Amazon’s pricing tools under scrutiny by German antitrust officials

Investing.com -- German antitrust officials have raised concerns over Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s pricing tools, stating that they could potentially violate competition law. The tools in question are used by Amazon to emphasize competitively priced goods and filter out listings that are overpriced on its online marketplace.

Amazon’s marketplace hosts a wide variety of products from multiple sellers, including Amazon itself. The company utilizes a pricing mechanism to evaluate these competing offers. Amazon’s systems are designed to highlight offers that customers are most likely to select based on pricing and other factors, thereby increasing their visibility on the marketplace.

The system also has the ability to downgrade listings or remove them entirely when it detects that prices for certain products are unusually high. Amazon maintains that each selling partner is free to set their own prices, shipping fees, and return policies.

However, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office voiced concerns on Monday that Amazon’s pricing mechanism could limit the visibility of retailers’ offers and interfere with sellers’ ability to set their prices.

The regulator described this as imposing inappropriate and objectively unjustified restrictions on third parties. The watchdog also expressed concern that Amazon could modify price caps at its own discretion, which could potentially obstruct competition.

In response to these concerns, an Amazon spokesperson stated that the company strongly disagreed with the regulator’s initial assessment. The spokesperson emphasized that Amazon’s store was designed to ensure consumers could swiftly find the best items based on pricing, availability, and delivery speed.

The spokesperson further added that if Amazon were prevented from helping people find competitively priced offers, it could lead to a poor shopping experience. They argued that Amazon would be forced to promote uncompetitive or even abusive pricing in its store, misleading customers into thinking they’re getting good value when, in reality, they’re not.

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