UK shoppers who have bought items from Amazon over the past few years may soon find they get some money back in their pockets. A huge £900million legal claim has been submitted against the retail giant which alleges that Amazon breached strict competition laws. This meant many users ended up paying higher prices for products when cheaper deals were readily available.
The claim is being led by consumer-rights champion Julie Hunter, who says items sold on Amazon’s UK store sometimes hid prices that were actually better. The reason why this action is being taken is down to Amazon’s instant “buy box” which often appears when users search for a product.
Due to its prominence and ease of use, this button is often the first thing consumers tap on for a speedy checkout. In fact, it’s thought that around 80 percent of all purchases are made using this feature.
However, Ms Hunter says that independent retailers who also have similar products on Amazon.co.uk are often excluded from the “buy box” which sometimes means the cheapest price isn’t always shown to consumers.
The action says it believes that this constitutes an abuse of Amazon’s dominant market position and a breach of UK competition law.
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Explaining more, Ms Hunter said in post on her website: “Amazon is using its control over access to the Buy Box, which favours Amazon’s own products or products sold by a seller that uses Amazon’s order fulfilment services, to direct customers to purchase certain products despite better deals on the same product being available.
“By steering customers to the prominently-displayed Buy Box, Amazon obscures offers from other sellers, even when they offer a better deal, by hiding them down the page and making them difficult to find. This means that you, the customer, might have paid more than you needed to for a product.”
Anyone who thinks they might have been affected can add their details to the ukbuyboxclaim website to stay up to date with developments.
The action affects anyone who has purchased products from Amazon.co.uk since 2016.
In response to the claim, Amazon says it has done nothing wrong and is confident it won’t be forced to pay any form of compensation to users.
In a statement, an Amazon official said: “This claim is without merit and we’re confident that will become clear through the legal process.
“Amazon has always focused on supporting the 85,000 businesses that sell their products on our UK store – and more than half of all physical product sales on our UK store are from independent selling partners.
“We always work to feature offers that provide customers with low prices and fast delivery.”