Amazon Cuts Dozens of House Brands as It Battles Costs, Regulators

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retail sales. Given the small size of the business relative to the regulatory issues it creates, the company last year discussed offering to exit from the business as a concession to the FTC if the agency followed through with its lawsuit, the Journal reported. It couldn’t be determined whether Amazon has offered to regulators to exit from the business.

An Amazon spokeswoman said at the time of last year’s article that it hadn’t seriously considered closing the private-label business and planned to continue to invest in it. Amazon now has cut the total number of house brands to fewer than 20, some of the people said, and retired tens of thousands of products that it had been making for those brands. No new products are being ordered for the brands being phased out, which will cease to exist once their inventory is sold.

Strong-selling items in brands that have been discontinued are being rebranded under Amazon Essentials or other remaining labels. The changes are in line with a broader effort by Amazon over the past two years to curtail unprofitable businesses and products as it works to cut costs in the face of a postpandemic downturn. That effort has entailed cuts in unprofitable areas, such as the company’s nongrocery physical stores.

The private-label moves also address scrutiny of the competitive practices around its in-house brands that has vexed Amazon for years. In 2020, the Journal detailed how Amazon employees used data from its platform on individual third-party sellers to develop Amazon-branded products that compete with those sellers. Amazon founder and then-Chief Executive Jeff Bezos was called to testify before a Congressional antitrust committee following the article.