It all started when I got an email from Amazon. “We removed the negative feedback from your item ASIN **** because the reviewer was found to be a bad actor…” or whatever the exact words were.
So I searched the ASIN … and it didn’t exist. Then I ran a title search, and found the item but with a new ASIN.
I cross-promote my listings by saying “Matching earrings: ASIN # ***” and include a pic of the matching item (and the match also has reciprocal text). However, if the ASIN was changed, then search would lead to a dead page.
I have 290 necklaces, ~250 with matching earrings. I checked all of them and their matches to see if the ASINs were correct.
30 - 40 ASINs had been inexplicitly altered.
Not only will people be unable to find the matching item, but if they bookmarked it or added it to a list, it will lead to a dog page because the old ASIN no longer exists.
I have no idea when this happened, if ASINs were changed in one fell swoop or the SNAFU is a steady trickle that may or may not be still happening. Another afternoon wasted, editing/fixing what Amazon broke.
Might I trouble you to find and post the exact words? Then we cound search and perhaps find other people on other sites who are seeing the same thing.
These hypothetical people may know more than we do.
Not quite what you experienced, but I have many times found ASINs that have morphed.
When I list a book I’ve listed in the past I always check to see what that ASIN leads to now. Often it will lead to the right book, but the ASIN has been changed. Sometimes it doesn’t lead anywhere at all. And sometimes everything has just been left alone.
I would if I could. Once I corrected that one item, I deleted the email. I attend to incoming mail promptly and empty my email trash folder every few days. Furthermore, the email was about removing bad actor ratings — the only such email I ever received — and may or may not correlate to ASINs changing.
Similar, yes, except that all my affected items have been listed continuously. I had no reason to check if ASINs had morphed because until yesterday, I had no idea this could happen.
Btw,
This means I checked 500 items, but 30-40 changed ASINs is still an appallingly high percent.