Amazon adjusts its display position! Its self-operated business is controversial again

Let’s start today’s main text.

Both the European Union and the United States have previously launched antitrust investigations into Amazon because of the unequal treatment of its own products and third-party sellers on the Amazon platform.

Recently, foreign media reported that Amazon adjusted its display positions to attract more traffic to its own brands. The court recently summoned Amazon CEO Bezos to testify, and his brother-in-law also responded positively that he would attend the hearing on Wednesday.

What the media revealed was that the display position of the search page had been adjusted. Through the new label "Free Brand Selection", Amazon's own products do not need to be marked with the "Sponsored" label like other products, and can also obtain the display traffic on the homepage.

In the example cited by foreign media, these self-operated products are essentially from the advertising system of Amazon, just like the "sponsored" products, but they occupy a fixed advertising position originally belonging to "sponsored" products, and it is the most valuable first position. This not only requires third-party sellers to spend more money on advertising, but also they can never get the best first position.

In the case, searching for "power bank" shows that a self-operated product has only been on the shelves for 2 months and has only 17 reviews, with an average of 4 stars. However, it is displayed in front of an Anker power bank product with tens of thousands of reviews and an average of 4.5 stars. This obviously unreasonable ranking mechanism makes it hard not to feel that Amazon is intentionally supporting its own self-operated products.

Amazon explains:

Simply put, "We think consumers like our products more, so I will highlight our self-operated products." Does this rhetoric sound familiar? That's right, when President Trump made obvious mistakes in epidemic prevention, which led to a sharp drop in his support rate, he said, "I think many people like me very much."

Therefore, the US government summoned my brother-in-law for antitrust issues this time, which can be said to be a real relief for all sellers. This incident is very different from the past. My brother-in-law has been summoned many times before for various charges, but he has never appeared in person, and his agent has always appeared in court. This Wednesday is the first time that my brother-in-law will attend an antitrust investigation hearing, and he will make a positive public response to the antitrust charges for the first time.

As early as last year, the United States began an antitrust investigation into Amazon, mainly to determine whether Amazon, as a platform, has abused its platform rights. The investigation is now nearing its end, and the summons of the CEO of the company in question will be one of the last steps of the investigation.

According to the official statement of the antitrust team, although they do not directly accuse companies of violating antitrust laws, nor do they have the right to force large companies to split their business modules, the antitrust team can, based on its own judgment, propose amendments to existing antitrust laws or even formulate new laws, and use this to put pressure on the Federal Trade Commission or other regulatory agencies to enforce penalties.

Therefore, this hearing is very important to Amazon, especially since various media outlets have been fanning the flames recently, criticizing Amazon for using its platform advantage to engage in unequal competition with third-party sellers. Therefore, my brother-in-law personally came forward for the first time to make a positive response to the antitrust investigation, which also indirectly shows how much my brother-in-law values ​​this matter.

Of course, the US government will not take action against Amazon easily, especially when the epidemic broke out and people's demand for online shopping has skyrocketed again and again. Now that Amazon is becoming more and more important, this will make relevant agencies more cautious when implementing policies against Amazon, so we should not see the separation of Amazon's self-operated business in the short term.

However, there is no need to lose heart. Even if the antitrust investigation cannot split up the self-operated products, there will be other relatively mild policies to limit the unequal competition of self-operated products against third parties. The summons of the brother-in-law will also have an effective warning effect on Amazon. We should be able to see some convergence of Amazon's search algorithms recently, and it may also reduce the display of self-operated products appropriately, which can be regarded as a small benefit in the short term.

If my brother-in-law announces any important policies and directions on Wednesday, I will inform everyone in our group as soon as possible . Students who don’t have a group, please chat with me and add me. In addition, there is good news! Today is the 2nd anniversary of our cross-border order explosion group! ! We have exchanged resources in our group and discussed the pros and cons of Amazon. It has been 2 years without realizing it. Sometimes, everyone still misses our important content because of the large number of group chat messages.