There is a general feeling among the public that Amazon is a ruthless behemoth. A survey conducted by CNBC|SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey showed that 59% of the public think Amazon is bad for business. "This represents a significant shift from just two years ago, when opinion was nearly split between those saying Amazon is bad for small businesses (37%) and those saying it’s good (33%)."
One of the many reasons Amazon is viewed this way is because of tactics like the one public watchdog Public Citizen discovered. Amazon listed items that were essential during the pandemic with markups ranging from 76% to 1000%. "Amazon has fundamentally misled the public, law enforcement and policymakers about price increases during the pandemic," Alex Harman, Public Citizen competition policy advocate and author of the report, said in a statement. "Amazon has publicly blamed third-party sellers for price increases while continuing to raise prices on its own products and allowing those sellers to increase their prices." says Public Citizen.
As long as Amazon continues their merciless tactics, they will continue to drop in the court of public opinion.