Following the EU’s antitrust investigation into Amazon, yesterday, the British antitrust regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), announced that it is investigating Amazon’s influence on sellers in its UK marketplace that may be anti-competitive. Designed to assess whether Amazon favors its own sellers, putting third-party sellers on the platform at a disadvantage.

Image credit: Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)

This survey will focus on three main areas:

How Amazon collects and uses third-party seller data, including whether this could give Amazon an unfair advantage in business decisions made by its retail division.

How Amazon sets vendor assignment criteria as preferred/preferred in the Buy Box. Buy boxes appear prominently on Amazon product pages and provide customers with a one-click option to "buy now" or "add to cart" related to a specific seller's item.

How Amazon sets eligibility criteria for selling under the Prime label. Offers under the Prime label are eligible for certain perks, such as free and fast shipping, that are only available to Prime subscribers of Amazon's Prime loyalty program.

The CMA has not yet reached a conclusion on whether it has violated competition law, but as the investigation unfolds, the CMA may liaise with the European Commission and may then cooperate with the EU in the investigation.