In brief: Japan regulators to probe ecommerce loyalty programs

• The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) is set to probe into Amazon Japan, Rakuten, and Yahoo Japan, which are suspected of forcing online vendors to shoulder an unfair burden of rewarding customers through loyalty programs. Such arrangements essentially cut into vendors’ revenue, on top of the fees they pay to the platforms.
• The antitrust authority has announced earlier its plan to look into the changes in Amazon Japan’s rewards program, which would require vendors to shoulder the cost of reward points.
• The JFTC also plans to look beyond rewards programs. Leveraging their massive customer bases and data, big ecommerce companies are allegedly demanding excessive price cuts or unilaterally dropping small and midsize vendors from their platforms.

Source: Nikkei Asian Review