WASHINGTON — The National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors on Tuesday announced the launch of a new public affairs campaign in support of the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, or U.S. Senate Bill 2992.
The campaign pushes back on Amazon’s anticompetitive behaviors on their marketplace platform and its poor treatment of third-party sellers.
“Amazon uses its marketplace as a trap to unfairly stamp out competition, by taking data from the millions of small businesses that rely on its platform and using it to compete against them,” said NAW CEO Eric Hoplin. “Today, NAW is speaking up to say, ‘it’s time to level the playing field,’ and we urge Congress to restore fair economic competition and to protect Main Street businesses by passing S. 2992.”
“The American Innovation and Choice Online Act will ensure a level playing field for third-party sellers and NAW members on Amazon’s marketplace,” said Alex Hendrie, NAW associate vice president for government relations. “It does not give third-party sellers a windfall or special advantage, nor does it break up Amazon or prohibit Amazon from selling their own products on their marketplace.”
Amazon has a troubling history of taking data from third-party sellers on its platform to create similar products which show up prominently in the marketplace, while the original small business product disappears or falls deeper into the search results. This is blatantly unfair and leaves small businesses at a disadvantage when competing against Amazon.
Many third-party sellers also view Amazon as a bully who is constantly strong-arming them and threatening to kick them off the platform. For the majority of sellers, there is no real alternative marketplace for them to sell on if they are kicked off of Amazon’s platform.
