Despite a slight unfavorable impact from foreign exchange rates, the company’s growth trajectory remains strong, with notable increases across all major segments. The North America segment saw a 12% increase in sales to $86.3 billion, while international sales rose 10% to $31.9 billion — 11% growth when adjusted for currency fluctuations. Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s cloud computing division, continued its impressive performance, with sales climbing 17% to $25 billion.

Operating income for the quarter surged to $15.3 billion, a substantial rise from $4.8 billion in the first quarter of 2023. This growth was reflected across all segments, with North American operating income increasing more than fivefold to $5 billion and the international segment turning a previous loss into a $0.9 billion gain. AWS contributed significantly with $9.4 billion in operating income, up from $5.1 billion last year.

Net income significantly rose to $10.4 billion, or $0.98 per diluted share, compared with $3.2 billion, or $0.31 per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2023. This increase includes a pre-tax valuation loss of $2 billion from the company’s investment in Rivian Automotive, Inc., underscoring the volatile nature of investment returns.

Strategic Highlights and Innovations

Under the leadership of CEO Andy Jassy, Amazon is excelling financially and deepening its engagement with technological innovation and customer experience. Jassy highlighted the accelerated growth of AWS, driven by its expanding AI capabilities and infrastructure modernization. Meanwhile, the company’s retail arm is not only enhancing product selection and delivery speeds but also reducing operational costs.

Amazon has continued to invest heavily in customer-centric innovations. It has significantly expanded its delivery capabilities, with more than 2 billion units delivered the same or next day globally in the first quarter alone. In major cities like London, Tokyo, and Toronto, three-quarters of items now arrive within a day.

The company also broadened its product offerings with new and exclusive brands across various categories and conducted global shopping events offering significant discounts. These initiatives not only enhanced customer satisfaction but also drove sales volume and brand loyalty.

In healthcare, Amazon has expanded its services, including directly delivering critical medications and launching health programs to enhance patient care through digital platforms. The company has also rolled out a grocery subscription service, offering unlimited deliveries for orders over $35 from Whole Foods Market and Amazon Fresh.

Technological Prowess and Future Outlook

Amazon’s commitment to innovation is evident in its use of AI across various operations, from enhancing AWS offerings to integrating AI in customer service applications. The company’s Prime Video is set to expand its content slate significantly, streaming its first NFL Wild Card playoff game in 2025 and continually adding to its local and global original content lineup.

Amazon plans to expand its AWS infrastructure with significant investments in new data centers and technology solutions. This includes future launches of AWS infrastructure regions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Mexico, involving investments surpassing $5 billion in each location.

As Amazon continues its growth, it remains focused on scaling its operations responsibly and sustainably, seeking to blend technological innovation with robust financial performance.

For the upcoming second quarter of 2024, Amazon expects net sales to be between $144 billion and $149 billion, reflecting a growth of 7% to 11% compared with the second quarter of 2023. Operating income is projected to be between $10 billion and $14 billion, compared with $7.7 billion in the same period last year, indicating continuing profitability and operational efficiency.

Amazon’s robust start to 2024 sets a positive tone for its strategies moving forward, blending growth with innovation in ways that promise to enhance customer experiences while driving shareholder value.

Travis Marziani, a seasoned e-commerce veteran and seven-figure seller, explains what it means to sell on Amazon today. “Every day, 4,000 new sellers join Amazon, a clear testament to its allure,” Travis states. However, he quickly points to a stark reality: “Despite this influx, 90% of all e-commerce sellers on platforms like Amazon will fail.” Watch his video below for the full “harsh truth” about Amazon FBA.

Why Amazon? Pros and Cons

Amazon FBA has democratized the e-commerce space, allowing sellers to leverage Amazon’s massive logistical advantages. Over 43% of Amazon sellers rake in upwards of $100,000 annually, a success rate Travis suggests is more promising than other online business models like Shopify or drop shipping.

The platform’s expansive reach is undeniable, with over 300 million Prime customers globally and continuous growth in marketplace spending—projected sales hit $700 billion in 2024. Yet, this growth comes with heightened competition. The platform has become a battleground where longstanding and new merchants vie for consumer attention amidst a daily addition of sellers.

