Big River sold items like t-shirts, shoes, and beach chairs on competitors' platforms.
Its goal was to get information from rivals that Amazon could then use to inform its own business decisions, according to the Journal.
Executives viewed printed copies of the Big River team's reports and weren't allowed to keep them, though they were allowed to take notes, the Journal reported.
"Benchmarking is a common practice in business," an Amazon spokesperson told Business Insider, using an industry term for comparing itself to rivals.
Big River also developed its own brands to sell through rivals' marketplace websites.
Persons:
—, Amazon's, weren't, Shopify
Organizations:
Service, Walmart, eBay, River Services, Wall Street, Business, Amazon, FedEx, Big
Locations:
India