It is not an accident that supermarkets are, more and more so, adding their own products to the shelves. It works out more profitable for them (directly as a product, and indirectly as leverage against actual suppliers), and therefore gives them an advantage over lesser stores who do not have the scale to make such things happen.
The only argument for having their own products, instead of the same product that is not an own-brand (someone else is still manufacturing it), is that it makes them more money. Surely that alone is a reason to stop it, and stop major supermarkets chains from getting bigger.
Unfortunately the argument that it provides cheaper products for the consumer tends to help it win antitrust cases – such laws only exist to protect consumers, not to stop Amazon getting bigger.
Regardless, it should be stopped, and it can be done so with a blanket law that doesn’t target just Amazon:
- If you sell just one product type primarily, say car tires, then you can sell your own brand alongside the others that you sell, as long as it is disclosed as you own brand
- If you sell a variety of products – like a supermarket – then you cannot sell your own brand of product. No excuses or exceptions. Unless everything in store is your own product.
Prompted by Amazon buying Roomba – you can’t be the dominant marketplace and sell your own products, it is a conflict of interest