California · Amazon · FTC · The Guardian Technology
An electric ice-cream maker was listed at $17.99 at Amazon and Best Buy
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The price hikes and the product disappearances were not the blips of supply and demand, they were the results of behind-the-scenes pressure by Amazon, according to internal emails reviewed by the Guardian and court claims against the world’s largest company.
Key facts
- A “modern leather” table lamp, listed online at Walmart, shot up from $24.99 to $39
- Two days later, Martin told Amazon that the lamp price at Walmart had increased from $24.99 to $39
- An electric ice-cream maker was listed at $17.99 at Amazon and Best Buy
- In 2022 Amazon agreed to pay $2.25m to resolve claims by Washington state’s attorney general that it forced some merchants to raise prices for products they sold through the company’s “Sold
Summary
A “modern leather” table lamp, listed online at Walmart, shot up from $24.99 to $39. An electric ice-cream maker was listed at $17.99 at Amazon and Best Buy. For years, as many Americans have felt squeezed by the costs of basic consumer goods, Amazon has deployed a variety of techniques that have incentivized suppliers to push for higher product prices on other retailers’ sites, California authorities claim in court. In some internal emails, Amazon employees have flagged low product prices on rival retailers’ sites as threats to Amazon’s own profitability, and informed the products’ suppliers that their sales on Amazon.com have been cut, or might soon be cut, going forward.