Japan regulator is asking sellers about Amazon “competitive price” and Buy Box access
Japanese sellers are already doing something UK sellers may need to learn from.
The Japan Fair Trade Commission has publicly invited Amazon.co.jp sellers to submit information about suspected Anti-Monopoly Act issues involving Amazon Japan.
The relevant part is very close to what many UK sellers describe around Buy Box / Featured Offer loss.
The JFTC says Amazon.co.jp has an “おすすめ出品” display space — commonly understood as the cart box / Buy Box — and is gathering seller evidence about whether Amazon, in connection with that space, makes sellers set prices called “競争力のある価格” or “参考価格”.
In plain English:
Is access to the cart / Buy Box being linked to an Amazon-defined “competitive price” or “reference price”?
That question matters.
Because many seller complaints are not really about whether Amazon should protect customers from excessive prices. Of course it should.
The issue is whether a hidden reference-price system can remove Featured Offer eligibility when the seller cannot see:
* the comparator product
* the comparator retailer
* the timestamp
* whether delivery, quantity, condition, tax, or fulfilment are equivalent
* whether the reference price is current or historical
* whether the suggested price creates a loss-making transaction
One seller case is easy to dismiss as an exception.
Many structured cases can show a pattern.
UK sellers may not need to copy Japan exactly, but we can learn from the method: collect evidence, keep screenshots, record case IDs, document the business impact, and raise the issue through the proper regulatory route.
The question is not:
“Can Amazon stop obvious price gouging?”
The real question is:
“Can an undisclosed reference price quietly remove market access without a transparent evidence route or meaningful review?”
That is not just a seller support problem.
That is a platform governance problem.
Japan regulator is asking sellers about Amazon “competitive price” and Buy Box access
Japanese sellers are already doing something UK sellers may need to learn from.
The Japan Fair Trade Commission has publicly invited Amazon.co.jp sellers to submit information about suspected Anti-Monopoly Act issues involving Amazon Japan.
The relevant part is very close to what many UK sellers describe around Buy Box / Featured Offer loss.
The JFTC says Amazon.co.jp has an “おすすめ出品” display space — commonly understood as the cart box / Buy Box — and is gathering seller evidence about whether Amazon, in connection with that space, makes sellers set prices called “競争力のある価格” or “参考価格”.
In plain English:
Is access to the cart / Buy Box being linked to an Amazon-defined “competitive price” or “reference price”?
That question matters.
Because many seller complaints are not really about whether Amazon should protect customers from excessive prices. Of course it should.
The issue is whether a hidden reference-price system can remove Featured Offer eligibility when the seller cannot see:
* the comparator product
* the comparator retailer
* the timestamp
* whether delivery, quantity, condition, tax, or fulfilment are equivalent
* whether the reference price is current or historical
* whether the suggested price creates a loss-making transaction
One seller case is easy to dismiss as an exception.
Many structured cases can show a pattern.
UK sellers may not need to copy Japan exactly, but we can learn from the method: collect evidence, keep screenshots, record case IDs, document the business impact, and raise the issue through the proper regulatory route.
The question is not:
“Can Amazon stop obvious price gouging?”
The real question is:
“Can an undisclosed reference price quietly remove market access without a transparent evidence route or meaningful review?”
That is not just a seller support problem.
That is a platform governance problem.
5 replies
Seller_KlbXZHzQGSDZv
But for it to be Uncompetetive which is where tyou would have a case Amazon would need to be trying to set the highest price hence manipulating the market against the benefit of consumers. However what amazon does (which is flawed in itself as too much reliance on bots etc to check prices) is aimed at making the price lower so not price fixing or monoploies the price.
Seller_kSZCywEhJQQ8J
I agree this is not traditional price fixing where Amazon is trying to push prices higher.
But the Japanese issue is different. The concern is that Amazon may be using the Buy Box / recommended offer system to pressure sellers into Amazon-defined “competitive prices”, even when sellers may already be competitive in the current marketplace.
The Japanese regulator is looking at whether this restricts seller business activity. It is not only about consumer prices being lower or higher. It is about whether Amazon’s benchmark is transparent, accurate, fair, and challengeable.
If a seller loses Buy Box eligibility because of an opaque “typical price” or “competitive price” rule, and cannot see or challenge the comparison being used, then Amazon is effectively controlling the conditions under which sellers can compete.
So the issue is not: “Amazon is setting the highest price.”
