The WSJ is reporting that the Germany Cartel office will not be pursuing proceeding against Amazon after Amazon adjusted it’s third-party selling “pricing parity” requirements. (read the WSJ story here ) Pricing and availability parity has been an important contractual strategy since Amazon first launched the “merchants@” business in the US in 2002. Does the Germany situation portent a wider review of Amazon practices? Will they face pressure in other countries? I was the Director of Merchant Integration at Amazon and ran the launch of the business across all the new merchandise categories in 2002 and 2003. Today, this business is estimated to be over 40% of all units shipped and sold at Amazon. A broad change in pricing parity requirements would be a major shift in policy and control.
