We’ve been saying this in Handmade for years.
If this not-overly-techie septuagenian can figure out how to use Google image search, surely Amazon geniuses can code to find identical images and text. Like, if they find 117 listings for nose rings, with pictures and text identical to Alibaba listings, surely these geniuses can figure out that these are not handmade — and both the listings and sellers should be permanently banned.
First of all they should allow all pre ISBN books!!
It should be up to the customer on which book that they will buy, no mater the price. No more of this " Listings deactivated due to potential pricing error."
Also, they should make it easier to list a book that is not on their site. I am sure there is more!!!
Mitzi
Welcome to SAS!
I wonder if Amazon’s liberal return policy is what keeps them from being under more scrutiny by both the government and consumer confidence.
Imagine the consumer angst at getting duped by a foreign company with old school or small business return policies where you had to jump through hoops to return stuff.
How much legitimate gripe/fraud/incompetence is simply swept under the rug of easy returns.
It’s pretty much this.
The scammers who enter in fake tracking numbers or never ship items either just string people along for long enough so that they get paid by Amazon, then stick Amazon with the bill for the refunds, or they sell cheap items, because a lot of people will forget about it and never file a claim. In the first situation, Amazon accepts the risk and foots the bill for it, so it’s nobody else’s problem, in the latter situation if someone can’t be bothered to ask Amazon to refund them, why would they spend even more time to complain to 3rd parties? And even then there’s not a lot of basis to complain because Amazon gives you ample time to report a problem and get your money back.
These protections are mandatory for a marketplace to work, otherwise who’s going to trust some random business they don’t know?
That is my biggest frustration: that online marketplaces have been able to skirt any responsibility for the actions of the sellers on their site. Laws do discuss brick and mortar landlord responsibilities but typically don’t extend into the digital even though it is the same thing. An online marketplace is the same thing as a mall and Amazon is the landlord and sellers are tenants. A mall landlord that just let anybody sell whatever they wanted would be wide open for liability if those sales were illegal/counterfeit goods. It should be the same even if the “mall” exists only digitally. Amazon is a “landlord” in control of who has access to sell at the “mall”.
A mall landlord generally isn’t liable for their B&M store wrongdoings either. It’s just that B&M stores typically don’t blatantly break the law because the police can and will show up if they do. A mall landlord, like amazon, also does not judge whether their retailers’ products are safe, authentic or what have you (in fact, they’re MORE hands off, they don’t investigate the products and issue policy violations, if law enforcement takes action against them only then would they likely be evicted).
I’ve rented space at a mall before, the mall needs to approve the type of store you’re opening, as they want a mix of retailers, and have a limit of the amount of the same type of retailer that can compete directly against each other, they have rules on hours that you must be open, and they require that you have liability insurance. If there’s a problem with your goods that’s for the legal system to resolve. There’s no central location for customer complaints or IPV claims at the mall.
Amazon’s a private company, their job is to follow the law, not enforce it themselves.
You are dead on with this. Having spent, all added up nearly a year in the Asian Basin, the values are different.
Here we are a bit different. Years ago I remember a poster (wall poster, not forum poster) in a vendor of ours. “While we compete for business with our competitors, we recognize they too have family.”
On the other side of the world it is a badge of honor to take advantage of another. Especially a business competitor.
What tickles my balls is how we’ve been the top clicked asin for a particular search term for the past 3 months consecutively and yet don’t have the AC badge
Compared to the listing with AC badge - so we outsell, outrank and sell at a higher Price (making amazon more money) - and yet amazon refuses to give us the AC badge (even after BF and CM where we killed it with sales).
I don’t get it. 8 months ago or so, the AC badge woulda been hours
Fuqin bonkers
Ok just checked organic rank - and I guess we’re second and they’re fist organically
But still if we are the top clicked brand for that low SFR kw for 3 months - what gives!
How much inventory is at FBA? That’s 100% the key to all of it.
We now have to maintain 20K units at FBA of a listing that sells ~5000 units a month or we lose it.
It’s insane and the loss happens like clockwork when inventory drops below that level.
Those 20K units MUST be in a prime eligible bin too. Transfers are moving at a snails pace since the 10-26 inventory mandate.
NOW, with that said… Amazon is now geotargeting the AC badges so look around. Your organic rank and badge will not be the same nationally anymore. Check some zip codes and you’ll see what I mean.
To add another layer of nut-kicking - Time of day is now a factor too. Things change at various times of the day.
It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen so far on Amazon and that’s saying a lot. Impossible to plan for.
So basically they want the item to be same-day/next-day eligible to get the badge. Guess that kinda makes some sense.
Yup, all this started happening when Amazon got re-obsessed with delivery speed.
This is also the reason why the limits were jacked WAY UP right after Amazon said they were going to be cut. Another laugher! Morons.
At least they smartened up and opened up the space they had anyway so sellers could try and align with everything else to try and compete / win.
Brooo I had 90 days of inventory with no restock limits and I still have 60 under restock because I was playing with the restock even though the restock limit under sku in inventory management tab is more accurate.
If I send in 120 days worth of inventory they fuq my IPI - they still fuq my ipi even though my sell-through is great but the gap between restock limits tab and inventory receipt and IPI is all linked.
lasdfj;llksjdf
T_T
What’s your IPI at? We are WAY intentionally overstocked right now with a 756. I feel like Amazon adjusted the IPI algorithm because we have no business being at a 756. My other account is the same way so it’s not just a one off.
You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t with FBA and inventory.
Launch a new product - You need to take a huge risk and send a ton of inventory or you will never know the potential. It sucks.
533 and instead of going up amazon’s POS algo drops us 1-2 every week because of the amount of stock and sell-through is not actuals its reflected upon restock inventory tab which is different than the calculator used in inventory management tab when you click the individual sku (skucentral), which is accurate.
FML
That’s nuts. 533
Our sell through is a whopping 1.4 which sucks
Are your products large? Ours are tiny. Wondering if that makes a difference.