Amazon.com Inc., locked in a margin-crushing price war, is offloading costs onto suppliers and limiting the number of single, low-priced items shoppers can purchase in an effort to offset rising shipping costs. Amazon scrapes the websites of competitors to make sure its prices are competitive and has been cutting them drastically. For instance, in March the price of a 12-pack of Barilla whole grain spaghetti on Amazon dropped 38 per cent to $17.76. Amazon needs to keep prices low because Walmart is closing the gap between them, according to Profitero. Hence Amazon’s push to cut costs and foist them on suppliers — a tactic Walmart has been using for decades.

Source: thestar March 20, 2018 19:30 UTC