When you own the platform then you have complete access to data like user behavior and sales. With that (unfair) advantage you can more efficiently sell your own alternatives. This happens on every platform (app store, web search, social media, etc.) but it's problematic on Amazon because it can stifle small businesses on and off their platform.
Amazon is utilizing its knowledge of its powerful marketplace machine — from optimizing word-search algorithms to analyzing competitors’ sales data to using its customer-review networks — to steer shoppers toward its in-house brands and away from its competitors, say analysts.
This data is much more powerful than large retail outlets have with their store brands: “I can’t just walk into a store and say, ‘Excuse me, did you look at this brand of cereal this morning and decide not to buy it?’ Amazon has that data. They know you looked at a brand and didn’t buy it and they’re not going to share that data with any other brands.”
> This data is much more powerful than large retail outlets have with their store brands: “I can’t just walk into a store and say, ‘Excuse me, did you look at this brand of cereal this morning and decide not to buy it?’
They definitively can, and are. Granted, it's a fairly new development.
Amazon is utilizing its knowledge of its powerful marketplace machine — from optimizing word-search algorithms to analyzing competitors’ sales data to using its customer-review networks — to steer shoppers toward its in-house brands and away from its competitors, say analysts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/23/business/amazon-the-brand...
This data is much more powerful than large retail outlets have with their store brands: “I can’t just walk into a store and say, ‘Excuse me, did you look at this brand of cereal this morning and decide not to buy it?’ Amazon has that data. They know you looked at a brand and didn’t buy it and they’re not going to share that data with any other brands.”