Amazon’s New Competitive Advantage: Putting Its Own Products First

A search for shaving cream featured Amazon's Made For You shaving cream, to the left of two paid listings from The Art of Shaving brand.

Although customers don't necessarily realize it, brands have for years been able to bid on search terms to secure the most visible listing positions at the top of Amazon's product search results pages, where their products carry a sponsored tag above the description.

Three-fourths of Amazon's digital ad revenues come from keyword-targeted, cost-per-click search ads, including the sponsored product listings , according to eMarketer estimates.

The top row may feature between one and four paid listings, known as sponsored products.

For example, a recent search for curtains showed AmazonBasics curtains in the top left spot, followed by two sponsored and one organic or unpaid listing across the row.

Absent favored treatment by Amazon, though, its private-label brands sometimes don't have enough sales under the algorithm's criteria to justify a listing on the first page of search results, said consultant James Thomson, the former business head of an Amazon team that recruits third-party sellers.

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