Reviews, Rebates, Friends & Family


[et_bloom_inline optin_id=optin_3]

Chris McCabe will talk us through the kinds of suspensions he’s seeing hit his desk. Reviews Abuse is still as prevalent as a year ago – will Sellers never learn? Also the data Android phone apps capture and the link to friends and family.

  • Still dealing with as many suspended accounts per week for product review abuse as did a year ago
  • Why have sellers not figured out that Amazon are getting tougher and more aggressive on this

Against ToS

  • People still don’t realise just not asking for 5* or Positive reviews will not avoid a suspension
  • None of the Feedback messages sent by Sellers are compliant with ToS
  • You cannot filter responses or reduce the likelihood of a bad review
  • For this there are no grey areas with Amazon any more
  • Low-hanging fruit is that messages are not compliant

Amazon Mobile App – access to phone Contacts

  • This is something that Ivelin Demirov posted in his group – screengrab permissions granted with Android app to gain access to contacts and who you’ve called and network connections
  • This links to the friends and family connections
  • The frequency of touchpoints you have with these people
  • Interesting to see the access that Amazon can get to your data via Android
  • It was long ago prohibited to ask Friends & Family for reviews as they are more likely to be favourable

Product Review Teams

  • PRA people are being kept behind toll-walls
  • You are supposed to be able to report abuse to those teams but there has not been much response
  • Who are these guys – how do they operate – what is their SOP?
  • They are quite wise to competitors reporting each other
  • A lot of times they don’t do anything about it

Fake Good Reviews

  • Fake good reviews are delivered by a competitor on your listing and then you are reported to Amazon and suspended
  • Chris has tried to spot these and look at commonality of the wording (which gives some away)
  • Sellers that are eager to get more reviews and take the bait from a review service and it ends up backfiring and they get suspended for working in collusion
  • Amazon knows who the dodgy companies are – they can see the patterns in what your account / listing gets – IPs can be linked to black hat services and you are suspended

ASIN and Reviewer Blocks

  • The first type is an ASIN block
  • This exhibits where a large number of reviews arrive quickly or strange behaviours are exhibited on the ASIN
  • Sometimes it’s lifted quickly as a block
  • PRA teams are spending a lot of time on manual investigations
  • The second type is that the reviewer is blocked
  • Might be caused by a high number of reviews or tainted reviews from the same reviewer and this reviewer is then blocked by Amazon

Rebates suspensions

  • There have been 3rd Party services that do rebates
  • Amazon has these rebate services included in some Action Plans from suspended Sellers
  • They are now investigating more
  • They are fed up with all the negative reviews and bad press for this
  • Amazon are working hard to investigate and you run a risk of suspension if you’re using these

Vendor Central Abuse

  • It is common news now that lots of abuse is coming via Vendor Central Abuse and with Listings being changed and categories
  • There have been numerous different attacks like this
  • Amazon are working to close these down
  • Tools access is being changed to limit contributions

New Amazon Tools take time

  • Account Health dashboard never updates and this has been complained about by Sellers
  • IP complaints still show up there and even after they’ve been resolved
  • Takes a long time to build a new tool at Amazon
  • Build, test and teach them to investigators to roll out to Sellers does not happen overnight
  • Limited engineer resources at Amazon

Contact

RELATED POSTS

Unlocking Click Bias Secrets Seller Sessions A9
Colin Raja Seller Sessions Podcast (1)
Shopping queries dataset Seller Sessions
Seller Sessions Podcast Elizabeth Greene
Multi objective ranking
seller sessions the complete guide to autocomplete on amazon
A9 Bot How To Get The Most Out Of Your Listing Optimisation (1)
1 2 3 98
databrill logo

Looking for a Better Agency?

Are you a 7 or 8-figure Amazon seller who is…

Databrill Logo

Looking for a Better Agency?

Are you a 7 or 8-figure Amazon seller who is…