A new documentary takes a closer look at what Amazon does to its business practices, and what those practices do to the people who try to make a living selling their products on the site. The documentary is called "Amazon Market Power Monopoly," and the filmmakers interview Amazon sellers who say they are barely keeping their heads above water because of the company's policies. What does Amazon do to keep prices low? They make it hard for sellers to compete on the same terms as other sites, and force them to raise their prices in order to keep their business afloat. That's not a free market, that's a monopoly. And there's a big difference between that and what we just saw in the clip from the new movie "Amazon's Fair Representation" by the makers of the Netflix documentary "The Dark Side of the Internet." You can find all of it and a whole lot more on Tucker Carlson's new show, "Tucker Carlson's Truth Is King" wherever you get your news and information. Subscribe to "The Tucker Carlson Podcast" Subscribe on iTunes Learn more about your ad choices. If you like what you're listening to, consider giving us a review on iTunes or becoming a supporter of our podcast, we'll be giving you a five-star rating and a discount on our next episode starting next week, starting at $99.99. You get 10% off your first month, get 20% off my next month gets free shipping when you shop with promo code "Tuckercarlson's Law Firm is a course starts starts up starts starts starts and I'll get a discount up to $39.99 gets $24,99, and I'm also get a promo code, she gets 5,99 gets 4,99 and they get my promo code starts her gets $29,ouch, they get 5,ouch and she gets $4,ouch? Thank you, I'll also get $5,49, and they'll get $25, she'll get it all that she gets it, she also gets it all, she's said it, they'll also receive $19, she will also get it, and she'll also have it all of that, she has it all she'll receive a course that she's a review and she's all she gets, she can say she'll she'll have it, she'll become a review, she says that she'll she's that's she's promo code? she gets that?
00:00:00.000Welcome to the Tucker Carlson podcast, where every story is an honest story and not one of
00:00:15.620them has been massaged or influenced or censored by a corporate gatekeeper. We've made a lot of
00:00:21.460these. You can find all of it and a lot of exclusive content at tuckercarlson.com. We
00:00:26.300hope you'll check that out. Here's today's episode. Buying products on amazon.com is a
00:00:31.700little bit like masturbation. Not everybody admits to it, but honestly, you suspect it's
00:00:37.060pretty common. It's just so easy. But what exactly does amazon.com do? How did Jeff Bezos get so rich?
00:00:44.540The details are unknown to most people, even frequent users of the site. Well, a new documentary
00:00:49.760takes a closer look at what Amazon does at its business practices and what those practices do
00:00:55.760to the people who try to make a living selling their products on the site. The documentary is
00:01:00.000called Amazon Market Power Monopoly. So the filmmakers interview Amazon sellers who say they are barely
00:01:06.820keeping their heads above water because of the company's policies. Those policies tell them
00:01:11.380exactly how much they can charge for their own products. So take a look at this clip from the
00:01:15.580movie. It shows a German businessman who makes and sells children's beds and does nearly all of his
00:01:20.780business on amazon.com. He says the company puts pressure on him to keep his prices low as low as
00:01:26.040possible to keep customers from buying that same product on another site such as eBay. If Amazon finds
00:01:32.180out that he's selling his products cheaper on another site like eBay, they will punish him by making his
00:01:37.200products very hard to find on Amazon. They do this by taking away what is called his buy box. The buy box is
00:01:44.760the area you click on the product page to make a purchase. If there's no buy box, customers tend to
00:01:50.140leave and buy it somewhere else. That sounds confusing. Watch the man demonstrate exactly how this is done.
00:01:57.040His most important online shop window at Amazon, the so-called buy box, the framed box around the shopping cart field.
00:02:04.800So this whole box here, that's just called the buy box, and you can see the add to cart button here. And if I click on it now, then I have this in the shopping cart and I can buy the item.
00:02:17.800But Marco Schach can also lose the buy box for his beds. For example, if his prices are not competitive.
00:02:25.800That means for me, with buy box I can sell. Without buy box, 95 to 99% of the sales are gone.
00:02:34.800Who gets the buy box is decided by Amazon alone. Marco Schach shows us.
00:02:41.800I'm going to change the price to 349 euros. And we will see that in about 15 minutes, the buy box here is gone.
00:02:54.800And indeed, after 15 minutes, the buy box has disappeared. For customers, it now seems as if the item is not available at the moment.
00:03:06.800In other words, Amazon decides what you charge for your products, and if you don't obey, they will shut you down.
00:03:12.800But in the most passive-aggressive corporate way. They just remove your buy box.
