Amazon, the gatekeeper to 100 million Prime members, is increasingly reliant for growth on Marketplace, where third-party sellers compete with first-party products

Amazon’s multi-channel platform strategy delivers choice and low prices to customers, but third-party sellers have increasingly complained that their playing field is not level

After Amazon’s seller agreements were modified in August to implement a competition ruling in Germany, the European Commission is now investigating the data layer

Contents

Platform and Marketplace

• Third-party sellers
• Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) third-party sellers
• Amazon Vendors
• Amazon’s own products

Amazon’s shifting strategy

Teething problems

• Commingling
• Seller eviction and fake reviews

Antitrust

List of charts/tables

Figure 1: Share of Amazon gross merchandise sales by channel

Figure 2: Amazon’s Platform structure

Figure 3: Buy Box and Subscribe buttons

Figure 4: Amazon Vendor pricing

Figure 5: Amazon revenue by channel, value ($ millions) and growth rate (2014=100)

Figure 6: Amazon revenue and net income ($bn)