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Sun Apr 21 2024 11:15:56

Amazon Sold on eBay and Other Sites to Gather Intelligence

By: Ina Steiner

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It's not surprising to imagine retail companies making purchases from rivals to gather intelligence, but it was a bit surprising to learn that Amazon reportedly had a program to sell on rival marketplaces for nearly a decade under brand names such as Rapid Cascade and Svea Bliss.

Brands use subterfuge to buy online to sniff out counterfeit goods, but Amazon reportedly ran a project codenamed Curiosity, according to the Wall Street Journal: "Inside Amazon's Secret Operation to Gather Intel on Rivals - Staff went undercover on Walmart, eBay and other marketplaces as a third-party seller called 'Big River.' The mission: to scoop up information on pricing, logistics and other business practices." (The article is behind a paywall.)

Benzinga ran with the story, writing: "Big River Services International, a covert arm of Amazon, has been selling goods through various e-commerce platforms, including eBay, Shopify, Walmart and Amazon itself, generating around $1 million in annual sales."

Amazon's "Big River" employees allegedly attended rivals' seller conferences and met with competitors, "identifying themselves only as employees of Big River Services," Benzinga reported. It doesn't appear that Amazon confirmed or denied the reports, but it copped to "benchmarking," which it told Benzinga was "a common practice in business."

But it also means some sellers may have been unknowingly competing with Amazon (conceivably it was selling on its own marketplace too) - and perhaps unknowingly sharing things with Amazon employees thinking they were colleagues.

If you've ever encountered Big River Services, as a seller or as a buyer, let us know. And do you think that other marketplaces conduct corporate espionage at this level?

Comments (8) | Permalink

Readers Comments

Amazon Sold on eBay and Other Sites to Gather Intelligence

by: COVID-19

Mon Apr 22 01:55:19 2024

Amazon = "Big River". eBay? Little River. Hahahahahah!

Amazon Sold on eBay and Other Sites to Gather Intelligence

by: AddyUp

Mon Apr 22 07:13:37 2024

I've always suspected workers from rival companies getting jobs on eBay. It would go some way to explain the constant stream of bugs and mess ups.

Amazon Sold on eBay and Other Sites to Gather Intelligence

by: Valaset

Mon Apr 22 11:01:09 2024

I have not crossed paths with Big River. But I do have a WSJ subscription and read the full article. I would bet law suites are coming for this. They went way too far to gather intelligence on their competitors.

Amazon Sold on eBay and Other Sites to Gather Intelligence

by: pace306

Mon Apr 22 12:34:05 2024

Not sure what all the fuss is - Temu doesnt sell older items, Temu doesnt sell groceries, Temu doesnt sell antique items, Temu doesnt do ALOT of the things these platforms do.

"If anything", it would be Walmart and Amazon who need to be concerned as they sell alot of the everyday items that people buy.

But no one knows about Temu (Alibaba has been around for some time and hasnt taken too much of a bite out of either of them) so it should all be OK.

eBay needs to worry about itself - its stupid policies will push it into stagnation, and Mercari is self imploding, and Poshmark is stagnant ....

Amazon Sold on eBay and Other Sites to Gather Intelligence

by: pace306

Mon Apr 22 12:34:54 2024

And Sellers use Camel Camel Camel for intelligence on Amazon and eBay lets you look up sol/completed.

SO?

Amazon Sold on eBay and Other Sites to Gather Intelligence

by: Chicago48

Mon Apr 22 18:31:41 2024

They probably all do it. I'm sure, not just AMZ.

Amazon Sold on eBay and Other Sites to Gather Intelligence

by: Snapped

Sat Apr 27 17:34:01 2024

““ It doesn't appear that Amazon confirmed or denied the reports, but it copped to "benchmarking," which it told Benzinga was "a common practice in business." “

Benchmarking. Right.

The American Productivity and Quality Center APOC has published a Benchmarking Code of Conduct. You can Google it. It’s chiefly dedicated to describing behavior and restrictions pertaining to obtaining competitor’s ‘information’ to use for self-improvement.

AMZ violates almost every clause, given the description by the OP.

Amazon Sold on eBay and Other Sites to Gather Intelligence

by: MilesT

Tue Apr 30 16:46:32 2024

"Amazon = "Big River". eBay? Little River. Hahahahahah!"

Businesses are consistently too revealing in their choice of code names, the temptation to be "funny", "cute", "punning" or otherwise or clever is too great for most people.

I know of another big would be Amazon competitor who chose river and snake based names for the competing projects they wanted to keep under wraps. It's funny until it isn't.

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