Amazon Launches Own Pet Product Brand, Wag(bloomberg.com)
bloomberg.com
Amazon Launches Own Pet Product Brand, Wag
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-02/amazon-launches-its-own-pet-product-brand-wag-starts-with-food
72 comments
I’m getting increasingly uncomfortable with the sheer number of markets Amazon is getting into. I don’t like putting all my eggs in one basket, and I tend to move my business elsewhere when I see a company getting to big for its britches like this. I’ve moved to target for most things I’d get on amazon and am quite content for now.
Target via Google Express is pretty nice.
Also, why is Amazon launching this for just dogs? My cats are offended that they were left out!
Also, why is Amazon launching this for just dogs? My cats are offended that they were left out!
If your cats are like my cats, they will only eat one brand, and Amazon isn't going to change their palettes.
The dogs I've had, for the most part, will eat anything from lettuce to cat poop. Amazon could sell cans of cat poop with bits of lettuce in it, and they'd wolf it down.
The dogs I've had, for the most part, will eat anything from lettuce to cat poop. Amazon could sell cans of cat poop with bits of lettuce in it, and they'd wolf it down.
Coming in 2019 - Cat poop prime with 1 hour delivery, for when your dogs are really hungry.
> Also, why is Amazon launching this for just dogs? My cats are offended that they were left out!
They have the data of what is what people buys. They have that info for all kind of products. If it for dogs, it makes sense that it may be the best option.
They have the data of what is what people buys. They have that info for all kind of products. If it for dogs, it makes sense that it may be the best option.
Indeed. "I'm going to boycott Amazon!" as a kneejerk reaction is becoming an increasingly laughable statement.
You can pass on one or two offerings, but they're getting increasingly hard to avoid across the board.
You can pass on one or two offerings, but they're getting increasingly hard to avoid across the board.
About the only Amazon product I can't avoid is AWS, since without digging in DNS beforehand it's not obvious which websites are running on it.
I get it, but target is an odd choice to flee this - they have a house brand for almost everything they sell, from BBQ gear to baby wipes...
How on earth is Amazon getting too big for its britches? The company does absolutely nothing but help customers by destroying margins. This idea that Amazon should be avoided is very, very strange.
Retailers like Amazon or Walmart shouldn't be allowed to make their own competing brands.
Should the government seize the means of production, comrade?
Businesses should be allowed to create whatever products they want, as long as they don't do anti-competitive things like work together with their competitors to fix prices.
Free markets are important.
Businesses should be allowed to create whatever products they want, as long as they don't do anti-competitive things like work together with their competitors to fix prices.
Free markets are important.
> Businesses should be allowed to create whatever products they want, as long as they don't do anti-competitive things like work together with their competitors to fix prices.
Or say, if they owned a huge marketplace and eventually started producing a product, and then refused to stock their competitor's product in the huge marketplace.
Or say, if they owned a huge marketplace and eventually started producing a product, and then refused to stock their competitor's product in the huge marketplace.
Do you demand that the local supermarket carry every brand of chili on earth?
I don't think that's a good analogy; there are significant differences between a local supermarket (local, items must fit in the store) and Amazon's marketplace (global, items can be located anywhere globally within reason).
The justice department(?) demanded that Microsoft stop bundling (or forcing, can't remember the specifics) IE on Windows.
Laissez faire capitalism has both benefits and risks, casual/militant dismissal of concerns can sometimes have negative consequences, sometimes very severe.
Laissez faire capitalism has both benefits and risks, casual/militant dismissal of concerns can sometimes have negative consequences, sometimes very severe.
>> Free markets are important.
There aren't free markets in a pure sense and it's a good thing:
- Standard oil was broken into exxon, chevron, etc...
- Laws were introduced to prevent railroad barons from owning every industry by forcing fair treatment.
- Electricity producers aren't allowed to sell directly to their customers in many countries. They are forced to sell it to resellers.
