e-Commerce Platforms and Self-preferencing

Federico Etro ()

Working Papers - Economics from Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa

Abstract: I survey the literature on eCommerce platforms with particular emphasis on the antitrust debate on self-preferencing by Amazon. The business model of hybrid marketplaces is based on monetization through commissions on third party sellers hosted on the platform and direct margins on own products. Recent theoretical and empirical work on endogenous marketplace structures has analyzed the welfare impact of the dual mode and of recommendation algorithms that have been associated with self-preferencing strategies. The trade offs are complex and one cannot easily conclude that Amazon entry is biased to expropriate third party sellers or that a ban on dual mode, self-preferencing or copycatting would benefit consumers.

Keywords: eCommerce; Endogenous marketplace structures; Business models; Self-preferencing. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L1 L4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ind, nep-mic, nep-pay and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: e‐Commerce platforms and self‐preferencing (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2023_07.rdf

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