The Hidden Truths of Amazon FBA

Travis underscores several “big truths” or cons about Amazon that potential sellers must consider:

• Market Saturation: With millions of active sellers, the market is crowded. Strategies that worked years ago may no longer yield success unless innovatively adapted.
• Account Vulnerability: Amazon’s control can be a double-edged sword. The ease of setting up shop is counterbalanced by the platform’s ability to suspend sellers abruptly.
• Operational Challenges: While the FBA model offloads logistical burdens like storage and shipping, it requires meticulous inventory management and adherence to Amazon’s stringent policies.
• Despite these challenges, Travis points to the unique advantages of the FBA program. “The freedom it offers is unparalleled. You can manage your business from anywhere in the world,” he explains. This freedom, however, is not devoid of effort. Establishing a profitable Amazon business necessitates a robust strategy and an initial investment of time and resources.

Strategic Insights for Aspiring Sellers

For newcomers, Travis offers strategic insights:

• Product Selection: Leveraging tools like Helium 10 can significantly enhance product discovery and validation processes.
• Retail Arbitrage: Though viable, this method demands constant deal-hunting and isn’t conducive to passive income.
• Wholesale and Private Label: These traditional approaches, including intense price competition and market entry barriers, are increasingly challenging.
• Alternatively, Travis champions creating ‘passion products.’ This involves developing unique products that cater to specific consumer needs—a strategy less susceptible to saturation and potentially more rewarding.

Financial Considerations

Launching on Amazon isn’t inexpensive. Sellers must account for various fees:

• Referral Fees: Amazon charges a standard 15% on every sale, which can be reduced for brand-registered sellers.
• Fulfillment Fees: These vary by product size and weight but typically include packing and shipping costs handled by Amazon.

Looking Ahead

As 2024 unfolds, Amazon FBA remains a potent platform for e-commerce but requires a nuanced understanding of its dynamics. Travis concludes, “Success on Amazon is achievable with the right approach—meticulous planning, a strategic understanding of the marketplace, and a commitment to continual learning and adaptation.”

For those considering Amazon FBA, the journey is complex and challenging but equally ripe with opportunity for those who navigate it wisely. As the digital marketplace evolves, so must its merchants’ strategies.

The setback for some merchants is their failure to find the right mobile app developer when they initially launched. As their brands grow, their mobile stores’ needs become more specific. Retail brands with apps that directly fulfill the experience that shoppers desire are on a solid path to success; this is why finding the right app developer is imperative.

Find the right mobile app developer for brand needs

Third-party developers like Tapcart, the no-code app developer for Shopify, allow merchants to customize their checkout settings to create a frictionless checkout experience while enabling tools to help increase conversions. With the aid of these third-party developers, merchants can implement features like single-page checkouts and pre-filled shipping forms that allow for a quick checkout experience. Conversion features including checkout navigation, which automatically navigates customers to checkout when they add products to their cart, have contributed to Tapcart’s popularity amongst retail giants like Fashion Nova and Pier 1 Imports. 

Reduce the number of form fields

Over 18 percent of shoppers will abandon their cart if the checkout process is too long or complicated. In order to combat this, merchants should reduce the number of form fields so that shoppers have less to fill out. Fewer form fields ensure a frictionless checkout experience that increases conversion rates up to 160 percent. 

On average, merchants include 2 times more form fields than necessary. With these large amounts of forms, it can be tedious for a shopper to complete them for just one or two items. Reducing the typical number of checkout form fields can result in fewer abandoned cart rates, a checkout process that takes just  5 seconds to complete, and ultimately a significant jump in sales.

Accept various payment methods

With the rise of alternative payment methods, shoppers are no longer solely opting for credit and debit cards. In fact, 31 percent of shoppers say that they are more likely to use alternative payment methods (APMs) since the start of the pandemic. Providing APMs, like buy-now-pay-later (BNPL), which can be implemented through companies such as Affirm and Quadpay, allow eCommerce customers the freedom to choose their preferred payment method, ultimately resulting in a more streamlined checkout experience that caters directly to consumers.

