The FTC claims that Amazon rigs the Buy Box contest in its favor, to the detriment of sellers and consumers. If a seller offers their product at a lower price on a competing site, Amazon’s policy is to ban them from the Buy Box – and possibly the marketplace – according to the FTC filing, a threat it says causes “constant fear » among sellers.

Amazon can also assign the Buy Box to its own product listings, undercutting prices for other merchants who charge multiple fees. These include payments for commissions, advertising and fulfillment services, which sellers complain have increased sharply in recent years.

The FTC complaint states that average fulfillment fees increased by 30% between 2020 and 2022 and that seller fees may force many sellers to pay half of their revenue to Amazon. “If they take back one of the items that we sell, that effectively means we can no longer sell that item,” Nicholas Parks, president of online grocer SnobFoods, said at a briefing held today by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. , a non-profit organization that promotes community projects.

The FTC alleges that Amazon also forces sellers to pay to use its fulfillment services because otherwise they would no longer be eligible for the company’s Prime free shipping service, reducing their chances of being featured in the Buy Box.

Amazon’s rules and fees around the Buy Box create what the FTC calls an “artificial price floor” that spills over into online stores, harming consumers. Amazon’s fees for fulfillment and other services can prevent sellers from reducing their prices. Their policies and monopoly on buyers prevent them from offering better prices elsewhere.

“It’s very difficult, even for market participants, to know when Amazon is putting its thumb on the scale and favoring its own interests,” said Stacy Mitchell, co-executive director of ILSR. In some cases, the business may benefit from featuring its own listing in the Buy Box, she says, but in others it may have an incentive to hire another seller to collect the fees.

In addition to targeting the Buy Box, the FTC complaint also accuses Amazon of degrading the buyer experience by filling search results with unwanted ads, essentially forcing sellers to buy search ads and distorting search results in favor of its own announcements. The government is seeking a federal court injunction forcing Amazon to change the way it operates its store.