This Friday, Amazon have written to sellers on amazon.co.uk, confirming news we’ve known for a while that there will be change as to how the featured offer presented to buyers will be presented.
Following the agreement reached recently with the Competition and Markets Authority, which covers the Amazon store in the UK, we will update the Featured Offer criteria in May 2024 for this store.
As we strive to show our customers the best Featured Offer on the product detail page, we’ll continue to ensure that the criteria used to determine the Featured Offer are non-discriminatory and treat sellers and Amazon retail equally.
Eligibility for Prime and the Prime badge won’t be a criterion when determining the Featured Offer. Prime will continue to offer free and fast delivery, which are factors that customers value and therefore are relevant in determining the Featured Offer.
– Amazon (Friday 19th January 2024)
Commitments secured by the CMA from Amazon will help ensure that third-party Marketplace sellers can compete on a level-playing field and that UK customers get access to the best deals. To address the CMA’s competition concerns, Amazon has committed to:
- Ensure Amazon does not use rival sellers’ Marketplace data to gain an unfair advantage over other sellers. This follows concerns that Amazon’s access to commercially sensitive data relating to third-party sellers helped its retail business to decide which products to sell, manage stock levels for those products, set prices and make other important commercial decisions.
- Guarantee all product offers are treated equally when Amazon decides which will be featured in the ‘Buy Box’. This relates to concerns that products being offered by third-party sellers were less likely to appear in the Buy Box than similar offers from either Amazon’s own retail business or third-party sellers that use Amazon’s delivery services.
- Allow third-party businesses using Marketplace to negotiate their own rates directly with independent providers of Prime delivery services so that customers can benefit from lower delivery costs where better rates are negotiated.
- Require Amazon to appoint an independent trustee who will monitor the company’s compliance with these commitments. The CMA will have a direct say in this appointment, ensuring they have the necessary skills and expertise for the job.
While long term, ensuring Amazon doesn’t use seller’s data to gain an unfair advantage, this is something Amazon have denied for years, and in truth anyone can visit the Amazon marketplace to discover the top selling products in any category and the historical numbers sold. Plus external sites like CamelCamelCamel reveal historical selling prices.
The part that is of most interest is that the Featured Offer – the Buy Box – won’t be reliant on Eligibility for Prime and the Prime badge. This means that MFN sellers (Merchant Fulfilled Network) should be able to compete for the Buy Box on an equal footing with FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) and SFP (Seller Fulfilled Prime).
This will be a massive change, but Amazon warn that free and fast delivery will remain core components in determining who wins the Buy Box and so merchants shipping from their own warehouses will need top logistics performance in order to win over FBA offers.
