The Bundeskartellamt, the German antitrust authority, has opened an investigation into amazon.de's business practices in regard to retailers that sell products through Amazon's online platform. The general terms of the marketplace require that participating retailers will not offer their products any cheaper on other online platforms or in the retailers' own web shops, and this would seem to be an infringement of German antitrust regulations.
To start with, the office has launched an online survey inviting 2,400 retailers across the country to report on their experiences with the Amazon platform and those of its competitors. The investigation goes in two directions: First, it wants to check whether the usual practices of Amazon hurt the freedom of retailers guaranteed by federal law to define their own prices. Second, its terms of use may also affect the competition with various other online platforms in the market: Even if they offer lower commission fees to participating retailers, the retailers cannot transform them into discounts for their own end consumers, as Amazon has already defined the lowest possible price not only on its own marketplace, but also for its competitors.
Besides the new potential trouble with the country's antitrust authorities, Amazon Germany has also been the target of journalistic investigations that have caused an uproar in the media. Reportedly, Amazon hired 5,000 workers on a short-term basis to handle the extra workload before the holiday season. They were pulled together from various European countries and were housed in Germany under doubtful conditions in vacation villages and motels. According to reports, a security company was contracted to oversee the conduct of the workers and was granted far-reaching rights such as searching the workers' baggage. As if that were not enough, the investigating public TV station, ARD, found out that the security company had apparently strong ties with the neo-Nazi scene. In the end, Amazon has agreed to stop working with that company and has invited the labor unions to closer cooperation in the field of working conditions.
Meanwhile, for the first time, Amazon has put out figures on its German operations, showing that they are the company's second-largest in the world after the U.S.. In 2012, Amazon.de generated sales of $8.7 billion in Germany, compared with a worldwide total of 61 billion. Reportedly, however, the German business could not keep up with the global 25 percent growth rate enjoyed by the U.S.-based online retailer.
Sporting goods are a major product category for Amazon in Germany and other European countries, as they are also for eBay and Zalando, among others.
