Amazon app enrages brick-and-mortar retailers

Amazon.com and the US brick-and-mortar retailers are in combat again, this time over the online giant's price comparison tool that enables shoppers to quickly check out prices at rival merchants, The Los Angeles Times reveals.

An uproar over the Price Check shopping app, used on mobile devices, erupted after Amazon unveiled a promotion for Saturday that gives customers 5% off (up to $5) on up to three qualifying items on its site if they check the prices of those goods on the app while browsing at a physical store.

Retail trade groups denounced the offer, saying it unfairly encouraged shoppers to check products at stores and then buy them online.

US Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) said the discount offer by Amazon.com was anti-competitive and “an attack on Main Street businesses that employ workers in our communities”, IRA.com notes.

Using a mobile phone application to compare prices of goods offered by rivals marks a new frontier in consumer control and could potentially alter general shopping habits, a fact that is not lost on either side of the retail debate.

This weekend's events are certain to draw ire among traditional retail advocates, who are already upset over the tax advantages that online distributors hold over their counterparts.

“There is nothing transparent about Amazon's latest ploy to exploit the sales tax loophole. They're using my store as a showroom and deliberately deceiving their own customers with this app,” says Stephen Fuhrman, owner of A Cleaner Place, in Oklahoma City, The Norman Transcript writes.

In the past, collecting and remitting sales tax based on point-of-sale was considered too complicated. Now, many experts say developing the software to make that possible is well within reach.

“I can always match a price - I can't break the law and not charge sales taxes to compete with Amazon,” says Kim Volz, owner of the Dive Shop, in Flint, Michigan.