Amazon Squeezes Sellers That Offer Better Prices on Walmart

Found on Bloomberg on Sunday, 11 August 2019
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Amazon constantly scans rivals’ prices to see if they’re lower. When it discovers a product is cheaper on, say, Walmart.com, Amazon alerts the company selling the item and then makes the product harder to find and buy on its own marketplace -- effectively penalizing the merchant.

Antitrust experts say the Amazon policy is likely to attract scrutiny from Congress and the Federal Trade Commission, which recently took over jurisdiction of the Seattle-based company.

Merchants have long complained that Amazon wields outsize influence over their businesses. Besides paying higher fees, many now have to buy advertising to stand out on the increasingly cluttered site. Some report giving Amazon 40% or more of each transaction, up from 20% a few years ago.

Amazon has turned into an utterly useless mess. It is badly structured, full of obvious attempts to make you buy more and more that it's turned into a pain so it's better to just avoid it at all. Besides, in often the product is cheaper on the seller's own shop outside the Amazon world.