On Monday, CNBC reported that an unnamed source at Amazon confirmed the end of Amazon’s “most favored nation” pricing policy. Under this policy, brands selling on Amazon were required to offer their most competitive price amongst all channels on the site; their own e-commerce store, for example, could not offer a lower price than the price set on the Amazon marketplace. The other way Amazon would penalize brands for not offering their best price on Amazon was funding a discount on the product. When shoppers transact directly through a brand’s e-commerce site, the brand owns the customer data, and has the ability to remarket to them through email, display advertising, and social media advertising. Marketplace Ignition founder Eric Heller says that his company had to create systems to avoid running afoul of the Amazon pricing rule on a daily basis on behalf of their clients.

Source: Forbes March 13, 2019 15:22 UTC