-- A team of Federal Trade Commission investigators has begun interviewing small businesses that sell products on Amazon.com Inc. to determine whether the e-commerce giant is using its market power to hurt competition.
Amazon hasn’t disclosed an investigation by the FTC, and the agency rarely confirms scrutiny of individual companies. But Chairman Joe Simons told Bloomberg in August that he welcomed hearing from third-party merchants, who now sell more than half of products on Amazon. Such private conversations are likely to yield far more insights into Amazon’s business than the public grilling of tech executives by Congressional committees.
A key early task for the FTC is defining Amazon’s competitive universe. The company has long argued that it should be considered a retailer that competes against rivals online and offline, a designation that Amazon says gives it a meager 4% share of the U.S. retail market. If Amazon’s market is narrowly defined as online shopping, its share rises to almost 40%—giving it significant leverage. Narrowing the market by product category, such as electronic books, gives Amazon even more dominance.
“They’re trying to learn as much as they can about the industry from people who aren’t the target of their investigation,” Rie said. “They’re in a background phase.” Desperation prompted merchant Karnani to contact the agency to report his difficulties selling video games and electronics on the site. Karnani told investigators he lost 10% of his sales after Apple and Amazon reached an agreement last year to limit who could sell Apple products on the site. The change followed years of concern about counterfeit iPhone accessories. He also described account suspensions in recent months during which Amazon hung on to his inventory and money.
Molson Hart, who sells toys on Amazon through his company Viahart, said he spoke with the FTC for 90 minutes about an article he posted on Medium detailing how 98% of his sales come from Amazon and that other platforms like EBay and Walmart account for less than 2% of revenue. He declined to discuss specifics of his conversation with FTC investigators but said the conversation focused on his Medium article.
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