Amazon faces new antitrust charges: forcing sellers to use its high-cost logistics service

It is learned that Amazon has recently been hit with a new antitrust lawsuit. The class action lawsuit filed in the Western District of Washington alleges that Amazon's anti-competitive behavior has harmed hundreds of thousands of businesses and hundreds of millions of consumers, and earned billions of dollars from it.

The lawsuit points out that 90% of consumers' purchases on Amazon are made through the "Buy Box" - the golden shopping cart that every seller wants to grab. It is located in the upper right corner of the product page and is the most convenient purchase location for buyers when shopping. However, the products in the "Buy Box" are all from sellers with Prime badges, and the only way to get the Prime badge is to use FBA logistics services.

The lawsuit claims that Amazon violated the Sherman Act (U.S. antitrust law) by forcing sellers on its platform to choose only FBA logistics services instead of other logistics services such as FedEx and UPS. And the logistics fee is 35% higher than other logistics services.

Sellers allegedly pass on these price increases to consumers, charging more for products to reach their profits. The lawsuit estimates that Amazon overcharged consumers by approximately $5 billion in 2020 and billions more in prior years.

It is learned that this is not the first time that Amazon has been accused of antitrust. They have also been sued by the other party in Washington and the District of Columbia for similar antitrust allegations.

Editor✎ Irene/

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