New Survey Shows Consumer Concerns About Amazon Regulation

Super majority of voters like shopping on Amazon, believe Amazon should be able to highlight their best deals

May 9, 2023

On Tuesday, Chamber of Progress released new polling that shows broad, bipartisan consumer concern about government regulations on Amazon’s shopping marketplace. The survey, which comes as the Federal Trade Commission explores a potential  antitrust suit against Amazon, reveals that a majority of voters believe that online marketplace regulations should focus on consumer well-being rather than help Amazon’s corporate competitors.

See the full poll results: Voters’ Sentiment Towards Regulating Amazon

“The bottom line is, people want the best deals on Amazon’s marketplace and they don’t think it should be against the rules for Amazon to highlight those deals,” said Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich. “The FTC’s failed tech cases have all focused their attention on the challenges that competing businesses face in tech, but what voters care about is consumer well-being.”

The poll, conducted by Morning Consult, surveyed 2,008 registered voters with a margin of error of ±2%. The polling found  that:

  • The vast majority of Amazon users are satisfied with their Amazon shopping (91%). Two-thirds (64%) of all voters are currently an Amazon Prime member, including 71% of Democrats and 62% of Republicans. 
  • A majority (61%) of voters think government regulations should not prevent Amazon from providing the best services to its customers, even if that means sellers and competitors make less money.
  • 91% of Amazon users said it was important to them to know that Amazon was offering the lowest product price on the Internet, and 43% of users said they would shop elsewhere if that wasn’t assured.
  • A supermajority of voters (66%) think Amazon should be able to highlight its best deals in its’ “buy box,” even if all sellers aren’t promoted equally;
  • A majority of Prime members (59%) said that Amazon should be able to require that sellers ship Prime products from Amazon warehouses in order to maintain the two-day delivery window, even if sellers would prefer to ship it themselves.
  • 80 percent of voters said Amazon should be allowed to feature Amazon-branded products in their search results, with 69% of voters saying they are a good way for consumers to save money.
  • When it comes to the prioritization of tech policy, most voters want the Biden Administration to focus its attention on protecting consumers from scams and malware (58% of voters). Only 8% of voters believe that imposing new restrictions on Amazon Prime or Amazon Basics products should be a priority.

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Chamber of Progress (progresschamber.org) is a center-left tech industry policy coalition promoting technology’s progressive future.  We work to ensure that all Americans benefit from technological leaps, and that the tech industry operates responsibly and fairly.  

Our corporate partners do not have a vote on or veto over our positions. We do not speak for individual partner companies and remain true to our stated principles even when our partners disagree.