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Inside Amazon's 'Project Curiosity'; China's Steel Floods Global Markets By Paul Page
Big River Services certainly looks like a significant online merchant, with its sales of around $1 million a year through e-commerce marketplaces including Walmart, Shopify, eBay and Amazon. What the business doesn't disclose on its website is that Big River is an arm of Amazon that surreptitiously gathers intelligence on the e-commerce leader's competitors. The WSJ's Dana Mattioli and Sarah Nassauer report the clandestine operation works under a plan called "Project Curiosity" that uses its sales to get pricing data, logistics information and other details about rival marketplaces. Team members have attended their rivals' seller conferences and met with competitors identifying themselves as employees of Big River, instead of disclosing that they worked for Amazon. The shell company has bought inventory and found warehouses in the U.S., Germany, England, India and Japan so they could pose as sellers on competitors' websites.
To get information about rival logistics services, Big River stored inventory with companies including FedEx. United Parcel Service, DHL, Deliverr and German logistics company Linther Spedition. The biggest win for Big River may have come when it finally got onto Walmart's website, where one of its product names was listed this month as a "Pro Seller" - a top performing merchant. An Amazon spokeswoman said the company uses the common business practice of benchmarking against other companies' services and performance "in order to improve their experiences working with us."
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Economy & Trade
China's epic property bust has saddled its steelmakers with a glut of unsold metal, and countries around the world are feeling the impact. President Biden's announcement that he will seek to triple a key tariff rate on imports of Chinese steel highlighted a problem that is rolling across industrial countries as China's output grows. The WSJ's Jason Douglas reports that exports of Chinese steel have risen 33% in the past year as the country's enormous producers try to unload their wares abroad now that construction at home has dried up. U.S. imports of Chinese steel have fallen since Trump-era tariffs came into effect, but the products are landing in countries including Brazil, Vietnam, India, the U.K., the Philippines and Turkey. All of those have antidumping investigations under way. With China's real-estate market struggling, steel producers can expect to sit on unsold metal for years unless they rein in production.
Beijing denounced a U.S. probe into China's shipbuilding industry as a politically driven move full of "false accusations." (WSJ) Quotable Number of the Day In Other News
Home sales in the U.S. fell in March at the steepest pace in more than a year. (WSJ)
New-car sales in Europe showed the biggest monthly drop in March in 16 months. (WSJ)
BHP's iron-ore production fell 7% last quarter from the previous three months. (WSJ)
Swedish telecom-equipment company Ericsson laid off 240 employees in China. (WSJ)
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is doubling capacity for producing advanced chips as part of a strong pivot toward artificial intelligence. (WSJ)
TSMC plans to charge customers more for making their chips outside of Taiwan. (Financial Times)
Macy's stepped up its investment in a 1.4 million-square-foot distribution center near Charlotte, N.C., but slashed its employment target by more than half. (Business Journals)
Sweden's Stena Bulk sold its last remaining liquefied natural gas carrier to an undisclosed Asian buyer. (Splash 247)
U.S. trucking regulators have gotten only a meager response to a pilot program to have workers under 21 drive heavy-duty trucks in interstate operations. (Logistics Management)
Former CSX president and CEO Jim Foote died a year and a half after retiring from the railroad. (Progressive Railroading)
San Francisco is suing Oakland over the latter city's plan to rename its airport San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport. (WSJ)
Executive Insights
Here is our weekly roundup of stories from across WSJ Pro that we think you'll find useful.
Richard Galanti was named CFO of Costco at age 28. Nearly 40 years later, he has stepped down after leaving his mark at the retail behemoth by trying to keep things simple. State lawmakers are debating and passing bills to make it harder for private-equity firms to buy up healthcare businesses across much of the U.S. The messaging from a pair of top monetary policy setters this week made it clear that the central banks of the U.S. and Europe are to part ways. Listen to the chief information security officer at cloud-based financial services company Bill discuss what company leaders can do to improve how they oversee cybersecurity. About Us
Paul Page is editor of WSJ Logistics Report. Reach him at [paul.page@wsj.com].
Follow the WSJ Logistics Report team: @PaulPage , @bylizyoung and @pdberger . Follow the WSJ Logistics Report on X at @WSJLogistics .
This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 19, 2024 07:06 ET (11:06 GMT)
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