>> as long as they don't do anti-competitive things like work together with their competitors to fix prices
That's subjective, What does anti-competitive mean? it could mean making cheaper competing products as a retailer. It could mean refusing to host your product just like it happened to chrome cast. It could be ranking competing products lower.
There aren't free markets in a pure sense and it's a good thing:
- Standard oil was broken into exxon, chevron, etc...
- Laws were introduced to prevent railroad barons from owning every industry by forcing fair treatment.
- Electricity producers aren't allowed to sell directly to their customers in many countries. They are forced to sell it to resellers.
>> as long as they don't do anti-competitive things like work together with their competitors to fix prices
That's subjective, What does anti-competitive mean? it could mean making cheaper competing products as a retailer. It could mean refusing to host your product just like it happened to chrome cast. It could be ranking competing products lower.
Amazon is in an unusual place of both controlling the market and entering the market however. That doesn't really fit with the nice simplistic ideological "Free market" concept. It's hard to see any motivation for them not to game the system if there's no regulation preventing it.
Basically every retailer has a 'house brand' of products that are manufactured by some third party. This isn't new or unique. Why do you think this is bad?
What makes you think it's a good idea to have 4 monopolies that are starting to eat every other business in the world?
This is akin to store brands by other retailers. Most store brands aren't specialized, they're generic and offer the consumer decent quality at a fair price. This forces brands to differentiate themselves in some way. This is a good thing in my opinion because it seems to weed out poor quality products.
For commodity items like sugar and salt where differentiation is nonexistent, it doesn't make sense to pay a 100% premium for different packaging.
For commodity items like sugar and salt where differentiation is nonexistent, it doesn't make sense to pay a 100% premium for different packaging.
I haven't stated that I think it's a good idea. You've stated that you believe the government (presumably) should intervene and not allow retailers to have their own brands, I'm simply asking you to explain your position.
The major supermarket chains in the UK have been doing it for years, with packaging almost indistinguishable from the well-known brand.
I tend to do a similar thing. Amazon's core product is virtually unusable to me anyway.
I don't even know what their core product is anymore.
As a consumer why do you care?
For me personally, the more a company tries to do, the less I trust them to do everything right.
I agree which makes me wonder, where do we draw the line with Amazon or any other company for example.
+1 on that one. What I don't get is that they are already giants, why would they undermine and hinder other companies from developing? I found this article very interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices
I want to support competition, encouraging all companies to give me a fair offer. Amazon seems to do that for now, but their power is increasing by the day. I'm not really a fan of that.
Supporting competition exists and I think everyone on theory wants to support it. However, at the end of the day consumers prioritize their own immediate concerns over long term economic concerns.
I find it fascinating how humans have such trouble operating in context of big picture and make so many short sighted decisions.
I find it fascinating how humans have such trouble operating in context of big picture and make so many short sighted decisions.
Some of us aren't consumers, we are people.
And so you want to do business with the company that will pretend hardest that it just doesn't want to get in your wallet?
We are all people but you are being ignorant if you don't consider yourself a consumer in the global economy.
Others are free to disagree with this, but I believe corporations being so large and so profitable that they have no choice but to enter multiple markets, or to do increasingly more ethically questionable things in order to keep increasing the quarterly profits and revenues, is all because of a weak anti-trust system and weak anti-trust legislation.
Companies should not be allowed to grow so large and so powerful that they can threaten multiple industries at once. I'm not necessarily saying they should be broken up as soon as they pass say $50 a year billion a year in revenues, but at the very least they should be disallowed from buying any other company as soon as they pass a similar mark or as soon as certain conditions for it being in "anti-trust mode" are met.
How are we going to have real competition in say AI, if Google keeps buying all the promising startups that come up with breakthrough AI technologies? Same for Facebook buying Instagram and WhatsApp. And now Amazon is doing the same thing.
The only answer to that right now is "maybe we're lucky and some other large corporation will buy that startup instead?" But that doesn't make me feel much better.
In the end, it all leads to at least an oligopoly across multiple industries, and a monopoly in specific industries. That's not good for consumers.