Adding various payment methods is a simple way to attract new customers who, on other eCommerce apps, might not be able to use their preferred payment method. As a result, customers will flock to merchants’ mobile apps with the knowledge that they don’t have to change their choice of payment and instead can focus on their excellent shopping experience. 

Allow customers to shop as guests or create accounts

Having a customer account on an eCommerce website can provide prefilled shipping info, order history, and real-time order tracking, making a customer’s shopping experience optimal for quick and simple transactions. However, some customers prefer the guest checkout experience, as it requires less commitment and leads to faster first-time purchases. With a guest checkout feature, a shopper doesn’t have to fill out forms and create an account to purchase on a website, allowing a swift shopping experience without all of the extra steps involved.

Implementing an expedited checkout will increase customer loyalty to eCommerce mobile apps  and further success by decreasing cart abandonment rates. If the conversions aren’t meeting the quota initially intended, effectuating one or more of these tips is a great way to begin boosting numbers and meeting eCommerce goals.
To ensure your eCommerce store is having all of its needs met for maximum success, it is imperative that merchants find the right mobile app builder. Launching a high-converting mobile app can be easy with the right mobile app builder that offers features to ensure the most frictionless checkout experience.

Amazon has been increasing the amount of services it provides sellers, greatly simplifying the logistics involved in running an online store. The company’s newest expansion of services is one of its biggest yet and will help sellers ship faster at lower costs:

Sellers can now benefit from Amazon’s advanced logistics, warehousing, distribution, fulfillment, and transportation capabilities to keep products in stock, ship faster and more reliably, and significantly lower costs.

The company says Supply Chain by Amazon will help sellers focus on what they do best while leaving the logistics to Amazon:

With Supply Chain by Amazon, Amazon will pick up inventory from manufacturing facilities around the world, ship it across borders, handle customs clearance and ground transportation, store inventory in bulk, manage replenishment across Amazon and other sales channels, and deliver directly to customers—all without sellers having to worry about managing their supply chain. The new solution allows sellers to spend more time building great products, delighting customers, and growing their business, while Amazon handles the logistics, improves delivery speed, and reduces costs for sellers.

In combination with Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), the service will allow sellers to rely on Amazon for inventory replenishment:

In addition to the cost savings through AWD, sellers will now have the opportunity to leverage Amazon’s advanced machine learning and supply chain optimization capabilities to automatically replenish inventory into the optimal Amazon fulfillment centers. This better supports expected customer demand, and allows sellers to benefit from even faster speeds from FBA and deliver customer orders for off-Amazon channels through Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF). Placing sellers’ products in the right quantities at the right locations to meet customer demand increases the potential for Same-Day Delivery and Next-Day Delivery speeds, which in turn drives an average 15% increase in FBA unit sales.

Sellers can learn more on the Supply Chain by Amazon page.

Seth Freeman, Chief Marketing Officer of Buffalo Wild Wings, was recently interviewed on Adweek’s CMO Moves podcast with Nadine Dietz. Freeman discussed their new “game on” brand architecture that defines not just their new marketing strategy but really the heart of the business. “The purpose ultimately is really about inspiring legendary experiences between friends,” noted Freeman:

Turning Good Times With Friends Into Great Times With Brothers

When I think of brand architecture it really gets to the essence of the brand. There are three components to it in the way we framed it up.  They are the promise, the essence, and the purpose. We identified an insight out there that guys want to turn good times with friends into great times with brothers. More accurately, legendary experiences with brothers. That was the cultural insight that really framed our brand architecture.

When we think about our purpose we defined our promise as the great American sports bar that turned game time into stories worth telling. It wasn’t just about inviting folks to watch a game. It was about translating that into an experience worth telling. That’s what folks are really looking for. That’s the promise that we deliver on every single day. That’s why we get up. That’s why folks are going out there and doing the job that they do and delivering a great experience.

