> Costco and Amazon collect and analyze sales data from the sale of both company and non-company products.
It's similar, although personally I think the relationship between the companies is meaningfully different:
Costco purchases product from manufacturers, and may choose to source product from other manufacturers (including under its own brand name). It uses it's own sales data to make this decision.
Amazon acts as a marketplace for other businesses to list and sell their own products. These businesses are online retailers which use the Amazon platform, and pay Amazon fees for this service. Amazon is then using other retailers sales data in order to inform it's own business.
The difference is with Costco it is their own sales data, while in Amazon it is the sales data of other retailers. It would be an issue if Walmart had access to Costco's sales data and not visa-versa (this would provide Walmart with an unfair competitive advantage). Similarly other smaller online retailers do not get access to Amazon's sales data, but Amazon get's access to the other retailers sales data who use their platform, and will then use this to compete with them.
Despite this I don't see how the case is that Amazon is being anti competitive while Costco isn't - just because they purchase and resell inventory doesn't mean Costco (or Walmart or Sams Club etc) doesn't hold the same power over their product suppliers that Amazon does to do data science on their sales to determine what new products to make in-house.
Plus, walmart is now a marketplace as well. This overpriced GPU is 'Sold & shipped by Monoprice Inc'. It's only a matter of time before Walmart commits the same anticompetitive acts as Amazon using Marketplace data. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Zotac-NVIDIA-GeForce-RTX-3080-Gra...
Analyzing their own sales and analyzing other people's sales on their platform are two different things. Saying that Walmart may also try to do this in the future does not make it right or excusable.
Who takes the risk in each scenario is different. If Amazon was only using their own sales data then they'd need to start selling a more diverse range of products themselves to acquire that data. Some of those products would sell well and some would be flops. Amazon would have invested money into selling all of them so the cost for the flops negatively affects their bottom line.
In the current scenario someone else sells things on Amazon and is taking the risk that the item they're selling will not sell well. If the item is a hit, Amazon swoops in and starts selling it themselves or possibly makes a competitor and sells it themselves. Either way, Amazon reduces their own risk of selling poorly performing products while also cutting into the upside for the vendor who took that risk when they are successful.
Edit: I forgot to mention above that the people taking this risk are paying Amazon to do so.
> Just because they purchase and resell inventory doesn't mean Costco (or Walmart or Sams Club etc) doesn't hold the same power over their product suppliers that Amazon does
With the Costco example, Costco as a retailer holds power over their product suppliers. If they are making an own brand, what they are doing is buying it from another supplier and asking that manufacturer to put their own label on it. These relationships can be anti-competitive and present opportunities for market-abuse, but in a meaningfully different way to the Amazon example.
With the Amazon example, Amazon holds power over other retailers using their platform.
And with the Walmart example you have stated, I do think that suffers from the same problems.
To be competitive, Amazon would be able to say everyone has access to the same information to rent out the online marketplace's booths. This is the issue at hand--Amazon has all of the information and is breaking its own rules in using it to give them advantage in the marketplace. Greedy greedy capitalistic cheesey.
It's similar, although personally I think the relationship between the companies is meaningfully different:
Costco purchases product from manufacturers, and may choose to source product from other manufacturers (including under its own brand name). It uses it's own sales data to make this decision.
Amazon acts as a marketplace for other businesses to list and sell their own products. These businesses are online retailers which use the Amazon platform, and pay Amazon fees for this service. Amazon is then using other retailers sales data in order to inform it's own business.
The difference is with Costco it is their own sales data, while in Amazon it is the sales data of other retailers. It would be an issue if Walmart had access to Costco's sales data and not visa-versa (this would provide Walmart with an unfair competitive advantage). Similarly other smaller online retailers do not get access to Amazon's sales data, but Amazon get's access to the other retailers sales data who use their platform, and will then use this to compete with them.