Fewer than half of firms supplying directly to Amazon who responded to the Groceries Code Adjudicator’s 2024 annual survey believe the company consistently or mostly complies with the Groceries Supply Code of Practice.
Despite the overall improvement in the treatment of suppliers, Amazon’s perceived Code compliance score fell from 59% to 47%.
Mark White, the Groceries Code Adjudicator has told Amazon that it must take swift and comprehensive action to demonstrably comply with the Code. The GCA is monitoring changes that Amazon is making and their impact on suppliers to determine whether they are sufficient.
He said: “I am encouraged to see improvements in Retailers’ treatment of suppliers across a range of issues including the management of cost price increase requests but also resolution of invoice discrepancies and data input errors.
“However, the survey shows clearly that many suppliers do not believe that Amazon is complying with the Code. Amazon must ensure suppliers understand the changes it has made since its designation and in response to these survey results, and make any further changes that are needed to ensure Code compliance.
“I will not hesitate to launch a formal investigation if appropriate and necessary to ensure Amazon is treating its suppliers fairly and lawfully. I encourage suppliers to continue to confidentially tell me about the issues they are facing with Amazon.”
The results of the eleventh annual survey, which received more than 3,000 responses, show that the number of suppliers experiencing a Code issue fell from 36% to 33%.
There was a significant improvement in relation to cost price increases (CPIs). As food price inflation has fallen, the number of suppliers which requested at least one CPI from a Retailer over the previous 12 months fell from 91% in 2023 to 67% in 2024. The number of suppliers highlighting a Retailer’s response to a CPI as an issue almost halved, falling from 28% in 2023 to just 16%.
There has also been improved performance against other issues impacting suppliers:
- 21% of suppliers highlighted inadequate processes in place to enable invoice discrepancies to be resolved promptly, compared to 25% of suppliers in 2023.
- 11% of suppliers highlighted data input errors not being resolved promptly, compared to 16% in 2023.
