Amazon caught catching top products

What a nightmare of an entrepreneur? What will make his product better, cheaper, and start selling without his knowledge! But such a nightmare can be a real nightmare. If you copy his thing, the planet’s most powerful retailer suddenly starts. He will suddenly make himself your main competitor, and will actually end your business with one little finger movement.

This happened to Allbirds founder Tim Brown. We already talked about his promising shoe startup a year ago. Eco-friendly, simple sneakers made of wool of merino sheep, without plastic and everything else, for $ 95. But, to their misfortune, they refused to sell their shoes on Amazon. They preferred to develop their site and their brand (fortunately, they received more than $ 80 million of investments for this). And now, over a month ago, Amazon suddenly begins to produce exactly the same kind of sneakers. With the same "perks." Only for $ 45.

Audacity second happiness

Copying other people's ideas is the original tradition of Silicon Valley. It is known that at the age of 24, Steve Jobs visited the Xerox PARC Innovation Center, and left there with the idea of ​​the interaction of a mouse and a window interface. The result was the Macintosh, one of the most famous products in the history of the valley. And Xerox, whose engineers were the first to implement the project, was soon forced to leave the personal computer market.

Since 2011, Apple and Samsung have been fighting in the patent war for hundreds of millions of dollars (initially, Apple demanded $ 2.5 billion). And Facebook was seen in actively copying the functions of competitors, so as not to let anyone get around themselves in the social media market. Now, for example, the IT giant is actively developing the Threads application to communicate with your closest friends and publish status photos. According to the logic of Zuckerberg, such a utility in addition to the “Instagram” will finally remove the desire of users to log into Snapchat.

But while Facebook has been hard copying the features of its main competitors (before that they had almost been brought to court because of the “borrowing” of the Stories format for “Instagram”), Amazon went one step further. It copies your product completely. Amazon Brand's new 206 Collective boots are nearly identical in material and design to Allbirds Wool Runner sneakers. Only cost more than two times cheaper.

A successful startup from San Francisco, Allbirds recently won the hearts of many geeks of the valley. This is the most popular shoe among employees of US IT companies. Therefore, on the Internet, such a maneuver of Amazon caused a small seething.

One of the leaders of Tinder, Jeff Morris, brought the story to the wider public. On Twitter, he attached a photo and shared his sadness :

Amazon now directly copies Allbirds.

We have reached the peak of cloning in Silicon Valley.

Now there are no more rules - if you build a product that works, Amazon or Facebook will copy it.

In Morris's comments, a Twitter people gathered discussing how many things and clothes they take for themselves from Amazon Basics and Amazon Brand. According to many, it is in the end no worse than products from different expensive brands. And they even found out that from the sale of one of these boots Amazon now receives about $ 30 thousand a month (according to Viral Launch).

They decided that large companies have been copying ideas from small manufacturers for hundreds of years. As you know, Steve Jobs taught young growth, quoting Picasso: “Good artists copy. The great ones steal. ”

It's just that with Amazon the situation is more noticeable and worse, given its size and strength. Well, many are simply worried about the fate of Allbirds, when the same product can now be taken on the site most convenient for Americans, more than two times cheaper.

The big news sites picked up the seething, people went to boycott the product page , buying it, and then minus one. From the ideal five points, the score has already slipped to 3.3. Well, of course, people actively like those reviews that say that you do not need to take them in any case, as long as there are real Allbirds. Amazon does not answer the charges, and in general, even if the sneakers suddenly do not sell, the companies do not care.

Why allbirds

In the States, of course, there are several more successful brands. But the cloning of Allbirds for Amazon makes a lot of sense. Firstly, Gucci or Dolce & Gabbana - take only because of their name. Adidas' Yeezy's are only known for the name Kanye West. Copying them does not make sense, there is nothing fundamentally new in them, just the logo is important to people. In addition, these brands are already sold on Amazon, the company makes profit from them.

