It was supposed to be a peace offering. In 2023 and 2024, Amazon made a series of very public commitments to third-party sellers: it would wind down its aggressive private label expansion, stop using seller data to develop competing products, and generally behave like a neutral marketplace operator. Senators were satisfied. Seller associations issued cautious praise. The FTC’s scrutiny, for a moment, seemed to cool.
But sources close to the matter — including two former Amazon category managers and one active seller who requested anonymity — say those commitments may have had a quiet asterisk. According to these individuals, Amazon has been running an internal initiative, reportedly codenamed Project Nile, that is rebuilding private label sourcing and development infrastructure through a set of third-party holding structures that don’t surface Amazon branding at checkout. The alleged goal: capture margin in high-velocity, low-differentiation categories like kitchen basics, cleaning supplies, and fitness accessories — without triggering antitrust alarms.
“The playbook didn’t go away, it just got a legal wrapper,” one source told Ecommerce Times, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They’re running supplier negotiations through entities that aren’t obviously Amazon. The brand names that show up in the buy box look like indie DTC brands. They’re not.”
Amazon declined to comment for this article. A spokesperson pointed to the company’s previously published seller commitments from its 2024 marketplace trust initiative.
What Is Project Nile and Who Is Allegedly Running It?
According to unconfirmed reports circulating among a small group of Amazon insiders and former employees, Project Nile operates out of Amazon’s Consumer Businesses division and is reportedly overseen by a director-level team that sits adjacent to — but structurally separate from — the established Amazon Basics and Amazon Essentials organizations. Sources allege the team was stood up in late 2024 and began piloting storefronts in the U.S. marketplace in Q1 2025.
The alleged operating model: source white-label goods from established Shenzhen and Guangzhou manufacturers — many of whom already supply other Amazon sellers — and list them under new brand names with independent Seller Central accounts. Pricing is reportedly set algorithmically, with the capability to undercut the buy box on demand during peak traffic windows.
“If this is accurate, it’s not just an antitrust problem. It’s a fundamental breach of trust with the 2.5 million active sellers who were told the private label aggression was over.” — Jason Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, speaking generally about private label dynamics at a retail media conference last month
Goldberg, who has been one of the more measured voices on Amazon seller policy, did not confirm knowledge of Project Nile specifically but has publicly characterized Amazon’s marketplace neutrality commitments as “structurally difficult to enforce without third-party auditing.”
Which Product Categories Are Allegedly Being Targeted?
Sources describe a prioritization framework built around four criteria: high search volume, low brand loyalty, Chinese manufacturing availability, and thin existing margins among top sellers. Categories allegedly in scope include:
- Silicone kitchen utensils and storage containers
- Resistance bands and basic gym accessories
- Microfiber cleaning products
- Basic LED lighting and cable management
- Pet feeding accessories
“These aren’t random picks,” said one former Amazon category manager who left the company in late 2025. “They run velocity-to-margin models on every subcategory. They know exactly which ASINs are printing money for sellers and have no defensible brand equity. That’s where they go.”
Sellers in some of these categories have reportedly noticed anomalous new entrants in the buy box rotation since Q3 2025 — brands with sparse review histories, generic storefront pages, and pricing that appears to reset dynamically in ways that suggest algorithmic management rather than human seller behavior. Several have flagged the pattern in Seller Forums threads that have since been removed, according to screenshots shared with Ecommerce Times.
How Are Sellers and Advocacy Groups Responding?
The Marketplace Fairness Coalition, an advocacy group that counts over 14,000 third-party sellers among its membership, has reportedly begun compiling a dossier on the alleged activity. Coalition director Cynthia Howell told Ecommerce Times: “We’ve had 47 sellers independently flag what they describe as suspiciously coordinated new entrants in their categories over the past eight months. We’re not in a position to confirm the Project Nile name, but the pattern is consistent enough that we’ve engaged outside counsel.”
“Forty-seven sellers. Eight months. Clustering in exactly the categories you’d expect if someone was running a systematic suppression play. We’re not going to sit on that data.” — Cynthia Howell, Marketplace Fairness Coalition
On the agency side, several Amazon-focused performance marketing firms say their seller clients have flagged the issue in recent QBRs. Daniela Voss, head of marketplace strategy at Downstream Commerce, a boutique Amazon agency with roughly 80 active brand clients, told Ecommerce Times that her team has begun building competitive monitoring dashboards specifically designed to flag new entrant anomalies. “If a brand has fewer than 50 reviews, a storefront that’s three months old, and is somehow winning the buy box at sub-market pricing in a category that requires supplier scale to operate efficiently — that’s a signal worth investigating,” Voss said. “We’re seeing it more than we should.”
