However, by no means is this different from the store branded products you find at Safeway or Walgreens. They do the exact same thing. The vendors pay for shelf space, share their profits, only for the supermarkets to copy the product and sell it as store branded ones.
A comment like this pops up every time this happens with Amazon, and it's not even remotely the same thing at all.
Amazon only "resells" a limited subset of products. Most of the products on Amazon are sold on consignment or by third party sellers with fulfillment by Amazon.
Stores buy all of their products from their suppliers, both the name brand products and the store brand products and "resell" those products to end customers. In fact, the same company (or companies) supplies both the name brand and store brand products. Store brand products are just white label variants of the name brand. The supplier deliberately offers it as part of a market segmentation strategy, with the goal of making the name brand appear (more) premium.
Suppliers also do not pay for shelf space for most products in grocery stores. Paying for shelf space is an optional marketing strategy; suppliers can choose to pay for premium placement, and if they do not the store will simply place the most profitable items in the premium locations.
Suppliers also don't share their profits, and I don't know where you got that idea from. Suppliers sell to grocery stores at wholesale prices. And the grocery stores than "resell" those items at a markup to end customers.
Finally, grocery stores very rarely sell items on consignment, because most suppliers won't put up with that shit. Only low volume or new/trial products with no sales history get sold on consignment, because the store can't and won't purchase perishable inventory without knowing how (or when) it will sell.
A comment like this pops up every time this happens with Amazon, and it's not even remotely the same thing at all.
Amazon only "resells" a limited subset of products. Most of the products on Amazon are sold on consignment or by third party sellers with fulfillment by Amazon.
Stores buy all of their products from their suppliers, both the name brand products and the store brand products and "resell" those products to end customers. In fact, the same company (or companies) supplies both the name brand and store brand products. Store brand products are just white label variants of the name brand. The supplier deliberately offers it as part of a market segmentation strategy, with the goal of making the name brand appear (more) premium.
Suppliers also do not pay for shelf space for most products in grocery stores. Paying for shelf space is an optional marketing strategy; suppliers can choose to pay for premium placement, and if they do not the store will simply place the most profitable items in the premium locations.
Suppliers also don't share their profits, and I don't know where you got that idea from. Suppliers sell to grocery stores at wholesale prices. And the grocery stores than "resell" those items at a markup to end customers.
Finally, grocery stores very rarely sell items on consignment, because most suppliers won't put up with that shit. Only low volume or new/trial products with no sales history get sold on consignment, because the store can't and won't purchase perishable inventory without knowing how (or when) it will sell.