“In 2019, US senator Elizabeth Warren vowed to break up “big tech companies” that have “too much power over our economy, our society, our democracy.” Concerns were growing about Amazon rigging search results to favor its own brands over competitors’ products—a practice the company denied. Still, Amazon seemingly scaled back promotions of its private-label products as a result. 

That same year, smaller companies found themselves pleasantly surprised when research by e-commerce analysts Marketplace Pulse found that “Amazon-owned private-label brands are not nearly as successful as many paint them to be.” The report found that only 1.7 percent of the top 500,000 search terms on Amazon result in a customer clicking on an AmazonBasics-branded product.

Last Christmas of 2021, however, Amazon came out with its own mince pies which boast a 4.4 rating out of 5 after 117 ratings. Yet while  Amazon may have mastered the mince and conquered Christmas, it might be too late. According to The Wall Street Journal, Amazon began cutting back on its private-label products this summer after poor sales. While it’s unclear whether Amazon’s food brands will also get the chop, the company still only controls 2.4 percent of the US grocery market, even after purchasing Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017. 

Furthermore, the success of the mince pies seems novel. If you told most Brits that Amazon had nestled into the beloved Christmas treats market and started making its own mince pies, they’d be bewildered. 

In addition, its poor sales may be due to the unreliable way the Amazon Fresh stores with many reports of customers being able to purchase and leave without payment. At Fresh stores, customers leave without checking out thanks to sensors but declined payments are notified later meaning customers can leave with produce even if their payment doesn’t go through.