00:03:17.800It's fascinating, and there's a lot like that in this film. It goes on to follow the business of a man called Molson Hart.
00:03:23.800He's the CEO of an educational toy company that does most of its business on Amazon.
00:03:27.800The film crew was there when Hart learned that Amazon would once again raise its fees on him.
00:03:33.800So in order to turn a profit, he was forced to jack his prices. Watch.
00:03:36.800We are probably going to have to raise prices.
00:04:54.800The clip we just played is a fair representation of your life as an Amazon seller.
00:04:58.800Yeah, that's absolutely a fair representation of our life as an Amazon seller.
00:05:03.800If your products are cheaper off Amazon than they are on Amazon, then you lose all your sales on Amazon, which is a big problem for us because 90% of our sales come from Amazon.
00:05:16.800So what you're saying, I think, is that Amazon sets the price market wide, not just on its own site, but on other sites.
00:05:29.800So if you look at the statistics and a lot of people have a difference to statistics out there, Amazon controls roughly 50% of the whole online e-commerce market, depending on how you calculate it.
00:05:40.800And for us, since 90% of our sales come from Amazon, and since Amazon is more expensive to sell on than other platforms like eBay, Walmart, or even our own website, Amazon in a way kind of does set the price.
00:05:55.800Because if we price our products lower off of Amazon, because those off Amazon platforms are cheaper than Amazon, we lose 90% of our sales on Amazon.
00:06:06.800So we have to constantly keep our prices up off Amazon.
00:06:11.800And we can't lower our prices on Amazon to the costs off Amazon because then we'll end up losing money because Amazon is more expensive to sell on than it is to sell on off Amazon.
00:06:25.800Thanks for watching the episode with Molson heart.
00:06:27.800It gives you a sense of what Amazon is really like worse than you thought.
00:06:31.800So if you don't want to use Amazon and up till now, you haven't had much of a choice because it's effectively a monopoly.
00:06:38.800Well, now you don't have to because there's an option, a new service made for you.
00:06:43.800It's called public square, and they're building a brand new way of conducting commerce, selling and buying that goes back to America's roots.
00:06:52.800So far, they have over 75,000 small businesses from this country offering their products and services.
00:06:59.800So if you're a small business owner hoping to sell handcrafted goods, guns, ammo, fresh food, household essentials, whatever, public square is perfect for you.
00:07:09.800It's a great place to do that, to sell what you make.
00:07:12.800It's also a great place to buy what other people make, and it's easy.
00:07:15.800You can add your business in less than 10 minutes for free and sell your products nationwide.
00:07:22.800To learn more, go to public square slash Tucker.
00:07:25.800They're a sponsor of this program, and we're happy to have them.
00:07:36.800So I think they do it two different ways.
00:07:38.800The primary way they do it is basically by using an algorithm that just like scrapes the entire internet, looking at prices on Walmart, looking at prices on eBay.
00:07:47.800And in the video that you showed in the documentary, that's how Amazon was able to shut down that person's product so fast within 15 minutes.
00:07:56.800So the algorithm is kind of like monitoring the whole internet to see if prices are higher or lower on and off Amazon.
00:08:02.800And it might also be possible for there used to be like a button on pages on Amazon where consumers could report like a better price elsewhere.
00:08:10.800So there might be like a human component as well, but it's mainly just an algorithm where they're watching prices on and off Amazon.
00:08:17.800But they know when you've been sleeping, they know when you're awake.
00:08:19.800I mean, it's like they're part of the surveillance data.
00:08:23.800I mean, you wouldn't imagine because you're selling on Amazon that Amazon would be watching your behavior in other places, right?
00:08:30.800Yeah, to my mind, it's totally unnecessary and there's no need for this policy.
00:08:36.800They used to contractually enforce this.
00:08:39.800So there used to be a line in the contract that sellers signed with Amazon that would say that you would not sell your products for less off Amazon.
00:08:45.800And then there was like kind of like a regulatory kerfuffle in Europe.
00:08:49.800And they ended up removing that from their contracts, but then they maintain the policy algorithmically.
00:08:57.800And in 2019, I wrote an article about it.
00:09:02.800And I can kind of explain why it's so hard to get these kind of narratives about Amazon.
00:09:07.800But I wrote an article about it and that article ended up getting wrapped up into like an FTC lawsuit, the state of California versus Amazon.
00:09:14.800And that's why we're talking about it today.
00:09:17.800Just back up a sentence, if you would.
00:09:21.800What do you mean it's so hard to get that story out?