It’s “Game On” for Buffalo Wild Wings

Our purpose ultimately is really about inspiring legendary experiences between friends. The essence of the brand is around this idea of camaraderie and ritual and something that we like to call “game on.” It’s our ability to make sure that when folks come in to experience Buffalo Wild Wings that we have a game on mentality and that we bring them the very best of who we are. We have 80,000 folks out there working across Buffalo Wild Wings and they bring it every single day.

As we were talking to consumers, one of the things we learned was that some of the most impactful experiences that they talked about was with the bartenders and servers. They are influencing whether or not those folks come back. For instance, one of the most memorable experiences they talked about was the bartender remembering them when they came back.

That is our brand architecture, but it also lends itself to things we have done in rolling out this purpose to the broader community through our Brand Champ Initiative. That really is a cultural movement that we are employing across our franchises and corporate stores. We have over 1,200 locations where folks are trained to make sure that the brand architecture is translating to a way that is meaningful to the consumers and also meaningful to the folks that are on the front lines every single day.

Vice President, Ryan C. Baker, posted a message on the company’s website:

As previously announced, Zulily, LLC and its parent Zulily Group LLC (collectively, “Zulily”) made the difficult but necessary decision to conduct an orderly wind-down of the business to maximize value for the companies’ creditors. This decision was not easy nor was it entered into lightly. However, given the challenging business environment in which Zulily operated, and the corresponding financial instability, Zulily decided to take immediate and swift action. 

Baker says the company will fill as many order as possible within the next two week. Orders that cannot be fulfilled will be canceled and refunded. Baker says the company has a team in place to answer questions from customers, vendors, and others.

We realize that this news comes with many questions, and we have put a team in place to address customer, vendor, and other interested party inquiries. The Zulily ABC hotline can be reached at 888-202-5829 or (+1) 747-288-6406 outside the U.S., or visit https://omniagentsolutions.com/ZulilyABC for more information and additional support. In addition, customers can send email inquiries to ZulilyCustomersABC@OmniAgnt.com, while vendors and other parties of interest can email ZulilyABCInquiries@omniagnt.com.

Zulily will strive to continue to provide everyone with the best service possible during the holiday season. We appreciate yourpatience as we move through this process as swiftly and efficiently as possible.

According to GeekWire, the retailer announced the layoffs Tuesday, although it is unclear how many employees were impacted. The news comes on the heels of CEO Terry Boyle announcing his resignation.

The company appears to be going through financial issues, with GeekWire previously reporting that Zulily was not paying some of its vendors after being purchased by Regent in May.

GeekWire reports, that Amazon “confirmed that it recently began testing a partnership with pet giant Petco, which will accept returns from customers who purchased items on Amazon.com.”

Amazon already has partnerships with Kohl’s and Staples. The partnerships are a win-win, giving Amazon’s customers a convenient option for returns while driving traffic to the partner chains.

There is no word on how long the test phase will last.

Spotted by AppleInsider, Apple is opening an online store for the first time in Chile. The company has had a site for its Chilean customers but was unable to sell online. That changes October 16, with the company officially able to sell online in the country.

“Hello, Chile,” says the store online (translated). “We have a lot to celebrate.”

The outlet reports that “Apple is offering downloadable wallpapers for Mac, iPad, and iPhone, with its new Chile design.”

According to CNBC, Indonesia’s ministry of trade announced the policy:

“One of the things that is regulated is that the government only allows social media to be used to facilitate promotions, not for transactions,” the ministry said.

Officials said the move — along with preventing social media companies from acting as e-commerce platforms — was necessary to protect user data.

“The connection [between social media and e-commerce] must be separated so that the algorithm is not all controlled” thus preventing “the use of personal data” by businesses. — Minister of Trade Zulkifli Hasan

While the policy impacts all social media, as CNBC points out, it is an especially big blow to TikTok, as the company has been working to expand its e-commerce business.

According to the DOJ, eBay has sold hundreds of thousands of products that violate environmental regulations. In addition, the platform is accused of selling, or contributed to the sale, of 343,000 “defeat devices” designed to circumvent vehicle emission controls.

