Internal employees stole sellers’ data to open a store, Amazon: I know!

Recently, an article titled "Amazon knew that seller data was used to promote company sales" published on an American political news website has aroused heated discussion among cross-border sellers.

4,700 Amazon employees use seller data to open stores

The article pointed out that as early as 2015, 4,700 Amazon employees accessed the data of third-party sellers without authorization, which Amazon attributed to lax security protocols.

It is reported that they used a tool called "spoofer access", which allows Amazon employees to view and edit accounts as sellers . Employees can also access profile information, inventory levels, product prices, and even cancel orders.

Some employees also use the data from this channel to increase sales in their own stores . Is this true? The temptation is too great, how can I remain calm?

I thought it was already annoying enough that Amazon used its own stores to snatch sellers’ listings at low prices , but I didn’t expect there would be something even more exciting. This makes me, an outsider, want to complain. This is not the way to cut leeks.

This move by Amazon employees has undoubtedly caused great suffering to many sellers. One seller said, "I work so hard all year round, but this is not worth more than a piece of data that someone just glanced at. How can I live like this?"

Seller: I am filled with sorrow and tears , but Amazon doesn’t care?

So, does Amazon not care about the unbridled behavior of its employees? It seems that they really don’t care.

In 2020, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told U.S. lawmakers that the company had a policy prohibiting employees from using data from specific sellers to help boost their own sales, but he backed up those claims by adding: “I can’t guarantee that anyone would violate that policy.”

In fact, in 2020, Amazon admitted to the US Congress that it uses "aggregated" data from third-party sellers to propose its own products, which means that Amazon is using third-party data to operate its own brand.

According to Amazon, they only consider factors such as how well the product title matches the query, how often the item is purchased, and price and availability to promote private brands. But this does not mean that important information about sellers such as page views, conversion rates, customer demographics, and PPC spending is not being spied on.

Coincidentally, also in 2020, the European Commission accused Amazon of abusing seller data and using it to create copycat products, undercutting independent businesses in large markets such as France and Germany. In one example, shortly after Amazon launched its own popular car trunk organizer, it launched a very similar product as part of its own brand offerings.

The editor just wants to say one thing, sellers, what do you think?

Amazon

Third-party data

Seller