Amazon News / Retail

Helping grocery suppliers grow

We’re committed to building strong and sustainable relationships with our grocery suppliers, and we’re proud of the opportunities we offer suppliers of all sizes to grow and reach more customers in the UK and overseas.
Groceries with coffee beans, olives and corn

In partnership with our suppliers, we offer a vast selection of grocery products, with fast and convenient deliveries, for Amazon customers around the UK. Many of our suppliers' businesses have grown significantly by working with us, and we are committed to creating more opportunities for suppliers and making it easier for them to work with us.

The importance of our suppliers to us is why we have been listening closely over the past year to what they have to say and making changes to the way we work together. We invite suppliers into our Fulfilment Centres to see first-hand how our business operates and how we can work better together, and we hold one-to-one sessions where senior Amazon leaders hear directly from suppliers.

Listening and engaging with you - our suppliers - is the driving force behind the changes we’re making. We know there is more to do, and that’s we’re running a series of webinars to help you get the best out of working with Amazon.

You can watch a recorded version of this webinar about how to use the new dashboard, which was developed following input from suppliers. It will cover how supplier can get early visibility of shortages and dispute them more easily, avoid deductions from occurring, and use Proof of Delivery for investigations. Please note, you require Vendor Central access to view the webinar.

How our Code Compliance Team ensures Amazon consistently complies with GSCOP

Since Amazon’s designation under the UK’s Groceries Supply Code of Practice (GSCOP) in March 2022, we have made a number of changes to ensure we consistently comply with the requirements of the Code, and deliver a better experience for our grocery suppliers. Below we highlight some of the ways how we ensure we consistently comply with GSCOP:

Code Compliance Officer and Code Compliance Team
Our Code Compliance Officer (‘CCO’), Tom Gorrard-Smith, is independent of Amazon’s Buying team. All of our GSCOP suppliers can raise concerns with Tom at any time. Suppliers can contact him and the dedicated Code Compliance team who supports him at codecomplianceofficer@amazon.co.uk. Any concern you raise will be swiftly investigated on a confidential basis by our Code Compliance team and will never result in any form of negative consequences.

Training
All of our buying team receive regular, in-depth training on the Code and understand our obligations under it.

Senior Buyers
We have appointed Senior Buyers across each category who are available to our grocery suppliers to review decisions made in relation to the Code, such as de-listing. Their contact details are available here.

Fair dealing
We are committed to dealing with all of our grocery suppliers fairly and lawfully, and conducting our trading relationships in good faith, without duress, and in recognition of suppliers’ need for certainty as regards the risks and costs of trading.

Payments
We have robust payment controls in place to ensure we always pay invoices on time. Where we apply deductions to invoices we will always provide advance notice and a minimum of 30-days to raise a dispute before any deduction is applied. Disputes can be raised in the following ways:

  • Purchase Quantity Variances (PQVs) via the Receive Variance Dashboard access from the Operational Performance Dashboard on Vendor Central.
  • Purchase Quantity Variances and Chargebacks access from the Operational Performance Dashboard on Vendor Central.

No obligation to contribute to marketing costs
The Code prohibits retailers from requiring payments towards buyer visits to new or prospective suppliers, artwork or packaging design, consumer or market research, the opening or refurbishing of a store, or hospitality for Amazon’s staff, unless provided for in the supply agreement. Amazon does not charge suppliers for any of these costs.

De-listing
To ensure we maintain the best possible experience for our customers by providing products at great prices, we may on occasion need to cease or reduce purchasing volumes of certain products, either temporarily or permanently. Under GSCOP, a ‘de-list’ means to completely cease purchasing products from a supplier or to significantly reduce the volume of purchases made. In such cases, a designated retailer must only de-list for genuine commercial reasons and is required to provide its suppliers with reasonable notice and written reasons for this decision. Whilst most of the time where we cease or reduce purchasing volumes of certain products it will not constitute a ‘de-list’ under GSCOP, we will only ever do so if there are genuine commercial reasons (including where it is no longer economically viable to offer the product to customers based on existing terms).

Where we do de-list products we will always provide reasonable notice and will also always provide written reasons for the decision and allow grocery suppliers the opportunity to have the decision reviewed by one of our Senior Buyers. Grocery suppliers can also meet with our CCO to discuss the decision too, which we welcome.

Variation of agreements
We will never request or require our grocery suppliers to consent to a retrospective variation of their contractual terms with us. On occasion we may need to make prospective variations to our contractual terms but we will always provide reasonable notice where we do so.

Payments as a condition of being a supplier
We do not require payments as a condition of stocking or listing products with Amazon.

Here are three ways we’re delivering a better experience for our grocery suppliers:
  • We’re increasing transparency to give more visibility
    Suppliers now have access to new tools offering information about their deliveries which alert them to potential issues much earlier and can enable quicker resolutions.
  • We’re improving processes to ensure greater certainty
    We’ve introduced 30-day timeframes for suppliers to dispute specific issues, clearer explanations on key decisions and we’re improving how we receive products from suppliers.
  • We’re strengthening our supplier support
    We have introduced designated account manager support for grocery suppliers and added live phone support for fast and effective assistance on wide range of issues.
Helping grocery suppliers grow

This content is hosted by a third party (www.youtube.com).

To view the content, you need to consent to cookies by selecting Accept all in the popup banner. Or you can go to the site footer, select Cookie Preferences, and then select On under Functional Cookies, Performance Cookies and Advertising Cookies.

Hear in more detail about how we’re supporting our grocery suppliers from James Bate, Grocery Director Amazon Europe.
Here are some important links for our grocery suppliers

Here’s how all Amazon customers can now get same-day grocery deliveries

Prime members can also receive extra savings through the new ‘Prime Member Deals’.

If you have a concern in relation to any of these matters, or the Code more broadly please reach out to our Code Compliance Team at: codecomplianceofficer@amazon.co.uk

More to read on About Amazon