To expand its Australian offerings, an official AmazonUS storefront has been added to the Australian site. It lists 6 million products with higher shipping costs than AmazonAU, although some items are covered by the Prime shipping deal.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of products listed on Amazon Australia are sold by third-party retailers, with the BuyGlobal storefront alone accounting for more than 10 million items.

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The number of products sold by massive third party storefronts on the Australian site surpasses 30 million once you include others such as Book Depository UK, Outback Oasis, Glendora, Shipping AAA and Da Trader. The last two, which accounted for 4 and 5 million products respectively, have disappeared from the Australian site in the last few weeks.

Some third-party sellers charge Australians roughly the same price as US shoppers, after allowing for currency conversions, GST and shipping. Others take advantage of the block to massively inflate the price of products that Australians could once buy cheaply from overseas.

Rather than pump up prices across the board, sellers tend to temporarily inflate the prices on individual products, which can briefly appear at more than four times their US price even after allowing for GST.

Australian seller Kangaroo Shopping listed a $105 Go-Travel pillow, while the same item would cost around $28 plus delivery if Australians could buy it from the US site. The listing was withdrawn after Fairfax Media enquiries.

Outback Oasis currently lists a Wilton cake tin for $98 plus $56 delivery, even though it sells a twin-pack of the same item for $53 plus $10 delivery. Meanwhile the twin-pack sells for around $28 on the US site.

Glendora lists a 150-metre box of CelluCotton Beauty Coil for $165 plus delivery, while the same item would cost around $35 plus delivery if Australians could buy it from Amazon in the US.

BuyGlobal lists a Helen Chen bamboo steamer and steam ring for $115, which sells for around $45 on the US store. BuyGlobal has previously listed a $34 bamboo steamer for $146, an item which Kangaroo Shopping currently sells for $108.

These Amazon sellers have a history of high Australian prices, often on the same products.

When contacted by Fairfax Media, Kangaroo Shopping said if the travel pillow listing was found to be "one price error" it would be corrected as soon as possible, after which it was removed from sale.

Meanwhile Outback Oasis is "looking into" the issue, after initially declining to comment, while BuyGlobal has referred the issue to "Senior Management team to be reviewed". Glendora failed to respond to enquiries.

While third-party sellers are free to set their own pricing, Amazon introduced a global Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy earlier this year. The policy does not precisely define price gouging, rather warning sellers against setting prices "significantly higher than recent prices on and off Amazon".

According to the fair pricing policy; "Amazon regularly monitors the price of items on our marketplaces, including shipping costs, and compares them with other prices available to our customers. If we see pricing practices on a marketplace offer that harms customer trust, Amazon may remove the Buy Box, remove the offer, or in serious or repeated cases, suspend or terminate selling privileges."

The issue has come to a head recently with Amazon forced to crack down on US sellers in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, after media reports of price gouging on bottled water.

Amazon Australia confirmed that pricing policies are in place locally but declined to comment on specific cases or go into detail as to whether the policies have been enforced other than to say situations are judged on a "case-by-case" basis.

"Since our launch nine months ago, we have been focused on growing our offering for the millions of Australian customers visiting our site each week," an Amazon Australia spokesperson said.

“While we do not set the prices for third-party products, we have policies in place to ensure items are priced competitively.”