-weeks-citing-need-for-redesign\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">sagginess<\/a>.\u201d Amazon <a href=\"https:\/\/gigaom.com\/2015\/01\/21\/amazon-pulls-its-diaper-brand-after-6-weeks-citing-need-for-redesign\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">pulled the products<\/a> after just seven weeks to make \u201cdesign improvements.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the small business advocacy group Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and a frequent Amazon critic, said that as Amazon\u2019s brands squeeze competitors, those competitors have less money to spend on innovation\u2014and consumers lose.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cConsumers don\u2019t even know what\u2019s missing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Case in point: Brandon Fuhrmann, who runs the New York Amazon Seller Meetup. He was considering expanding his kitchenware brand into a new type of dishware. While checking trademark registrations and U.S. import logs for sellers with similar products, he realized that the majority of his competition would come from Amazon brands.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen that happened, we realized we couldn\u2019t even compete,\u201d he said. He decided not to launch the product.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Rise of Amazon brands<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Amazon has continually set its sights on dizzying growth.<\/p>\n<p>It launched in 1995, with the goal of becoming \u201cEarth\u2019s Biggest Bookstore.\u201d Four years later, it declared its intention to become \u201cEarth\u2019s Biggest Selection.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s nearly there: People now spend <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/08\/17\/technology\/amazon-walmart.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">more money on Amazon than at Walmart<\/a>, making it the world\u2019s largest retail seller outside of China.<\/p>\n<p>To reach this point, it took a page from rival eBay\u2019s playbook, inviting individuals and business owners to list rare, used, and collectible items\u2014which quickly transitioned to third parties selling mainstream, new wares on Amazon.<\/p>\n<p>In 2003, Jason Boyce got a call from Amazon asking him to list his company\u2019s basketball products on the nascent marketplace.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-image post-mediaBleed aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-1370158 js-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Jason-Boyce_JB_-1-360x540-1.jpeg\" alt=\"Amazon\" width=\"269\" height=\"404\" sizes=\"(max-width: 269px) 100vw, 269px\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Jason-Boyce_JB_-1-360x540-1.jpeg 360w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Jason-Boyce_JB_-1-360x540-1-140x210.jpeg 140w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Jason-Boyce_JB_-1-360x540-1-90x135.jpeg 90w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Jason-Boyce_JB_-1-360x540-1-180x270.jpeg 180w\"><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/amazon-brands-above-better-rated-products-syndication#\" data-url=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Feditorial.thenextweb.com%2Finsider%2F2021%2F10%2F17%2Famazon-brands-above-better-rated-products-syndication%2F&amp;via=thenextweb&amp;related=thenextweb&amp;text=Check out this picture on: Jason Boyce, photographed at his home, on October 4th, 2021. (James Bernal for The Markup)\" data-title=\"Share Jason Boyce, photographed at his home, on October 4th, 2021. (James Bernal for The Markup) on Twitter\" data-width=\"685\" data-height=\"500\" class=\"post-image-share popitup\" title=\"Share Jason Boyce, photographed at his home, on October 4th, 2021. (James Bernal for The Markup) on Twitter\"><i class=\"icon icon--inline icon--twitter--dark\"><\/i><\/a>Jason Boyce, photographed at his home, on October 4th, 2021. (James Bernal for The Markup)<\/figcaption><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-1370158\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Jason-Boyce_JB_-1-360x540-1.jpeg\" alt=\"Amazon\" width=\"269\" height=\"404\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Jason-Boyce_JB_-1-360x540-1.jpeg 360w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Jason-Boyce_JB_-1-360x540-1-140x210.jpeg 140w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Jason-Boyce_JB_-1-360x540-1-90x135.jpeg 90w, https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/10\/Jason-Boyce_JB_-1-360x540-1-180x270.jpeg 180w\"><\/noscript><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re like, what are you talking about? You guys sell books,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat do you mean you\u2019re selling sporting goods?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Boyce took the plunge and his company\u2019s basketball sales took off on Amazon.<\/p>\n<p>By 2018, third-party sellers like Boyce were responsible for 58 percent of physical goods sales on Amazon. They helped boost Amazon\u2019s North American sales by more than an order of magnitude, from $24.5 billion in 2009 to $386.1 billion in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>The volume created fortunes for small businesses across the world. It also created a deep reliance on Amazon. A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.junglescout.com\/amazon-seller-report\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">2021 report<\/a> by JungleScout, which provides software for Amazon sellers, found that Amazon was the only source of income for 22 percent of Amazon\u2019s third-party sellers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWithin two years of getting on Amazon, most of my clients, whether they want to or not, it becomes their single biggest sales channel,\u201d said James Thomson, who was a manager at Amazon from 2007 to 2012 and now works at the e-commerce consulting firm Buy Box Experts.<\/p>\n<p>And these new third-party sellers had lots of competition, eventually from Amazon itself.<\/p>\n<p>Boyce said Amazon started undercutting his business, selling the same sporting goods\u2014Spalding basketballs, for example\u2014for less.<\/p>\n<p>Unable to compete with Amazon on price for brand-name products, Boyce and his brothers launched their own brand, Harvil, in 2007, to sell sporting goods and home recreation equipment on Amazon. They figured Amazon couldn\u2019t undercut their prices if he and his brothers owned the brand.<\/p>\n<p>They had no idea Amazon was also beginning to launch its own brands and to enter into deals with companies to develop brands exclusive to the platform.<\/p>\n<p>Among the first Amazon brands was Pinzon (a likely nod to the first conquistador to stumble across the Amazon River), which Amazon registered as a trademark in 2007 to sell bedding. Then came Denali for tools, and Amazon Basics for a slew of products, including household appliances and office supplies.<\/p>\n<p>Sometime in 2017, Boyce was searching keywords related to his products on Amazon\u2014\u201dbocce ball,\u201d \u201cair hockey table\u201d\u2014when he noticed a new brand, Rally and Roar, peddling very similar products to his own. They showed up at the top of search results.