[HN Gopher] Antitrust lawsuit says Apple and Amazon colluded to ...
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Antitrust lawsuit says Apple and Amazon colluded to raise iPhone,
iPad prices
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 256 points
Date : 2022-11-09 18:02 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hbsslaw.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hbsslaw.com)
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I helped build the online division for a major consumer product
| that had market force to force retailers to price at msrp. It was
| fascinating the extent they went to build the appearance they
| weren't being anticompetitive when in reality everyone knew they
| were and their pricing was uniform across all retailers. They
| also bought all excess inventory back at cost and destroyed it to
| ensure no grey market could exist. They even went so far as
| requiring retailer websites to essentially #include our website
| components embedded in their framing and branding to ensure total
| compliance and to ensure competitors products wouldn't be
| displayed along side.
|
| I think these antics are pervasive in high end products as a way
| of ensuring their exclusivity and to prevent dilution of their
| brand. But they were extraordinarily sensitive to the
| anticompetitiveness of their behavior to the extent we weren't
| allowed to even say the words "monopoly" let alone write anything
| like it down.
| judge2020 wrote:
| complaint: https://www.hbsslaw.com/sites/default/files/case-
| downloads/a...
|
| Basically alleging Apple disallowing third-party resellers from
| appearing on their Amazon pages is anticompetitive and caused
| consumers to pay more than if they had the option to purchase the
| devices from 3p sellers (page 41).
| adrr wrote:
| Be interesting to see how this case shakes out. Amazon has a
| huge fraud issue and intermingling inventory won't help a claim
| that it was to prevent counterfeits.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/airpods/comments/ekmuyd/beware_thes...
| throwntoday wrote:
| The counterfeit issue basically didn't exist before they
| started allowing chinese sellers. I don't know why they
| didn't bother to track the origin of individual items before
| mixing.
| HappySweeney wrote:
| It would have cost them plenty of money, which I guess was
| not worth their (at the time) reputation for authenticity.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| I'm not so sure of that.
|
| I ordered several products before the platform was
| inundated with Chinese junk and I later found out all the
| stuff I bought was counterfeit. I think that there was a
| lot of Chinese sellers using drop shippers to avoid showing
| their products were coming from China.
|
| One was a Microsoft Sculpt keyboard new in the box with the
| mouse. I liked it so much a few months later, I couldn't
| find the original seller, so I bought one off of
| Microsoft's site - as soon I got it, I could tell the one I
| got on Amazon was a counterfeit.
|
| Same thing with some Lucky jeans. I got a pair off of
| Amazon and then went to the Lucky store they had in a local
| mall. As soon as I picked them up, I knew the pair I had
| were fake. The cotton wasn't the same (the real one's are
| super soft denim) and when I went to look closer at the
| tags on mine, the tags were off in several areas.
|
| I had two more things I bought there which turned out to be
| fake and that it was for me, I won't ever buy anything
| other than books from them now. I know its gotten much
| worse since I stopped buying stuff on the site.
| behringer wrote:
| Careful. Even their books are fake.
|
| https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/6/24/18715584/amazon-
| coun...
| sokoloff wrote:
| Counterfeiting of clothing (particularly Nike and other
| branded sportswear) was _rampant_ on Amazon for years
| before the six-letter Chinese sellers of electronics showed
| up. Some of it was actually quite well-done, but still easy
| to demonstrate by cross-referencing tag information.
| tchalla wrote:
| > The lawsuit says the parties' illegal agreement brought the
| number of third-party sellers of Apple products on Amazon
| Marketplace from roughly 600 to just seven sellers - a loss of
| 98%, and by doing so, Amazon, which was formerly a marginal
| seller of Apple products, became the dominant seller of Apple
| products on Amazon Marketplace.
|
| Apple (future argument) - "We regularly review our sellers for
| counterfeit goods. During this review, we found indications of
| non-original Apple products. We regularly co-operate with our
| industry partners to maintain high standards for our products"
|
| ^ that's my version not Apple's.
| jaywalk wrote:
| That hypothetical argument doesn't even make sense. Apple could
| (and still can) have counterfeits taken down. This has nothing
| to do with that.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The counterfeiters can create accounts faster than you can
| shut them down, which is likely what led them to the next
| step, asking Amazon to only permit certain vetted resellers.
| zdragnar wrote:
| I'm not sure that I buy it either, but I don't think it is
| out of the realm of possibility that Apple would take more
| proactive steps than merely waiting to find counterfeits and
| report them, especially when a marketplace like Amazon is so
| poorly curated that the counterfeiters will just pop back up
| again.
