Amazon has reportedly started “drastically” reducing the number of private label items it sells, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal. The retailer’s owned product lines have been under internal scrutiny due to a combination of disappointing sales and regulatory pressure, according to the sources.
Amazon currently sells approximately 243,000 private label products across 45 different brands as of 2020 (the latest year figures are available). The ecommerce giant has been accused of giving advantages to its own brands at the expense of other vendors’ items, which has led to controversy on how it develops and sells these house brands.
Amazon executives have reportedly instructed the private label team to reduce its selection of items and not reorder many of them, including the possibility of slashing the assortment by over half. The cutbacks were reportedly initiated by Dave Clark, former CEO Worldwide Consumer at Amazon, who left the company in June 2022 to serve as CEO of supply chain startup Flexport. He initiated a review of the business at the beginning of 2022 and pushed the team to focus on “bestselling commodity goods” rather than the massive range currently offered.
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