BS is removed from the shelves! Amazon's hot-selling categories have become a mess

Recently, the Best Seller link of an Amazon seller suddenly went down, causing a loss of up to $5,000 in one day. Not only him, but more than 70% of the homepage links of the gift category he was in had fallen, with a single-day loss of about 400,000 yuan for these links. This category seems to have suffered an unprecedented "purge".

It is understood that this is the first time that the gift category has seen a large-scale malicious attack. Previously, links have been removed from the shelves many times due to VC adding banned words, but unlike these limited lethal operations, this time the sellers in this category were collectively complained of copyright infringement, with a wide range of complaints and strong complaints, and the links were not available for sale for a long time.

After the link was removed, the seller contacted Amazon quickly, but was only told that it would take 14 days for the link to be unblocked. The sellers were at a loss as losses from sales suspension and ranking decline continued to mount.

The end of October before the peak season seems to be the peak period for Amazon sellers’ links to become disabled.

The homepage is "destroyed", and the links of hot-selling categories have been turned into dogs on a large scale

Amazon seller Li Zhifeng revealed to Yien.com that the gift category was hit by malicious complaints, and links were widely censored, with more than 70% of the homepage alone being destroyed. Sellers suffered losses of up to 400,000 yuan in a single day.

Last Tuesday morning, Li Zhifeng found that his Best Seller link in the gift category suddenly became down. He did not receive any email notification from Amazon before that, and only learned about the downtime through the backend performance. Another link also became down along with the BS link.

Then, he asked several colleagues who made similar products and found that everyone’s links had basically been removed to varying degrees.

"Several people who are doing well in our category added us as friends. The next day at work, we sent messages to inquire about the links and found that everyone's links had been removed from the shelves. We were the least removed, while our peers had more removed. Later, we created a group and found that more and more sellers were victimized. "

Li Zhifeng said that the links that were taken down and turned into dogs this time were basically those ranked high in the category. Some sellers had 6 links taken down , and the proportion of links taken down from the category homepages alone was as high as over 70%.

The BS link that Li Zhifeng was removed from had about 200 orders per day, with an average sales of about $4,000. Together with the other link that turned into a dog, his daily sales loss reached $5,000. The second-ranked link in the gift category was also removed from the shelves. The price of this link was higher, and the loss may be greater than that of the Best Seller.

"The products in this category are all different, and it's not the Best Seller that has the highest sales. Several of us sellers estimated that the daily loss from the links removed from the homepage alone is around 60,000 US dollars, which is equivalent to about 400,000 RMB. This is not a small number. In addition to the homepage, many links on the second page and the back were also taken down. " said Li Zhifeng.

The broken links caused considerable losses to the sellers. Moreover, in November, when gift products were about to become hot sellers and sellers were eagerly looking forward to an increase in sales, the pause button was pressed directly.

Almost all of these links that were removed from the shelves were copyright complaints, and the complainants targeted the sellers' pictures. Li Zhifeng said that the complainants created a cloud disk, put the sellers' pictures in the cloud disk, and then complained that the sellers used his pictures. By filing complaints for copyright infringement, they could file complaints in batches successfully. He did not know more about the details of the operation.

Why are images the subject of complaints? It is understood that most of the victimized sellers made their own images and almost all of them have no relevant patents. Li Zhifeng said frankly that we sellers will not make image patents and it is impossible to apply for patents for the following three reasons:

First, because pictures often need to be replaced, and there are many pictures, it is not suitable to apply for a patent for each one separately;

Second, it takes a certain amount of time and money to apply for a patent for an image. The cost is not high, but it takes a long time. Some applications may take about a year. During this period, sellers may change the image, or some products may not be made in a year.

Third, every product has a certain life cycle. Perhaps by the time the image patent application is approved, the product has become outdated and cannot be sold.

For the above reasons, most sellers do not protect the copyright of images. As a result, concentrated complaints about copyright infringement of images broke out, causing a large number of links on the homepage of the gift category to become unavailable. What's more frightening is that the seller's links are not over after being complained about and taken down, and these links continue to receive other complaints.

"The links have all been defaced, and the attackers behind the scenes are still adding banned words and illegal information to the defaced links. There is also a link that says it violates Section 51 of the California Act, which we have never heard of. The purpose of the operator behind this is obviously not just to deface our links, but to completely kill these links. " Li Zhifeng seemed very helpless.

The link has been removed many times before, but this time it will be blocked for 14 days

This is not the first time that gift links have been removed from the shelves. Sellers of this category have had similar experiences before. However, the scale of this incident is larger and the scope of impact is wider, which is different from the previous situations where links were removed from the shelves.

The gift category has not been peaceful this year. Before this incident, many sellers had their links removed due to complaints, and Li Zhifeng was no exception. There were even sellers in the same category whose links were removed due to complaints more than a dozen times.