| RajT88 wrote:
| It makes a great deal of sense if you get into the wording.
| Non-original doesn't necessarily mean counterfeit. It could
| refer to "not sold by Apple or an authorized retailer", i.e.
| used / refurbs.
|
| I don't think they'd go down that path. Risk of ending up in
| the pile of corporations who have lost the fight against the
| law of first sale.
| smm11 wrote:
| Apple stuff has always cost what Apple stuff cost.
|
| At one point you could shop around at places such as Best Buy and
| get an Apple device with a "free" printer or something, but you
| were still paying what Apple charged for the Apple device. I
| guess I don't follow what's going on here.
| danaris wrote:
| I mean...that _is_ what 's going on here. That's not supposed
| to be possible. (And I say this as an unapologetic Apple fan.)
|
| When Apple's products are never available (barring certain rare
| sales) for significantly less than Apple themselves retails
| them, that's an indication that some kind of price fixing is
| going on. Yes, it's price fixing for the products of a single
| supplier, which means that there's a lot less to do, and a lot
| less benefit to be gained (ie, the least you're going to be
| able to sell it for without taking a loss is Apple's wholesale
| price), but it's still illegal.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| It is definitely price-fixing. But vertical price-fixing
| (which is what occurs when a manufacturer tries to control
| the price of its product at retail) is not a _per se_
| violation of US anti-trust law.
|
| ref. https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/522/3.html
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > That's not supposed to be possible.
|
| It happens to me all the time with non-Apple products. Always
| the same price, down to the penny. Pricing agreements between
| the manufacturer and their resellers seem to be pretty
| common.
|
| If we're suddenly going to decide that's illegal, it will
| have a huge impact on the market.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > That's not supposed to be possible.
|
| Why not? Apple isn't under any obligation to sell to anyone
| at a wholesale price, and can apply conditions via a contract
| when they do so.
|
| Arizona iced tea even prints the price on the cans to prevent
| people from fucking with it.
| milderworkacc wrote:
| In perfectly competitive markets, producers are price
| takers. That includes at a wholesale distribution level.
|
| Being able to pick and choose your customers (and apply
| conditions to any sale that favour Apple and disadvantage
| the customer) is a perfect indication of the level of
| market power that apple possesses.
|
| Most businesses in competitive industries don't get to do
| that.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Tesla?
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Arizona iced tea even prints the price on the cans to
| prevent people from fucking with it.
|
| Any number of products print the MSRP on the packaging.
| You'll notice it if you peel off the label showing the
| price you bought the thing for.
| [deleted]
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| is what's going on here class action attorneys targeting
| companies with big savings accounts, hoping anything might
| stick?
|
| I mean, Apple and Amazon don't make competing products wrt the
| lawsuit, so they can't collude to price fix their separate
| products and defeat the market?
|
| I keep trying to see what i'm overlooking...presuming somehow
| it makes sense.
| lupire wrote:
| Amazon always sold Apple stuff for $50-$100 less than Apple
| did. $250 iPad for years.
| adamsmark wrote:
| Sellers like Mercate Group are a solid reason why the
| Apple/Amazon agreement took place. Look at the seller feedback -
| I'm not sure I understand why they're still allowed to list
| product for smartphones/electronics.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/sp?ie=UTF8&seller=A389ML6MNB3VQK&asin...
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| The argument in this case seems all kinds of weird. Basically, it
| seems to be that Amazon, by restricting third party sellers of
| Apple products from its marketplace, is somehow engaged in a
| horizontal price-fixing agreement with Apple. This is despite the
| fact that the only products whose produced by Apple are affected,
| are involved - which is sort of the definition of vertical price-
| fixing - and neither Amazon nor Apple control the prices of other
| vendors, only whether or not they're allowed on Amazon's platform
| - which is not in any case an exclusive channel for Apple
| products.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Where consumers used to be able to find discounted prices of
| upwards of 20% for iPhones and iPads for sale on Amazon
| Marketplace, now they get locked into Apple's premium pricing.
|
| How were these resellers selling iPhones and iPads for 20% off?
| [deleted]
| threeseed wrote:
| You can exploit currency differences to get a discount.
|
| For example, in Australia Apple locks the exchange rate at
| certain points in order to maintain a consistent price. When
| the rate moves against say the USD you can import phones at a
| cheaper price.
|
| Never seen it be as high as 20% though.
