Nope. It exists to hide the uncompetitive take rake imposed by Amazon and, eventually, it degrades open competition. Third-party sellers and consumers lose the benefit of finding and using alternative low-raked and zero-raked marketplaces since all prices remain fixed at the same level — the “Amazon level.”
Regardless of the price parity element, any agreement between a third-party seller to sell any products on Amazon is uncompetitive.
All third-party sellers must compete with Amazon and … with one another as retailers.
What is the difference between Walmart and a third-party seller? None. I don’t see Walmart offering their products on Amazon. That’s too obvious for case of collusion? Two large brand retailers…
Now, consider the ability to unify millions of small businesses under a dominant scheme by these retailers — suddenly, there is no longer a need to build the “next Amazon” or the “next Walmart.” Why bother? Just sell under them.
Sherman Act is the law of the land. Things are much simpler when everyone plays by the same rules. Once any VC-backed company, such as Amazon or Uber or Lyft or DiDi or Opendoor or Redfin or Better or Opcity or Booking.com or Gopuff or Grubhub or DoorDash or Blend, deliberately engage in price fixing of services and/or products fulfilled by others and sell them over the Internet, they do not just engage in an antitrust collusion, but they further engage in a #wirefraud.
Something to consider as an alternative to the broken #gigeconomy and #realestate sectors — if the Sherman Act is not currently enforced, why pass any new law? To lessen the pain of collusion?
Price fixing is cheap like cheap enchiladas. You end up paying for it on the back end.
#pricefixing #antitrust #wirefraud
Litesand 
2 thoughts on “Amazon Marketplace engages in consumer allocation with third-party sellers”