The DOJ says eBay was also involved in the sale of at least 23,000 pesticides that were restricted, misbranded, or unregistered, even doing so in violation of a previous EPA order to stop.

The company is also accused of distributing more than 5,600 items that violate the TSCA Methylene Chloride Rule.

“Laws that prohibit selling products that can severely harm human health and the environment apply to e-commerce retailers like eBay just as they do to brick-and-mortar stores,” said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD). “We are committed to preventing the unlawful sale and distribution of emissions-defeating devices and dangerous chemicals that, if used improperly, can lead to dire consequences for individuals and communities.”

“Our nation’s environmental laws protect public health and the environment by prohibiting the unlawful sale of defeat devices; unregistered, misbranded and restricted use pesticides; and unsafe products containing toxic chemicals such as methylene chloride,” said Assistant Administrator David M. Uhlmann of the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “The complaint filed today demonstrates that EPA will hold online retailers responsible for the unlawful sale of products on their websites that can harm consumers and the environment.”

“eBay’s sale of emission control defeat devices, pesticides and other unsafe products poses unacceptable risks to our communities disproportionately impacted by environmental and health hazards,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York. “Together with our partners, this office will vigorously enforce federal law against those whose conduct endangers public health and the environment.”

The FTC has been investigating Amazon’s business practices and preparing a case against the tech giant for months. The FTC makes clear that it is not suing Amazon become of its size, but because of alleged “exclusionary conduct” aimed at stifling competition from existing or potential rivals.

“Our complaint lays out how Amazon has used a set of punitive and coercive tactics to unlawfully maintain its monopolies,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “The complaint sets forth detailed allegations noting how Amazon is now exploiting its monopoly power to enrich itself while raising prices and degrading service for the tens of millions of American families who shop on its platform and the hundreds of thousands of businesses that rely on Amazon to reach them. Today’s lawsuit seeks to hold Amazon to account for these monopolistic practices and restore the lost promise of free and fair competition.”

The FTC took special note of Amazon’s practice of punishing sellers who try to offer lower prices through other outlets, as well as the company’s efforts to force sellers into gaining “Prime” status, ensuring Amazon is able to charge them significant fees for fulfillment services. The agency also took issue with Amazon’s practice of pushing its own products, preferring advertised products over genuine results, and adding more fees to sellers, with many of them paying Amazon as much as 50% of what they earn.

“We’re bringing this case because Amazon’s illegal conduct has stifled competition across a huge swath of the online economy. Amazon is a monopolist that uses its power to hike prices on American shoppers and charge sky-high fees on hundreds of thousands of online sellers,” said John Newman, Deputy Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition. “Seldom in the history of U.S. antitrust law has one case had the potential to do so much good for so many people.”

The FTC was joined in its lawsuit by the attorneys general of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

Amazon Prime Day is one of the biggest shopping events of the year, prompting the company to launch a second Prime Day event. This year’s second event will be held in mid-October.

“We’re giving our Prime members yet another way to save, with deals on some of the most wanted gifts of the season,” said Jamil Ghani, vice president of Amazon Prime. “Members can shop deals across categories like fashion, home, and toys that include some of our most popular items during Prime Big Deal Days. They can also take advantage of other exciting Prime member benefits, like shopping favorite brands beyond Amazon.com with Buy with Prime and accessing doorbuster deals with Invite-only deals.”

Prime Big Deal Days will be held simultaneously in 18 counties, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, the US, and the UK. Japan, the 19th country, will have access to Prime Big Deal Days later in October.

Yahoo Mail is an online email service that, like so many others, is in Gmail’s shadow. Nonetheless, the service offers a powerful experience combined with a clean user interface.

The company is improving the experience even more with AI, unveiling its Shopping Saver tool. The new tool “surfaces long-forgotten gift cards, discount codes, and store credits in user inboxes, and drafts suggested messages to vendors to help apply those savings after a purchase has been made.”

The feature is currently part of Yahoo Mail’s AI beta.