| mike_d wrote:
| Organized retail theft rings. Both the stuff you see on the
| evening news where a group grabs everything off the shelf at an
| Apple store and one off thefts from places like Best Buy.
|
| The fact that Amazon willingly participated in this scheme is a
| strong indicator that they were getting a high volume of charge
| backs and returns that they had to eat because the devices were
| new in box but couldn't be activated.
| asadlionpk wrote:
| Are you telling me Apple doesn't immediately ban those
| devices?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Isn't that why GP says they'd be getting returned to
| Amazon?
| drewg123 wrote:
| Couldn't Apple just enable Activation Lock for the IMEI or
| serial numbers of the stolen devices? Maybe the retailers are
| not able to report the serial numbers / IMEIs of stolen
| devices back to Apple?
| boplicity wrote:
| It used to be quite easy to find used Apple products on Amazon.
| For example, I bought a used 2013 Macbook Pro with Applecare
| included at a decent discount. When it came time to replace it,
| similar options weren't available on Amazon, unfortunately.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| This doesn't seem to be talking about used sales, though.
| lupire wrote:
| Why unfortunate? There are great marketplaces like
| Backmarket.
| dylan604 wrote:
| There's a difference from selling used as an individual vs
| selling used as store. There are authorized used Mac sellers,
| but I'd imagine they'd be under the same Apple mandates on
| what is allowed. If some of these sellers on Amazon "fucked
| around and found out" what happens when you break an Apple
| contract, then whoops! A contract is there for a reason.
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| This is the question I have as well. Seems like they would be
| breaking their agreement with Apple about being an authorized
| seller.
|
| Lots of companies refuse to let their products be sold at a
| lower price in order to protect their prices. There was one
| software company in particular that wrote into the contract
| that you could not resell the software to 3rd party. You could
| only sell it back to the software company. This was specialty
| software, and licenses averaged around $40k per seat.
| scottcodie wrote:
| It depends on the buy back price for if this scheme benefits
| customers or not. Lets say I'm nabisco and I tell grocers
| that instead of putting my product on sale and potentially
| take a loss that I'll buy back that product. The risk of
| selling the product is on nabisco rather than the grocer and
| the grocer may stock more nabisco goods because of it.
| However, if the terms are not favorable then consumers should
| be more skeptical in agreeing to those terms depending on
| their risk tolerance. Extreme examples of this do often fall
| into anti-trust.
| lupire wrote:
| That latter part is to prevent resale, which is not related
| to retail price and manufacturer's wholesale price.
| gausswho wrote:
| I've sometimes wondered why it's legal for markets to be coerced
| not to price items below MSRP. The acronym includes the word
| suggested right? Not mandated?
| jcampbell1 wrote:
| It isn't a mandate. It is a condition for resupply.
|
| High end sporting good brands are known for enforcing MSRP so
| the high end retailers have budget for sales people and demos.
| They cutoff supply to discount retailers to maintain good
| relationships with retailers.
|
| REI would drop North Face in a second if North Face clothing
| was available at the TJMaxx next door. The relationship cuts
| both ways.
| gausswho wrote:
| I understand the chain of incentives, but I see room for it
| being legislated away as anti-consumer.
| TillE wrote:
| That would effectively mean a law requiring companies to
| wholesale to anyone at the same price.
|
| That's a rather extreme intervention in a market for no
| clear benefit. We're really not talking about anything that
| can be construed as monopolistic behavior.
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| Oh the ghost of Steve Clinical-Sociopath Jobs lives on. I
| remember that price fixing suit very well. Also the employee
| poaching one. And his paternity case.
|
| Sucks that the only reason the iPod case lost was because nobody
| showed up in time with an affected device. I think I have one
| sitting on a shelf that I picked up along the way. Oh well,
| that's the law process for ya. It happened but Apple got to
| skate.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Apple has always been known to protect their MSRPs so that
| authorized sellers can't "steal" business from other sellers by
| offering lower advertised rates and undercutting other stores in
| the hopes of less margins more sales.
|
| Is that anti-competitive forcing all sellers to sell _your_
| product at the price _you_ want it sold?
| goosedragons wrote:
| Yes? Unless Apple goods are sold on consignment or something
| didn't the store buy their inventory from Apple? And so then
| it's not Apple's but the store's?
| dylan604 wrote:
| They bought their inventory from Apple within the provisions
| of the contract they signed to be allowed to sell Apple
| products. These companies are entering into a valid contract
| voluntarily. They can chose not to sign the contract, but
| then they don't get to sell Apple products.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| > Is that anti-competitive forcing all sellers to sell your
| product at the price you want it sold?
