Amazon allegedly enticed third-party sellers into a program that forced them to sell items at ‘artificially high levels’ thereby making it harder to make sales.
Amazon is shutting down its « Sold by Amazon » program to settle a price-fixing investigation conducted by the Washington Attorney-General Bob Ferguson that accused the company of acting anticompetitive and violating antitrust laws. According to the Washington Attorney General’s Office, Amazon engaged in unlawful price fixing and unreasonably restrained competition to maximise its own profits. The « Sold by Amazon » program ran from 2018 to 2020, with Amazon enticing third-party sellers into joining the program by guaranteeing an agreed upon minimum payment for sales of their consumer goods. If the sales exceeded the agreed upon minimum payment, Amazon would take a cut of the additional revenue. Ferguson explained that the program was anticompetitive as enrolled sellers were forced to increase their prices to « artificially high levels » by Amazon to stay in the program.
