Amazon Makes Changes To Buy Box In EU Marketplaces As Part of Antitrust Investigation

Amazon Makes Changes To Buy Box In EU Marketplaces As Part of Antitrust Investigation

At the end of December, Amazon agreed to make some changes to its operations in Europe as part of the EU's Antitrust Investigation.

The European Commission has made commitments offered by Amazon legally binding under EU antitrust rules. These commitments made by Amazon include;

1. Data Concerns: Amazon agreed that in offering goods for sale in the Amazon Store, Amazon Retail Systems and Amazon Retail Employees will not use any non-public Seller Data (including when combined with non-Seller data) for the purposes of Retail Operations in competition with Sellers.

2. Buy Box Rotation: Amazon will apply objectively verifiable, non-discriminatory conditions and criteria for the purposes of determining which Offer, whether from Amazon Retail or 3rd Party Sellers (including Sellers using FBA), will be displayed as the Featured Offer (Buy Box Offer). These conditions and criteria will include any parameters and weightings such that the conditions and criteria can and will be applied equally to both Amazon Retail and 3rd Party Sellers.

3. Double Offer Buy Box: Amazon will display at least one other offer – in addition to the Featured Offer – within the Offer Display, when there is one Offer that (1) qualifies for selection as the Featured Offer, (2) is from a different Merchant than the Featured Offer, and (3) is sufficiently differentiated from the Featured Offer. Amazon is calling this the Second Displayed Offer.

4. Prime Eligibility: Amazon will ensure that Amazon Retail and all Sellers (whether using FBA or MFN) in the Amazon Stores that have (i) demonstrated the ability to and (ii) consistently meet objectively verifiable, non-discriminatory conditions and criteria will be able to qualify their Offers for Prime-eligibility (regardless of whether Amazon applies Merchant-level or Offer-level conditions and criteria). Amazon will use objectively comparable metrics and methodology for both Amazon Retail and all Sellers to establish that they consistently meet these conditions and criteria to qualify their Offers for Prime-eligibility.

Amazon has until the summer to make the changes above on all of its marketplaces in the EU.

According to a Vox article, Amazon was already considering making many of these changes for years prior to the antitrust investigation and these changes may expand to other Amazon marketplaces outside of the EU in the future.

Check out the details HERE.

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