“We’ve introduced a full suite of tools on Yahoo Mail to help users save time and money, making strides toward an assistive inbox,” said Josh Jacobson, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Yahoo Mail. “In total, US consumers have $23 billion in unused gift cards and credits, and we hope our new tools will help users gain a fraction of that back in their wallets.”

Shopping Saver is one of the most useful everyday use cases for AI and demonstrates that Yahoo is showing sparks of the innovation it was once known for.

Amazon Prime is one of the company’s most popular services, providing members with discounted prices and same or next-day delivery. According to a tweet by Jassy, the company has hit a new record in terms of Prime deliveries:

We’re now delivering for U.S. Prime members faster than we have in the 18-year history of Prime (over 1.8B same-day or next-day deliveries so far this year). Customers really appreciate being able to get their items this quickly, and I’m proud of the invention and hard work from our teams to get to this point. We’re not done inventing here.

— Andy Jassy (@ajassy) — July 31, 2023

Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, credits “regionalizing” US operations with the improved service:

In short, we divided the country into smaller, easier-to-reach regions. Previously, we fulfilled orders from any of our operational sites across the country. Now we have eight interconnected regions serving smaller geographic areas. We keep a broad selection of inventory in each region, making it faster and less expensive to get those products to customers. Today, more than 76% of the orders we fulfill come from within the customer’s region. Items shipped from nearby fulfillment centers or delivery stations helps packages get to customers not only faster, but also with fewer emissions.

Herrington also says the company has started using smaller, same-day delivery facilities to facilitate faster processing and delivery:

As a result, the average time from picking a customer’s items to positioning the customer’s package on the outbound dock is 11 minutes in Same-Day facilities, more than an hour faster than our traditional fulfillment centers. And these hybrid facilities allow us to fulfill, sort, and deliver all from one site—making the entire process of delivering customer packages even faster.

Amazon is clearly firing on all cylinders, giving Prime customers the price and service they want and demonstrating why Amazon is a growing threat to traditional retailers.

According to Reuters, Spain’s antitrust watchdog says the two companies’ anti-competitive agreement unfairly restricted the online marketplace for electronics.

“The two companies restricted without justification the number of sellers of Apple products on the Amazon website in Spain,” Spain’s watchdog, the CNMC, said.

Both companies disagreed with the CNMC’s findings and said they will appeal the decision.

“We reject the suggestion made by CNMC that Amazon benefits from excluding sellers from its market place, as our business model hinges precisely on the success of the companies selling through Amazon,” an Amazon spokesperson told Reuters in a statement.

Meanwhile, Apple told the outlet that its agreement with Amazon was designed to limit counterfeits.

The fine breaks down to 143.6 million euros for Apple and 50.5 million euros for Amazon.

According to the company, Prime members purchased some 375 million items over the course of the two-day event and saved more than $2.5 billion.

“The first day of Prime Day was the largest sales day in Amazon’s history, and Prime members saved more this year than any other Prime Day event,” said Doug Herrington, CEO of Amazon Stores. “Prime is an incredible value, and we’re proud to offer additional value for members through exclusive deals events like Prime Day. Thank you to our Prime members for continuing to shop in our store, and to our employees and independent sellers around the world who delivered for customers this Prime Day.”

Another factor that helped boost Prime Day was the company’s Buy with Prime initiative, “a new Prime member perk that offers U.S.-based members the benefits they love and trust when shopping directly from participating brands’ websites.”

Amazon’s results are good news for the company, as well as the e-commerce market and economy in general.

Fake reviews and testimonials have become a plague for many online shoppers, with an entire industry built around artificially boosting products. The sheer number of fake reviews can often overwhelm and suppress genuine ones, preventing users from getting an accurate view of the product they’re buying.

“Our proposed rule on fake reviews shows that we’re using all available means to attack deceptive advertising in the digital age,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “The rule would trigger civil penalties for violators and should help level the playing field for honest companies.”