|
| Emphasis on _suggested_ in MSRP. Retailers can take a hit on a
| loss leader to get people to buy cases, earphones, etc. Unless
| businesses collude to not allow that.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Just like those places with no prices, just donations.
| Suggested donations are prices.
| rat9988 wrote:
| They are not the sellers, so they don't decide the price. They
| can force sellers through their market advantage. And this is
| why, in my guess, it's anti-competitive.
| contravariant wrote:
| How is preventing your competitors from undercutting your price
| _not_ anti-competitive? It 's preventing the _one thing_ that
| causes competition to lower prices. You 're literally
| explaining how Apple is using this to avoid resellers competing
| against apple stores.
|
| Besides they're no longer _their_ products, Apple lost
| ownership of them after they sold them. If someone chooses to
| resell them that 's their business, Apple is not involved in
| that sale at all. Technology companies have too much control
| over what people can and can't do with their products as is,
| let's not give them even more control.
|
| Of course just because it's anticompetitive does not mean that
| competition is _always_ desirable, with concert tickets for
| example it 's quite clear that competition is hurting more than
| it helps. Though I find "artists should get a say who can see
| their concert" much more reasonable than "Apple gets final say
| over all sales of Apple-manufactured products".
| brookst wrote:
| > Besides they're no longer their products, Apple lost
| ownership of them after they sold them.
|
| First sale doctrine is only for retail sales that have no
| contract outside the sale.
|
| In distribution, contracts can absolutely dictate terms. This
| is a good thing. It lets, for instance, Boeing require
| purchasers to properly maintain airplanes (it hurts Boeing
| when they fall out of the sky). It also lets manufacturers
| offer lower prices on the condition that products be
| displayed or promoted in certain ways. This is very common in
| retail ("we'll give you 5% off quantity 100 on the condition
| they're promoted in ads and an endcap in each store").
|
| The Apple / Amazon example is resale price maintenance.
| There's some good background on US law in the area: https://e
| n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resale_price_maintenance#Unite...
|
| In this specific example, where the claim is that Amazon and
| Apple colluded to raise prices by only allowing authorized
| Apple resellers on amazon.com, I guess I'm kind of
| sympathetic to Apple. At least inasmuch as they can show that
| sales from unauthorized resellers generate more
| warranty/support/other expense, or brand damage from even
| worse stuff like fraud and counterfeits.
|
| It seems like the real complaint is with the resale price
| maintenance in Apple's authorized reseller program. Which may
| be a fair complaint. But why not go after that? If the price
| maintenance is illegal, it should be illegal everywhere, not
| just Amazon. And if it's legal, it should be legal on Amazon
| as well.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| > In this specific example, where the claim is that Amazon
| and Apple colluded to raise prices by only allowing
| authorized Apple resellers on amazon.com, I guess I'm kind
| of sympathetic to Apple.
|
| This is false:
|
| "Ultimately Apple proposed, and Amazon agreed, to limit the
| number of resellers in each country to no more than 20.
| This arbitrary and purely quantitative threshold excluded
| even Authorized Resellers of Apple products."
|
| Apple is alleged to have created an Agreement with Amazon
| that retroactively limited the marketplaces where Apple
| Authorized Resellers could sell Apple products.
| eptcyka wrote:
| > I guess I'm kind of sympathetic to Apple. At least
| inasmuch as they can show that sales from unauthorized
| resellers generate more warranty/support/other expense
|
| Could you provide some proof for such statements?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The problem Apple and an _awful_ lot of other brands have
| (had) with Amazon, eBay and other stores allowing third-
| party sellers for their products is that there are an
| _awful_ lot of scammers around - Apple literally had to
| build a fake detector for AirPods into iOS [1] because
| the problem got so out of hand. And yes, obviously they
| have to deal with a lot of people expecting actual
| AirPods or other Apple hardware who got fakes and
| contacted the original brand for support.
|
| It's sad to say but unfortunately I don't see a way out
| of this mess than strict brand control measures.
|
| [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2022/09/12/iphone-fake-
| airpods-ale...
| brookst wrote:
| Proof that I'd be sympathetic if they showed those
| things? That's a tall ask. But I promise I would be.
|
| Proof that authorized resellers in aggregate provide
| better service and therefore fewer escalations/expense to
| the manufacturer? I didn't make that claim for Apple
| specifically, but it seems plausible.
| bombolo wrote:
| > but it seems plausible
|
| why? People working at apple stores are not more trained
| or more competent than people working in other stores.
