(Drivebycuriosity) - The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a massive law suit against Amazon. America`s mighty antitrust authority claims that the corporation is a monopolist and stifles emerging competition (ftc.gov vox.com). Really?
Let´s check the facts. In the fourth quarter 2023 Amazon`s online stores advanced just 8% YoY, while Walmart`s e-commerce segment expanded 17% YoY in the US and 23% worldwide, obviously eating Amazon`s market share, at least part of it (amazon cnbc).
Amazon is also losing market share to Shopify. The E-commerce platform boosted her gross merchandise volume (the total volume of merchandise sold on the platform) by 23% YoY, rebutting the claim that "Amazon stifles emerging competition" ( cnbc).
The FTC law suit also ignores innovative newcomers ("emerging competition") who are aggressively entering the highly competitive e-commerce market (economist). Last September the Chinese online service TikTok launched its e-commerce shop, called TikTok Shop, in the U.S. "in an effort to translate the app’s cultural relevance among young consumers to sales" ( apnews npr.org). More than 200,000 sellers have already registered for the TikTok Shop!
And the Chinese shopping app Temu, known from their Super Bowl commercial, is rapidly gaining ground (retailbrew ). CNBC reports: "Since the Chinese shopping app launched in the U.S. in September 2022, it has become the number one e-commerce app in the country, with downloads skyrocketing 50x from 600,000 to 30 million in just one quarter, according to Bernstein analysts. In contrast, Amazon’s downloads have dropped off a cliff, falling 40% in a year. Known for wild discounts and dirt-cheap prices that severely undercut Amazon’s, Temu has ratcheted up its ad spend to infiltrate the American consumer, set to spend an estimate $2 billion in marketing in 2023" ( cnbc). Temu’s parent company PDD Group said revenue rose by 94% to 68.84 billion yuan ($9.62 billion) in the quarter ended Sept. 30 from a year ago ( cnbc).
Amazon is also losing market share to Shein, "the ultra-cheap fast-fashion app" (nymag). New York Magazine claims that "Shein Found Amazon’s Weakness". According to the magazine "Shein, which is headquartered in Singapore but was founded in and operates largely out of China, commands a network of thousands of suppliers to churn out on-trend clothing at impossibly low prices". Amazon already responded to the new competition and was forced "to dramatically decrease the commissions it takes on cheap clothing “ (nymag ).
The real purpose of the FTC law suit is to gain control over one of America´s largest corporations and to be in charge of Amazon`s business (I elaborated the issue here). FTC Chair Lina Khan wants to tell Amazon what it can do and what not, how much the corporation charges their customers and how they deal with the business partners (nationalreview ).
How corrupt would a court be if it accepts a law suit which is based on lies and false accusations?
P.S. The FTC Amazon lawsuit reminds me of a famous article by the Guardian
No comments:
Post a Comment