Allbirds is something new. A new look, wool on sneakers, emphasis on the environment. They have a distinctive design. The product is aimed at a new niche: the tech industry. A minimum of excess, a very simple purchase, a purely utilitarian attitude to the subject of shoes. Silicon Valley, which was sick of all these yazis, conquered such simple and high-quality sneakers in calm colors in less than a year and a half. The price of "anti-brand" reached $ 1.4 billion

Allbirds were spotted with Barack Obama, Ben Affleck, Ashton Kutcher, Leonardo DiCaprio, Hugh Jackman and Matthew McConaughey (the latter has at least three pairs)

Soon, an entire army of “photocopiers” appeared. Not only from the USA - they tried to recreate shoe design and promotion strategy in different countries. For example, the recent Austrian case Giesswein Walkwaren is known. They had the imprudence not only to completely incline the shoes, but also to call them “Wool Runners”, exactly like one of the Allbirds models. A startup from San Francisco has sued them, the case is pending, but they probably won’t get monetary compensation. Most likely, the Austrians will simply change the name of the product, publicly apologize, and will be so.

Prior to this, in 2017 there was a popular American designer Steve Madden, who directly took his “designs” from a startup. And escaped with nothing, even, on the contrary, said that Allbirds themselves are to blame for the fact that they have such simple designs. Like, you can copy and not notice, but you have no exclusive elements, try to prove it.

Steve Madden's Traveler sneakers on the left, Allbirds Wool Runner on the right

Amazon doesn't really like it when it doesn't sell something. But you can’t just lure Allbirds to yourself: Tim Brown and Joey Zillinger, startup leaders, greatly value their independence. The solution is simple - copy what is, and sell it on your own.

The potential profit is quite good. According to MarketPlace Pulse, every day, 10,000 searches are made for allbirds on Amazon. So it would be lost customers. They didn’t buy shoes, and Amazon was a little disappointed. Now - they are shown the same 206 Collective model (and several more similar options). Although, it would seem, the word Allbirds in their name and description is not mentioned anywhere. But potential buyers do not have to leave disappointed.

Bezos also has Amazon Essentials, Amazon Basics, Amazon Elements, and 25 other home brands . By the name of the majority it is impossible to guess that this is Amazon. In total, these are tens of thousands of products from different categories. Basically, the scheme of their production is simple: the company sees that it sells well on their website. Looks at margin, relevance, uniqueness. And in a couple of months it releases a similar product. All risks were assumed by the original developers. Now Amazon can only make a profit.

In Europe, an antitrust case was opened against Amazon in July for such data collection. Like, you can’t take other people's information, and on its basis to create your own product. But at Amazon everything is spelled out in the agreement, and if sellers do not want their data to be used, let them go to trade elsewhere, who is stopping them?

So Allbirds is not the first and far from the last swallow. Just Twitter people, geeks of the valley and journalists from different sites especially appreciated this brand, and decided to raise a bucha precisely because of it.

Is there a way out

For people like Tinder's Jeff Morris, justice comes first. “We have no more rules, Facebook and Amazon copy what they want.” And it is true. If the IT giant likes your idea, he will either buy you with giblets, or make it himself, only cheaper and better. The series "Silicon Valley", if looked, is not far from the truth.

Amazon now actually has a monopoly on online sales in the United States. If a store wants something to be sold, it will be for sale. How to compete with small startups at the Allbirds level is a mystery. The copyright rules that protect “original works of authorship” - books, paintings, photographs and music - do not apply to things like clothes and shoes. If Amazon literally does not hang the Allbirds logo on its new sneakers, nothing can be done with it. The general design of the product, its color, lines, materials - it is impossible to copy.

A small loophole now remains in the patent section. If you really have something original and unusual, it can be patented. However, it is expensive (in the States - tens of thousands of dollars) and long (usually more than a year). During such a time, if Amazon notices that it is selling well, your product will already be delivered. The process is well debugged and takes only a few months. And with the “patent trolls” they have already learned to fight perfectly, and it will be difficult to sue at least something.

However, maybe for us, as consumers, this is good? Why do we need to take exorbitant prices from different fashion brands with a wrap per name if Amazon (or another large retailer) takes and releases the same, only half the price?

Or is such an approach of monopolies too harmful to innovation?

PS Pochtoy.com can deliver any goods from stores in America. Now - not only to Russia, but also to Ukraine , thanks to cooperation with New Mail. The parcel cost is 0.5 kg from $ 12 (for Ukraine - from $ 11.00). For readers of our blog - a free ransom from American stores after registration . Just give our operators a link and fund your account - we will do the rest.