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posted by janrinok on Saturday March 28 2020, @02:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the who-do-you-believe dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2020, @12:47AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2020, @12:47AM (#976786)

    Parent here.
    > Clearly you have no software development experience.

    Does working with developers for 35 years including writing specs and testing alpha and beta code count? It's true that I am not a programmer.

    I've also been screwed by Amazon--as mentioned on SN a few times. Our small publisher (engineering reference book) refused to meet their extortionate terms and Amazon retaliated by listing our book as "out of print" (which was a lie), costing us sales.