It's highly likely that Amazon carries more private label goods than you realize, if you've ever wondered.
We'll examine some of Amazon's private-label brands in-depth in this article. All of the brands mentioned in this article are Amazon Private Label brands, as we have conclusively shown, and we have also broken them down by product category.
In this article, you will learn:
- Amazon Is Eliminating Brands Due to Antitrust Issues
- How Many Brands Are Under Amazon's Private Label?
- What is a Private Label Brand on Amazon?
- An Amazon Exclusive Brand: What Is It?
- A Synopsis of Amazon's Exclusive Products
- Brands from Amazon Feature in the Most Product Categories
- Amazon's Debate Over Private Label Brands
- Amazon Alerts sellers That They Might Select Their Own Private Label Brands Instead of Them
- CONCLUSIONS
Amazon Is Eliminating Brands Due to Antitrust Issues
According to Matt Taddy, VP of Amazon Private Brands, the company is reducing the number of its in-house brands in an effort to streamline and concentrate on consumer-favorite labels like Amazon Basics and Amazon Essentials.
Amazon now has fewer than 20 house brands, mostly in furniture and clothing, after dozens of private brands—the precise number of which was not disclosed—are being phased out, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Amidst economic challenges, CEO Andy Jassy is aggressively cutting costs while slowing revenue growth. With an impending FTC lawsuit, the decision was made in response to worries about Amazon's use of seller data to create rival products.
The FTC filed a lawsuit against Amazon on September 26, 2023, claiming that the company was maintaining monopoly power illegally. The lawsuit looks into Amazon's business practices in the retail industry, focusing on claims that it improperly obtained merchant data to create rival products. It also looks at the company's influence over third-party sellers.
How Many Brands Are Under Amazon's Private Label?
As of 2019, Amazon has 158,000 private brand products spread across 45 brands. It is growing daily, gaining more private label brands and challenging Amazon sellers head-to-head.
Determining an Amazon Private Label brand can be challenging, though, as the marketplace has never publicly revealed which precise brands it owns, even though we are aware of some of them (thanks to the 2019 Congress).
Using information from Amazon's own "Our Brands" page, other publicly available data, and product detail page information, we created a list of over sixty possible Amazon brands.
Source: www.ecomcrew.com
Searching for a generic product on Amazon.com, like "dresses," gives you the option to see only Amazon brands in the results by selecting the "Our brands" filter.
However, if you conduct a straight search for the brand name—for example, "Lark & Ro"—the results descriptions merely state that the brands are "exclusive to Prime members," failing to make it clear that they are owned by Amazon.
To verify that the brands mentioned above are produced and sold by Amazon, we thoroughly examined each of the mentioned brands.
The study examined a few particular elements that connected these brands to Amazon. In order to accomplish this, we found that many of these brands gather seller-related data and display it as "an Amazon brand" in the product title or even the "description" section.
Then, in order to establish beyond a reasonable doubt whether a given brand is an Amazon private label brand or just a suspect, we thoroughly examined each of these brands. We succeeded in identifying 88 Amazon Private Label brands with absolute certainty. It hasn't been feasible to verify, though, that eleven of the brands this study uncovered are Amazon private label brands.
What is a Private Label Brand on Amazon?
In essence, private labeling is the practice of a business purchasing Chinese off-the-shelf goods and branding them under its own name. There is little to no need for actual product development because suppliers are currently producing these goods.
An Amazon Exclusive Brand: What Is It?
Through the 2015 launch of the Amazon Exclusives program, third-party sellers now have the opportunity to work directly with Amazon to increase their visibility and sell exclusive products on the Amazon platform—products that are only available on Amazon and their own website.
An Amazon Exclusive Brand and an Amazon Private Label brand are not the same thing, and this confusion often exists between them. While Amazon's Amazon Exclusives program is essentially a marketing initiative for third-party sellers, Amazon's private label brands frequently face direct competition from these sellers.
A Synopsis of Amazon's Exclusive Products
In 2005, Amazon introduced its first brand, Pinzon, and subsequently in 2009, it launched Amazon Basics, the first of several Amazon-owned private label brands.
Amazon disclosed that it currently offers roughly 158,000 private brand products (some with additional variations, like color and size) across 45 brands in the Amazon store, in addition to some private brand products sold by Amazon Fresh, its online grocery store available in select metro areas, during congressional hearings on "Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 2: Innovation and Entrepreneurship" in July 2019. The products under private label comprise approximately 50% of apparel, accessories, and footwear.
Though all of Amazon's brands are housed under the same page, "Our Brands," the company has released more private brands in recent years and has also introduced some Amazon Exclusive Brands in collaboration with manufacturing partners.
Which brands on its website are exclusive to Amazon or private label has not been disclosed by the company. While some of Amazon's brands—like Amazon Essentials and Amazon Basics—are easily identifiable, the majority are more difficult to identify.
Brands from Amazon Feature in the Most Product Categories
The global market share of private label brands owned by Amazon is shown in this graphic for the year 2019. As we can see, 57.8% of all Amazon private label brands' sales were made up of Amazon Basics.
Amazon is expanding into new markets with its own brands, frequently targeting niches within existing markets. It is particularly apparent in the fashion industry, where there are already many brands on the market.
Clothing, shoes, and jewelry products accounted for 47.7% of Amazon's private-label share in 2019, according to Statista.
However, Amazon also provides goods in practically every niche in addition to reasonably priced private labels. The average price in most categories was $20 in 2019.
For any Amazon seller, Amazon has emerged as a formidable rival. In fact, a number of vendors have questioned its unfair competition policies and charged the large retailer with controlling the online marketplace.
Amazon's Debate Over Private Label Brands
Amazon has faced several antitrust investigations in the past few years. During the 2019 congressional hearing, Amazon stated that while it does not use individual seller data for creating its own brands, it does aggregate seller data for its private label names.
Although Amazon does not have access to seller-specific information, it does have access to aggregated data (such as keyword and category revenue information) that it can use to its advantage for its own brands.
Furthermore, while it supports its brands in other forms of marketing like advertising, Amazon does not do so in search results.
It can be frightening to take on the massive online retailer after discovering this list of Amazon private label brands.
Amazon Alerts sellers That They Might Select Their Own Private Label Brands Instead of Them
Amazon has contacted a few independent sellers, alerting them to proposed antitrust laws in the United States. Congress that could have "unfavorable effects on their company."
In reality, what would happen if Amazon's private label brands vanished? The retailer claimed that the antitrust laws would hurt numerous businesses and make it more difficult for third-party sellers.
The vice president of public policy, Brian Huseman, has also issued a warning regarding the potential consequences of the proposed legislation that members of the US House of Representatives have introduced.
Because it lacks knowledge about its niche, a business may suffer from a lack of competition. It may be more difficult for Amazon sellers to raise awareness of their brands and make a living wage if they do not have access to Amazon's customer base.
Eliminating these brands may also reduce product price competition, which would raise consumer prices.
However, if the 88 brands examined in this article were removed, would they actually pose a threat to independent sellers? Would the thousands of small and medium-sized companies that sell on Amazon be severely harmed by this?
CONCLUSIONS
Amazon has an unending desire to expand its monopoly in the consumer market. The massive e-commerce company is creating an increasing number of its own brands.
Are there any Amazon private label brands that you are aware of that we haven't included on our list? Which one, if any, is it? Tell us in the section below the comments!
