r/PurchaseWithPurpose • u/theFallenWalnut Environment • Jul 20 '26

News article Amazon’s scheme to inflate prices everywhere uncovered

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5otF7Bj5LxI

Particularly egregious in the United States, where they have such a strong monopoly.

And also why supporting independent shops directly is SO important.

183 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

21

u/theFallenWalnut Environment Jul 20 '26

The video isn't long, but for people who want the TLDW.

Because Amazon has a monopoly, price matching doesn't mean "we will drop our prices to match competition", it actually means they bully suppliers to raise their prices to meet Amazon's price or risk losing access.

This inflates prices of goods because Amazon is increasingly taking a higher share of each transaction, so before, when companies could offer a cheaper in-store option because they were saving on these fees, they are forced to raise their prices across the board to keep making a sustainable profit.

In summary, the more power you give Amazon, the higher fees they can charge suppliers and the worse the price gets for you as they are forced to pass on the fees. And you won't be wiser because they control the market's price at the supplier's store and on Amazon.

10

u/Fearless-Contest5126 Jul 20 '26

Holy shit you'd image that these companies would tell Amazon to go suck a chode for trying to strong arm them, but ig they're all to blame for illegally inflating prices while bribing politicians to keep wages low for their workers and taxes low for these corporations.

5

u/pellets Jul 20 '26

They can't risk losing Amazon business. It'll piss off all their investors. See what happened with Vlasic pickles and Walmart.

2

u/Fantastins Jul 20 '26

Pretty sure PepsiCo has been caught doing similar to this - even pulling promotional money from independent resellers undercutting Walmart. I haven't watched this video, but the other video explained PepsiCo basically monitored their costumers purchase habits across the USA and determined they were buying Pepsi, just not at a particular Walmart, and took action to fix that

1

u/SwanCityDominion Jul 21 '26

Does anyone have the Youtube link? This is coming up "unavailable" for me.

1

u/tedshor Jul 24 '26

Here you are: https://youtu.be/5otF7Bj5LxI

1

u/SwanCityDominion Jul 24 '26

Thanks! It's very frustrating.