Poland’s online marketplace Erli has taken legal action against rival Allegro, accusing it of abusing market power and engaging in unfair competition.
As reported by the Polish Press Agency (PAP SA), Erli claims Warsaw-listed Allegro applies pricing practices that pressure sellers to increase prices outside its platform.
Responding to questions from Retail Insight Network, Allegro group communications director Marcin Gruszka rejected the allegations, stating: “We strongly disagree with Erli's position.
"We do not, in any way, impose a specific pricing policy on our Partners. Each of our Partners is free to set their prices across any sales channel. A Partner's pricing policy outside the Allegro platform has no impact on the positioning of their offers on Allegro, including their promotion within our service.”
Gruszka said Erli's lawsuit concerns two things, notably the 'Allegro Prices' (Allegro Ceny) programme and the advertising of Allegro offers outside our service, such as on Google.
He stated: "We, as Allegro, finance these benefits. 'Allegro Prices' is a programme for sellers in which Allegro subsidises a reduction in the product price to make the offer more attractive to customers.
“We do not wish to subsidise the offers and advertising of Partners whose prices are clearly uncompetitive compared to the market.”
PAP reported that Erli considers the main issue to be what it describes as Allegro’s insistence that merchants maintain consistent pricing across the internet, linking promotional visibility both on and off the platform to prices elsewhere.
Erli argues that this amounts to unfair competition through an abuse of dominance because “they directly and effectively affect sellers, impose pricing methods on them, and ultimately result in higher prices for consumers”.
The company also claims the practices restrict sellers from pursuing lower-price strategies in channels with lower operating costs.
Allegro, meanwhile, said the lawsuit is part of a wider legal conflict between the two businesses.
Gruszka stated that Erli has unlawfully used Allegro’s API, including to copy listings and content from Allegro’s product catalogue.
