[Crew Review] UK probes Amazon | Pakistan becomes third largest seller

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 Amazon Top Terms

We have taken some Amazon keyword data from June 19th to July 2nd to show you the terms that are causing a stir on Amazon.

This week, we’ve got a large variety of keywords. Some of the most important trends that made their way into our top 10 list include “swan drain basket” and “rose ice cube mold.”

These terms have caused an increase in sales in related products, going from selling 8 units to 386 units per day for the former and 20 units per day to 273 units per day in the last few days.

UK Watchdog Investigates Amazon

The latest in Amazon’s growing list of antitrust probes is an investigation initiated by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) earlier this week.

According to CNBC, the CMA probe will focus on three areas:

• How Amazon collects and uses third-party seller data to give itself an unfair advantage over independent marketplace sellers on the Amazon platform;
• How Amazon sets the criteria for sellers to win the coveted Buy Box; and
• How Amazon sets the eligibility criteria for its Prime label.

This recent probe by UK regulators extends Amazon’s long list of suits and probes questioning its marketplace practices. Earlier this year, Italian competition regulators slammed the Everything Store with a $1.3B dollar fine, while the United States SEC had started its own investigation on Amazon’s potentially anti-competitive use of third-party seller data.

The same probe targets Amazon’s fellow Big Tech company Microsoft for its recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard for whopping $68.7 billion.

Pakistan Is Now The Third Largest Amazon Seller

Pakistan is now among the largest sellers on the Amazon marketplace, sending an estimated $28B in exports into the US with over a million registered sellers. It is now the third largest player on Amazon next to USA and China, the latter comprising roughly 60% of the top marketplace sellers on the platform.

Back in 2021, Pakistan passed its first ecommerce policy and was allowed to enter Amazon in May 2021. This puts the country ahead of other active ecommerce participants like India and UK in terms of seller count.

FTC Sues Walmart Over Money Transfer Fraud

The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against Walmart for allegedly allowing its money transfer facility to be used by fraudsters to fleece customers out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

In addition to its expansive brick-and-mortar retail business and ecommerce business that is second only to Amazon in the US, Walmart also offers financial services in its stores. According to the suit, the company turned a blind eye as scammers used its services to make off with cash and pocketed millions in fees.

Among the issues presented are Walmart’s facilities enabling suspicious transactions and its lack of or ineffective anti-fraud policies.

TikTok Drops Plans to Expand in the US and EU

Livestream ecommerce has gained some serious ground in Asia throughout the pandemic, but not quite in the West. According to the Financial Times, Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok has reportedly abandoned its plans of launching the same service in the US and some parts of Europe.

Among the reasons cited by Tiktok representatives was the slow adoption by general consumers in such marketplaces, but FT’s own research revealed internal issues that could have factored into the company’s move.

Social media companies have started to integrate ecommerce into their massive platforms in recent years, with TikTok and Facebook-owned Instagram leading the way.

Amazon Tells Sellers to Ditch the Mylar Bags

In a recent policy update, Amazon will require all Mylar bags not clear or single-colored to be removed from the Amazon store by August 5, 2022. Sellers are advised to go over Amazon’s Drugs & drug paraphernalia page for more information about the new requirements.

FBA sellers who still have inventory stored in multi-colored Mylars by the designated date will have such ASINs removed from the store and have 30 days from notice to file a return request to get their products back.

While it is not clear what prompted the policy update, some sellers pointed out that the type of Mylar bags sought to be banned are often used to pack marijuana and prohibited items.