00:09:23.800So like, as I said, right, 90% of our sales come from Amazon.
00:09:54.800So don't want to bite the hand that feeds you.
00:09:56.800And then the second thing is my company, you know, all companies that sell on Amazon, they signed a contract that says that, you know, you're not going to make public statements about Amazon.
00:10:04.800You're not going to speak to the press without express written permission from Amazon.
00:10:27.800So if you're if you want to make a documentary about Amazon, you have to like think carefully about, you know, what's that going to do to your career going forward?
00:10:34.800I'm not saying Amazon does this, but, you know, you may not be able to sell a film or documentary to Amazon in the future.
00:10:40.800And so, you know, those are the reasons why it's kind of hard to get this information out there.
00:10:45.800How long do you think before they get their own defense department?
00:10:48.800Uh, defense department, like the Department of Defense or like lawyers?
00:10:53.800Yeah, I mean, you're you're describing you're describing a company that's a lot.
00:10:58.800And of course, we all sort of know this on some level, but that's a lot more powerful and a lot more willing to flex its power than maybe some of us imagined just 10 years ago.
00:11:07.800Well, okay, so like I am a witness in I don't know if I'm technically a witness, but I've been pulled into those two lawsuits, the FTC and a bunch of states versus Amazon and the state of California versus Amazon.
00:11:19.800And like generally speaking, I can say this about my interaction because I'm bound by confidentiality in terms of what I can say with the lawsuits.
00:12:14.800I, well, I didn't think that of a movie studio and be able to control coverage of their own company a few years ago.
00:12:19.800So, you know, you never know where these things are going, Molson Hart.
00:12:22.800Um, but I just wonder, since you obviously you've thought about this in, in larger terms, cause you've been involved or a witness to these lawsuits.
00:12:29.800I mean, isn't this, aren't we approaching the definition of, of a monopoly?
00:12:33.800So business is something that controls its silo, you know, where it operates.
00:12:37.800Monopoly is a business that controls an entire market and kind of what you're describing is a company that just, that controls online commerce, the pricing.
00:12:50.800Uh, Amazon with its way in the, the way that they keep on jamming fees down sellers throats.
00:12:57.800And this isn't just about me as someone who sells on Amazon, complaining about Amazon's fees.
00:13:01.800Like these fees end up becoming higher prices for you.
00:13:06.800Um, they, uh, I don't want to say that they control pricing on the entire American internet or the countries where they operate, but you know, they're pretty.
00:13:14.800You know, they, they have a lot of weight when it comes to where prices are in terms of whether or not they're a monopoly.
00:13:21.800Um, you know, that's not for me to decide this for the courts to decide.
00:13:25.800And like I said before, I sincerely not just saying it because I don't want to get smacked by Amazon.
00:13:30.800I mean, I don't, but they are a good company and they have, they have great people, but they do have some bad policies.
00:13:38.800And I think the best outcome would be for them to, you know, stop with the bad policies.
00:13:43.800And I wrote an open letter to Jeff Bezos on Twitter.
00:13:47.800I think he read it because he's responded to me on Twitter before or X, I should say.
00:13:51.800Um, and I, you know, I think it would just be better if they ended the bad policies rather than, you know, potentially being broken up or something like that.
00:14:00.800But again, that's not really for me to decide.
00:14:02.800Well, they're not going to, I mean, he owns the Washington Post, which is the main news source in the capital city.
00:14:08.800So I don't think they're going to be broken up anytime soon.
00:14:10.800And I suspect the Post would editorialize against that if it came down to it.
00:21:49.800And the American factory would sell its product to an American store or whatever.
00:21:52.800And then we had this transitional period where Chinese factories were selling to distributors
00:21:57.800who were selling to stores or Chinese factories were selling to target or whatever.
00:22:01.800What's happening now is the Chinese factories are selling directly on Amazon to us consumers.
00:22:09.800And the net result of this, because the playing field is in the Chinese favor.
00:22:14.800And I can kind of explain why is that the U.S. like wholesale distribution product design industry has come under threat from very tough, difficult competition from China.
00:22:28.800And so now like we lost our factories.
00:22:31.800And in my opinion, I think we're going to lose this middle part of our economy, largely to companies in China.
00:22:39.800How does how does China have a structural advantage in this?
00:22:43.800So for one, these Chinese sellers, they're selling on Amazon.
00:22:49.800They don't have to file U.S. income tax returns.
00:22:52.800They don't have to worry about estimated taxes like like we do.
00:22:56.800They're close to the factory, so they can iterate on products much faster.