Will antitrust affect third-party sellers? Amazon has issued a warning

According to an email disclosed by CNBC, members of Amazon's public policy team recently contacted some third-party sellers on Amazon to discuss antitrust bills in Congress.

"We are reaching out to a small number of our sellers to let them know about some legislative proposals currently in Congress that seek to regulate Amazon and other large tech companies, " the email read. "Because these proposals are in the early stages and are subject to change, we are concerned that they have the potential to have a significant negative impact on small and medium-sized businesses like yours."

Amazon confirmed to CNBC that it has reached out to some third-party sellers and asked them to hold a conference call with members of Amazon's policy team to learn more. However, it is unclear what they discussed in the call.

Among this series of antitrust bills, the one that has a greater impact on Amazon and sellers is the "Ending Platform Monopoly Act", which will prevent platforms from forcing users to purchase or use certain services before they can use other products or services on the platform.

The rule could affect Amazon's "Fulfillment by Amazon" service, in which sellers pay Amazon to store, pack and ship their orders. In addition, using FBA can also give sellers better rankings in search results and other benefits.

Amazon said in a previous statement that antitrust could make it more difficult for sellers to sell their products and reduce price competition among merchants, hurting consumers.

In fact, since June, some media have reported that the US Congress will legislate to impose antitrust restrictions on Amazon, but most sellers paid little attention to it at the time. However, from the information disclosed this time, this antitrust bill involves FBA and related search rankings, which may really have a relatively large impact on third-party sellers.

However, the information currently available is still limited and there is a great deal of uncertainty. We can only wait for more detailed information to learn what impact this legislation will ultimately have on third-party sellers.

Amazon

Antitrust

Third-party sellers