Amazon sells its own product on its website, as well as those of more than two million third-party sellers.[16] The Michigan lawsuit alleges that Amazon gives priority to its own products over those from third-party sellers. The lawsuit claims that this creates unfair competition and leads to consumers purchasing inferior products. In this way, according to the lawsuit, Amazon is abusing its dominant position as both a supplier of competing products and the manager of the marketplace where those products are sold.
Amazon probably has the ability to tilt the playing field on its Marketplace platform to favor its products over those of other merchants. The important question is whether Amazon is actually doing this in an anticompetitive manner.
Just as with traditional brick-and-mortar stores, decisions have to be made about how to display products to shoppers. Products with more favorable placement have a competitive advantage. Amazon has at least two good reasons why it is not likely to tilt the playing field in its own favor, or at least why the Michigan lawsuit proves nothing of the sort.
Amazon’s main business is its website ecosystem, not the products it sells. If Amazon consistently and unduly favored its own products, which the lawsuits also claims are “often inferior,” shoppers would eventually notice and lose confidence in the entire Amazon online business.[17] That alone gives the company a strong incentive not to harm the reputation of the Amazon brand as a place where consumers can find competitive prices on quality products that come with speedy delivery and hassle-free returns.