I’ve used to wonder about whether Amazon throttled sales for years, but am now solidly convinced after the last year or 2. It seems they’ve gotten even more rigid with not just the sprinkler effect (ours happens predictably in 3-4 hour intervals for about an hour each time), but also in daily sales volume.
I want to say it seems to be based on sales price total rather than number of sales, but am not entirely sure. All I know is that when we have a better than normal sales day (say 50% more) we always have a correction the next day. Anyone else have this experience? Or a stronger than normal start to the day that tails off hard as the day winds down.
I found it interesting the mod claimed it doesn’t happen. Hard to believe he’d even know.
Possibly because Amazon has made changes to the help page talking about “Velocity Reviews” after 2023. I don’t see mention of this really within the new help page.
All old-timers know that Amazon use to stop sales if you reached your limit and sent you an email about it.
I most certainly believe this to be the case. We got throttled (not due to some velocity limit) during our BF/CM event. We were outranking our competition by too much so Amazon just simply dropped out organic rank to a place where it never is for 4 hours, only to return it to where it was.
Amazon also does this by increasing your time to home to the buyer to hurt your conversion (FBA sellers).
We had 30K units on an ASIN that sells 7-8K units a month. That inventory has been at FBA since Sept (stocking for Q4 like the good boys and girls that we are, obeying Amazon’s commands). The inventory was also nice and balanced across the country too.
All of sudden, and only for a few hours, our product suddenly took 3 days to get to buyers in the 15 zip codes we routinely check while our competitors enjoyed same day or overnight delivery.
Then, it just reverts back after our sales cool off. If anyone thinks that’s a coincidence, I have several bridges to sell you.
The problem with throttling theories is that it is extremely hard to define the conditions and mechanisms for a systematic throttling of a listing or a seller.
@ASV_Vites has provided a detailed definition of a mechanism which is better than most throttling advocates can usually do. Bravo. But I have issues still in defining the trigger. I tend to think back to how, as a programmer, I would implement this function and cannot come up with a simple enough method.
I find it easier to believe some other condition is causing the symptoms of throttling. But my ox is not being gored.
Amazon is definitely altering expected deliveries based on other factors, including FC backlogs.
I don’t believe in the Amazon sprinkler or that Amazon “rotates” the BB amongst certain eligible Sellers (because BB varies based on Buyer variables), but I absolutely do believe in shadow throttling.
In my theory, throttling is different than both a velocity review/issue and “rotating” the BB:
Velocity is an issue with a specific Seller selling a suspicious amount in a certain amount of time, regardless of their offer’s visibility/BB/FO/eligibility. Amazon loses money and time dealing with this.
Sprinkler/rotating theory is that every eligible Seller automatically gets a generally equal “share” of the BB pie because Amazon is somehow benevolent and interested in keeping all Sellers happy. And have the programming prowess for this. AND disregards the Buyer-based factors that affect who appears in the BB for each shopper view.
(Shadow) throttling is an intentional barrier that Amazon manually targets at one Seller temporarily–such as by removing badges, intentionally displaying/not displaying key metrics that influence Buyers, removing from search, etc–to benefit a specific other Seller(s). This way, Amazon still gets the same money from the same sales but keeps a certain Seller(s) happy, without necessarily being obvious to the targeted Seller (unless you’re @ASV_Vites and obsessive about data tracking lol).
Buyer-specific BB views and shadow throttling–as well as Amazon’s behind-the-scenes Seller metrics–have lead to the misapprehension of The Sprinkler.
absolutely, 100% in my opinion. same experience, no sales for hours then about 5 in an hour. interesting you say that you think it’s based on sales total vs number of units. my product sales per month hovers about the same each month. the correction theory also seems right. yesterday 45 sales, which is way up from the pathetic sales I’ve had. today I’m at 10. will prob finish at 15 sales. I don’t usually have a ton of sales in the morning and then none at night (it did happen once, I was excited amazon was working again, then nothing for maybe 6 hours). on a good day it’s spread, and on a throttled day it’s messed up. I always wonder, are people not seeing the offer? it legit does not even matter if i’m the only one on the product that has a buy box, with an excellent rank. it still DOES NOT SELL. but on a selling day I can sell at least 5 units. end rant. I’m so ticked about this.
Yeah, I have done let’s say about $500-600 in sales the last several days straight, then I luckily sold a $750 long-tailed book yesterday afternoon, putting my daily total at twice my norm. So naturally, as expected, today I am hovering at $250, with no real sprinkler effect… they seem to be from people hunting for my books, rather than buy-box buys. It’s predictable, in short. In all cases, I get about 15-20 sales/day… today 12.
If the fires started today, I’d be inclined to agree. But the rubber band behavior is based on multiple years of observation at this point. I do think humans have adapted somewhat to spot patterns. It’s a pattern to me, my friend.
So I do agree that Amazon is throttling us with whatever funky methods they’re choosing. And the theory of amazon splitting sales between sellers also would make sense, except let’s say I’m the only seller on an item with an excellent rank that is not selling. Or there’s a listing with a buy box and a few FBA sellers and no one is selling a thing. As you know these are listings that on a good day would sell 10-15 units
A few days ago I searched a bunch of asins in the app. They don’t show up. I search keywords for brand name HBA, again NOTHING. These are items with ranks of 50-75k. I also noticed the keepa 30-day solds are completely off. And they do not correlate with the rank in many cases. I know different ranks are different in different categories but I think it used to be a lot more consistent. Are you following the thread on the seller forums?
Before the fires, my Ebay orders included more than the usual number of CA orders, enough so I noticed.
With the spread of the fires my overall orders have dropped, and there have been no CA orders. There have also been fewer than usual orders from flyover country.