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Amazon says it unintentionally hid some competitors' faster delivery options:
Amazon surprised millions of customers last weekend when it confirmed it had pushed back delivery of many nonessential items until late April so it could more urgently fulfill orders for essential items amid the online shopping frenzy caused by the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.
But Recode has learned it's been possible to get some of these nonessential items much faster — it's just that Amazon has hidden listings from competing sellers on its marketplace that promise to deliver these same products at earlier dates.
In categories ranging from sporting goods to office equipment, Amazon sellers have been offering some of these same items at the same or lower prices and with earlier delivery dates than Amazon has. But the Amazon algorithm that decides which seller wins a given product sale for a listing has favored items sold directly by Amazon — or by an Amazon seller storing the goods in Amazon's warehouses — even when those offers are accompanied by much later delivery promises. In Amazon's ecosystem, winning a sale of an item sold by multiple sellers is known as winning the "Buy Box."
After Recode alerted Amazon to the issue, a company spokesperson said the hidden listings are unintentional and that the company is urgently working on a fix.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2020, @12:29PM
Amazon probably didn't want some professionally umbraged Twitter personality raking them over the coals because a seller delivered a dildo the next day during our National Panic, after Amazon itself had been publicly virtue signaling.