Amazon sellers' sales plummeted by 50%! All because of this outrageous operation by their peers

At the end of the year, the key sales season, most sellers are working hard to increase sales. At this time, some unscrupulous sellers have taken various actions to obtain the Best Seller logo.

Amazon sellers get the Best Seller badge by changing categories

Best sellers can be said to be a guarantee of sales and a gateway to traffic. Among products of the same category, users are more inclined to choose Best Seller products.

Recently, some unscrupulous sellers have deliberately placed their products in unpopular categories in order to avoid competition from similar products. Because these products are popular, it is easier to get the Best Seller logo in unpopular categories. In this case, it is unfair to other sellers who sell in compliance with the regulations, which directly affects the rankings of these sellers and has an adverse impact on the sales of products of compliance sellers.

Taking auto parts as an example, car phone holders have always been a popular product, but a seller placed the car phone holder products in his store under the less popular automobile axle category, and the product therefore received the Best Seller mark.

An insider who used to work as a product manager at Amazon revealed that because these products are all auto parts and belong to the same large category, even if some products are placed in inappropriate categories, it will not trigger a warning from the platform. When a seller wants to modify the category of a product, Amazon's algorithm will first use a machine to review whether the category modification is legal. If the machine finds a problem during the review process, it will automatically mark it and then be manually reviewed. However, the car phone holder circumvented the manual review and took advantage of the platform's loopholes.

These unscrupulous sellers often change the category when selling car phone holders, phone cases and USB flash drives to obtain the Best Seller badge.

Currently, there are more than 25 cases of car phone holders on the Amazon platform that have obtained the Best Seller logo after changing the category. An unscrupulous seller changed the magnetic holder sold in his store to the windshield wiper hose category, thereby boosting the sales of the product, and the product became the best-selling product in the category.

This move is not only not conducive to fair competition in the market, but also affects other sellers , whose product categories have been tampered with and product sales rankings have been affected. At the same time, they are also suffering huge losses. One seller said that because of the illegal sellers' behavior of changing categories, his store has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. If Amazon officials do not take relevant measures to stop this behavior, he will face greater losses.

Sellers file complaints, Amazon officials respond by "passing the buck"

It is understood that this is not the first time that unscrupulous sellers have obtained the BS mark by changing categories . Previously, at the beginning of the outbreak, some sellers changed masks to the book and video game categories. After the change, the product rankings of other compliant sellers were affected, and many sellers’ BS marks were squeezed out, and product sales also dropped significantly.

Unscrupulous sellers who change categories to obtain the BS mark directly harm the interests of other sellers, because in order to make a profit, they not only change the categories of their own store products, but also tamper with the categories of other sellers' products.

A seller reported that the categories of the mobile phone accessories sold in his store were suddenly tampered with. He had been expecting a surge in orders during this year's peak season, but sales actually dropped by 50%.

In order to protect his legal rights, the seller submitted hundreds of complaint reports to Amazon within a month. However, Amazon's official response was that there was no problem with the product category change and the platform did not find any violations.

In order to recover the losses, the seller deleted the product listing of the changed category from the wrong category, but a few days later, the product that was relisted appeared under another category.

The tampering of product categories has become a very headache for sellers. How can we avoid tampering of product categories during daily operations?

If the seller's product category has been tampered with, it is important to check the embedded words in the product copy in a timely manner. After the product listing is online, inaccurate words must be excluded to avoid being included by the platform. At the same time, it is important to pay attention to whether the QA, feedback and comment content is related to other categories, resulting in words that are irrelevant to the product. Take timely action, and deny sensitive words and related words to avoid being recognized and included by the platform.

If the product category is tampered with, the listing inclusion mechanism will change, the ranking of product keywords will also change, and the ranking of these sellers' products will drop, directly affecting sales.

One move after another, the product sold like hot cakes in Shenzhen and topped BSR in 4 days!

In addition to changing categories, some sellers also exploited system loopholes and were able to get listed on BSR in just 4 days!

It is understood that a Shenzhen big seller posted 100% codes and follow-up links on Facebook groups by posting positive reviews , thereby attracting buyers to place orders . When consumers buy, the seller provides large coupons, which is equivalent to free gifts for 0 yuan purchases. Moreover, FBM does not require inventory , so it can sell as many as it can .

The seller then brings in natural sales by ranking the product’s keywords and BSR to the top .

However, although the product has reached the BSR in a short period of time, the ratings and reviews of such products are often very few.

The essence behind this incident is to seize the consumer's desire to place orders at a low price, and then use fake orders to increase product sales rapidly in a short period of time, rushing to the top few in the category, creating a fake hot product, and finally waiting for the leek sellers to place orders , spend a small amount of money, and get a large order . The seller's original intention is to make a quick buck in a short period of time, and then abandon this account to achieve the effect of following the sales account.

According to insiders, the seller specializes in low-quality goods, including spreading them around, selling them at low prices, and deleting negative reviews. The cost price of the products is relatively low, and they are usually the cheapest small packages. Because the store ships the goods itself, there is basically no adverse impact on the seller .

In response to this outrageous operation, a seller expressed his own views, saying that this is all the result of Amazon allowing copycat sales. If Amazon punishes the entire ASIN, some sellers will use this to frame their competitors, which is unfair to compliant sellers. If there is no punishment, this market chaos will continue.

Sellers in the industry believe that whether it is changing product categories or rushing to the BSR through large off-site discounts and "0 yuan purchases" , the ones who will ultimately be harmed are the compliant sellers who operate the platform in an honest manner . However, Amazon has not officially issued effective new regulations to target the above illegal practices.

In order to make profits, these unscrupulous sellers do not operate their products properly and build their brands, but instead focus on such unspeakable little tricks . They use crooked ways to make quick money and run away, but they seriously disrupt the market order. In the long run, it will be very detrimental to the development of the entire cross-border e-commerce industry .

Unscrupulous sellers

Sales volume decline