The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Amazon fired employees in the US and India related to selling internal Amazon data and manipulating search results. It was claimed that some Amazon employees allegedly leaking internal sales and keyword data, deleted negative product reviews in exchange for bribes, and selling customer email addresses to sellers.
But getting help from the inside is just one tactic in a larger sea of ‘black hat’ tactics that Amazon sellers use to take out their competitors. Here are some other tactics that unscrupulous sellers have been employing.
1. Suspending competitors product listings with fake positive reviews.
With negative publicity around a rising tide of fake reviews, Amazon is swift to react to any perceived manipulation of its product reviews system. Until recently, the greatest cause for concern was brands and sellers trying to obtain positive reviews for their own products through either paying for reviews outright or incentivizing customers in other ways to leave reviews. When discovered, these product listings would be investigated by Amazon and the seller or vendor put under watch.
But a more nefarious tactic has emerged recently where a seller will generate dozens of fake positive reviews for a competitor - immediately raising red flags in Amazon’s system and causing an almost immediate suspension of the product.
Zac Plansky, the founder of the company AT3 Tactical recounted a story of how one of his brand’s products was targeted in this manner. Plansky says that his company typically receives up to 5 Amazon reviews in a day, but a flag was raised when a 20 reviews came in overnight. “They had unverified reviews talking about a completely different product to what we sell,” Plansky says, and that other reviews left by the reviewer were also unverified (meaning that Amazon didn’t verify that an actual purchase was made on their platform), and the reviewer accounts were new.
After reporting the situation to Amazon, the reviews disappeared about a week later. But two weeks later, the company received an email from Amazon saying their seller privileges had been revoked. “It basically said in there, you have manipulated reviews on Amazon.” After their first official appeal was denied, Plansky believes their eventual re-instatement occurred after they contacted an Amazon employee who was a contact in their network.
In a statement, Amazon said that they invest significant resources to protect the integrity of reviews. “We know customers value the insights and experiences shared by fellow shoppers. Even one inauthentic review is one too many. We have clear participation guidelines for both reviewers and selling partners and we suspend, ban, and take legal action on those who violate our policies,” said a spokesperson.
The statement from Amazon continued to outline their approach to responding to review manipulation and in preventing the root cause.
“We use a combination of teams of investigators and automated technology to prevent and detect inauthentic reviews at scale, and to take action against the bad actors behind the abuse. We estimate more than 90% of inauthentic reviews are computer generated, and we use machine learning technology to analyze all incoming and existing reviews 24/7 and block or remove inauthentic reviews. Our team investigates suspect reviews, works with social media sites to stop inauthentic reviews at the source, pursues legal action to stop offenders from planning reviews abuse, and feeds new information into our automated systems so it continues to improve and become more effective in catching abuse.”
2. Highjacking product listing content
Some brands have reported the product images, titles, and other content being changed, sometimes in ways that significantly compromise the brand's ability to sell that product. "The hackers are uploading vulgar and controversial pics on product listings, and deleting the correct pictures. They're also changing the descriptions, putting in claims that products cure cancer, and other diseases, causing amazon's "bots" to permanently remove entire companies product lines from the Amazon catalog." says Hairgenics, a hair care brand that sells on Amazon. This was despite the fact that the brand was enrolled in Amazon's Brand Registry, which should prevent any other seller making changes to the product detail page.
Marketplace sellers starting reporting similar issues in late 2018, where images of Guy Fawkes masks were uploaded to various product pages, replacing their product images. According to sellers in Amazon’s own Seller Forum, hundreds of products were affected.
Hairgenics suspects that the highjackers could be hacking their Seller Central account or even have inside help from within Amazon. “They have sent threatening emails to us showing us proof, in pictures; that they can see into our Amazon seller account, and that if we do anything to retaliate against them, they will shut us down permanently,” said the brand.
Another marketplace seller, a manufacturer of craft products for children, had their listing taken over by another seller who ultimately changed their product images to pictures of cell phone cases, changed the name of the manufacturer to their own name. A large number of 5-star product reviews which referenced a completely different product appeared a short time later.
In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson said that:
We work hard every day to protect our sellers and help them grow their business. Bad actors that attempt to abuse our systems make up a tiny fraction of activity on our site. We use sophisticated tools, including machine learning, to combat them, and we are making it increasingly difficult for bad actors to hide. We block bad actors before they reach our site and we work with sellers and law enforcement to hold them accountable by withholding funds and pursuing civil and criminal penalties. These bad actors show a flagrant disregard for our community, our policies, and in some cases, the law, and do not reflect the flourishing community of honest entrepreneurs that make up the vast majority of our sellers.
But many sellers who fall victim to these scams complain that Amazon’s centralized support team takes far too long to get to the root of issues. The children’s craft product manufacturer opened dozens of cases with Seller Support starting in early December when the issues first appeared. But it took two months and dozens of messages back and forth with Seller Support for the issue to be fully rectified and the brand to regain control of their product listings again - resulting in significant lost sales over the holiday period.
3. Stocking counterfeit products.
The phrase ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’ is no comfort to brands who have had their product knocked off, and even worse if the counterfeiter is now capturing the brand’s sales for that product. Amazon’s marketplace system means that unless a product or category is gated to new sellers, any seller can list inventory for a product and start selling it. This can open the door to competitors producing knockoffs without a brand being aware of it until customers start complaining.
I recall making a test buy on behalf of a client a couple of years ago who was the sole manufacturer of their products, and shipped orders directly from their location in New York. The competitor was shipping directly from China so created an immediate red flag. Amazon suspended the seller quickly after evidence of the actual (fake) product was sent, but this took a couple of weeks to resolve while the test unit was in transit. Amazon wouldn’t act on the matter until the test order actually showed up and it could be proven that the product was a fake. In the meantime, the competitor sold inferior products to unwitting customers, and a few negative product reviews showed up as a consequence.
In a statement, Amazon said that they strictly prohibit the sale of counterfeit products and invest heavily in ensuring the sale of such products is followed. "We remove suspected counterfeit items as we become aware of them, and we permanently remove bad actors from selling on Amazon," said a spokesperson. According to Amazon, dedicated teams of software engineers, research scientists, program managers, and investigators are overseeing their anti-counterfeiting program, along with systems which are scanning sellers, products, brands, and offers to identify counterfeit issues.
4. Suspending competitors’ accounts with false infringement claims.
If a seller is able to knock competitors off listings for at least a few days (especially over the weekend), it compromises their ability to make sales. Chris McCabe, a former Amazon Seller Performance investigator, says that a common method sellers are using is submitting false copyright infringement claims, which take several days for sellers to troubleshoot and resolve.
But McCabe, who now works with Amazon sellers to resolve account suspension issues, also reports that Amazon has recently been suspending sellers for actually submitting these claims, having spotted the alarming pattern.
McCabe suggests that brands should keep all paperwork related to product safety and compliance, copyright information such as patents and trademarks, and supplier information in an easily accessible place so that any request for this information can be quickly actioned.
In conclusion, Amazon channel management is an ongoing practice for brands
As Amazon continues to drive sales and awareness for many consumer brands, brands need to acknowledge that Amazon is a constantly changing platform - both their own rules, and the tactics that other sellers are using to exploit the platform. Many brands compare the platform to a game of ‘whack-a-mole’ where for every unscrupulous seller that is stamped out is quickly replaced with a new one.
For this reason many brands are creating internal processes for monitoring their Amazon channel, or engaging with third party software or service companies to prevent and cure these situations. Either way, all brands should engage in an ongoing cycle of self-education around black hat tactics and how to identify and circumvent them.
