Amazon shopping cart rules further changed! Amazon was forced to give up traffic

And this ruling is final, which means Amazon cannot appeal again! Now all the officials can do is to share the buybox traffic.

This goes back to the end of last year, when the EU and Amazon had a back-and-forth battle over the suspected monopoly of Buybox. The main reason was that the EU, after investigation, believed that Amazon's current shopping cart logic favored a single seller or even self-operated products, and that the logic should be changed to give more sellers the opportunity to display and place orders. Amazon naturally refused. However, in the end, Amazon reached a settlement with the EU at the end of last year, and the specific settlement agreement was also quite explosive.

I mentioned this at the time. The battle for shopping carts among third-party sellers has evolved into many different ways of playing. Amazon's "second shopping cart" policy directly disrupts the existing shopping cart judgment logic . Will the most common operation of selling at a low price to grab the shopping cart be directly caught in the second shopping cart? Will the two shopping carts affect each other's sales?

This update is only effective for the European site. Although Amazon has not stated it explicitly, this display logic is actually equivalent to the function of a "second shopping cart."

However, there is another idea in the EU. Earlier this year, relevant EU agencies and the Italian antitrust organization once again launched an investigation into Amazon's shopping cart algorithm. According to internal sources, they should have some evidence in their hands and believed that Amazon's new algorithm still did not meet the requirements of the settlement agreement . In other words, Amazon updated the algorithm on the surface to give sellers a chance, but it was another matter behind the scenes.

This also caused strong resistance from Amazon. The official believed that it had updated the algorithm in accordance with the settlement agreement, and the antitrust agency should also follow the agreement and not make irresponsible remarks. It wanted the court to stop the antitrust agency's investigation. This was the ins and outs of this judgment. After more than a month of tug-of-war, the court rejected Amazon's appeal and no longer accepted subsequent appeals on the same issue, completely blocking Amazon's channel for defense against the antitrust investigation.

Antitrust decisions cannot be appealed, they can only be enforced. This is definitely bad news for Amazon, but it may not be the case for us sellers.

In the short term, the second shopping cart and the latest changes to the shopping cart logic will definitely make sellers somewhat uncomfortable with the new rules, and it will take some time to develop new ways of playing. However, in the long run, antitrust sanctions will definitely be a big benefit to sellers.

On the one hand, antitrust has indeed suppressed self-operated products. Amazon has been adjusting the display and exposure of self-operated products since last year, trying to be low-key. Including self-operated brands such as Amazon basic, directly cut the FFOB (Featured from our brands) display position. This position often appears at the top of the search page, which is ahead of many sponsored advertising positions.

On the other hand, if Amazon can properly implement the settlement and allocate more traffic to third-party sellers, it will also be a major benefit. Other policies that the European site has enjoyed first, such as not being able to close stores at will and requiring 30 days' notice in advance, are also benefits brought by antitrust.