Amazon punished its own sellers to limit Walmart's reach, FTC says
Amazon.com Inc punished its own sellers to limit Walmart's reach as Walmart got into e-commerce, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
In addition to making $1 billion by using a secret algorithm called «Project Nessie» to push up the prices that U.S. households pay, Amazon may have also succeeded in curbing Walmart's ambitions.
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Offering CollegeCourseWebsiteNorthwestern UniversityKellogg Post Graduate Certificate in Product ManagementVisitMITMIT Technology Leadership and InnovationVisitIIM LucknowIIML Executive Programme in FinTech, Banking & Applied Risk ManagementVisit In 2014, the arrival of Jet.com triggered fear at Amazon that Jet.com would be able to offer shoppers lower prices online, the FTC said on Thursday, kick-starting Amazon's strategy of removing sellers' offers from the Buy Box if shoppers could find the same products at lower prices on Jet.com. The Buy Box is the button that allows shoppers to make a purchase directly from a seller.
Walmart acquired Jet.com in 2016.
«Given Amazon's size and a scale, their quantitative analytical might, and particularly, against the background that they had not made a profit on (Amazon.com) for the first 20 years, it's not surprising that they would resort to such tactics against competitors,» retail consultant Burt Flickinger said.
Like Amazon, Walmart operates a third-party online marketplace, with merchandise from thousands of independent sellers. On Amazon, millions of independent merchants currently sell goods its marketplace. Both Walmart and Amazon collect fees and commissions from the merchants on their platforms.
By not collecting seller commissions, Jet.com could offer prices that were 10%
