Reaction Latency in Automated Competition
Measuring competitor response intervals on Amazon and the strategic consequences of a market where reaction is not instantaneous.
White papers
Long-form publications
Extended documents developing the research in full: method, evidence, and the reasoning behind the decision framework. Published as PDFs under the SellerFlow Research Series.
Papers are free to download and may be cited. To request a pre-publication copy of a paper still in preparation, please get in touch.
Published
Decision Intelligence for Amazon Marketplace
From price optimization to decision optimization
Amazon Marketplace is one of the most complex pricing environments in commerce. This paper argues that the difficulty is not primarily a pricing problem, and that treating it as one is why so much marketplace automation erodes margin while working exactly as designed.
It sets out the limitations observed in rule-based repricing, defines the five variables a decision layer must evaluate, presents the reference architecture that implements it, documents the research method — including the decision to treat the buyer-visible marketplace as ground truth — and reports three case studies drawn from a live operation.
Built on
- RP-001 — Behavioural Analysis of Automated RepricersSection 8, case study 01
- RP-002 — Buy Box Probability ModellingSections 4.3 and 5
- RP-003 — Amazon Retail Competition StrategiesSection 8, case study 03
- RP-004 — Amazon Fee IntelligenceSection 8, case study 02
- RP-005 — Decision Intelligence FrameworkSections 5 and 6
Contents
- Executive summary
- Introduction
- The evolution of marketplace pricing
- The limitations of rule-based repricing
- Decision Intelligence: the framework
- Reference architecture
- Research methodology
- Case studies
- Technical differentiation
- Limitations and open problems
- Future research
- Conclusion
Intended audience
Amazon Marketplace professionals; ecommerce technology companies; pricing specialists and marketplace consultants; software developers building commercial decision systems; and researchers working on pricing and decision-support methodologies.
Citation
Sultan, E. (2026). Decision Intelligence for Amazon Marketplace: From Price Optimization to Decision Optimization. SellerFlow Research Series, White Paper 001, Version 1.0.
In preparation
Next in the series.
Each paper develops one component of the framework in depth.
True Unit Economics on Amazon
Reconciling estimated against settled fees, and the effect of that gap on pricing floors across a live catalogue.
The Observation Layer
Architecture of a continuous, buyer-faithful record of marketplace offers, and why observation fidelity is the hard part.
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