Facing malicious competition from Amazon? Well-known American maternal and infant e-commerce brand is heading for bankruptcy!

It is learned that according to foreign media reports, Zulily, a well-known American maternal and infant e-commerce company, filed a lawsuit against Amazon on Monday, December 11, accusing it of manipulating product prices and forcing suppliers to offer the lowest prices.

It is worth noting that just last week, Zulily announced the closure of its Seattle operations and laid off more than 800 employees. In addition, according to a statement on the company's website, Zulily has also launched a clearance sale. Zulily wrote: "During Zulily's clearance sale, all deals are the best deals and all items will be sold until they are sold out. All these phenomena indicate that this once glorious company seems to be heading towards bankruptcy.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, is based in part on allegations in the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, which detailed Amazon’s anticompetitive tactics against Zulily and its suppliers in a complaint unsealed last month.

Industry insiders speculate that Zulily's layoffs and business restructuring strategy are closely related to Amazon's unfair competition, although Zulily did not point this out in the lawsuit.

Zulily said that Amazon's actions "caused Zulily to suffer significant revenue losses and reduced traffic to Zulily's website" and that Amazon "deprived Zulily of its ability to compete in the market" by manipulating product prices.

Zulily's lawsuit cited the FTC's lawsuit, saying Amazon began to crack down on it around 2019 when Zulily compared its products with Amazon's platform to show shoppers its lower prices.

“But instead of competing fairly, Amazon is attempting to destroy Zulily by forcing third-party sellers and wholesale suppliers to sign price parity agreements that artificially raise Zulily’s prices to or above Amazon’s levels and punish any sellers who violate the rules,” Zulily wrote in its complaint.

According to the lawsuit, Amazon's penalties include disqualifying sellers from the "Buy Box" (located in the upper right corner of a single product page and is the most easily discovered location when buyers search for products) and banning sellers from continuing to sell on its platform.

Amazon has not yet responded to Zulily's allegations.

However, in a motion to dismiss the FTC case filed last week, Amazon argued that it was simply engaging in "common retail practices that benefit consumers and are the nature of competition." Amazon lawyer Heidi Hubbard said the lawsuit "makes an incredible and illogical argument that Amazon's efforts to keep prices low somehow raise prices across the marketplace."

Separately, Amazon said in its motion to dismiss that the FTC had not provided evidence that its practices drove up prices or harmed consumers.

Editor ✎ Nicole/

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