Amazon's pricing controls may be anticompetitive, German regulator warns
German antitrust regulators warned Amazon on Monday that the company's pricing mechanisms for third-party sellers could run afoul of competition laws.
The Federal Cartel Office said in its preliminary assessment that Amazon's pricing controls limit the visibility of merchants' products and, "based on non-transparent marketplace rules," interfere with their freedom to set prices.
Amazon uses algorithms and statistical models to calculate certain price caps for products, the Cartel Office said. Products that are flagged as having "prices that are too high" or "prices that are not competitive" can then be demoted in search results, excluded from advertising or removed from the buy box, they added.
The buy box is the listing that pops up first when a visitor clicks on a particular product, and the one that gets purchased when a shopper taps "Add to Cart."
"Competition in online retail in Germany is largely determined by Amazon's rules for the trading platform," Federal Cartel Office President Andreas Mundt said in a statement. "Since Amazon competes directly with other marketplace retailers on its platform, influencing competitors' pricing, even in the form of price caps, is fundamentally questionable from a competition perspective."
Amazon's pricing practices not only threaten sellers' businesses, but could also harm other retailers by deterring them from offering lower prices, the Cartel Office said.
An Amazon spokesperson said the company strongly disagrees with the Cartel Office's preliminary findings. They added that any changes to Amazon's pricing mechanisms would be "bad for customers and selling partners."
"If Amazon is prevented from helping people find competitively priced offers, it will lead to a bad shopping experience for them, as we'd need to promote uncompetitive or even abusive pricing in our store," the spokesperson said in a statement. "This would mislead customers into thinking they're getting good value when, in reality, they're not."
Amazon can provide feedback to the Cartel Office on its preliminary assessment before it reaches a final decision.
Amazon in 2022 reached a deal with European Union antitrust regulators who were investigating its use of seller data and buy box practices. As part of the settlement, Amazon agreed to display a second buy box on products sold in Europe when there is a second competing offer that's different on price or delivery.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is also probing Amazon's use of pricing algorithms on its sprawling third-party marketplace as part of a wide-ranging antitrust lawsuit filed in 2023. Amazon has said the FTC's complaint is "wrong on the facts and the law."
The case is set to go to trial in October 2026.
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