The issue is: “Amazon may be using an automated price benchmark to restrict seller visibility and trading freedom without enough transparency or due process.”
Source:
Fair Trade Commission (Japan)
アマゾンジャパン合同会社による独占禁止法違反被疑行為に関する出品者からの情報・意見の募集について
Request for information and opinions from sellers regarding suspected violations of the Antimonopoly Act by Amazon Japan G.K.
Seller_19xPhE8YgkmxW
Hi All,
I would add that when Amazon uses an original book cover price from decades ago for its comparator, valid current prices are suppressed, and the Customers lose out as the item is no longer available...
Or even worse, the Bulk Book Merchants who are excluded from the comparator, can then try to charge Customers ridiculous sums...
All Best
Brian
Seller_kSZCywEhJQQ8J
I think the deeper issue is that Amazon may have designed a pricing tool that compares the number, but not the real price.
A price is not only the physical value of the product.
It also includes logistics cost, labour cost, storage cost, fulfilment route, inflation, tax, delivery speed, stock risk, return risk, and whether the offer is actually sustainable.
If an ASIN has a price history going back 10 or 15 years, the system should not treat an old number as equal to a current market price. Timestamp matters.
A £5 price from 2010 is not the same economic price as £5 in 2026.
The same applies to external comparisons. If another retailer is selling at a loss, clearing old stock, liquidating, or using the product as a temporary promotion, that should not automatically become the “correct” price for every seller on Amazon.
A seller should still be able to sell at a healthy, sustainable price.
Then buyers can make their own judgement.
If the buyer chooses the cheaper external retailer, the Amazon seller loses the sale. That is normal competition.
But if Amazon removes Featured Offer eligibility because of an opaque comparator, the seller may lose visibility, sales and business access without knowing what evidence was used.
That is the difference.
The issue is not whether Amazon should stop price gouging.
The issue is whether an automated system is reducing price to a single number, while ignoring time, cost, availability, fulfilment, market context and sustainability.
Seller_kSZCywEhJQQ8J
**Update: useful wording for sellers raising competitive price / Featured Offer cases**
After looking more closely at Amazon’s own wording, I think sellers should be very careful how they frame these cases.
The issue should not be presented simply as:
> “Amazon removed my Buy Box.”
That is too easy for Seller Support to answer with a generic response such as “Featured Offer eligibility is not guaranteed.”
The stronger issue is:
> “Amazon’s competitive price benchmark appears unrealistic, non-representative of the UK market, and not supported by a case-specific explanation of the comparator source, threshold, or equivalence test.”
That distinction matters.
Amazon’s own Pricing Health help page describes a **competitive price threshold** as the lowest price plus delivery for an item, or items customers may consider equivalent, recently found from another retailer. Amazon also says sellers may lose Featured Offer eligibility where the offer is not competitively priced.
So the key question is not whether Amazon is allowed to consider competitive pricing.
The key question is whether the specific benchmark being applied to a seller’s ASIN is:
* based on an equivalent product;
* based on a reputable and relevant UK comparator;
* based on the same pack size / quantity / condition;
* based on equivalent delivery terms;
* including shipping, VAT and customer-facing total cost correctly;
* commercially realistic after Amazon’s own referral and fulfilment fees;
* applied consistently between Amazon Retail, FBA sellers and third-party sellers;
* reviewable when the seller provides contrary evidence.
For anyone affected by this, I would suggest avoiding vague phrases like:
* “The Buy Box is unfair.”
* “Amazon is forcing me to lower my price.”
* “The algorithm is wrong.”
* “Support is useless.”
Those may be true from the seller’s experience, but they are not the strongest wording for a formal complaint.
Better wording would be:
> “I am requesting a case-specific review of the competitive price benchmark applied to this ASIN, because the benchmark appears inconsistent with reputable UK market evidence and appears commercially unrealistic after Amazon’s own fees.”
Or:
> “Please confirm the comparator source, product equivalence basis, delivery basis, marketplace, calculation date and threshold used to determine that my offer is not competitively priced.”
Or:
> “I am not asking Amazon to guarantee Featured Offer placement. I am asking Amazon to explain how this specific competitive price threshold was calculated and how it is objectively verifiable, non-discriminatory and representative of the UK market.”
This wording is important because regulators have already looked at Amazon’s Featured Offer / Buy Box systems.
In the UK, the CMA accepted commitments from Amazon relating to the Featured Offer. One important phrase from that process is that Featured Offer criteria should be **objectively verifiable** and **non-discriminatory**.
