According to the Competition Board decision dated 19.10.2023 and numbered 23-49/940-M, an investigation was initiated on DSM Grup Danışmanlık İletişim ve Satış Ticaret AŞ (Trendyol) in order to determine whether the automatic pricing mechanism it offered for the use of sellers in multi-category e-marketplace market violated the Act no 4054 on the Protection of Competition.

The automatic pricing mechanism, which was put into practice by Trendyol at the end of 2021, is actually a system which automatize the rivalry among sellers to appear in the buybox.  Since there are thousands of sellers in e-marketplaces, it is inevitable that the same product is sold by more than one seller.  Marketplaces have developed buybox application since listing hundreds of outlets while users are searching for a product may complicate shopping experience.  Basically, if a product is sold by more than one seller, buybox gathers those products under a single heading.  In this way, with the algorithm metrics set, the seller who will provide the maximum benefit to customers and wins buybox ranks at the top when a user searches for the product in question.  In the list of sellers ranked according to this system, when the user clicks on “Add to cart” or “Buy now”, the product of the seller who wins the buybox is added to the cart.  Therefore, it is very important for the sellers in the marketplace in terms of visibility and sales to appear in the buybox. Under the scope of the automatic pricing mechanism, sellers are offered “Match the Buybox Price”, “Stay below the Buybox Price” and “Stay above the Buybox price” options and they can update their prices automatically through these options if they want to.  The sellers have the initiative in setting each rule and the price of the seller who wins the buybox is taken as a basis as the reference price.

The concerns in the investigation focus on the issues that the sellers may be less likely to set their retail prices at different levels and there may be price rigidity depending on the cumulative effect in the prices of the products that are listed in platforms as a result of the increase in the population of the sellers who use the automatic pricing mechanism, especially “Match the Buybox Price” rule and optimal functioning of the mechanism providing the desired results in the future.

While the investigation was ongoing, Trendyol requested to offer commitments. The commitments offered were found sufficient to resolve the competition problems and rendered binding according to article 43 of the Act no 4054. The investigation was terminated for Trendyol with the Board decision dated 03.10.2024 and numbered 24-40/950-409. 

Within the framework of the commitments offered, Trendyol

• will continue not obliging the sellers to use automatic pricing mechanism and not offering any incentive that may create the same results as obliging sellers.
• will not make it possible to target a specific seller/sellers while defining a rule under the scope of automatic pricing mechanism.
• will omit “Match the Buybox Price” option from the automatic pricing mechanism and offer the sellers only “Stay below the Buybox Price” and “Stay above the Buybox Price” options; also will arrange “Stay below the Buybox Price” and “Stay above the Buybox price” options in a manner that they will not produce the same result as “Match the Buybox Price” option (for instance not being able to “stay above or below 0% or 0 TL” in terms of percentage and amount).
• will not consider the use of automatic pricing mechanism by sellers as a criterion in the functioning of the algorithm in terms of buybox criteria,
• will inform the sellers about the features of the automatic pricing mechanism but will continue not sharing other sellers’ data related to the use of automatic pricing mechanism, 
• will provide the sellers with access to the training content on the functioning of the automatic pricing mechanism and provide training on competition law to its staff within the scope of the concerns and commitments offered in the investigation,
• will report to the Competition Authority for three years in order to ensure the monitoring of compliance with the commitments.

The commitments will be put into effect in 60 days as of the notification of the short decision to Trendyol and all of the commitments will be valid as long as the automatic pricing mechanism is in effect.