Policy warning - inaccurate information on product detail page
Hi there,
Can any one help with the best way to respond to this?
I have a brand registered product (my own brand) that we recently went out of stock of. It normally retails at £3.29.
A few days after we ran out of stock a 3rd party started selling it for £13.99 - looking at their other items it seems as though it might have been at attempt to take over a dead listing or some other black hat technique to damage/control the listing so I reported them in brand registry (without a test buy)
A few days later, the listing has now been removed and I have had an email from Seller Performance saying…
“We are contacting you because you have added inaccurate information to product detail pages.” and "Attribute Needing Correction: Brand
We have cancelled the listings mentioned above."
They have advised the following:
“How do I reactivate my listings?
Please modify your product and product detail page to ensure they do not violate Amazon listing policies.”
or
“Have your listings been removed in error?
If you believe there has been an error, please tell us why. Your explanation should include the following information:
– The reason the listing does not violate our Product Detail Page policies.”
Can anyone advise the best way to deal with this? Should I contact them back at listings-evaluation@amazon.co.uk or should I contact brand registry?
8 replies
Seller_EJIX7rqDNQJi2
I would advise you to always ensure that you have your products available for sale and in stock.
There are sellers, whose business model is to search for abandoned (out of stock - currently unavailable) ASINs with great reviews and history, only to alter them beyond recognition into their generic Chinese items of poor quality and then boost sales with coupons and advertising.
If this happens, you will end up completely losing the listing.
From your post it sounds like they were already in the process of altering the description, since you received a Policy Warning message.
Unfortunately, at this point the only thing you can do is appeal in accordance with the instructions from Amazon.
Seller_qZO3ZCjoBXEeL
Is it an item that you manufacture yourself or is it a generic item that you have branded? Does the item and packaging in the listing carry your trademarked brand clearly depicted?
It is possible another seller considers your listing to be a generic item and has effectively challenged the branding of it if they are selling an identical but unbranded version?
Seller_Sp0MDHOM1olT2
I’m actually wondering if it’s a case of brand services accidentally selecting the entire listing for removal instead of just the offending seller
Seller_Sp0MDHOM1olT2
I responded to the email and explained why I thought that removing the listing was an error (as the email suggested that I do)
The response came today:
Hello,
Our previous e-mail was intended to bring our policy to your attention.
Learn more about this policy in the message sent on 17/09/2019
Still have questions? You can ask our Seller Support team: Contact us (https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/cu/contact-us).
We are unable to correspond with you further about this issue.
It doesn’t even make sense, the original email wasn’t intended to make me aware of the policy, it was to make me aware that they had removed the listing and explained what I need to do to get it back,
Anyone know where to go from here?
- Try contacting them again even though they said that they wouldn’t correspond?
- Seller support?
- Brand registry support?
- Managing director at Amazon?
Seller_Sp0MDHOM1olT2
Can’t remember who I spoke to in the end, might have been brand registry.
The problem was that when I created the listing, many, many years ago, I’d used an abbreviation of our company name instead of the proper brand name. Shortly after creation I changed it to the correct brand name, Ever since, the brand name has been used and it’s been used to successfully remove piggybackers both with the old brand registry and the new brand registry.
In the end I had to put the brand name back to the original one which was just a 3 letter abbreviation. This reactivated the listing but I’m now longer protected under brand registry and the brand is just 3 letters.
I then had to trademark the 3 letters. Trademark actually arrived yesterday so next step is to have all the packaging changed slightly to include the stupid 3 letter abbreviation in the corner or something (it’ll still retain the brand name also) Then I can brand register the 3 letter name and I’m fully protected.
TLDR - The brand name on the listing didn’t match the brand name that the listing was created with. I needed to change the brand name to the correct one to reactivate the listing
