Amazon’s Anticompetitive Tactics Work Together To Amplify Their Overall Exclusionary Effect

C. Amazon’s Anticompetitive Tactics Work Together To Amplify Their Overall Exclusionary Effect

410. The cumulative impact of Amazon’s unlawful conduct is greater than the sum of its parts.

411. While each anticompetitive tactic independently violates the antitrust laws, all work together in mutually reinforcing ways to stifle even an equally or more efficient competitor’s ability to respond to any one of them. As a result, the interrelated nature of Amazon’s overall course of conduct amplifies the exclusionary effects of each individual aspect, further entrenching Amazon’s monopoly power in and across both relevant markets.

412. Both relevant markets exhibit network effects and scale economies that render gaining scale and competitive momentum especially critical. Yet each element of Amazon’s course of conduct works together to artificially limit rivals’ ability to grow, gather momentum, and gain sufficient scale to meaningfully compete against Amazon. Consequently, in these relevant markets, the combined exclusionary effect of Amazon’s conduct is especially pernicious and acute.

413. The various elements of Amazon’s anti-discounting conduct—algorithmically punishing sellers for offering lower prices elsewhere, contractually restraining ASB sellers, and systematically disciplining rivals via its first-party anti-discounting algorithm—work together to suppress competition in both relevant markets, thereby preventing even an equally or more efficient rival from attracting a critical mass of either shoppers or sellers.

414. Amazon’s requirement that sellers use FBA to obtain Prime eligibility for their products amplifies those effects. By further limiting sellers’ alternatives to Amazon, Amazon’s coercive fulfillment conduct intensifies the exclusionary effect of its anti-discounting conduct. In a world where rivals and potential rivals were not artificially prevented from gaining the scale needed to meaningfully compete against Amazon, Amazon’s seller punishments would pose less of a threat to sellers’ survival. But Amazon’s coercive FBA conduct works in tandem with its anti-discounting conduct to foreclose that world. The resulting lack of comparable alternatives to Amazon intensifies the severity of Amazon’s anti-discounting punishments, giving those punishments—and even the threat of those punishments—greater force.

415. Amazon’s anti-discounting conduct, in turn, amplifies the exclusionary effects of tying Prime eligibility to sellers’ use of FBA. Amazon’s FBA conduct alone prevents sellers from using alternatives to FBA to fulfill Prime-eligible orders on Amazon and lowers the attractiveness of selling off Amazon because it raises sellers’ costs, which are often passed on to shoppers. Amazon’s anti-discounting conduct further reduces the appeal of selling off Amazon by threatening sellers with the risk of losing their Amazon sales if Amazon detects a lower price elsewhere and suppressing the effectiveness of marketplaces’ attempts to compete on price by lowering their fees to sellers. As a result, sellers are further deterred from bringing additional selection to rival marketplaces, prices for products on rival marketplaces are higher, and independent fulfillment providers are artificially stunted. Collectively, this impedes an equally or more efficient rival from being able to meaningfully compete with Amazon.