Ebay accuses Amazon of stealing third-party sellers in lawsuit

By

Gabriella Lacombe

Published
Oct 18, 2018

Ebay has filed a lawsuit against competitor Amazon.com Inc., accusing the company of using Ebay’s own internal M2M messaging system to poach customers. The lawsuit was filed in California's Santa Clara County on Wednesday.

In the suit, Ebay accused Amazon of engaging "in a systematic, coordinated effort to infiltrate and exploit Ebay’s proprietary M2M system on Ebay’s platform to lure top Ebay sellers" to the rival company. 

Ebay, which was founded one year after Amazon, also alleged that this Amazon sales representatives in the United States and overseas were also used to recruit Ebay sellers to the competitor. 

"Amazon's misuse of Ebay's M2M system has been coordinated, targeted, and designed to inflict harm on Ebay," the company said in the lawsuit. "One of the Amazon sales representatives who participated in this scheme described the team he worked on as a 'hunter/recruiter team which actively searches for sellers we believe can do well on the [Amazon] platform.'"

Ebay said it sent Amazon a cease-and-desist letter after it discovered these activities in the past weeks. Ebay began examining its M2M boards after a seller on the platform notified the company. 

In the lawsuit, Ebay has asked for damages to be determined by a jury trial.

Although neither company will reveal the total number of sellers who use their platforms, Ebay disclosed that its net revenues were $2.6 billion last quarter, while Amazon's were $52.9 billion.

Nearly half of U.S. online retail sales occur on Amazon, according to the e-commerce giant's reports. 

Now in the shadow of Amazon's dominance on the e-marketing stage, Ebay accused its competitor of being "unwilling to fairly compete for third party seller business." 

The company continued, pointing out that it does not compete against third-party sellers using its platform, while Amazon sells its own private-label brands in addition to third-party products.

Amazon has yet to release a public response.