And that's basically the point for everything Amazon does. They aren't doing anything other companies don't, it's just they do it on a massive scale.
With "store brand" specifically, the idea is that Equate or other store brands were well known to be comparable, if slightly less good versions of name brands. In economics terms they were "substitute goods" from brand names, but depending on quality they may not be "perfect substitutes."
In the case of Amazon, if they have brands that are at first glance not Amazon brands, but actually are amazon brands, then they are kind of doing an end run around what was an implicit agreement between consumers and retailers. Namely that a retailer will make it explicitly clear, with obvious branding, what is a "store brand" and what is not. Simply stating "our brands" isn't obvious enough to make that connection if you are only spending 30 seconds on a product description page.
This is something that Amazon is great at actually.
how are brandings such as Kirkland Signature(Costco), Simple Truth(Kroger) or 365(Wholefoods) any more obvious than what Amazon is doing with "our brands"?
You can buy simple truth milk, chicken, soup, and diapers at Kroger stores.
Amazon has multiple distinct brands per category, which makes keeping track much harder.
Many of those brands are not obviously private label. Whole Foods and Costco are the exception in that they have only 1 store brand that everything is labeled under. This is probably because they are high-value brands unto themselves and it's advantageous to put their own stamp on it.
The comparable to Signature/Truth/365 would be Amazon Basics. The branding is consistent and minimal.
As the article points out, Amazon has dozens of other house brands that are not associated with Amazon. Amazon's argument would be that they are perfect substitutes, so branding them consistently with Amazon Basics would make people think they are lesser quality. So they just give them a new house brand.
Target is doing the same thing by the way [1] but they just don't have the massive scale.
[1] https://corporate.target.com/article/tag/385/owned-brands
some cross boundaries as I have found Kirkland brands outside of Costco.
if anything Amazon at least is up front about it.
The biggest clue is usually that it is the only brand that isn't a big name, and yet, there is plenty of it. On Amazon, there is a huge variety of lesser known brands, so you can't assume that just because you didn't hear about it, it must be the store brand.
The pricing is another clue. Store brands usually have a well defined spot, with no competition in that spot. Typically between the no-name stuff and the name brand. Amazon has a lot of brands in every price range.
I am of course assuming that it is not obvious. If a brand bear the name of the shop, or is used for every product category in the shop, it is obvious.
The question is, should people need to read the fine print to know what they are getting? Said another way, what level of generalized a-priori knowledge is reasonable for a consumer to have in order to know what additional information the manufacturer/retailer needs to provide for the consumer to make an informed decision?
It's a playful allusion to viral conspiracy meme graphics. Designers at the NYT do not use non-antialiased lines and JPG artifacts unintentionally.
Do you think that supermarkets selling house brands hurts consumers?
Don't dismiss it. If a $10 store brand shirt lasts you 5 washes, then you were hurt by not buying a $20 brand one that lasts you years. (granted that you may not have $20 at the same time you need a T-shirt)
Same for food items: store brands might be xx cents cheaper but lesser taste, quality and nutrition might put you in red.
Tragedy of the commons is a remarkably powerful business model. Everyone knows that collectively they're going to be fucked over by Bezos in a generation or so, but since everybody knows it, they're powerless to avoid it, because individually each person is just screwing themselves over by not buying from Amazon.
How so? I haven't noticed Amazon UK being particularly competitive on price for many years.
I just randomly checked a camera backpack, £219 on Amazon and Wex both with free delivery.
Canon 6D2, £40 cheaper than Amazon on Wex and Currys.
Amazon are like Ryanair these days, coasting on a low-price reputation that is long gone. They each do occasional headline sales of things people don't want for pennies but the overall trend is up.
Something I've noticed is that many of the Amazon deals in the UK are really just price matches to other retailers, they know they can still likely make a profit due to their favourable tax arrangements.
Heaven forbid a store sells its own products.
What if Nintendo starts selling their most profitable products on their store?
Or Whole Foods starts stocking expensive food products?
Or the Rolex store in the mall promotes their most expensive watches, when the $5 timex keeps time better?
When will the madness end?