Japan’s Fair Trade Commission has apparently raided Amazon’s far east offices.
Amazon are suspected of pressuring third party retailers to lower their prices on Amazon. We have of course seen a similar price parity policy in the UK and Europe but Amazon ultimately abandoned Price Parity across the EU in 2013.
Amazon.com still have a General Price Rule which stipulates the price you sell on Amazon in the US must match or be lower than the price you sell at on any other channel.
It appears that in Japan Amazon have wanted retailers to set lower price on Amazon than on other channels and the Japanese authorities didn’t like this, hence the raid on Amazon’s offices.
How do you price your goods on Amazon now that you, at least in the UK and EU, are free from Price Parity rules. Are your products on Amazon priced generally the same, higher or lower than on your own website and other marketplaces?
3 Responses
We should have the freedom to price whatever we wish. If our pricing is off mark, it won’t generate income! As a business we would head towards closure.
One thing this “price parity” will really annoy me is if Amazon expect me to price the same product that I sell on eBay for the same price or lower, sorry Amazon, if your fees are 5% higher than eBay’s, then I have to inflate my Amazon pricing to offset that extra cost.
Maybe Amazon and eBay will be getting a knock on the door soon from HMRC when these new powers are passed in relation of not doing enough to eradicate known VAT evasion?
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/tackling-tax-evasion-a-new-corporate-offence-of-failure-to-prevent-the-criminal-facilitation-of-tax-evasion
Generally we try and sell at the same price on Amazon as on other channels. However we use a repricer and as the competition on Amazon is so high in our sector our prices often end up lower on Amazon. Those margins are getting thinner and thinner, soon I fear there will be nothing left. Selling in marketplaces just feels like a race to the bottom these days.