Showing results for: “Google shopping manne”
Amazon-Whole Foods symposium wrap-up
On Tuesday, August 28, 2018, Truth on the Market and the International Center for Law and Economics presented a blog symposium — Is Amazon’s Appetite Bottomless? The Whole Foods Merger After One Year — that looked at the concerns surrounding the closing of the Amazon-Whole Foods merger, and how those concerns had played out over ... Amazon-Whole Foods symposium wrap-up
The Amazon-Whole Foods merger: Natural and organic competition in the evolving grocery industry
What actually happened in the year following the merger is nearly the opposite: Competition among grocery stores has been more fierce than ever. “Offline” retailers are expanding — and innovating — to meet Amazon’s challenge, and many of them are booming. Disruption is never neat and tidy, but, in addition to saving Whole Foods from potential oblivion, the merger seems to have lit a fire under the rest of the industry. This result should not be surprising to anyone who understands the nature of the competitive process. But it does highlight an important lesson: competition often comes from unexpected quarters and evolves in unpredictable ways, emerging precisely out of the kinds of adversity opponents of the merger bemoaned.
The Amazon / Whole Foods overreaction: Antitrust populism exposed
The gist of these arguments is simple. The Amazon / Whole Foods merger would lead to the exclusion of competitors, with Amazon leveraging its swaths of data and pricing below costs. All of this begs a simple question: have these prophecies come to pass? The problem with antitrust populism is not just that it leads to unfounded predictions regarding the negative effects of a given business practice. It also ignores the significant gains which consumers may reap from these practices. The Amazon / Whole foods offers a case in point.
It’s Not Time To Panic About Amazon’s Purchase of Whole Foods. Yet.
Even with these caveats, it’s still worth looking at the recent trends. Whole Foods’s sales since 2015 have been flat, with only low single-digit growth, according to data from Second Measure. This suggests Whole Foods is not yet getting a lift from the relationship. However, the percentage of Whole Foods’ new customers who are Prime Members increased post-merger, from 34 percent in June 2017 to 41 percent in June 2018. This suggests that Amazon’s platform is delivering customers to Whole Foods.
The Lasting Legacy of the Amazon-Whole Foods Merger Will Likely Be the Spread of Grocery Tech
The negativity that surrounded the deal at its announcement made Whole Foods seem like an innocent player, but it is important to recall that they were hemorrhaging and were looking to exit. Throughout the 2010s, the company lost its market leading edge as others began to offer the same kinds of services and products. Still, the company was able to sell near the top of its value to Amazon because it was able to court so many suitors. Given all of these features, Whole Foods could have been using the exit as a mechanism to appropriate another firm’s rent.
Amazon-Whole Foods: The Speculation Then, the Evidence Today
Carl Shapiro, the government’s economics expert opposing the AT&T-Time Warner merger, seems skeptical of much of the antitrust populists’ Amazon rhetoric: "Simply saying that Amazon has grown like a weed, charges very low prices, and has driven many smaller retailers out of business is not sufficient. Where is the consumer harm?" On its face, there was nothing about the Amazon/Whole Foods merger that should have raised any antitrust concerns. While one year is too soon to fully judge the competitive impacts of the Amazon-Whole Foods merger, nevertheless, it appears that much of the populist antitrust movement’s speculation that the merger would destroy competition and competitors and impoverish workers has failed to materialize.
Amazon and Whole Foods, Historically Considered
Viewed from the long history of the evolution of the grocery store, the Amazon-Whole Foods merger made sense as the start of the next stage of that historical process. The combination of increased wealth that is driving the demand for upscale grocery stores, and the corresponding increase in the value of people’s time that is driving the demand for one-stop shopping and various forms of pick-up and delivery, makes clear the potential benefits of this merger. Amazon was already beginning to make a mark in the sale and delivery of the non-perishables and dry goods that upscale groceries tend to have less of. Acquiring Whole Foods gives it a way to expand that into perishables in a very sensible way. We are only beginning to see the synergies that this combination will produce. Its long-term effect on the structure of the grocery business will be significant and highly beneficial for consumers.
Senator Warner’s retrogressive proposals could lead to arbitrary and capricious interventions that would harm entrepreneurs and consumers
Last week, I objected to Senator Warner relying on the flawed AOL/Time Warner merger conditions as a template for tech regulatory policy, but there is a much deeper problem contained in his proposals. Although he does not explicitly say “big is bad” when discussing competition issues, the thrust of much of what he recommends would ... Senator Warner’s retrogressive proposals could lead to arbitrary and capricious interventions that would harm entrepreneurs and consumers
Weekend reads: Big is bad edition
Big is bad, part 1: Kafka, Coase, and Brandeis walk into a bar … There’s a quip in a well-known textbook that Nobel laureate Ronald Coase said he’d grown weary of antitrust because when prices went up, the judges said it was monopoly; when the prices went down, they said it was predatory pricing; and ... Weekend reads: Big is bad edition
The Tariff Act is indeed protectionist — and that’s how Congress wants it
Although not always front page news, International Trade Commission (“ITC”) decisions can have major impacts on trade policy and antitrust law. Scott Kieff, a former ITC Commissioner, recently published a thoughtful analysis of Certain Carbon and Alloy Steel Products — a potentially important ITC investigation that implicates the intersection of these two policy areas. Scott was ... The Tariff Act is indeed protectionist — and that’s how Congress wants it
What’s hip (in antitrust) today should stay passé: Henry G. Manne on “hipster antitrust”
Today would have been Henry Manne’s 90th birthday. When he passed away in 2015 he left behind an immense and impressive legacy. In 1991, at the inaugural meeting of the American Law & Economics Association (ALEA), Manne was named a Life Member of ALEA and, along with Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase, and federal appeals court ... What’s hip (in antitrust) today should stay passé: Henry G. Manne on “hipster antitrust”
The illiberal vision of neo-Brandeisian antitrust
Following is the (slightly expanded and edited) text of my remarks from the panel, Antitrust and the Tech Industry: What Is at Stake?, hosted last Thursday by CCIA. Bruce Hoffman (keynote), Bill Kovacic, Nicolas Petit, and Christine Caffarra also spoke. If we’re lucky Bruce will post his remarks on the FTC website; they were very ... The illiberal vision of neo-Brandeisian antitrust
