Losing $7 million, Amazon BS sellers forced to quit

Vicious competition between sellers continues despite repeated bans ...

Amazon BS sellers encountered malicious complaints from competitors, and their product links were suspended 80 times in one year, resulting in a loss of $7 million and forced bankruptcy. However, the malicious complainant rushed to the BSR in just one day, and then it was like a cheat, and received 1,700 reviews in 2 months.

Listings were suspended 80 times in one year, and the seller lost $7 million

Seller D started selling on Amazon in January 2018, completed the patent design in February 2019, and launched the first fascia gun on Amazon in July. Because it is a unique high-end product, the product received many 5-star reviews soon after it went on sale, and became Amazon's Best Seller in just 3 months.

From October 2019 to October 2021, D was an Amazon Best Seller, receiving a total of 31,000 reviews during this period with an average rating of 4.8 stars.

In November 2021, another new brand, BU****, entered the market and launched a new product in the highly competitive fascia gun track. At that time, the top 15 sellers in this red ocean track had an average of more than 15,000 reviews.

In the peak season of December 2021, BS seller D suddenly received a copyright complaint, and its products were suspended. It took about 3 weeks for ASIN to be restored, and D missed the sales in the fourth quarter. The sales and ranking of the competing brand BU**** began to increase significantly.

After receiving a copyright complaint, seller D’s products were marked as adult products due to a competitor’s prank, and the ASIN was temporarily suspended for about a week.

The time that followed was like a curse. D's ASIN received a false complaint almost every 1-2 weeks, and the ASIN was suspended from sale many times due to false complaints.

According to D's statistics, his listings were suspended 16 times in 2021 and 80 times in 2022. In two years, it was suspended nearly 100 times!

Because of multiple suspensions, D's ASIN is almost useless. According to its introduction, they lost a total of 7 million US dollars in 2022 because they had too much inventory, paid high storage fees and advertising fees, and the products could not be shipped normally, so they had to liquidate and went bankrupt in November 2022.

In just one year, D went from being a BS seller to having to go bankrupt. The competition in Amazon's red ocean category is extremely fierce, and the vicious competition between sellers has no bottom line!

The competitor reached BSR in one day and received 1,700 reviews in two months.

Just when D was repeatedly complained about, a competitor brand BU**** rushed to the top of BSR in just one day. This was incredible to D, so he researched the brand and found that this competitor used small-sized products to copy large-sized products, offered a discount of more than 95%, and quickly rushed to the top of BSR, selling more than 5,000 orders a day within a week.

Because it was a fake account, the competitor brand BU**** did not ship the product but still received the Best Seller label, which brought a halo effect to his ASIN and the keyword ranking of ASIN began to rise rapidly. This competitor also offered a $40 coupon to get more 5-star reviews.

Using various methods, in just two months, the competitor's product received about 1,700 reviews on Amazon. The speed of its rise to the top is astonishing!

Because of the impressive sales and review data, competitors' sales began to stabilize on Amazon. He changed his brand BU**** to DA**** and launched four other fascia gun links. Using fake discounts and Best Seller labels, the newly listed links received about 2,000 reviews in two months.

This competitor has also had 7-day consecutive deals on all its products since April 2022. With the support of discount activities, when Seller D was suspended, the competitor gradually dominated the entire fascia gun category.

In the following period, various non-compliant operations of competing sellers continued. They inserted small cards into products to request reviews. Seller D also found some evidence that they purchased reviews.

This competitor not only viciously attacked its peers, but also seemed to have a "secret weapon". During Prime Day and the peak sales season in October , November and December , the categories of all their products were changed to Electronics, so they only had to pay an 8% commission to Amazon, while other sellers of the same category had to pay a 15% commission.

Seeing that they suffered heavy losses, competitors took advantage of non-compliant operations to quickly rise to the top. Since April 2022, Seller D has begun to report to Amazon that competing sellers violated platform policies, but it seems that these reports are of no avail, and Seller D's complaints have no effect. In August, Seller D shared his experience and all the information with an Amazon account manager, who promised to start an investigation, but later did not receive corresponding feedback.

Subsequently, seller D reported the competing seller through Amazon account managers many times, and finally Amazon began to investigate. At this time, seller D's "nightmare" also came. He received threatening emails from competing sellers , and the matter was not resolved in the end. D's products were still unsaleable most of the time, and his ranking and sales plummeted, and he eventually left the market with a loss.

Currently, when you enter the DA**** brand on Amazon and conduct a related search, you will find that the Best Selle label of the product is still there, but the product is shown as unsaleable.

Malicious competition caused a large number of sellers to suffer heavy losses

Seller D is most likely a local American seller. His experience was published in foreign media. As the post became more popular, many fellow Amazon sellers also reported similar situations.

Seller M said, "The same thing happened to me. I made $35 million from a brand in 2020, but then it was spoofed and now it's worthless." Seller G also had to sell his brand because of vicious competition from competitors.

In fact, the competition between domestic Amazon sellers is also the same. Non-compliant operations such as marking competitor products as adult products and maliciously filing infringement complaints against others have always existed.

In November 2022, a large number of domestic sellers of Christmas supplies encountered the same problem as Seller D.

Christmas product seller Li Huan has been selling Christmas cards for four consecutive years, with annual sales of 3,000 to 5,000 sets. Shortly after the start of Black Friday in the United States on the evening of November 25, Li Huan received a warning letter from Amazon because the platform received a complaint from the copyright owner. After the warning, Li Huan's products were removed from the shelves, and there were several thousand stocks in the two listings, with a total loss of more than 60,000 US dollars.

On the 25th, like Li Huan, many sellers of Christmas products encountered copyright complaints, resulting in the removal of their listings. This category was attacked in a concentrated manner, and the complainant was the same person, using the same pictures, which shows that the complainant had a clear purpose and filed a batch of complaints against Amazon sellers.

A large number of sellers have encountered malicious competition many times and ultimately suffered heavy losses. One seller made his own links and received about 250 orders a day, ranking in the top 50 in the category. He was spoofed six times in two months, and appealed dozens of times. In the end, he simply cleared out the goods and stopped selling them.

An industry insider said that the competition between Amazon sellers is too fierce. Not only will a large amount of money be lost, but all the hard work will also be taken away. There are always sellers who are always trying to exploit the loopholes of the platform and suppress others to get ahead themselves. However, with the upgrading of platform supervision, only formal operations will eventually have a way out.

Infringement

Amazon Platform