Amazon.com, one of the leading online retailers of the world, selected and sold 25 per cent of its own top women clothing brands within twelve weeks of time, that were successfully introduced by its own marketplace vendors, according to a recent report by Upstream Commerce, a global intelligence leader that provides analytical solutions for retailers.
With the research led by Dr. Shahi Geva, Upstream Commerce co-founder and CTO, Upstream Commerce sampled the top brands for the women’s clothing category – 857 products compared at the style x colour level – and, within these brands, at products newly-added by Amazon marketplace sellers. Then Upstream Commerce looked at the time it took Amazon to start selling these products itself, Upstream Commerce said in a statement.
Upstream Commerce CEO and co-founder, Amos Peleg said, “In an ideal business world, a vendor would love to know in advance what products will become best sellers, so if it appears that Amazon tracks its marketplace vendors’ product success and then decides, on short notice, to sell those products itself, this is very important news for the industry.”
“While performing competitive analysis for its clients of top women’s clothing brands sold on Amazon, Upstream Commerce noticed that 25 per cent of the most important products first introduced by the marketplace vendors got picked and sold by Amazon within twelve weeks, with some brands seeing pick-up rates as high as 50 percent (Wacoal), and 73 percent (Sockwell),” he added.
Mr. Amos said, “We know that Amazon can act fast and introduce products quickly when it wants to. This is probably a case where product selection and merchandising are being informed by competitive intelligence – and on a large scale.”
“We know that dynamic pricing (based on competitive intelligence) is an arena where Amazon has been playing an important role for quite some time now, so the possibility that Amazon is ‘stalking’ its vendors for their assortment as well, demonstrates a powerful practice where Amazon is (yet again) showing the way to the entire industry,” he added.