Does Amazon’s Alleged Structure Actually Skirt Its Commitments?
Legal experts who reviewed the alleged structure — without confirming its existence — say the answer is ambiguous at best. Amazon’s 2024 commitments were largely framed around Amazon-branded products and the use of nonpublic seller data to develop competing listings. If the alleged Project Nile entities operate as nominally independent third-party sellers, they could theoretically avoid triggering those specific commitments — at least on paper.
“The commitment was to the brand, not to the behavior,” said one e-commerce antitrust attorney, speaking generally. “If the entity listing the product doesn’t carry the Amazon badge, the argument becomes: is this Amazon acting as a seller, or Amazon allowing a seller to operate on its platform? That’s a distinction that could keep lawyers busy for years.”
The FTC, under its current leadership following the 2025 commission restructuring, has not publicly signaled any renewed investigation into Amazon’s private label practices. However, sources familiar with the EU’s Digital Markets Act enforcement track note that Amazon’s marketplace neutrality obligations under the DMA are substantially stricter than U.S. commitments — and would likely extend to entities Amazon controls indirectly.
What Should Sellers Do Right Now?
Whether or not Project Nile is real, the pattern being described by sellers and agency operators is operationally significant. The alleged tactics — algorithmic undercutting, review-sparse new entrants in commoditized categories, buy box suppression — are not new. What’s reportedly new is the alleged scale and coordination.
Sellers in vulnerable categories should consider the following defensive posture:
- Accelerate brand registry moats: If your category is commoditized, your only durable defense is a registered trademark, A+ content, and a brand story competitors can’t copy overnight. Sellers who’ve invested in Brand Registry and Storefront buildouts are reportedly holding share better in the affected categories.
- Monitor new entrant velocity: Tools like Helium 10’s Market Tracker 360 and Perpetua’s competitive intelligence module can flag new ASINs entering your subcategory. Set alerts for new sellers with under 100 reviews winning buy box share.
- Diversify off-Amazon revenue: This is not new advice, but the urgency is real. Sellers running 80%+ of revenue through Amazon with no DTC channel have zero leverage in this situation. Shopify as a second revenue node — even if it only drives 15% of sales — changes your negotiating posture.
- Document anomalies systematically: If you’re seeing suspicious new entrants, screenshot everything. The Marketplace Fairness Coalition is actively collecting evidence. So, reportedly, are several state AGs.
- Engage your 3P agency or aggregator network: Aggregators like Perch and Thrasio‘s operational successors have category-level visibility that individual sellers don’t. If you’re part of a network, use it to triangulate whether the pattern is isolated or systemic in your niche.
“The sellers who are going to get hurt are the ones who built their entire business on the assumption that Amazon’s marketplace commitments had teeth. Some of them do. Some of them don’t. Right now, we’re trying to figure out which is which.” — Daniela Voss, Downstream Commerce
What Happens Next — and When Might This Go Public?
Sources say the Marketplace Fairness Coalition intends to publish a formal report on the alleged new entrant pattern by late July 2026, whether or not it can confirm the Project Nile codename specifically. The report will reportedly include ASIN-level data, pricing timeline analysis, and seller testimony. Legal sources suggest the dossier could form the basis of a formal complaint to the FTC or a referral to the Senate Commerce Committee’s marketplace subpanel, which has remained active on Amazon oversight issues since the 2024 hearing cycle.
On the Amazon side, internal sources describe a company that is acutely aware of the optics risk. “There are people inside who know this is playing with fire,” one former employee said. “The question is whether the revenue math wins the internal argument before the external argument blows up.”
For now, the story is unconfirmed — a set of pattern signals, anonymous sources, and structural logic. But in the Amazon seller community, pattern signals and structural logic have a way of becoming front-page news faster than most PR teams can respond. Watch this space.
Ecommerce Times has reached out to Amazon’s PR team and will update this article if comment is received. Names of anonymous sources have been withheld by agreement.