That gives sellers a much stronger vocabulary.
The complaint is not:
> “I did not win the Buy Box.”
The complaint is:
> “A platform-controlled pricing benchmark has removed or reduced my Featured Offer eligibility, but Amazon has not provided enough case-specific information for me to verify whether the benchmark is equivalent, representative, proportionate or non-discriminatory.”
That is the real issue.
There are also international developments sellers should be aware of. In Japan, the Fair Trade Commission has been asking sellers about Amazon’s competitive price and Buy Box / Featured Offer access. In Germany, the Bundeskartellamt has taken action against Amazon’s price control mechanisms. Those cases are not automatically the same as the UK position, but they show that regulators are looking seriously at how marketplace pricing controls affect seller visibility and competition.
For sellers preparing complaints, I would suggest creating an evidence pack for each ASIN with:
1. ASIN and SKU.
2. Marketplace.
3. Fulfilment method: FBA / FBM / SFP.
4. Your current price and shipping.
5. Amazon’s suggested competitive price.
6. Pricing Health screenshot.
7. Featured Offer eligibility screenshot.
8. Any Seller Central warning or email.
9. Amazon Revenue Calculator output.
10. Referral fee and fulfilment fee calculation.
11. UK market comparator evidence from reputable retailers.
12. Evidence that the suggested benchmark is not available from equivalent UK retailers.
13. Notes on any non-equivalent comparisons, for example different pack size, foreign marketplace, used item, different condition, non-UK delivery, unclear seller, or long international shipping.
14. Case IDs and escalation history.
15. Dates when the suppression appeared, disappeared or changed.
The most useful question to ask Amazon is:
> “What specific comparator caused this competitive price threshold?”
If Amazon cannot disclose the exact comparator, sellers can still ask for the category of comparator:
* Was it Amazon Retail?
* Was it another Amazon marketplace seller?
* Was it an external UK retailer?
* Was it a non-UK marketplace?
* Was it a marketplace such as Temu, Shein, AliExpress, Amazon Haul or another low-cost international platform?
* Was it the same pack size and same product condition?
* Was the full delivered price compared?
* Was the comparator actually available to UK customers on equivalent terms?
In my view, sellers should also start using the phrase:
**“Competitive benchmark without verifiable comparator.”**
That describes the problem very clearly.
Another useful phrase is:
**“Featured Offer suppression without case-specific threshold explanation.”**
And another:
**“Pricing Health contradiction loop.”**
This applies where:
* Pricing Health says the ASIN is not eligible;
* Amazon emails say the offer is not eligible;
* Seller Central shows pricing suppression;
* but escalation replies still say the ASIN is “qualified” or that the benchmark is “validated” without explaining the contradiction.
That contradiction should be documented carefully.
For formal letters to Amazon, I would suggest wording along these lines:
> “I am not challenging Amazon’s general right to use competitive pricing signals. I am challenging the application of this specific benchmark to this specific ASIN because the benchmark appears unsupported by equivalent UK market evidence and appears commercially unrealistic after Amazon’s own fees. Please provide a case-specific explanation of the comparator basis, threshold, calculation date and review route.”
For letters to regulators, I would use slightly different wording:
> “This appears to be a potential systemic issue in the application of Amazon’s competitive price benchmarks to Featured Offer eligibility. Sellers can see the outcome — loss of Featured Offer eligibility or pricing suppression — but cannot verify the comparator source, equivalence basis, threshold, or whether the benchmark is representative of the UK market. This creates commercial pressure on sellers to match potentially unrealistic prices without a transparent review mechanism.”
The important point is this:
Amazon may say the benchmark is “validated.”
But sellers should ask:
**Validated against what?**
A benchmark is not meaningful unless the seller can understand whether the comparator is equivalent, relevant, current, UK-available, and commercially realistic.
So my updated recommendation to sellers is:
Do not only ask Seller Support to “restore the Buy Box.”
Ask Amazon to explain the **competitive price threshold**.
Ask Amazon to explain the **comparator basis**.
Ask Amazon to explain the **equivalence test**.
Ask Amazon to explain the **case-specific review route**.
And if the answer is only a generic statement that the benchmark has been validated, document that too.
Because the real issue is not only the loss of the Featured Offer.
The real issue is that a platform-controlled pricing benchmark can remove seller visibility while the seller is given no practical way to verify whether that benchmark reflects the real UK market.
