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Inside Amazon's Secret Operation To Gather Intel on Rivals


Amazon staff went undercover on Walmart, eBay and other marketplaces as a third-party seller called "Big River," WSJ reports. The mission: to scoop up information on pricing, logistics and other business practices. From the report: For nearly a decade, workers in a warehouse in Seattle's Denny Tria...

From the report: For nearly a decade, workers in a warehouse in Seattle's Denny Triangle neighborhood have shipped boxes of shoes, beach chairs, Marvel T-shirts and other items to online retail customers across the U.S. The operation, called Big River Services International, sells around $1 million a year of goods through e-commerce marketplaces including eBay, Shopify, Walmart and Amazon under brand names such as Rapid Cascade and Svea Bliss. Team members attended their rivals' seller conferences and met with competitors identifying themselves only as employees of Big River Services, instead of disclosing that they worked for Amazon.

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