The agency targets several specific behaviors:

• Selling or Obtaining Fake Consumer Reviews and Testimonials: The proposed rule would prohibit businesses from writing or selling consumer reviews or testimonials by someone who does not exist, who did not have experience with the product or service, or who misrepresented their experiences. It also would prohibit businesses from procuring such reviews or disseminating such testimonials if the businesses knew or should have known that they were fake or false.
• Review Hijacking: Businesses would be prohibited from using or repurposing a consumer review written for one product so that it appears to have been written for a substantially different product. The FTC recently brought its first review hijacking enforcement action.
• Buying Positive or Negative Reviews: Businesses would be prohibited from providing compensation or other incentives conditioned on the writing of consumer reviews expressing a particular sentiment, either positive or negative.
• Insider Reviews and Consumer Testimonials: The proposed rule would prohibit a company’s officers and managers from writing reviews or testimonials of its products or services, without clearly disclosing their relationships. It also would prohibit businesses from disseminating testimonials by insiders without clear disclosures of their relationships, and it would prohibit certain solicitations by officers or managers of reviews from company employees or their relatives, depending on whether the businesses knew or should have known of these relationships.
• Company Controlled Review Websites: Businesses would be prohibited from creating or controlling a website that claims to provide independent opinions about a category of products or services that includes its own products or services.
• Illegal Review Suppression: Businesses would be prohibited from using unjustified legal threats, other intimidation, or false accusations to prevent or remove a negative consumer review. The proposed rule also would bar a business from misrepresenting that the reviews on its website represent all reviews submitted when negative reviews have been suppressed.
• Selling Fake Social Media Indicators: Businesses would be prohibited from selling false indicators of social media influence, like fake followers or views. The proposed rule also would bar anyone from buying such indicators to misrepresent their importance for a commercial purpose.

The agency says the NPRM will be posted to the Federal Register soon; concerned parties will have 60 days to comment.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the FTC is preparing to sue Amazon for antitrust concerns regarding how it treats sellers using its platforms. The agency maintains that Amazon rewards sellers that fully buy into its platform and use its logistics services while punishing those that don’t.

The FTC already has already brought three cases against Amazon, but this one could be the most high-stakes yet, with Bloomberg indicating Chair Lina Khan may pursue structural changes to Amazon.

This isn’t the first time Amazon has been in trouble for its dealings with third-party resellers. In late 2022, Amazon reached an agreement with the EU to end investigations stemming from the company’s practices. Amazon was accused of using third-party seller data to improve its own retail offerings and gain an unfair advantage. The EU similarly accused the company of unfairly rewarding sellers that used its logistics services with “Buy Box” placement.

As Bloomberg points out, Khan has signaled in the past that, unlike the EU, she is not open to compromise agreements, telling a Senate subcommittee that she would “strongly disfavor” such an outcome. Given that the EU’s compromise with Amazon only led to changes in the EU, and not worldwide, it’s hard to argue with the belief that such compromises have limited effect, especially when considering that even the EU’s agreement expires after seven years.

Should the FTC move forward with the case, it could ultimately prove as big or bigger than the US antitrust case against Microsoft in 2001.

Amazon Prime may be a popular subscription service that offers better deals, faster shipping, and a video subscription service, but the FTC says many customers were tricked into subscriptions they didn’t want. To make matters worse, Amazon allegedly made it difficult for customers to cancel once subscribed.

In a complaint filed today, the FTC charges that Amazon has knowingly duped millions of consumers into unknowingly enrolling in Amazon Prime. Specifically, Amazon used manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs known as “dark patterns” to trick consumers into enrolling in automatically-renewing Prime subscriptions.

Amazon also knowingly complicated the cancellation process for Prime subscribers who sought to end their membership. The primary purpose of its Prime cancellation process was not to enable subscribers to cancel, but to stop them. Amazon leadership slowed or rejected changes that would’ve made it easier for users to cancel Prime because those changes adversely affected Amazon’s bottom line.

“Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “These manipulative tactics harm consumers and law-abiding businesses alike. The FTC will continue to vigorously protect Americans from “dark patterns” and other unfair or deceptive practices in digital markets.”

This isn’t the first time the FTC has gone after a high-profile company for using dark patterns to trick users. The agency recently fined Epic Games $520 million for such practices. The fine included $245 million in refunds for dark pattern purchases.