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Amazon employees allegedly had access to sales data of independent marketplace sellers which was used to develop competing private-label products, according to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) .
Over 20 former employees of Amazon’s private-label business and documents reviewed by WSJ had revealed that the tech giant had provided access to independent sellers’ sales data to its employees for developing competing private-label products.
Amazon refuted the claims. In a similar statement given to the WS J and the Verge , Amazon said, “Like other retailers, we look at sales and store data to provide our customers with the best possible experience. However, we strictly prohibit our employees from using nonpublic, seller-specific data to determine which private label products to launch.”
According to the WSJ report, former Amazon employees had said that using the sales data from independent sellers was “a common practice that was discussed openly in meetings they attended.”
The tech giant had previously asserted in a testimony to the Congress that it does not use information collected from the site’s third-party seller activities to sell its own products.
As per the report, Amazon employees one ocassion had been given access to documents and data about a bestselling car-trunk organizer sold by a third-party vendor with information such as total sales, vendor’s expenses for marketing and shipping payments to Amazon, and Amazon profit on each sale. Amazon’s private-label arm had later introduced its own car-trunk organizers, the report said.
The online retail giant has recently drawn major flak for its business practices. In another instance, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in January had ordered an investigation into Amazon’s business practices following a review of allegations the platform was promoting few “preferred sellers” while hurting the business of smaller sellers hurting.
The High Court in Karnataka state had put it on hold after the company had argued that the CCI did not have sufficient evidence to order the probe, according to a Reuters report.
An Indian retail group earlier this month had asked a court to allow the restart of this antitrust investigation into Amazon.com Inc and Flipkart, the report said.
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