According to an article by the WSJ, $AMZN is expected to have less than 20 private label brands after management looks to remove many of their underperforming private label brands. Goodthreads, Rivet furniture, and Amazon Basics are well performing brands that are expected to stay in the company while other lesser known brands will be axed. Knowing the categories in retail that are are underperforming, investors will have a better idea on which of the 45 private label brands will be axed and which brands will remain in business.

The reduction of private label brands is part of CEO Andy Jassy's cost cutting initiatives. While some say that the issues that third-party retailers have raised with Amazon's private label brands are also a reason for why Amazon is cutting back on their private label strategy, assuming that the legal settlement costs are small for the company, I don't think that these legal issues are a major influence on Jassy's choice to downsize the private label business.

In terms of how it will impact companies like Allbirds $BIRD, who have seen Amazon replicate their products with their own private label brand, the reduction in private label brands could benefit them. It's hard to tell how significant Amazon's private label brands have been to certain companies because for shoes, Allbirds has been able to continue generating sales from people interested in buying comfortable shoes made using sustainable resources. But for other businesses, the impact must be bigger, prompting them to push harder on legal actions and on lobbying the FTC to investigate and penalize Amazon for their actions.

From my perspective, I think that Amazon pushed too fast with their private label strategy and are dealing with the consequences of it. When I see $WMT $TGT and other big store brands and their private label products, I find that they have a lot less private label products and tend to move slower with these moves than Amazon. While Amazon looks to be having issues with boosting the performance of private label brands, Walmart and others seem to have no issues with their private label brands.