BMVD - Books, Music, Video and DVD
Hi Julia, I wonder if you can shed some light on Amazon’s apparent change in policy when it comes to correcting errors in BMVD?
Until relatively recently it was fairly straightforward to update obvious errors in the book catalogue and the media catalogues.
I now find that I generally have to email seller support at least seven times before I receive a non-robotic cut and paste reply.
My last attempt to have an erroneous Product image removed resulted in almost six identical replies like this:
We understand that you’re concern bout the updated Images are not reflecting in the ASIN detail page.
We understand that this makes your business impact and we understand that makes you feel upset, and we will work towards fixing the situation for you.
We regret to inform you that, we are unable to proceed further with your request as we do see that the detail page is associated with this ASIN is controlled by the brand owner. Any product-related information must be approved by them. We’ve sent the changes you requested to the brand owner for consideration. However, please note that they’re under no obligation to make these changes. There is no further action required on your part at this time.
If you do not own this brand but still seek to make changes, the brand owner can choose to assign you a role for this brand. This will give you the ability to make catalog changes on the brand’s behalf.
To do this, the brand owner can submit a request to assign this role to your Brand Registry user account by visiting the Brand Registry Contact Us page and selecting ‘Update your brand profile’ and then ‘Update role for user account’.
If you believe you are the owner of the brand listed on the ASIN, please create a new case with Seller Support and include the following information: 1. Confirmation that the brand on the detail page matches your brand name. 2. Confirmation that you do not have access to the A+ Content tool for this brand.
If you think the product detail page represents a listing or policy violation, we encourage you to report the violation to our Seller Performance team.
For the SS operative (or bot) to continually imply that I might be the ‘brand owner’ of the largest publishing company in the world shows an almost insulting level of misunderstanding.
I mostly sell used books in single or low quantities of each title. It is frankly impossible to get every error corrected when it takes so many messages to seller support before you find a rep who is able to sanction (or even look at) the proposed changes.
For out-of print-books, the brand owner (ie, publisher) is often defunct and their titles effectively orphaned.
There was a time when uploading a scan of the cover along with the ISBN (where appropriate) was enough to implement changes but it seems there has been a change in policy in the last year or two and SS now simply refuse to look at the evidence provided by scans
If it is now actually obligatory to contact the ‘brand owner’ before any changes to the book catalogue can be made by sellers, the errors will continue to multiply and the catalogue will be a complete mess (more so than it already is!).
67 replies
Seller_DROodOAYHftnc
As a second-hand bookseller also, I would like to totally agree and add to pudding_n_pie’s above post.
It is impossible to change even a simple spelling mistake in a book title, and the thought of trying to correct the huge number of books that are listed as ‘unknown binding’ to the correct binding is also a complete waste of time, with countless cut and paste replies as above.
The BMVD category is totally different from most other categories as no ‘branding’ as such, only publishers, and the book, in fact all BMVD, catalogue is a total mess.
Julia_Amzn
Hello @ pudding_n_pie,
Thank you for bringing this up!
I will look into this issue and collect more insights.
What about other sellers? Does anyone have opinion, ideas, resolutions?
Have a nice afternoon everyone,
Julia.
Seller_DROodOAYHftnc
Another really annoying anomaly for books.
I have just been wading through the load of ‘Listings deactivated due to potential pricing error’ that I have and adjusting some prices, BUT in several of them my price that was deactivated is considerably LOWER than others that are still active, and mine in like new condition when others are only good or very good at a higher price - grrrrrr !
Also, books deactivated when listed for £3.95, £3.75 - for potential high price 
Seller_DTufFoxJuMU0M
same with greeting cards
Sellers who make the listing blatantly disregarding the rules around titles etc - using their own shop name as the “brand”, stating free 1st class post, same day dispatch etc
But try to get it fixed and you are met with “the brand owner controls the listing”
No amount of evidence will convince Seller support that the listing is wrong, they say your product is wrong because it doesn’t match the listing, but the brand owner in question is the seller who is breaking the policies!
Its like banging your head off a brick wall!
In the meantime somehow other products have their titles, descriptions and photos changed to completely different products, and for some reason that was ok and allowed?!
Agree with Smiley guy, this whole “we understand your frustration” and “we know how important this is to you” is just patronising. It’s 10 times worse when the reply is unrelated, again, to the question!
Seller_DROodOAYHftnc
Do agree, and as you say your original topic has got a bit lost.
Maybe we do need to start a dedicated thread for Books/Media topic issues.
Julia_Amzn
@ pudding_n_pie, @ JillyB1 would you like to create a new thread about the BMVD topic or would you prefer me to do it? I will also move all the comments referring to this topic to a new thread. What do you think about it ?
Seller_LKjg1QRrO36Yq
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My main gripe about correcting errors in books and BMVD is that, until recently, ‘branding’ was never an issue in BMVD when attempting to convince seller support of the need for updates.
It is only relatively recently that SS have begun to use the ‘you are not brand owner’ mantra as an excuse to do nothing.
One of the big differences between books (along with CDs, DVDs &c) and ‘branded’ products in other categories is that virtually all books published since the 1970s have clear and distinct legal identifiers in the form of ISBNs (EANs for media).
These are - or should be - strictly controlled by the publishers and the ISBN system.
No seller, unless they are also the publisher (or ‘manufacturer’ in SS speak), has any access to the ‘brandng’ (publishing) side of the business yet replies from SS now routinely refer to books and media as though they were any other generic product imported from (usually) China and refuse to recognise the reality of the relationship between sellers of books and publishers…
Not only that, but the ‘parallel’ catalogue of redundant duplicate ASINS that has been created for the apparent express purpose of undermining the catalogue and enabling an illicit form of dropshipping makes a complete mockery of the strict rules on updating product details in BMVD.
Many sellers now wonder why they should bother listing under the correct published ISBN/EAN when others can apparently create a ‘generic’ copycat ASINs that have better visibility in search and higher price tags without the need to even hold any stock?
It sometimes feels that those of us who do our best to follow listing guidelines are being punished for attempting to do the right thing.
Julia_Amzn
A post was merged into an existing topic: Riddles from seller support. This has to stop
Seller_QFH3yXlgdxrRR
I am a DVD seller, the catalogue is a mess, many duplicate listings and incorrect images. I have been trying to get an image corrected on a new release blu-ray for a week now, The catalog is using an image for the same title but a different release, meaning they are showing a limited edition image for a standard edition, after 7 messages with product images, supplier links and so forth I give up.
Another issue is the Chinese sellers listing counterfeit media in other categories bypassing gating. Massive problem but nothing is being done.
I agree with the suggestion that experienced or brand approved sellers should be able to correct catalog issues.
Seller_LKjg1QRrO36Yq
Another important point - title search in ‘Add a Product’ no longer works for BMVD products.
Yes, it occasionally works but in the main it throws up countless irrelevant matches in other categories while routinely ignoring all matches in BMVD.
It doesn’t matter if you add ‘paperback’ or ‘CD’ or DVD to the search terms - they are still ignored.