| brookst wrote:
| I think there's some confusion here -- "Apple Authorized
| Reseller" does not mean "Apple Store". B&H is authorized,
| Amazon is authorized, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and
| T-Mobile are authorized resellers. There's a tiny local
| shop near me that's authorized.
|
| There are only ~500 Apple stores in the world. There are
| probably probably 100,000 authorized reseller locations
| (Walmart alone has 10,000 locations).
|
| Setting aside Apple, the reason companies set up
| authorized reseller programs is to control the customer
| experience, from price maintenance (the topic of this HN
| thread) to brand image to customer satisfaction with
| returns/refunds.
|
| Being authorized for any manufacturer is kind of a big
| deal; these companies pay for that arrangement, and there
| are often training requirements for staff, and minimum
| purchasing requirements, requirements for return/refund
| policies, and more. In return, the manufacturer steers
| business to these retailers and provides them with (often
| free) brand collateral, demo units, etc.
|
| So if a customer has a complaint, whether it's user error
| or defective product or a mistake by the retailer or just
| the customer deciding this product is not for them, there
| is a strong incentive for the retailer to do right by the
| customer to avoid jeopardizing their status as
| authorized.
|
| But if a customer needs help from a no-name reseller who
| has no direct manufacturer relationship, that reseller
| has little incentive to fix the issue. It's cheaper to
| just punt everything to the manufacturer, and there is no
| reason to do any extra work to protect the manufacturer's
| brand.
|
| And of course unauthorized resellers have a strong
| incentive to pass off refurbished or even counterfeit
| products as real. Lower cost, and there's no bridge to
| burn with the manufacturer.
|
| So all of that is why I think it's plausible that Apple,
| and other manufacturers, see increased costs and more
| negative brand experiences from companies that don't
| participate in their authorized reseller programs. I'm
| sure there are great indie companies that do everything
| right. But, in aggregate, at the scale of an Amazon.com,
| it seems reasonable for both Amazon and Apple to use the
| authorized reseller designation as a filter for sellers
| more likely to treat the customer well.
| factsarelolz wrote:
| >Apple is not involved in that sale at all.
|
| Apple is still on the hook to provide at least the bare
| minimum of support which costs Apple money.
| smoldesu wrote:
| They choose to offer that support themselves, there is no
| "hook" for them to be on. If their business model is found
| to be incompatible with a fair economy, they'll be forced
| to adapt.
| tjsix wrote:
| "How is preventing your competitors from undercutting your
| price not anti-competitive? It's preventing the one thing
| that causes competition to lower prices."
|
| Because Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) policies are one of
| the most common practices used by the large majority of
| consumer goods manufacturers and brands, especially in the
| electronics or higher end goods space.
|
| Every retailer who is an authorized seller of a brand that
| employs a MAP policy has agreed to advertise/list/publish the
| product at a price no lower than MAP, or risk losing their
| reseller status. Note that I did not say they can't sell for
| a lower price, just that they cannot show a lower price to
| the general public to elicit a sale.
|
| MAP is not just beneficial for the brand though, who's
| products remain priced accordingly to limits the brand has
| set; it's beneficial to the retailer who can count on a
| minimum set margin and not have to worry about being undercut
| by another retailer. It also benefits the end consumer by
| ensuring the retailer and brand retain enough margin on the
| sale to facilitate after-sale support and service as well
| provide the means to stay in business along with the benefit
| of helping to protect resale values (for applicable
| products). MAP policies themselves are fully legal under
| current anti-trust laws (in the US).
| mwint wrote:
| > Besides they're no longer their products
|
| This is correct for used devices, or course, but people in
| the wholesale chain will have signed contracts agreeing not
| to sell below MSRP.
|
| It's called "undercutting the channel", and it's very frowned
| on in the physical goods distribution industry.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Those aren't "third party resellers" which is what is being
| discussed.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| How does a third party get an iPhone at wholesale price,
| then? They're not going to undercut the channel if they
| have to buy at retail prices.
| from wrote:
| There's a pretty massive grey market in iPhones.
|
| There's a couple of ways they are sourced but basically:
|
| - Buy Apple gift cards for 70-80% of face value from
| let's just say dubious sources and then use that to buy
| phones
|
| - Fedex or warehouse employees stealing to supplement
| their salaries
|
| - Authorized retailers who break their agreement
|
| - Buyback websites or stores where people bring phones
| and get paid like 60% of retail or less if it's locked.
