Collusion on price is the same behaviour that is seen across produce markets(also swap meets et al) across the world. TV teams usually do their yearly investigations but nothing happens.
In fact it is quite natural for sellers to try to price-fix if you think about it.
The regular sellers at the produce market do not want to piss off each other and realize that selling at the bare minimum profit (or loss) would hurt them all and slowly collusion is reached. Sure a few outcasts would try to lower the prices but they quickly learn if they want to survive and be there for a longer time.
It happens because the cost of goods is very similar to all sellers and competing on price alone is not going to make anyone happy(not even buyers).
What always confused me about collusion in marketplaces like Amazon is that it seems that it would be much harder to find everyone to agree on pricing and that rebels and rule breakers would be more prevalent.
Let's not talk about price collusion in hard drives, pencils etc etc. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19540206&id=...
In fact it is quite natural for sellers to try to price-fix if you think about it.
The regular sellers at the produce market do not want to piss off each other and realize that selling at the bare minimum profit (or loss) would hurt them all and slowly collusion is reached. Sure a few outcasts would try to lower the prices but they quickly learn if they want to survive and be there for a longer time. It happens because the cost of goods is very similar to all sellers and competing on price alone is not going to make anyone happy(not even buyers).
What always confused me about collusion in marketplaces like Amazon is that it seems that it would be much harder to find everyone to agree on pricing and that rebels and rule breakers would be more prevalent.