<\/p>\n<p>Rally and Roar are exclusive to Amazon, labeled as \u201cour brands.\u201d The company was moving in on his territory, again.<\/p>\n<p>The speed of Amazon\u2019s expansion of its own brands has been accelerating, according to several e-commerce and retail research firms. TJI Research counted 598 Amazon-exclusive brands in 2019. Coresight Research said Amazon brand products on the site <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitalcommerce360.com\/2020\/05\/20\/amazon-triples-its-private%E2%80%91label-product-offerings-in-2-years\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">tripled<\/a> in the two years between 2018 and 2020 alone.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon invites companies and individuals to join its \u201cour brands\u201d family through programs like Amazon Accelerator, which promises increased exposure for products sold exclusively on Amazon in exchange for extra fees, and sets a sales price if Amazon chooses to later buy the brand.<\/p>\n<p>Boyce and his brothers had already been talking about getting off Amazon\u2019s platform when they noticed Rally and Roar pop up. That settled it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re like, we\u2019re not going to sit around and wait for Amazon to knock off the rest of our private-label products as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>They sold the business.<\/p>\n<h2>A leg up<\/h2>\n<p>For years, Amazon gave items from its own brands multiple advantages when they first launched, said JT Meng, a former house brand manager at Amazon\u2014though he said the practice has since stopped.<\/p>\n<p>Employees manually applied the Amazon\u2019s Choice label to a new Amazon brand product, even if it didn\u2019t meet the usual criteria, he said.<\/p>\n<p>And instead of starting from scratch in search results with zero reviews, sales, and stars, Meng said employees used a tactic called \u201csearch seeding\u201d for new products, \u201ccloning\u201d a competing product\u2019s search ranking and allowing the new Amazon product to appear immediately below that competitor in search results.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe would use that for all of our products from the get-go for the first six months or longer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Meng worked on the launch for Amazon Elements baby wipes, which he said were seeded against similar products from Huggies, Pampers, and others.<\/p>\n<p>Sales spiked so quickly that his team had to stop promoting the Amazon Elements wipes so they didn\u2019t take too much market share, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Once a new house brand product was established, Meng said employees would turn off search seeding. \u201cWithout fail, your product would drop in ranking,\u201d he said, \u201cbut the hope was that it would drop a small amount.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By the time Meng left Amazon in 2016, he said search seeding and adding the Amazon\u2019s Choice label to new Amazon brand products were no longer allowed.<\/p>\n<p>Sellers who do try to compete with Amazon brands today said they feel compelled to pay for sponsored listings in order to get a higher result for non-sponsored listings on Amazon. On its Seller Central site, Amazon underlines to sellers how important sales are, stating that \u201cbetter-selling products tend to list towards the beginning of search\u201d and that as sales increase \u201cso does your placement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can\u2019t not advertise anymore,\u201d said Boyce, who after selling his sporting goods line founded a consulting firm, Avenue7Media, which advises companies and individuals who want to sell on Amazon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou turn off the ads and you lose organic rank within days,\u201d Boyce said. \u201cIt\u2019s pay to play.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lots of companies are paying.<\/p>\n<p>We found that inside the search results alone, 17 percent of products were paid listings. That doesn\u2019t include entire rows of sponsored products that appear as special modules on about a third of search result pages. (Including those would roughly double the ad percentage on the first results page.)<\/p>\n<p>Amazon is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.emarketer.com\/content\/amazon-s-share-of-us-digital-ad-market-surpassed-10-2020\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">third-largest<\/a> seller of online advertising in the U.S., after Google and Facebook, and is growing fast. \u201cOther\u201d revenue, which the company says \u201cprimarily includes sales of advertising services,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/amazonir.gcs-web.com\/node\/36371\/html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">jumped<\/a> 52 percent from 2019 to 2020, to $21.4 billion a year.<\/p>\n<h2>Struggling for visibility<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re willing to spend a ton of money, you can sell a ton of product,\u201d said Evan Patterson, vice president of business development at California-based Linco, which is one of Boyce\u2019s clients.<\/p>\n<p>The 47-year-old family-owned institution makes casters, the small wheels that attach to office chairs and industrial gear\u2014and has a solid reputation in the offline world for premium products. It competes against a product from Amazon Commercial, among others.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s so well known in industrial circles that Linco\u2019s competitors advertise against its name within Amazon\u2019s search results, Patterson said.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Linco hasn\u2019t consistently listed on the first page of search results for \u201ccaster wheels,\u201d despite selling on Amazon for years. It will appear on the first page for Patterson, but did not in repeated searches by The Markup.<\/p>\n<p>The only thing that seems to help Linco\u2019s search ranking, Patterson said, is to spend more money for paid listings on Amazon. The company now pays about $10,000 a month for advertising.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur search ranking has improved dramatically,\u201d Patterson said.<\/p>\n<p>But it still has a ways to go. When The Markup searched for \u201ccaster wheels\u201d at the time of writing, Linco appeared in the middle of the fifth page.<\/p>\n<p><em>This article was <a href=\"https:\/\/themarkup.org\/amazons-advantage\/2021\/10\/14\/amazon-puts-its-own-brands-first-above-better-rated-products\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">originally published on The Markup<\/a> by Adrianne Jeffries and Leon Yin and was republished under the <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> license.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/amazon-brands-above-better-rated-products-syndication\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It took Robert Gomez about five months to get his Kaffe coffee grinder to the big leagues in e-commerce: among the first three search results for \u201ccoffee grinder\u201d on Amazon.com. Gomez, founder&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8408"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}