| Some of this is just people wanting to return a gift they
| got without asking the giver for the receipt but most of
| the phones bought at these kind of stores are obtained
| through "credit mulling" where they gather up a bunch of
| homeless people and pay them $20 to go into an AT&T store
| and get a phone on credit.
|
| - Currency arbitrage: if the Euro drops and companies
| don't update their prices and you are able to get VAT
| refunds then you could be able to get a phone for less
| than it's American retail value. This (big drop in yen)
| combined with the camera shutter is why Japanese spec
| iPhones can be a lot cheaper.
|
| https://www.hanggroup.com/price/ is a company with 9
| figure revenue that purchases these no questions asked.
| You can see the most they pay for a phone is $1050 for
| the 14 pro max which is $50 below retail.
| from wrote:
| Also I should add carrier auctions, store
| bankruptcies/liquidations, gaming credit card points but
| these are much less common than the methods listed above.
| mwint wrote:
| > Apple gift cards [...] from let's just say dubious
| sources
|
| Is this where the gift cards harvested from scam
| operations go?
| from wrote:
| The Nigerian or Indian scammer will usually get 40-50
| cents on the dollar in their local currency or crypto
| from a Chinese "gift card trader" who then sells it on
| Paxful or in Wechat/Whatsapp groups for 10-20% more than
| that. The groups doing it on a large scale have
| "shoppers" who spend all day buying electronics with the
| cards for a % of the amount.
| jtbayly wrote:
| They don't have to get it at wholesale price. They could
| have gotten one as a prize, but not want it. They could
| have gotten a great deal on one from AT&T or Verizon or
| T-Mobile, but just want to turn the deal into more cash
| by keeping their old phone and selling the new one. They
| might have gotten cash back by buying it on a credit card
| and be willing to sell it for slightly under MSRP to
| arbitrage the difference. All of these could lead to
| lower than MSRP prices.
| mikestew wrote:
| _They could have gotten one as a prize, but not want it._
|
| Your examples are unlikely to be how a "third-party
| reseller" obtained the phone(s).
| commoner wrote:
| Many people sell unwanted gifts and purchases that are
| not eligible for free return on marketplaces such as
| Amazon and eBay unopened. It's easy to sign up as an
| Amazon Marketplace seller, since there is an Individual
| plan with no monthly fees:
|
| https://sell.amazon.com/pricing#selling-plans
|
| In the past decade, Amazon started adding brand
| restrictions to prevent marketplace sellers from offering
| items on certain listings unless they met requirements
| set by the brand owner. This collapsed Amazon's
| marketplace for used goods of restricted brands and also
| hindered individuals selling new goods of restricted
| brands on Amazon. This lawsuit focuses on new goods of
| one of these restricted brands.
| jcampbell1 wrote:
| We are talking about Amazon not eBay. None of these
| examples make much sense. The real issue is iPhones
| aren't country locked and Apple works with a ton of
| retailers globally. It would just end up a cat and mouse
| game of Apple trying to figure out which desperate
| retailer is dumping inventory on Amazon in violation of
| Apple's agreement with the retailer.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Amazon has third party resellers. It's more similar to
| eBay than you might rhink
| jcampbell1 wrote:
| I know the process because I have setup an Amazon vendor
| account. You are not getting a vendor account to sell one
| phone you won in a bingo raffle.
| commoner wrote:
| I used to have an Amazon Seller account on the Individual
| plan, which has no monthly fees:
|
| https://sell.amazon.com/pricing#selling-plans
|
| Prior to Amazon's brand restrictions, Amazon Marketplace
| was a popular place for individuals to sell unwanted new
| and used goods. Selling on Amazon was even easier than
| selling on eBay, since there was no need to make a new
| product listing with photos and descriptions. Most of the
| new goods sold by Individual sellers were not raffle
| prizes, but unwanted goods such as gifts, items obtained
| at a discount, and items that were not eligible for free
| return to the original retailer.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| What if you bought new phones from others and then
| resold?
| mwint wrote:
| > They might have gotten cash back by buying it on a
| credit card and be willing to sell it for slightly under
| MSRP to arbitrage the difference.
|
| Has anyone made this work? I tried to make it work. Even
| at 10% (Discover IT category + end of year match), you
| can't buy something, have it shipped to you, sell it,
| ship it, and make money. Any online marketplace eats your
| profit very quickly with assorted fees.
| snazz wrote:
| And the Discover bonus is limited to $75 in cash back per
| quarter at the 5% rate (at least on the card I have),
| which means you could probably do it once or twice before
| you're back to earning 1%. And if you're in the first
| year you'd need to wait until the card's first birthday
| to get the other half, so you'd lose money until then.
