Amazon works every day to not allow anyone to beat them when it comes to giving customers the finest experience possible. They have a number of systems and automation in place to ensure this doesn't happen so that nothing (and no one) may frustrate their customers and hinder the buying process.
Exactly why duplicate listings are viewed as an aggravation resulting in violation.
Duplicate listings really mess up the search results. Talk about infestations of low-quality duplicate pages, copyright/ trademark infringements, and counterfeit and unauthentic products that are a big problem for all open marketplaces. Amazon must keep its platform clear of any clutter that may clog the search results, confuse customers, and hurt sales as the market grows in size and fierce competition. Hence they capitalize on ensuring that each product is listed once only.
Plus, there is more to the story.
Amazon isn't the only one negatively affected by duplicates…
Businesses suffer majorly too. If the duplicates are created mistakenly on your own account, they eat away at your account health, cause suppression, hinder product performance and result in lower product visibility and ranking.
If they are illegitimate duplicate listings by black and gray hat sellers, it is also a nuisance. It is common for sellers with popular products to experience sales hijacking by unauthorized sellers trying to steal the profits from someone else's rightful share. If you have ever experienced that as a seller, you know the pain. They hinder your ranking, make it difficult for the buyers to search up YOUR listing, blur up the authentic product, and make it more difficult for the customers to purchase from identical listings.
This blog post will look at the whats and hows of duplicate listings and how you can protect your account health and performance from their negative impacts.
Duplicate listings are the ones that point towards the same ASIN. Sometimes they are created legitimately by the brand or their authorized sellers while staying under Amazon's allowed criteria which we will discuss below. However, most of the time, they are either created mistakenly, putting your account health at risk, or by unscrupulous sellers trying to employ black hat tactics to win the buy box.
Amazon doesn't allow two SKUs under the same ASIN with the same fulfillment type and condition but considers it acceptable in the following scenarios:
So, how to keep your account clear from any mistaken violations and your brand protected by monitoring unauthorized duplicates from rogue sellers? Read on to find out.
The first step, of course, is to figure out the basic questions, such as if any duplicate listings exist on your account, how many duplicates are there, and what kind of duplicates are there. Once you figure that out, you can take the necessary steps in the right direction.
To know if you have any duplicates on your account, follow the instructions from Amazon's official duplicate listing information page as listed below:
If the same product has a variation, make sure that you don't have a split variation. Amazon requires all variations of a single product ( such as variation in size, color, flavor, etc.) to be listed on the same product detail page under the same Parent ASIN, instead of having different parent ASINs and listing pages. This will benefit your listing performance by increasing the BSR, sales, and reviews and can be done by contacting seller support.
Similarly, you should contact seller support immediately if duplicates are created by Amazon's own system errors, and they will guide you through the necessary plan of action required to get your listings back in shape.
If you find these issues too complicated to resolve or just have too many products in the catalog, you can always use Mr. Jeff's services to keep your listings super clean and polished. In part 2 of this series, we will discuss counterfeit and unauthorized duplicate listings by unethical sellers that affect brand performances negatively and the measures you need to take to get rid of them.
In case of any queries, you can always connect with us through the form below. We'd love to get back to you within 1 hour.
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