Amazon makes seller T&Cs more liberal

Wednesday, September 4, 2013 - 09:38 by David Aiken

The rule preventing companies selling on Amazon from selling the same items elsewhere for a lower price has been dropped.

Previously, firms selling on Amazon had to agree that the items would not be sold elsewhere cheaper but the policy has now been dropped, after the Office of Fair Trading got in touch with Amazon's UK operation. The OFT acted after receiving a number of complaints about the policy, according to TechRadar.

OFT spokesperson, Cavendish Elithorn, said that the organisation was pleased to see that Amazon had revoked its previous policy of forcing resellers to effectively render its prices the cheapest on the market.

Amazon offers safe shopping online to millions of consumers in the UK and also acts as a conduit for smaller organisations, which want to get their products noticed in a huge and popular e-commerce marketplace.

The influence of Amazon is such that its prices play a major part in shaping the rest of the online marketplace, which means it has a responsibility to ensure that its actions do not result in a monopoly.

If customers cannot buy items from certain resellers for a lower cost on other platforms offering safe shopping online, then Amazon is abusing its position and thus the change to its policy is a welcome one.

The OFT said that other major retailers which have reseller programs should look at their own policies and ensure that similar restrictions are not in place. If they are, it advises that they need to reconsider their policies and come up with a better way of doing business.

It also said that any e-commerce outlet should get in touch if it feels that it is encountering an issue of this kind, so that action can be taken to prevent it happening in the future.