| commoner wrote:
| A better example is Chase's promotion with Apple this
| year, which involves Chase credit card holders being able
| to redeem Ultimate Rewards points at a higher rate of up
| to 1.5 cents/point on Apple products compared to the
| standard rate of 1 cent/point for a limited time:
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2022/10/03/chase-apple-products-
| redempti...
|
| Many of Chase's credit card sign up offers provide enough
| points for a cardholder to obtain an iPhone through this
| promotion. If the cardholder does not want the iPhone,
| they could resell it on a marketplace. Amazon Marketplace
| used to be one of these marketplaces until it started
| restricting listings for certain brands such as Apple.
| Zircom wrote:
| If you contacts overseas and enough volume you can often
| move various electronics for a decent margin. It's pretty
| involved though.
|
| One of the routes I'm aware of involves buying gift cards
| from Kroger with a high cash back credit card during
| their frequent events where they offer extra fuel points
| on purchases. They don't charge activation fees on gift
| cards, and you can sell the fuel points accounts somewhat
| under the table on eBay, and then pocket the cash back
| from your credit card. Then you wait til black Friday or
| other sales, use the gift cards to buy electronics at
| discounted prices, and then ship them overseas to sell
| for a decent markup. It involves floating tens of
| thousands of dollars for several months though so not
| quite for your average individual just trying to make
| some quick cash.
| boogahB00 wrote:
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > Is that anti-competitive forcing all sellers to sell your
| product at the price you want it sold
|
| Is restrictiong competition antimcompetitive?
|
| Is taking someone else's money stealing?
|
| Is putting people in chains and selling them slavery?
|
| Do words mean anything?
| ouid wrote:
| yes
| postalrat wrote:
| What do you mean by "all sellers"? Does that include people
| selling used devices?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > Is that anti-competitive forcing all sellers to sell _your_
| product at the price you want it sold?
|
| Yes. And it's not supposed to be ""your"" product after you
| sell it to a retailer.
| judge2020 wrote:
| This is actually shifting, from what I've heard; if you're a
| small physical product seller and want to get your stuff on
| retailer shelves, you essentially pay Best Buy a shelf space
| & inventory fee instead of selling your product to them. This
| means Best Buy can take a chance putting garbage (or not)
| products on their shelves without having to take a loss (in
| the form of a discount) on any unsold inventory.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Big Box retailers will give you shelf space, but if product
| isn't moving, they can force you to buy it back from them.
| That's part of the agreement signed between the parties.
| Just like Apple putting in as part of the contract that you
| sell at stated price, it's something agreed between
| parties.
| crooked-v wrote:
| > And it's not supposed to be ""your"" product after you sell
| it to a retailer.
|
| ...unless you have a contract with that retailer around the
| conditions of the sale, which Apple and lots of other big
| companies do with their bulk retailers.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Yes. That is like the definition of anti-competitive. Apple is
| abusing its power as a manufacturer to gain an anti-competitive
| edge in the retail side of its business.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > Is that anti-competitive forcing all sellers to sell your
| product at the price you want it sold?
|
| Yes
| vkou wrote:
| US anti-trust law mostly focuses on _harm to consumers_ , not
| competitors.
|
| I'd daresay that backroom deals that prevent prices from
| dropping are the poster child for harm to consumers. I can't
| think of a more blatant example of it, actually - can you?
| paxys wrote:
| Once I buy something it is my product, not Apple's. I can then
| resell it at whatever price I want. That's why the concept of
| maximum _suggested_ retail price exists.
|
| Apple blocking me from selling something I own is 100% illegal.
| brookst wrote:
| As many others have pointed out, this is only true as a
| purchaser who has no contractual relationship outside of the
| sale.
|
| If Apple comes to you and says "paxys, we just love you,
| we'll sell you everything for 50% off... but you have to sign
| a contract that you will only dispose of products by firing
| them into space", and you sign that contract, and they live
| up to the discount... surprise, you're on the hook for your
| part of the contact.
|
| Apple has contracts with these resellers. It's called minimum
| advertised price (MAP) or retail price support. There is a
| long history of MAP/RPS being litigated in the US, and there
| are lots of twists and turns and valid opinions to be had.
|
| But "first sale doctrine supersedes any contracts" is NOT
| correct.
