Amazon faces UK probe over claims shoppers get a bad deal

AMAZON is being investigated by the UK’s competition watchdog over practices that may have led to millions of British customers getting worse deals.

Officials are probing claims that the online retail giant has been favouring its own retail business over independent vendors on the site.

They also want to know if Amazon is using sales data from UK businesses that sell from its platform to make its own offers more competitive.

Nine in ten British shoppers use Amazon and in ten years its UK sales have grown from £ 3billion to nearly £27billion.

The Competition and Markets Authority says it is vital that such a major player operates a fair marketplace, and yesterday announced an antitrust investigation over fears Amazon abuses its dominance.

More than half of the goods sold on the site come from third-party sellers, who can pay more for extra services involving sales, storage, packaging and delivery.

The probe aims to find out if Amazon is giving an ‘unfair advantage’ to its own retail products and to sellers who sign up for these extras.

Sarah Cardell, general counsel at the CMA, said: ‘Millions of people across the UK rely on Amazon’s services for fast delivery of all types of products at the click of a button.

‘Any loss of competition is a loss to consumers and could lead to them paying more for products, being offered lower quality items or having less choice.’

Amazon said: ‘We’ve always worked hard to help small businesses selling on Amazon to succeed, which is in both their and our best interests. More than 50 per cent of all products sold on Amazon are from small businesses.

‘There are now more than 65,000 small and medium-sized businesses in the UK that sell on Amazon, supporting more than 175,000 jobs across the country.’