Amazon Denies It Planned To Abandon Private Label Business

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon has been significantly reducing the number of own-brand items it sells, and was considering exiting the private label business completely.

The report said that low sales had lead to Amazon considering cutting back the US range by as much as half, but according to research from Marketplace Pulse, Amazon still offers a similar number of products as it has for the last two years. 

In a statement this week, Amazon confirmed that it has no plans to exit its private label range. A spokesperson said, "We never seriously considered closing our private label business and we continue to invest in this area," adding, "just as our many retail competitors have done for decades and continue to do today."

In 2020, Amazon was selling 243,000 products via 45 house brands. It has attracted criticism for selling private label goods which compete with those of its third party sellers, as well as reportedly promoting its own brands over others.  A report from The Markup in October 2021 said that sellers who had previously been performing well on Amazon - often having having paid advertising fees to Amazon to boost their search rankings - would find themselves further down the search list once an Amazon-owned brand launched a similar product.  

The Wall Street Journal report said that the marketplace began cutting items during the last six months, following a review by Dave Clark, Amazon's former CEO of Worldwide Consumer, who recently left the business to become CEO of Flexport: an American multinational corporation that focuses on supply chain management and logistics, including freight forwarding and customs brokerage. 

Source : Insight DIY

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