| paxys wrote:
| Yes except this lawsuit has nothing to do with Apple
| authorized resellers. It is about "third-party merchants"
| on Amazon, who can be literally anyone. If I - having no
| prior agreement with Apple - decided to sell my iPad on
| Amazon, they would remove my listing because Apple didn't
| approve of it.
| sokoloff wrote:
| The "M" in MSRP is Manufacturer's, not Maximum.
| nojito wrote:
| This isn't true at all.
|
| Numerous sellers reduce prices for apple devices. It's gotten
| so consumer friendly that I almost never go to the Apple Store
| anymore.
|
| I know this because I fully utilize Best Buy's price matching
| to get lower prices on my purchases.
| lupire wrote:
| Price matching pretty much only works on Apple devices
| because every other consumer electronic/appliance gets a
| different model # for each store that sells it.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It is always funny to me to see a claim that Amazon has some type
| of outsize pricing power in the marketplace, when switching to a
| different business involves typing in a different URL.
|
| As opposed to every other merchant/marketplace in the physical
| space where switching to a different business involves expending
| leagues more energy and time.
|
| If these people are able to source and sell Apple products for
| considerably less than Amazon, then it should be trivial for them
| to advertise their website. Just spamming Reddit comments would
| do the trick. People will surely be willing to type in a
| different URL if they can save tens or hundreds of dollars.
| advisedwang wrote:
| > switching to a different business involves typing in a
| different URL
|
| You are mixing two different parts of the market. Switching URL
| impacts the relationship between consumer and retailer. This
| lawsuit is about the relationship between retailer and
| manufacturer/distributors.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| >It is always funny to me to see a claim that Amazon has some
| type of outsize pricing power in the marketplace, when
| switching to a different business involves typing in a
| different URL.
|
| That's the power of habit. You can use Bing to search the web,
| but you probably don't. It's unconscious brand loyalty. I know
| the VAST majority of stuff I buy online comes from Amazon. Why?
| The barrier is low. I know they'll have it and I can most
| likely get it in two days. Mix in familiarity with the website,
| it's all over.
| [deleted]
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| Iirc, Amazon prevents you from charging a lower price on a non-
| Amazon site. It drives up prices across the board and
| artificially makes non-Amazon retailers seem more expensive
| than they would be, because Amazon prices often hide part of
| the shipping costs. There's no such thing as free shipping
| after all
|
| I forget what the penalty is but it was all over the news a few
| years ago. Let's see...
|
| https://www.inc.com/guadalupe-gonzalez/amazon-removes-price-...
| WoahNoun wrote:
| Well if they can't sell the Apple products on Amazon, this
| doesn't seem to apply.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > artificially makes non-Amazon retailers seem more expensive
| than they would be, because Amazon prices often hide part of
| the shipping costs.
|
| I presume there would not be anything stopping the other
| websites from including the shipping prices?
|
| Regardless, my point is if Amazon was not offering a seller a
| reasonable deal, they should just start their own website.
| The barrier to entry has never been lower in all of history.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| That sounds so easy. I wonder why so few of them thought of
| that
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| > The barrier to entry has never been lower in all of
| history.
|
| There are distinct brand, network, and bundle effects at
| play. Like "I've already got Prime so why bother looking
| elsewhere".
| googlryas wrote:
| I actually worked at Amazon on the tool that crawled the web
| looking for lower prices on products which Amazon had a most
| favored nation clause on. This was in 2012 and the tool had
| been broken for multiple years and no one cared until I found
| it and fixed it.
|
| After I fixed it I think in the first year it "made" Amazon
| $30M in lower payments to vendors(though it is hard to
| attribute exact monetary values due to complexity of the
| contracts)
|
| But no one cared, I barely got any praise, no promo or
| anything. So I quit and went somewhere else.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| If I had a dime for every story like yours I'd read, I'd
| have a few dollars. Which is saying something, because I
| don't talk to Amazon or Ex Amazon people all that often.
| googlryas wrote:
| Move here to Seattle and you can't throw a rock without
| hitting a current or ex Amazon employee:)
|
| But also please don't throw rocks at us.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Oh, I live in Seattle myself. I just know the warning
| signs to avoid.
| googlryas wrote:
| Seems a little bigoted to judge 75,000 people like that,
| but to each their own.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Most people don't buy products from sites who's advertising
| consists of spamming message boards. We are trained to treat
| such site with suspicion - and rightfully so too given they
| usually are scams.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| So don't excessively spam so as to not come off as a scam
| website. And the seller simply has to wait for their
| reputation to build. Just like Amazon and Apple had to wait.
| leganthropane wrote:
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