Brooke Sutherland, Columnist

Amazon Throws Its Weight Around in FedEx Feud

Its role as both friend and foe to the third-party merchants that list on its marketplace and the delivery firms they rely on raises anitrust questions.

December 16, 2019 at 10:18 PM UTC

By Brooke Sutherland

Brooke Sutherland is Bloomberg News' Boston bureau chief and writes the Industrial Strength Newsletter. She was previously a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals and industrial companies and an M&A reporter for Bloomberg News.

Amazon’s freeze-out of FedEx just got kicked up a notch.
Photographer: Christopher Lee/Bloomberg

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You almost have to wonder if Amazon.com Inc. is baiting antitrust regulators.

The e-commerce giant reportedly sent a message to third-party sellers on Sunday instructing them to stop using FedEx Corp.’s ground-delivery network for Prime shipments. It was already no longer using FedEx as a carrier for its own packages in the U.S., though third-party merchants were able to work with FedEx, and they make up more than half of the merchandise sold on the company's website, the Wall Street Journal reported. That loophole to Amazon’s FedEx freeze-out is now closed for Prime services.