Amazon is known for its copycat ways, but it’s not that often another company calls it, much less in a way that’s funny. But that’s exactly what Peak Design did today when he uploaded a video on YouTube comparing his Everyday Sling to an AmazonBasics camera bag of the exact same name.
“It looks suspiciously like the Peak Design Everyday Sling, but you do not pay for all the unnecessary bells and whistles,” the narrator of the video explains. These extras include things like a lifetime warranty, recycled materials approved by BlueSign, as well as the time and effort the company’s design team put into creating the bag.
The video features a dramatization of how the AmazonBasics design team created their pocket on the bag. “Keep combing the data,” a googly-eyed manager told his subordinate, played here by Peak Design founder and CEO Peter Dering. “Let’s base the bad boy,” they say after finding the Everyday Sling.
The segment points to an awkward aspect of Amazon’s business model, one that is profound Wall Street Journal report examined last year. According to former Amazon employees, the company used its own seller data to design and price its own products – although its own policy prohibits this. The report appeared when Jeff Bezos had to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives during the antitrust hearings last year. He said he could not guarantee that the online retailer had misused data from its third-party sellers.
Peak Design ends the video with an appeal. If you do not want a product that is responsible for a small but innovative business, you do not need to buy it. “Whatever you buy, you get exactly what you paid for.”