Secret Agreements, Silent Competition: Unmasking Product-Space Collusion

Imagine walking into a store and noticing that certain products are always available while their close substitutes are strangely absent. Is this just a coincidence or could there be something more strategic at play?

This episode explores the hidden world of product-space collusion, a subtle anti-competitive behaviour where companies coordinate their product offerings to minimize competition and control markets. We go beyond traditional price-fixing schemes and examine how firms can manipulate product variety, and geographic availability, and even introduce new products to maintain market dominance. Using the soft drink industry as a case study, we analyze the competitive dynamics between giants like Coca-Cola and Pepsi and examine how their product placement strategies migh ...