Known fix for high pricing error (read if you want to fix these errors!)

Selling on Amazon
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1

We posted to the amazon forum, but wanted to share these details here as well. Let us know if this is helpful! or if you have issues with this working.

Hello All!

One of the most common complaints we see on Amazon forums as sellers is that Amazon has removed an item(s) for having a higher price than desired. First, if you dont have this product or similar listed somewhere (on/off amazon) at the same or higher price, it wont work. But if you do have an example of this or a similar item at the same or higher price, you should be successful!

This error usually happens because the reference price for the item you are selling is higher than what Amazon has on record. To solve it, we need Amazon to change the reference price of the item you are selling. Being in Jewelry, we have had almost all of our item catalog pricing affected by changes in tariffs, gold and silver markets, etc, so weā€™ve learned that this process can be run on thousands of items at a time, though it will take much longer when you are trying to bulk fix the items.

To start, in order to change the reference price you will need to have the item you are trying to fix listed somewhere else in the world at the same price (or higher) that you are trying to list it at. If you have your own DTC site, sell on another marketplace, other sellers list at the same or higher price, or even have a manufacturer/brand owner/retail/other site showing the item selling at the same or higher price we can direct support to this location and they can use it to reset your reference price. This will remove the high price error and you can then relist your item.

Most of the support teams, sellers, mods, etc. that we have talked to do not know how to do so, but there is a way! Sometimes this means that we also have to educate and guide the Amazon Seller Support (SS) agent that is going to be helping us, or re-open cases multiple times and keep pushing back. But donā€™t give up, it works!

In the following example, since we have our own DTC site, we reference our own site as the manufacturers website or competitors website (even though its our own site). SS seems to take the view that it can be called a competitor since its a competitor to Amazon and the listing on Amazon.

Steps:

  1. Open a case stating that we see this asin xxxxxxxxxxx (or a list of asins) has been removed for high pricing error. In the case details, list the asin or state that the document with asins is attached.

ā€œWe have attached the item list of items with a high price error that we downloaded from Amazon, along with the price at which the listing got suppressed and the Brand Manufacturer/Competitor product url where it is also listed. The URL shows the price has changed with the manufacturer.ā€

Sometimes amazon will only fix a single asin (the case submission template only asks for one), and we just push back asking to fix the rest.

  1. Attach an excel document with the following column headers and details. We usually title it ā€˜reference pricing from competitor site for pricing health issuesā€™. Example of the headers at bottom of message.

ASIN/SKU/REFENCE PRICE URL/YOUR PRICE/SHIPPING COST/

asin- your asin

sku- your item sku

reference price url - the url where the item, or a similiar item, can be seen at the same or higher price on another site or another listing.

your price - the high price that the item is listed at

shipping cost - what you charge for shipping. we ship free so just include $0 here

  1. Understand that the support agent you are working with has probably never done this, it may need to be escalated or you may have to push back several times. If you plan to do this in bulk, we recommend doing this for a single item first so you have a separate case where you were successful. This allows you to reference other support agents back to this case to show it can be done. We always include in the case ā€˜see cases xxxxxxx for other instances where we have successfully had the reference price changesā€™.

This process can take a day, a month, or more, depending on how well support handles the interactions and whether you get escalated to someone who knows what they are doing with this. But as long as you or another seller is listing this is listed elsewhere at this price, it is absolutely possible!

See below for an example where we have done this successfully!

reference price excel document setup
reference price excel document setup927Ɨ216 23.6 KB

reference price image
reference price image1023Ɨ355 66.7 KB

2

My fix for high price errors is to move the product to eBay. It has never failed.

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I tried this, complete with distributor links, manufacturer links, screen shots, invoices, and photos showing the UPCā€™s on the case and on the single. Didnā€™t work. They want the case (an entirely different SKU and GS1 UPC) the same price as a single.
It is going on eBay only.

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Sorry to hear it did not work for you. We have also had similar issues where someone from support gets it wrong and kills the case or otherwise has some dumb (lack of) solution.

We have found that sometimes it takes opening cases a multiple times before someone who actually knows what they are doing can take action, or they at least escalate to someone who can help. It is increases chances of success to use the specific document formatting we recommended, as its something directly from Amazon and is the format they use to fix the items. We were actually given the document we screen-shot from an escalated support team originally, and we believe it comes from a pricing or catalog team.

I am sure its obvious to almost everyone with a brain that a case of an item should not be the same pricing as a single item. However, a lot of support agents are missing this key piece of wetware and think its perfectly normal to have 100 of an item cost the same as one of them, as an example.

After the types of responses you likely got from Amazon, we cant blame you for running from their platform to eBay!

5

Iā€™ve been following your NSFE discussion on this problem ever since you 1st created it 022626, and had high hopes when Kai mentioned 032426 that a Unit Count discrepancy (in comparison to what the Product Description reflects) was being focused on by the Catalog Team as the source of the error.

On the other hand, Iā€™d not hesitate to trot Kai out yonder for a good shellackinā€™ after s/he/itā€™s 040726 relaying of the Escalation Teamā€™s ā€˜finalā€™ decision, which is nothing more than an admission that the matter has NOT been escalated properly to one of the internal entities that ARE equipped w/ the tools & skills needed to cleave the data thatā€™s being considered authoritative by the automated mechanism(s).

Itā€™s not considered good form to shoot the messenger, but Iā€™ve learned in life that there actually are times when beatinā€™ a few eyes shut engenders positive progressā€¦

6

My plan is to wait about 6 months then try it again. When I first made the listing I set the price for a single since that is what I was made aware of, then realized the UPC was different for the case after the shipment came in. So it set it in Amazonā€™s unforgiving system and refuses to adjust it. I deleted the listing, going to let it slowly remove itself from Amazonā€™s data, then try it again using the proper price.
You are right, it was never escalated properly and they kept trying to run it automatically instead of doing a manual override. Given how large seller support is and how their turnover is, I think less and less support agents actually know how to do anything (including escalation teams). We can see the difference with the changes of mods on the forums. I did get an email about the Experts program from someone who used to be a mod, so glad they didnā€™t just lose their job, but lack of experience shows on all areas of the platform, from sellers to support.
For things like this, Kai especially is really new, so I play nice about anything that isnā€™t serious. If it was a listing coming down for being wrongfully flagged, I would be pursuing it a lot harder. In this case, their loss, we sell the cases elsewhere so Amazon is just losing the sales on their platform.
I appreciate your support on the forums!

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Yeah Amazon is like a roulette game - good luck on who you get! :rofl:
Common sense is not something part of the platform - you know this first hand, I have seen your posts on pricing against fake gold listings.

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A couple of Sellers whom I trust have recently said that it can take resubmitting to Amazon as many as SEVEN times before ā€œitā€ (whatever ā€œitā€ is, a case or appeal or question or claim) actually gets into the correct pipeline.

Your detailed explanation is :fire: by the way, thank you for sharing!

@Dogtamer can you please link that NSFE thread when convenient? Thank you!