The Hidden Player Spurring a Wave of Cheap Consumer Devices: Amazon
Sunvalley also spends heavily on Amazon ads (these show up as “sponsored” results on Amazon’s search page), and sometimes it will sell products at a loss during one of Amazon’s daily or seasonal deals to get a boost
that lifts all of its products in the website’s search rankings.
We’re going to get better products for ludicrously low prices,
and big brands across a range of categories — the Nests and Netgears of the world — are going to find it harder than ever to get us to shell out big money for their wares.
Customer rankings and reviews on Amazon have become just about the most important factor in how consumers buy electronics products;
because Amazon pages come up high on search results like Google’s, a positive rating on Amazon can effectively make a brand — and a negative rating can break one.