Years ago, US regulators quietly put a stop to Amazon's practice of forcing third-party sellers to offer their best prices on Amazon's platform, arguing that this practice was a blatant violation of anti-trust laws. But back in 2017, Amazon found a way to circumvent these rules by instituting "price alerts" that incentivized sellers to raise prices of their goods on rival platforms like Walmart.com.
On Monday, Bloomberg published an expose revealing how Amazon appears to still be violating federal anti-trust rules by forcing third-party sellers to lower prices of products sold on Amazon. If sellers don't comply by either lowering prices on Amazon or raising prices on rival platforms, Amazon's algorithms will bury their listings, causing a sharp drop in sales. This has prompted some companies to sell their products at a loss just to hold on to market share.
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