Amazon employees say the company used data from 3rd-party sellers to make its own products, a practice the company has denied for years

https://news.yahoo.com/amazon-employees-used-data-third-164109329.html

Paige Leskin)
,Business Insider•April 23, 2020


Amazon employees say they have used data from third-party sellers to inform their production of competing products, bucking the company's long-standing claims to Congress and regulators that it doesn't.

More than 20 former Amazon employees said they had collected and accessed individual sellers' information to figure out which products they should make under its private labels, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. One Amazon employee said it was "standard operating procedure" for workers to pull non-public data that could give the company insight on how to price items and which ones would give them the highest earning potential.

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Amazon has responded to past criticism by emphasizing that its private-label brands make up only 1% of sales on the platform. However, former executives told the WSJ that they were told Amazon's private-label brands should make up 10% of retail sales by 2022. Amazon's private-label business includes more than 45 brands, including AmazonBasics, Amazon Collection, and Amazon Essentials.

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Amazon dominates the e-commerce marketplace, and accounted for nearly 40% of online sales in the US in 2019, according to eMarketer.