According to Li Zhifeng, the links in his category were previously removed from the shelves mainly because of attacks by VC giants. VCs would modify the keywords and detail pages in the sellers' links, or maliciously add banned words such as pesticides and N95 in the descriptions.

After the VC attack, the sellers' links were removed. However, after deleting the banned words or modifying the relevant information, the links can be restored quickly, and the fastest one to two hours can be saved.

In fact, this kind of VC tampering with link information, causing the seller's link to become a dog, has appeared many years ago, especially in some highly competitive categories, such as 3C, home furnishings, etc. However, in the gift category, this year's malicious attack phenomenon is the first time, and once it appears, it is quite serious. Many sellers in the same industry have been attacked many times.

Previously, gift links were removed in small batches and were attacked every once in a while, with a smaller scope, fewer sellers affected, and a shorter duration. This time is different. If it was a drizzle before, this time it was a rainstorm.

First, this is a large-scale and continuous complaint. Sellers’ links were removed from the shelves starting from last Tuesday, and more links have been removed in the past two days.

Secondly, the links that have been removed continue to be attacked in other ways, which is a particular headache for sellers;

Finally, the copyright complaint caused by the removed link will take 14 days to be unblocked. This is the platform’s rule. Such a long waiting period makes sellers anxious.

When a link is removed due to the addition of banned words, sellers can determine that it was done by VC, but they cannot be sure who was responsible for the copyright complaint this time.

In Li Zhifeng's opinion, the mastermind behind the scenes was hiding very deeply. The company names, phone numbers and other information he provided were all fake, but they were able to pass the review, which is incredible.

Li Zhifeng said frankly: The person who complained about us used despicable means, but he definitely does not have the patent for the image, because this is our own image. However, after being complained, we have to wait for 14 days. Even if we can get the link back within 14 days, the loss will definitely be very serious.

“My current link is Best Seller. After 14 days of no sales, even if the link is restored, this position will definitely not be maintained. The ranking that I worked so hard to get will definitely drop. Moreover, the two links will lose $5,000 a day, and the loss in 14 days is $70,000.

It’s not just me. The links on the homepage that have gone down have to wait 14 days. If there is no sales or shipments for more than ten days, the position of these links will most likely not be maintained. The sales in the subsequent peak season will definitely be affected, and perhaps the entire peak season will be affected.”

As an old seller, Li Zhifeng and others are no strangers to malicious attacks in the industry. They can quickly correct the addition of illegal keywords, but the continuous attacks this time are a bit troublesome. Even if the problem is solved, they are worried that they will face copyright complaints again and again. " If we get the link back after 14 days and face the same complaint again, it will take another 14 days to recover. How many 14 days will it take!"

The threshold for infringement complaints is too low

After the link became a bot, the company quickly contacted Amazon. However, Amazon customer service had low authority and apart from telling them that the link would be unblocked after 14 days, they responded in an official manner that a special team was handling the matter.

Li Zhifeng was very depressed. He thought that there were some problems with Amazon's mechanism. If someone complained about infringement, they should directly submit the copyright number to prove that they did have a registered patent, and then it would be normal to remove the product. Now the other party only provided a cloud disk information, without any substantial evidence, but they could remove the competitor's link.

"A friend of mine in the UK has a product with a patent. But after the patent was registered, we submitted a complaint to the backend that someone else was selling the same thing as us, but it was rejected and the other party was not punished. Now others directly put our product pictures in a cloud disk, and our link was removed. It's just a cloud disk, and there is no independent website that was required before."

In his opinion, such a treatment is too rough. Taking the infringement complaint as an example, in addition to requiring the complainant to provide relevant patent information, Amazon can also avoid accidental damage through simple comparison. For example, the product link of Li Zhifeng's company was created more than two years ago, while the complainant's picture was uploaded in recent days, so it is easy to judge which came first.

"The platform removed our products first, which I think is illogical. At least you should do a simple investigation, right? " After receiving the complaint, Amazon directly followed its own process to hang up the link first, requiring the seller to wait for more than ten days. In such cases before, sellers needed to submit copyright and other evidence for Amazon's review. Now the review process has been cancelled. If the complainant cannot provide copyright and other relevant evidence during the waiting period, the seller can directly take back the link.

Sellers do not need to prove themselves, and the platform will not help to check. As long as both parties endure the waiting period of more than ten days, the link will be owned by them. But at the same time, even if the seller is right, he cannot take the initiative to shorten this time. During this period, the sales losses caused by the linked links are borne by himself.

"We just want to reflect that this malicious attack is too simple and the cost is too low, competitors can be easily spoofed, and the cooling time is too long. Can this mechanism be modified? Or if it is not modified, the platform can speed up the review process, two or three days is fine, more than ten days is too long. " Li Zhifeng said, "There are many infringement complaints of this kind. Amazon receives such complaints every day. Maybe our dozens of links are not many for them, but they have a great impact on us. The platform should pay attention to it."

