Some FBM Sellers who charge for shipping have reported that Amazon Affiliate websites are quoting only the item price and not the shipping charges, which is prompting Amazon to remove the linked offers from the Buy Boxes due to “competitive pricing” issues (even when they are the only offer on the ASIN).
These Affiliates are scraping Amazon’s data, but then actually hurting their own commissions when shoppers don’t see a Buy Box (because we know they don’t click). Plus obviously hurting the Sellers and sales, too. But their scraping bots are lazy and assume that all items are “free shipping” (i.e., shipping charges built in to the item price).
Has anyone encountered this? Or had any other situation where incorrect info on an Affiliate site has hurt their ASIN sales? How did you fix it?
Generally, Amazon Affiliates are expected to do some work for the affiliate products they share, like a lifestyle video, bundling a few products together in use, or curating a list or collection.
But some Affiliates are out there creating their own websites set up to look like a storefront–complete with a cart and references to “check out”. They are basically scraping and duplicating pdps, but then the links send shoppers to Amazon.
The problem associated with above is that these sites say “shipping added at check out”…but there’s actually no check out, with shoppers abandoning the items once they get to the shipping charges on Amazon.
Plus, the benefit (to Amazon and 3P Sellers) is that shoppers browsing and purchasing directly on Amazon are more likely to purchase additional items.
Has anyone ever reported an Affiliate for abuse of Amazon’s policies regarding links, browsing, and scraping? Or for using Sellers’ product images and copy? What steps did you take?
Thanks!