Amazon Europe launches new feature, sellers: it’s better not to use it

In order to further improve its platform policies, Amazon has recently launched a number of new initiatives on its European site. However, similar to the previous ones, the new features have been criticized by some sellers for their poor user experience.

Amazon launches new ASIN recommendation page in Europe

Recently, Amazon announced that it will launch a new ASIN recommendation page on its European site. According to the announcement, the new ASIN recommendation page launched by Amazon will display products that are in high demand among its business buyers but have not yet been sold on the Amazon platform , thereby providing sellers with more sales opportunities.

In Amazon's words, sellers have the opportunity to become the first sales partners to offer such products and increase B2B revenue. It is understood that Amazon's product list will be updated once a month and provide specific category recommendations for each store.

Some sellers gave positive comments on this new feature, but more sellers were not convinced. They thought the new feature was difficult to use and had many problems. Sellers believed that the main problems during use included cumbersome operations, complicated processes, asymmetric product recommendation information, and even the inability to sell.

Sellers who have used the new ASIN recommendation page said that they have stopped trying to use the page to list new products... and just brought new products to other sales channels. Some sellers also said that they tried to find these so-called "high-demand and undisplayed" products on Amazon, but did not find them. In addition, sellers also raised questions about this new page: "Is it easy to list such products? Don't they require other requirements?"

Some sellers have tried to find these products, but the process was not smooth and the results were not satisfactory. The seller said that he found these "potential" products on Amazon and randomly selected one of them, but strangely, the product was not presented in the platform's search results. Later, he learned that he had to "add inventory" to see the listing itself.

The seller added: "Some of the products I found were from a few years ago, or have been out of stock. After the whole process, the new features can only provide me with limited useful and practical parts."

In addition, after the new ASIN recommendation page was updated, some sellers contacted the relevant suppliers after finding such products. It was at this stage that the sellers encountered the most troublesome problem: since the product was a private label product, it could only be sold with the consent of the brand. However, the actual situation was that the brand of the product did not want other sellers to join its sales plan, so the seller was rejected and the relevant sales plan was shelved.

At present, from the feedback of some sellers, the page does need further improvement and updating in actual operation, and the overall user experience is not good. Sellers believe that the new function should be improved, and many problems are exposed after actual operation. If they are not solved, it is useless.

How to maximize and optimize such services is the focus of the platform. Although some of Amazon’s new features and policies are always criticized by sellers, they are beneficial in most cases.

Amazon has been active in Europe recently. In addition to adding new features, it also monitors whether sellers on the site adjust promotional prices in accordance with regulations.

The price reduction was not in accordance with the regulations, and the promotion information of European sellers was banned from displaying

Amazon Prime Day is coming up these two days , and sellers are starting to cut prices for promotions. However, some European sellers reported that their promotional prices could not be changed to the original prices, and the promotional information was not displayed, which changed the seller's original promotion plan and estimated profit.

However, some sellers said that they had actually discovered this problem a long time ago, and later realized that it was because the price reduction during the promotion did not comply with EU regulations.

The seemingly normal promotional behavior of reducing prices is actually clearly regulated in the EU. Amazon also released a message to remind sellers on this matter before the Members' Day. The general content is to remind European sellers to pay attention to the requirements of the European Union's European General Directive that all retailers selling in the EU must display the lowest price of the product in the past 30 days as a reference price when announcing a price reduction (except for the UK site). If the adjustment is not made as required, the seller's related promotional activities will be prohibited from being displayed .

Sellers can conduct self-checks to see whether promotional prices comply with regulations by monitoring the Seller Center dashboard, checking promotional requirements, and paying attention to relevant emails.

Amazon said that if the seller's products do not have the "recent lowest price" or promotions or Prime exclusive discounts higher than the "recent lowest price" during the two days of Prime Day, they will not be displayed, and the seller's subsequent sales will be affected. This also means that European sellers cannot change prices at will when conducting price reduction or discount activities . However, some sellers did not pay attention to this regulation, resulting in promotion activities being affected or even failing.

It is understood that in addition to remaining inventory, clothing, electronic products, and household products are also included in the key promotional products for sellers this year. At the beginning of this year, among the hot-selling products released by Amazon in Europe, electronic products and accessories, shoes and clothing, clothing accessories and household products, personal care products, outdoor sports and other categories have long been at the top of the hot-selling list, and the average volume growth rate in the next four years will exceed 20%. However, due to the epidemic and the continued inflation in Europe and the United States, even these hot-selling categories have been hit in sales, and the impact on small and medium-sized sellers is particularly obvious.

One seller said: "This time we put the promotion focus on these products, mainly to boost profits with the help of the membership day. After all, the performance in the first half of the year was mediocre. If we can have a good start in the second half of the year, we will be more motivated. We have also made adjustments to the discounts. Except for those that need to be cleared, the other products have not changed much. It is not worth it if the prices are too low."

It is understood that on the first day of Amazon Prime Day this year, many sellers had good sales, and quite a few sellers had explosive sales. The overall situation is positive, but the specific situation will not be known until the Prime Day is completely over. However, it is a pity for those sellers who missed the opportunity to have explosive sales due to ignoring relevant regulations.

For Amazon sellers, special attention should be paid to platform trends and related reminders during events like Prime Day to avoid unnecessary risks.

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