After the attack, Li Zhifeng and a group of sellers in the same category screened and cleared the suspects. They sorted out all the links with good sales that could be searched, contacted the corresponding sellers, and pulled them into a group. After everyone communicated, they screened them one by one. Seeing what happened to their peers, these sellers were worried about being tricked in the same way, so they naturally stood in the same trench. So far, one or two sellers have not replied to their internal messages and have not joined the group, becoming the focus of people's suspicion. But further inquiries revealed that the company names and phone numbers registered by these sellers were all fake, and Li Zhifeng and others were at a loss.

He said frankly that there was no appropriate channel for feedback and help when encountering these problems. The sellers in the communication group were struggling over whether to report the case, but they were not sure whether the case would be accepted. In fact, this was not a domestic e-commerce company, but something that happened on a multinational e-commerce platform, and it was unclear whether the police would be able to handle the case. Furthermore, the amount involved was not very large, but it was at least several million a month, which was not a small number for the sellers involved.

After much thought, he was helpless and could only "wait" until the platform opened the link. But the attackers still did not stop, and the increasing number of violation labels made Li Zhifeng, who was sure that the expired links would be restored, waver a little.

Who is the beneficiary?

In addition to being annoyed, Li Zhifeng and his colleagues were also somewhat puzzled by this unexpected disaster.

Judging from the wide range of category links being attacked and the severity of the attack, the other party should also be a seller in the gift category, so that they can reap the benefits after 70% to 80% of the competing links on the homepage are down. However, after paying close attention, they did not find any links that sold well.

They speculated that the people behind the incident were probably from the same industry. After all, there was no reason for sellers who did not sell in this category to come here and do something special. "It is most likely from the same industry, but no strong links have been found so far, so it is very strange." The only clue was one or two suspicious sellers that everyone had checked out before, but their information was all false and they could not be contacted. The beneficiaries and links behind the attack were unknown.

Another puzzle is the timing of the attack.

Li Zhifeng remembers that when the unhealthy trend of “turning links into dogs” first became popular, the links in the bathing category he operated also turned into dogs. At that time, this situation also occurred in many other categories. He contacted more than 100 sellers involved to jointly solve the problem, and finally it took more than ten days to restore. The incident happened around October 20th.

At present, the attack was launched on October 19, which is just a hair away from the previous peak period of link dog. The initiator chose this time perhaps to drive away competitors before the peak season arrives, but this timing is not wise.

Li Zhifeng said that it is not yet the peak season for gifts. If the other party wants to maximize their profits, it will be more profitable to make a move when the peak season actually arrives . If they want to make this money, the end of November or December is the best time.

Is it because the other party wants to end the competition before the peak season and take over the entire category, so they take action in advance? He doesn't think so. "The traffic of this category is inexhaustible. If you get rid of all the links now, everyone will still share the traffic after they get the links back. Unless you can rush out dozens of links during this period to replace all these dead links, but this is impossible."

The traffic of gift categories is relatively scattered. If the other party only has one or two links to promote, it is meaningless to attack the same category on a large scale. If the other party cannot make it within two weeks, and the spoofed links are gradually returned, the attack will be in vain.

Li Zhifeng and his colleagues are still observing whether there are any subsequent benefit links. If a link is proven to be problematic, the seller will inevitably face retaliation from sellers in the same category, causing serious backlash. Making enemies everywhere is not a wise move, which is also the doubt of the sellers involved in this wave of indiscriminate attacks.

In the sales process, legitimate sellers win by virtue of advertising, product quality, and brand effects, but it is undeniable that malicious competition among sellers always exists. In addition to the false infringement complaints mentioned in the article, adding illegal words, tampering with pictures, malicious changes in product categories, shorting inventory, clicking on ads, malicious negative or positive reviews, etc. are common. This is especially common during the sales nodes of seasonal products or before the peak season every year.

As we all know, the competition in the light strip category is very fierce. Before Christmas 2020, the links of many top-ranked products in the decorative light strip category were suddenly closed. This situation occurred on several major Amazon sites, with the US site being the most serious. Some sellers reported that more than 20 links of the top 100 light strips were closed within two days, and all links of a top seller were affected, with inventory reaching tens of millions. Some sellers called on everyone to unite against the enemy, pointing out that a large number of links were closed intentionally.

The situation in the scented candle category is even worse. Some merchants were exposed for giving negative reviews to sellers in the same category, adding banned words, etc., making multiple links of similar products go stale, and thus they almost monopolized this category. Because of the large number of listings, it is difficult for the attacked to fight back effectively, and eventually some sellers had to withdraw from the market.

The Christmas lights category was also affected. One supplier said that his customer's link was down and could not be restored, so he had to accept the loss. Other customers had to refurbish their links many times. After the link went down, the seller's large amount of stock became redundant inventory, so they had to sell it at a low price or pay high storage fees and try again next year.

The new peak season is quietly approaching, will there be more "harm" among sellers ?

Link removed

VC Attack

Gift Category

Amazon