And I won't even go into how this much power and money concentrated into singular entities is bad for democracies, too. Even if you don't believe that these rich people and companies are literally buying the politicians and their votes, at the very least you should agree that they have disproportionate leverage in the government, for the same reason big banks do.
A more decentralized marketplace made-up of many more smaller companies is much better for consumers and democracies, too.
Companies should not be allowed to grow so large and so powerful that they can threaten multiple industries at once. I'm not necessarily saying they should be broken up as soon as they pass say $50 a year billion a year in revenues, but at the very least they should be disallowed from buying any other company as soon as they pass a similar mark or as soon as certain conditions for it being in "anti-trust mode" are met.
How are we going to have real competition in say AI, if Google keeps buying all the promising startups that come up with breakthrough AI technologies? Same for Facebook buying Instagram and WhatsApp. And now Amazon is doing the same thing.
The only answer to that right now is "maybe we're lucky and some other large corporation will buy that startup instead?" But that doesn't make me feel much better.
In the end, it all leads to at least an oligopoly across multiple industries, and a monopoly in specific industries. That's not good for consumers.
And I won't even go into how this much power and money concentrated into singular entities is bad for democracies, too. Even if you don't believe that these rich people and companies are literally buying the politicians and their votes, at the very least you should agree that they have disproportionate leverage in the government, for the same reason big banks do.
A more decentralized marketplace made-up of many more smaller companies is much better for consumers and democracies, too.
This one is interesting to me. As someone with a brand new puppy (not our first dog) I’ve noticed Pet Smart my only local pet-store charging higher and higher prices. It’s gotten to the point where we are now buying some of the same products at Target who also has thier own brand.
Well Petco and PetsMart are the same company so there isn't really any competition in that space.
And PetsMart owns Chewy, the online competitor that Amazon is going after.
Amazon is slowly eating the world of retail. The amount of pure power that Amazon has is a scary thought.
> slowly
I'd say rapidly. And, it's really hard to see how they can be stopped. They're now capable disrupting any market they choose.
On the one hand, this can be a good thing, i.e Healthcare. On the other I feel like we're going to end up with something like Pixar's 'Buy-N-Large'
I'd say rapidly. And, it's really hard to see how they can be stopped. They're now capable disrupting any market they choose.
On the one hand, this can be a good thing, i.e Healthcare. On the other I feel like we're going to end up with something like Pixar's 'Buy-N-Large'
> it's really hard to see how they can be stopped.
I don't think they can "be stopped" - at least not by competitors, as long as they maintain their overall strategy of expanding their marketshare by cutting margins below what their competitors can bear.
In my opinion, this is the way it should be. If a monopoly exists that is more efficient than a competitor can be, then it deserves to exist and its existence benefits consumers. On the other hand, if a monopoly becomes abusive then it will be destroyed very quickly by others who will be more than happy to undercut them.
Amazon (and all monopolies) will fail much more quickly than might be apparent at first glance if they abuse their position. "Bigger" does not always mean "stronger".
I don't think they can "be stopped" - at least not by competitors, as long as they maintain their overall strategy of expanding their marketshare by cutting margins below what their competitors can bear.
In my opinion, this is the way it should be. If a monopoly exists that is more efficient than a competitor can be, then it deserves to exist and its existence benefits consumers. On the other hand, if a monopoly becomes abusive then it will be destroyed very quickly by others who will be more than happy to undercut them.
Amazon (and all monopolies) will fail much more quickly than might be apparent at first glance if they abuse their position. "Bigger" does not always mean "stronger".
> On the other hand, if a monopoly becomes abusive then it will be destroyed very quickly by others who will be more than happy to undercut them.
> Amazon (and all monopolies) will fail much more quickly than might be apparent at first glance if they abuse their position.
Are these universal truths, with no possible exceptions in the past of future?
> "Bigger" does not always mean "stronger".
Crossing the street without looking both directions does not always result in being injured or killed, but it often does.
> Amazon (and all monopolies) will fail much more quickly than might be apparent at first glance if they abuse their position.
