Competition Authority Concludes Hepsiburada Investigation
The Competition Authority has completed its investigation into D-Market Elektronik Hizmetler ve Ticaret AŞ. The Authority stated that during the investigation period, Hepsiburada requested to submit commitments and that these commitments were deemed sufficient to address competitive concerns.
The decision stated:
"According to the Competition Authority's decision dated October 19, 2023 and numbered 23-49/940-M, an investigation has been initiated to determine whether the automatic pricing mechanism provided by D-Market Elektronik Hizmetler ve Tic. AŞ (Hepsiburada) for sellers in the multi-category e-marketplace market violates Article 4 of the Law on the Protection of Competition No. 4054.
The automatic pricing mechanism implemented by Hepsiburada in June 2023 is fundamentally designed to automate the competition for placement in the buy box among sellers. Given that there are thousands of sellers on e-marketplaces, the simultaneous sale of the same product by multiple sellers is inevitable. As a user searches for a product, the display of hundreds of stores simultaneously can complicate the shopping experience; hence, marketplaces have developed the buy box feature. The buy box, in its simplest terms, aggregates products from multiple sellers if there are several sellers for the same product. Consequently, based on the specified algorithm metrics, the seller who wins the buy box appears first when that product is searched, providing maximum benefit to customers. When a user clicks the "Add to Cart" or "Buy Now" button on the ranked seller list, the product of the seller who has won the buy box is added to the cart. Therefore, being placed in the buy box is of significant importance for sellers operating in the marketplace in terms of visibility and sales.
Under the automatic pricing mechanism, sellers are offered options to "Match the Buybox Price," "Stay Below the Buybox Price," and "Stay Above the Buybox Price," allowing them to automatically update their prices if they wish through these options. The process of determining each rule is at the sellers' discretion, and the price of the seller who wins the buy box is used as the reference price.
The concerns raised in the investigation have concentrated on the possibility that, as the number of sellers utilizing the automatic pricing mechanism and particularly the "Match the Buybox Price" rule increases, there may be a reduction in the ability of sellers to set retail prices at different levels, potentially leading to price rigidity in the prices of products listed on platforms due to cumulative effects.
While the investigation was ongoing, Hepsiburada requested to submit commitments, and the commitments presented were found to be sufficient to address competitive issues. Consequently, they were made binding under Article 43 of Law No. 4054, and with the decision of the Authority dated October 3, 2024, numbered 24-40/951-410, the investigation was concluded for Hepsiburada.
Within the framework of the commitments presented, Hepsiburada will remove the "Match the Buybox Price" option from the automatic pricing mechanism and will only offer sellers the "Stay Below the Buybox Price" and "Stay Above the Buybox Price" options. Additionally, these options will be regulated so that they do not provide the same outcome as the "Match the Buybox Price" option (for instance, options cannot be below or above 0% or 0 TL in amount).
Hepsiburada will not require sellers to use the automatic pricing mechanism and will not continue to offer any incentives that would have the same consequence. Regarding buy box criteria, the use of the automatic pricing mechanism by sellers will not be considered a criterion in the operation of the algorithm.
Hepsiburada will continue to refrain from sharing data belonging to other sellers related to the use of the automatic pricing mechanism with sellers.
To ensure compliance with the commitments, Hepsiburada will submit a report to the Authority annually starting one year after the notification of the reasoned decision. The removal of the "Match the Buybox Price" option from the automatic pricing mechanism will take place within two months from the notification of the short decision; other commitments will be implemented along with the short decision, and all commitments will be invalid indefinitely."