An Amazon warehouse in Warrington, England.
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The UK’s antitrust regulator on Wednesday said it was investigating Amazon about whether the US e-commerce giant is harming competition by giving its own retail business an unfair advantage and the sellers who use their services instead of third-party sellers. third in their market or not.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority said it was probing Amazon for practices affecting UK sellers that “could be anti-competitive and could lead to worse deals for customers”. .”
Amazon sells products through the marketplace through its own retail business. But it also allows third-party merchants to sell items. Amazon offers services to these sellers, such as help with logistics or connecting sellers with customers.
The CMA investigation will focus on three key areas. The first is how Amazon collects and uses third-party seller data and whether this gives Amazon an unfair advantage when making decisions about its retail business.
The second is related to the so-called “Buy Box”, an area on Amazon’s product pages that gives customers a one-click option to “Buy Now” or “Add to Cart”. The CMA will look at how Amazon sets the criteria for suppliers to be prioritized or selected first in the “Buy Box”.
Finally, the UK authority will look at how Amazon sets out its eligibility criteria for selling under the Prime label. Prime is Amazon’s paid subscription program that gives customers fast shipping and access to other products.
“Thousands of businesses in the UK use Amazon to sell their products and it’s important that they can operate in a competitive market. Any loss of competition is a loss to people. consumers and may result in them paying more for products, given lower quality items, or Sarah Carddell, CMA’s general counsel, said in a statement.
The CMA said it has not yet reached any conclusion as to whether competition law has been violated.
Amazon said it would “work closely” with the CMA during the probe.
“We will work closely with the CMA during their investigation, although we believe it is in our best interest to always work hard to help small businesses sell on Amazon successfully. theirs and ours,” a spokesperson told CNBC.
The spokesperson said more than 50% of all products sold on Amazon are from small businesses, and sales from its commerce partners “continue to grow faster than Amazon’s retail sales.”
UK watchdog probe follows a similar investigation the European Commission’s ongoing investigationexecutive body of the European Union.