Are these universal truths, with no possible exceptions in the past of future?
> "Bigger" does not always mean "stronger".
Crossing the street without looking both directions does not always result in being injured or killed, but it often does.
> it's really hard to see how they can be stopped
I know it's hard. But I was counting on Google Express being really really good in delivery and item availability. They partner with retailers in helping their products get more discovery and handle some logistics. I'd take 2 players competing vs one large player any day.
I know it's hard. But I was counting on Google Express being really really good in delivery and item availability. They partner with retailers in helping their products get more discovery and handle some logistics. I'd take 2 players competing vs one large player any day.
I'd like to like Google Express, but it's just not a good competitor for Prime in my market.
I ordered something from a department store down the street. It ended up getting shipped out of San Francisco, and took over a week to arrive. I could have ordered and returned something via Prime three times in the amount of time it took Google to send me something.
Plus, the selection is very limited. But that might just be my market.
I ordered something from a department store down the street. It ended up getting shipped out of San Francisco, and took over a week to arrive. I could have ordered and returned something via Prime three times in the amount of time it took Google to send me something.
Plus, the selection is very limited. But that might just be my market.
> They're now capable disrupting any market they choose.
Ehhh, I think you're really glossing over Amazon's failures here; they've tried to get into some markets and gotten pretty well demolished. If they've learned anything from those failures, it certainly isn't obvious.
Ehhh, I think you're really glossing over Amazon's failures here; they've tried to get into some markets and gotten pretty well demolished. If they've learned anything from those failures, it certainly isn't obvious.
Which markets have they entered and failed?
They are certainly hit or miss on product design but their execution entering markets has been a high successful formula. Razor thin margins until the competition bleeds to death. I would like to understand examples of where they failed there?
I will also grant you that they do take a big of a 'see what sticks to the wall' approach to innovation. But do not mistake rapid iteration as a singular 'failure'
They are certainly hit or miss on product design but their execution entering markets has been a high successful formula. Razor thin margins until the competition bleeds to death. I would like to understand examples of where they failed there?
I will also grant you that they do take a big of a 'see what sticks to the wall' approach to innovation. But do not mistake rapid iteration as a singular 'failure'
Off the top of my head:
1) Mobile phones with the Fire phone - don't think this one requires any explanation.
2) Handmade goods with Amazon Handmade - Etsy's doing better than ever.
3) Travel with Destinations - don't think they've even tried to re-enter this market.
I'm sure I could find more, but we tend not to remember a company's failures (unless they're spectacular) as much as successes.
1) Mobile phones with the Fire phone - don't think this one requires any explanation.
2) Handmade goods with Amazon Handmade - Etsy's doing better than ever.
3) Travel with Destinations - don't think they've even tried to re-enter this market.
I'm sure I could find more, but we tend not to remember a company's failures (unless they're spectacular) as much as successes.
Amazon Local, meant to compete with Groupon.
Their attempt to enter the mobile phone market meeting with pretty spectacular failure is the first example that comes to mind.
That's a product, not a marketplace
A product to get a foothold in the market, with which they could not.
I'm in 2 minds about this. Obviously, amazon having all the power is a bad thing but if it helps eliminate the sheer volume of absolute cr*p currently listed, I'm all for it.
[not specifically dog food]
[not specifically dog food]
I agree that there's a lot of low quality staff on amazon, but hey, it's not ebay, not everyone can post everything there for selling, so Amazon is kind of responsible for what's listed there.
I don't think that monopolizing market is a good idea.. a healthy competition keeps the quality level of the products high.
I don't think that monopolizing market is a good idea.. a healthy competition keeps the quality level of the products high.
> So Amazon is kind of responsible for what's listed there
They don't want to be and they're not really acting like it. Thus their store's quality is similar to or below that of ebay and far below that of directly chinese stores like Banggood or Ali Express.
They don't want to be and they're not really acting like it. Thus their store's quality is similar to or below that of ebay and far below that of directly chinese stores like Banggood or Ali Express.
