Germany has launched an antitrust investigation into Amazon over whether the retail giant is taking advantage of its market dominance in a way that is detrimental to third-party sellers on its platform.
Federal Cartel Office head Andreas Mundt told the Associated Press that Amazon’s “double role as the largest retailer and largest marketplace” creates the potential for it to cripple third-party retailers.
“Because of the many complaints we have received we will examine whether Amazon is abusing its market position to the detriment of sellers active on its marketplace,” Mundt said. “We will scrutinize its terms of business and practices toward sellers.”
The investigation will focus on the business conditions Amazon sets for those sellers, Mundt told Reuters. The agency will probe delayed payments, shipping conditions and how Amazon determines to end relationships with the sellers, Reuters reported.
The Federal Cartel Office, also known as Bundeskartellamt, said the investigation will work as a “supplement” to an ongoing European Union probe into how Amazon uses data from those third-party retailers, the AP reported….
When Amazon was more focussed on books and more centred in North America & Britain, its market power was bemoaned by small publishers and small wholesalers for setting terms, charging fees and taking shares of revenue that would eventually drive those smaller fish out of business, leaving Amazon with an even greater dominance or monopoly over the market.
Bertelsmann AG, the Hachette Group or Rupert Murdoch’s HarperCollins, as huge combinations themselves, were in a position to negotiate terms with Amazon on a comparable, if not always equal, basis, to distribute their books. Smaller publishers and re-sellers who have to contract with Amazon are not.
And Borders Books, based on bricks & mortar, found itself in what ended up as a self-destroying relationship with Amazon, which was both its on-line marketplace (unlike, say, Barnes & Noble’s web sites) and at the same time its fiercest competitor.
Like other companies , Home Depot comes to mind, the BIG guys are out to corner the market and wipe out ANY competition ….
It is brutal and often means higher consumer prices in the end….
It seems that the Europeans have been willing to challenge Amazon, Apple and other American based multinational iconic companies that America won’t….
See David Lenohardt’s column on the op-ed page of The New York Times last Monday about the concentration of control and wealth.