THE AMAZON ANALYTICS INSIDER OCTOBER 2023 v.2
TL; DR
Amazon, Booking.com, Expedia, Glassdoor, Tripadvisor, and Trustpilot to launch the global Coalition for Trusted Reviews.
Amazon's new policy of granting sellers exclusive control over their "Generic" branded product listings has been met with mixed reactions, with some sellers exploiting it to list counterfeit products and others worried that it will hurt their sales.
Amazon has launched a new pricing structure for the Amazon Vine program, with two new, lower-priced tiers to make it more accessible to brands.
Amazon sellers are reporting multiple errors with the Customer Service By Amazon program, including issuing refunds for delivered products, tanking seller's feedback rates, and issuing refunds for returns that show clear signs of customer abuse.
Amazon Leads 2023 “Fake Reviews Conference”
Source: 1
Last week, Amazon announced that they were teaming up with Booking.com, Expedia, Glassdoor, Tripadvisor, and Trustpilot to launch the global Coalition for Trusted Reviews.
The Coalition plans to meet this December for the second Fake Reviews Conference, which is to be led by Amazon. Fake reviews are a huge area of concern for customers and sellers alike, hopefully the coalition is able to bring about some clear action items to support sellers and customers, and eliminate bad actors.
PDP Protections extended to “Generic” Brand Products
Earlier this month Amazon announced that they would grant sellers the ability to list unbranded products under the brand name "Generic". This gives sellers exclusive control over any edits made to the product detail pages of their generic listings.
If a seller tries to edit or add offers on another seller's generic product, they will receive an error message and be guided to create a new product listing. This policy is designed to protect the integrity of generic listings ensure that sellers have more of an equal opportunity to compete, however there's clearly a few kinks in this new program.
The counterfeit Lululemon belt bag and the seller commentary, tell us that this policy has already begun to be abused by many. Multiple name branded products, such as the belt bag, are being listed as generic, and other sellers note that this will only hurt their sales, because it creates multiple pages of identical products that will be shown to customers.
New Amazon Vine Pricing Structure
Source: 1
Last week Amazon implemented their new pricing structure for the Amazon Vine program. The new structure includes two new, lower-priced tiers to make Vine more accessible to brands with varied budgets and products:
Tier 1 is free and allows for 2 units per parent ASIN for 2 Vine reviews.
Tier 2 is $75 and allows for 10 units per ASIN for 10 vine reviews
Tier 3 is their alredy existing tier, and is $200 which allows for 30 units for 30 reviews
These new fee tiers apply only to products that are enrolled in the program on or after October 19.
CSBA Results and Consequences
These past few weeks have yielded an exceptionally high count of sellers who seem to be struggling with the customer service by Amazon program. The program is intended to help sellers by handling their inbound customer service and product troubleshooting requests, but multiple sellers have stated that the program has caused multiple errors such as issuing refunds for delivered products, tanking seller's feedback rates, and issuing refunds for returns that show clear signs of customer abuse.
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