> Thus their store's quality is similar to or below that of ebay and far below that of directly chinese stores like Banggood or Ali Express.
I've been using Alibaba/Ali Express more often lately, and am finding that they are improving rapidly. For most products manufactured in Asia, they're significantly cheaper.
Quality is more consistent. It's not that everything there is better quality, but that you can more easily determine the level of quality you're willing to pay for and can be relatively confident what you're going to get.
Shipping time and (perceived) shipping cost are the big things that prevent Ali from growing rapidly in the US market. They're a few warehouses away from being a serious competitor to Amazon's retail business.
I've been using Alibaba/Ali Express more often lately, and am finding that they are improving rapidly. For most products manufactured in Asia, they're significantly cheaper.
Quality is more consistent. It's not that everything there is better quality, but that you can more easily determine the level of quality you're willing to pay for and can be relatively confident what you're going to get.
Shipping time and (perceived) shipping cost are the big things that prevent Ali from growing rapidly in the US market. They're a few warehouses away from being a serious competitor to Amazon's retail business.
>They don't want to be
That's a very good point. I don't see how they expect their costumers to believe in quality of their own products with this attitude.
That's a very good point. I don't see how they expect their costumers to believe in quality of their own products with this attitude.
You're arguing that less competition is good?
I guess he/she is arguing that the competition pressure from Amazon contributes in forcing sub-par offerings to get their act together or closing. Whether its level of competition is sustainable is the other side of the medal though.
Is it really competition if one of the competitors doesn't need to be profitable? How do you compete with that?
I'm trying not to but, really, is the current situation better? How often do we see threads here about fake goods on amazon?
I don't get why people are worried about this. This is Amazon's problem to solve and a core challenge of running an open marketplace. Let them deal with it. I'm worried that Amazon will use their power to unfairly compete with all of retail since they already control so much of e-commerce. I don't understand why tech folks aren't more worried about the concentration of market power in amazon & facebook.
> This is Amazon's problem to solve and a core challenge of running an open marketplace. Let them deal with it.
If they don't solve it someone else will, and that someone else will destroy the perceived monopoly of Amazon. Alternatively Amazon will acquire them... in which case, Amazon will have solved it :)
If they don't solve it someone else will, and that someone else will destroy the perceived monopoly of Amazon. Alternatively Amazon will acquire them... in which case, Amazon will have solved it :)
>This is Amazon's problem to solve
Until some adulterated fake dog food kills your dog. Then it's your problem.
Until some adulterated fake dog food kills your dog. Then it's your problem.
[deleted]
Problem is if my dog likes this and they shut it down in 10 months.
They're not Google ;)
More seriously, I remember when Amazon was this amazing book seller in the US and me (back in the UK) ordered from them because certain books were coming out sooner in the USA.
I get why they expanded and ate everything around them, I know that they probably wouldn't exist if they hadn't done that. But I do wish they could have done it by treating their employees better, and making the world better instead of just available faster.
More seriously, I remember when Amazon was this amazing book seller in the US and me (back in the UK) ordered from them because certain books were coming out sooner in the USA.
I get why they expanded and ate everything around them, I know that they probably wouldn't exist if they hadn't done that. But I do wish they could have done it by treating their employees better, and making the world better instead of just available faster.
Lawsuit with Wag hotel for pets in 3... 2... 1...
Amazon owns wag.com as part of an acquisition. I doubt a lawsuit will go far.
Are you referring to WagWalking.com?
Or the wag.com, which Amazon acquired as part of the Quidsi purchase - of which Amazon subsequently shut down?
https://consumerist.com/2017/03/29/amazon-will-shut-down-dia...
Or the wag.com, which Amazon acquired as part of the Quidsi purchase - of which Amazon subsequently shut down?
https://consumerist.com/2017/03/29/amazon-will-shut-down-dia...
Based on what is going on with marriage/divorce rates, getting on any pet-related stock/market will be an extremely smart move mid/long term.
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