Prices on rival websites often jumped within a day after Amazon asked sellers to act, newly unsealed emails in a California lawsuit show. The internal messages allege Amazon encouraged or pressured third‑party sellers to raise prices on competing sites — sometimes by pausing listings or asking competitors to remove lower‑priced offers.

What the documents reveal Internal messages made public as part of a California lawsuit allege Amazon encouraged or coerced sellers to help lift prices on competing sites. The emails set out tactics that, according to the state's filing, were used to push rivals to match higher prices or to remove cheaper listings entirely. California Attorney General Rob Bonta made the allegations in a press release when the material was unsealed. "Amazon and a competitor will knowingly stop price matching each other, so that one retailer can increase its price, and the other retailer can match to the new, higher price," Mr Bonta said. He added: "Thus, both competitors start selling at a higher price, increase their profits, and consumers pay more." The unsealed documents come from a case filed by the state in 2022, in which prosecutors accuse Amazon of using its size and platform control to influence prices elsewhere online. Three schemes the state describes The state lays out three recurring approaches it says appear in Amazon's emails. Each method targets how vendors price or list goods on other retailers' websites: - Coordinated pauses or price-match arrangements: Amazon would agree to raise its own price or temporarily stop listing a product, giving a competing retailer room to increase its price so both sell at the higher level. - Flagging low prices as "unprofitable": Amazon identified a competitor's low price as unprofitable and urged the vendor to press that rival to raise its price; Amazon would then match the higher price. - Pressuring for removal of cheaper listings: Amazon sometimes pushed sellers to remove products from other platforms that were offering lower prices, removing the incentive for Amazon to undercut that price. How fast prices moved The state says vendors often complied quickly. In several examples in the record, prices rose within a day after Amazon asked for action. The filings show vendors treated Amazon's requests as urgent, fearing removal from the marketplace or other commercial consequences if they didn't cooperate. Emails in the court file reference a wide set of product categories — from diapers to clothing to furniture — where the tactics allegedly played out. Those examples are meant to show the behaviour was not limited to a single category, but rather applied across many product lines. Scale and context The documents land against the backdrop of Amazon's dominant retail position. The state points to the company's market power as the context for its claims. The New York Times described Amazon's business as an empire worth about $2.66 trillion, a figure cited by the state to underline how large the platform has become. Andy Jassy, Amazon's chief executive, runs a company that serves millions of third‑party sellers and billions of product listings. That scale gives Amazon control over placement and visibility and — the state alleges — the ability to affect how vendors price products off the platform as well. Why this matters Taken together, the filings and reporting underline the state's point about scale: prosecutors and reporting point to a roughly $2.66 trillion empire that serves millions of sellers, which the state says gives Amazon leverage to influence pricing beyond its own site. If those allegations are proven, they suggest platform actions can ripple across the wider online market. Why vendors might comply Vendors who sell through Amazon depend on the marketplace for large volumes of business. Removal from Amazon or a loss of favourable placement can reduce sales dramatically.

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"Thus, both competitors start selling at a higher price, increase their profits, and consumers pay more," said California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

This article was created with AI assistance.