For the allocation of the Buy Box, Amazon in the UK guarantees not to distinguish between online sellers who use or don’t use Prime-related success services. “Eligibility for Prime and the Prime badge won’t be a criterion when determining the Featured Offer.”
Amazon communicated this to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK. The watchdog initiated an investigation into the dominance of the market leader in ecommerce within the UK in the summertime of 2022. Following a recent agreement, Amazon UK states that it’ll update its Featured Offer criteria in May this 12 months.
Buy Box
The Buy Box is the space on a product page where customers can directly add an item to their shopping cart. If there are multiple sellers of a product, one seller is highlighted, deemed by Amazon to have the very best offer. The choice for the Featured Offer is predicated on a combination of criteria, including price, current delivery time, and seller rating.
Featured Offer selection is predicated on a combination of criteria.
It is usually assumed that Prime eligibility is a requirement to fill the Buy Box. Third-party sellers must meet certain delivery guarantees for this, which could be achieved by outsourcing success to Amazon (FBA) or by meeting the conditions themselves (Seller Fulfilled Prime).
Prime eligibility
Although Amazon doesn’t explicitly comment on the present situation, the corporate guarantees that Prime eligibility won’t be a criterion within the near future. “As we try to point out our customers the very best Featured Offer on the product detail page, we’ll proceed to make sure that the standards used to find out the Featured Offer are non-discriminatory and treat sellers and Amazon retail equally.”
‘The factors treat sellers and Amazon retail equally.’
Free and fast delivery, nonetheless, does remain a major think about increasing the probabilities of winning the Buy Box on its marketplace, notes Amazon: “Prime will proceed to supply free and fast delivery, that are aspects that customers value and due to this fact are relevant in determining the Featured Offer.”
Rival sellers’ data
Amazon has also asssured the CMA that it doesn’t use rival sellers’ marketplace data to realize an unfair advantage. The market power of Amazon can be a theme in other European countries, as its web sites fill half of Europe’s top 10 marketplaces.
