“Were this legislation to become law, it would substantially degrade the value and quality of Prime, as many of the products sold in our store today with Prime’s one- to two-day delivery promise would be undeliverable in that time frame,” Huseman wrote. “This degradation of the Prime experience would materially hurt not just Amazon (which is what we believe to be the real, unstated goal of the legislation), but, more importantly, every American consumer and small business that currently relies on the Prime service.”
“As one of the nation’s largest retailers, we understand our success invites scrutiny,” Huseman wrote in the blog post. “We also understand that such scrutiny can bring calls for new regulations. If Congress believes that the highly competitive retail industry needs regulation, we welcome the opportunity to engage in identifying and addressing legitimate concerns lawmakers may have. But the proposed bills that Congress is now considering, which attempt to broadly cover five companies, each with a vastly different business model, should be reconsidered.”
In response to Amazon’s blog post, a spokesperson for Klobuchar said the company was misrepresenting the bill’s effects and that it would help the very small businesses Amazon claimed to represent, as well as smaller tech companies, hotels and the 35,000 businesses represented by the National Association of Wholesale Distributors.
Those and other small business groups have endorsed the bill, along with the departments of Commerce and Justice.
“Who do you trust? The largest online retailer in America with a demonstrated record of stiffing small businesses and lying about this bill’s impact, or small businesses themselves?” the spokesperson said. “We’ll take the side of small business and consumers — not the side of big tech monopolists.”