A "modern leather" table lamp on Walmart.com suddenly jumped from $24.99 to $39. An air fryer on Newegg went from $84.99 to $149.99. An electric ice-cream maker vanished from Best Buy and tripled in price to $59.99 on Amazon. These weren't the whims of supply and demand, but the handiwork of Amazon's behind-the-scenes pressure tactics, according to internal emails and court filings reviewed by The Guardian.

For years, as Americans felt the squeeze on basic goods, Amazon allegedly deployed techniques to incentivize suppliers to raise prices on rival sites, California authorities claim. Internal emails show Amazon employees flagging low competitor prices as threats to profitability, cutting suppliers' sales or demanding compensation for revenue lost due to Amazon's price-matching. To escape the pressure, suppliers reportedly hiked prices with rivals or pulled products altogether.

The California attorney general, Rob Bonta, alleges widespread price-fixing. In the ice-cream maker case, emails show Amazon temporarily removed the supplier Maxi-Matic's inventory, prompting it to pull products from Best Buy - eliminating price competition. Amazon then relisted the item at triple the price. For the air fryer, Amazon suppressed sales and demanded reimbursement; supplier Chefman agreed to pay $100,000 on top of $400,000 already given back, while securing price increases at Target and Newegg. Chefman's senior VP declined to comment, saying, "I don't want to bite the hand that feeds me."

Amazon denies distorting "a handful of emails" and says it works to protect customers from overpaying. The company faces multiple lawsuits, including from the FTC and California, set for trial in 2027. Former employees told The Guardian they were instructed to have certain conversations over the phone to avoid a digital trail. One vendor manager recalled telling suppliers, "If you can make sure this product doesn't continue to be sold at this lower price point, then we don't have to keep revisiting this discussion about margin."

Ryan Turano of fertilizer company AgroThrive described being at Amazon's mercy: "We were at their mercy. Because we didn't have the resources to push back." Amazon, now the world's largest company by revenue, argues its practices encourage lower prices and competition. But the lawsuits allege its vaunted price floor is a mirage, obscuring efforts to drive up competitors' prices.