In-Depth Study of All 88 Amazon Private Label Brands

If you ever wondered how many private label products Amazon has, it’s almost certainly more than you think.

In this article, we’ll analyze in-depth some of the private-label brands offered by Amazon. We’ve found conclusive evidence that each of the brands exposed in this article is an Amazon Private Label brand and we also broke them down by product category.

Related reading: 25 Juicy Tidbits That Congress Forced Out of Amazon.

Additional information: Full Amazon Responses to Sub-committee Questions (69 pages, PDF), Amazon’s Initial Response for Further Information.

What is an Amazon Private Label Brand?

Private Labeling is essentially when a company buys off-the-shelf products from China and brands them under their company. These products are already being manufactured by suppliers so there is little to no actual product development needed.

Learn more about private labeling in our ultimate guide on How to Start a Private Label Amazon FBA Business.

What is an Amazon Exclusive Brand?

Amazon Exclusives is a program launched in 2015 where third-party sellers have the possibility to partner directly with Amazon to gain more visibility and sell unique products on the Amazon platform while offering these products only on Amazon and their own website.

There is a significant difference between an Amazon Exclusive Brand and an Amazon Private Label brand and the two are often confused. Amazon’s private label brands are often competing directly with third-party sellers while the Amazon Exclusives program is essentially a marketing program by Amazon for third-party sellers.

A Brief Summary About Amazon’s Private Brands

Amazon began launching a few Amazon-owned private label brands in 2005 when it released its first brand, Pinzon and later in 2009, AmazonBasics. 

In July of 2019, Congress held hearings on “Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 2: Innovation and Entrepreneurship” where Amazon revealed that they currently offer approximately 158,000 private brand products (some of which have additional variations, such as color and size) across 45 brands in the Amazon store in addition to some private brand products sold by Amazon Fresh, its online grocery store available in select metro areas. Around half of the private-label products are in clothing, footwear and accessories.

In more recent years, Amazon has released more private brands and has also launched some Amazon Exclusive Brands in partnership with manufacturing partners, but all their brands fall under the same page, “Our Brands”. 

Amazon hasn't shared which of the brands on its site are private label or just Exclusive to Amazon. Some of Amazon’s brands are easily recognizable (Amazon Basics, Amazon Essentials…) but most aren’t as easy to spot.

How many Private Label Brands does Amazon Have?

With 158,000 private brand products across 45 brands until 2019, Amazon continues to grow every day creating more private label brands and becoming a big competitor to Amazon sellers.

However, despite knowing some of Amazon's brands (thanks to the 2019 Congress), the marketplace has never publicly disclosed what exact brands it owns, so determining an Amazon Private Label brand can be difficult.

We developed a list of dozens of suspected Amazon brands by using other third-party data, Amazon’s own “Our Brands” page, and product detail page information available directly on Amazon.

When you enter Amazon.com and search for a generic product such as “dresses”, the page allows you to select the filter “Our brands” to see only Amazon brands as results.

But if you search for the brand name directly “Lark & Ro”, for example – the descriptions of the results say only “exclusive to Prime members” and don’t explicitly indicate that the brands belong to Amazon.

We carefully analyzed each of the brands listed above to confirm that these brands are created and sold by Amazon.

The research delved into certain specific factors that linked these brands to Amazon. To do so, we discovered that many of these brands collect information about the seller in the “description” section, or even in the title of the product, showing itself as “an Amazon brand”. 

We then analyzed each of these brands in-depth to find conclusive proof of the brand being an Amazon private label brand or suspected Amazon private label brand. We were able to definitively identify 88 Amazon Private Label brands. However, it hasn’t been possible to prove that 11 of the brands exposed in this study are Amazon private label brands.

Amazon's Brands are in Most Product Categories

This graphic presents the worldwide market share held by Amazon-owned private label brands in 2019. As we can see, AmazonBasics accounted for 57.8% of total sales by all Amazon private label brands.

Amazon is entering with its own brands in different sectors and in many cases attacking niches in different sectors. It’s especially noticeable in the world of fashion where the marketplace already has numerous brands.

According to Statista, 47.7% of Amazon's private-label share in 2019 was accounted for by the clothing, shoes, and jewelry product market. 

But also, Amazon not only offers products in almost all their niches but also offers its private labels relatively at a low cost. In 2019, the majority of categories have an average price of $20.

Amazon has become one of the great competitors for any Amazon seller. Many sellers have even questioned its practices of unfair competition and accusing the big retailer of monopolizing the e-commerce market.

Amazon’s Private Label Brands Controversy

In the past years, Amazon has been the subject of some antitrust investigations. In the 2019 congressional hearing, Amazon claims it doesn’t use individual seller data for developing its own brands but it does aggregate seller data and uses that towards its private label brands. 

Amazon might not use individual seller data to get the upper hand for its own brands, but it does get to use aggregated data (i.e. category revenue information, keyword data, etc).

In addition, Amazon doesn't favor its brands in search results but it does in other marketing, such as advertising.

Competing against the e-commerce giant can be intimidating after disclosing this list of Amazon private label brands.

Amazon Warns Sellers They May Choose Their Private Label Brands Over Them

Amazon has reached out to some third-party sellers warning them about antitrust proposals in the U.S. Congress that might have “negative effects on their business”.

What would really happen if Amazon's private label brands disappeared? According to the retailer, the antitrust legislation would make it harder for third-party sellers and cause negative effects on many businesses.

Brian Huseman, vice president of Public Policy, has also warned of the consequences in the proposed legislation introduced by members of the U.S House of Representatives.

Lack of competition can be detrimental and can negatively affect a business as it lacks information about its niche. Without access to Amazon’s customers, can be harder for Amazon sellers to create awareness for their business and earn a comparable income. 

Removing these brands could also create less price competition for products, and likely end up increasing prices for consumers.

But would the 88 brands analyzed in this article really represent a threat to third-party sellers if they were eliminated? Would this have significant negative effects on the thousands of small and medium-sized businesses that they sell on Amazon?

Conclusion

Amazon's ambition to further grow its monopoly in the consumer market is endless. The ecommerce giant is developing more and more of its own brands. 

Do you know of any Amazon private label brands that we have not named on our list? If so, which one is it? Tell us in the comments section below!