Per AI: Based on a 2026 California antitrust lawsuit, Amazon has been accused of pressuring Walmart, Target, and other retailers to increase prices on their own websites to avoid undercutting Amazon. While not a traditional partnership to raise prices, evidence suggests a coercive, anti-competitive scheme where Amazon used its market power to force vendors and retailers to align with its pricing, according to the lawsuit.
Is Amazon trying to "fix" prices?
- Thread starter DebraMae
- Start date
Nathan
SF VIP
- Location
- High Desert- Calif.
No big surprise.
VaughanJB
Scrappy VIP
For clarity - Amazon is accused of pressuring vendors who sell across multiple sites, into increasing their price on competitors websites.
StarSong
Awkward is my Superpower
- Location
- Sunny Southern California ♥
Off topic, but @Nathan, thank you for your tag line, "Californians never say Cali!" It's so true. We may refer to Northern California and Southern California as Nor Cal and So Cal, but never, ever do we say Cali!!! Nor do we refer to San Francisco as Frisco (San Franciscans bristle at that nickname).
I thought I had made that pretty clear.
VaughanJB
Scrappy VIP
Not for me. I took from what you posted that WALMART was being pressured. This is not, as far as I can see, accurate. It's the vendors who SUPPLY Walmart that are being pressured.
Amazon has no mechanism to pressure Walmart as a company. They do have measures that can pressurize vendors who want to sell on both platforms.
I understand what you are saying, but the quote I posted stated vendors as well as well as retailers. Thanks for the explanation of how you understood it.
What do you think are the chances of Amazon being found guilty of price fixing?
That's what it is a form of price fixing but the loophole will be it was done through vendors.
If the exact same vendors supply all mentioned that sounds like an 'anticompetitive practice'. Sometimes the same item is sold as different brands with different companies.Sometimes the only difference being the label but others have actual minor differences so they don't get accused of selling someone else's product.
So, it sounds like you are saying that the terms "price fixing" and "anticompetitive practice" are two different things legally. It is frustrating.