Amazon make changes to their terms of service all the time and as a merchant in the Amazon marketplace, you’re expected to stay on top of these changes and adjust your own business terms and conditions accordingly; in order to remain compliant. Given the amount of changes Amazon has introduced recently, this is particularly challenging. We’ve got 2 top tips for you on how to stay compliant in the wake of recent Amazon turbulence.
1. Reviews
Reviews are king when it comes to search listings and closing a sale, but what are the rules governing how you ask for them? It is no longer considered good practise to offer a customer a discount, or privileges, in exchange for a review. You can still offer promotions and discounts, which will help you sell more, and hopefully to a wider range of customers, but you can’t offer them an incentive for a review. Reviews can still be requested, but this request can only take place once a purchase has been made.
2. Providing discounts
Using a software integration tool will help you create discounts. This is the fastest way to edit your listings in bulk, across a number of international platforms, to help you either make amendments to your listings (particularly if you have anything in your terms and conditions that could be construed as incentivising customers to write reviews for you), or create the discounts themselves.
Your wording needs to be unambiguous when it comes to offering a deal and what’s expected of the customers who purchase from you. If Amazon is led to believe that the discount campaign you’ve started is an attempt to either manipulate a product’s ranking, or sabotage the product ranking of a competitor, you could find yourself on the other end of an Amazon lawyer!
Remaining compliant is an important part of any business to avoid fines, account suspension, or legal proceedings. The source of the biggest recent upheaval was Amazon’s change in approach to selling brands. Brands which are sold directly from the manufacturers are now being given priority over third part sellers who list brands in their range.
If you have brands in your range, you will be expected to produce the necessary paperwork which declares your legal right to sell those brands when requested. It would seem that those who are now still deemed worthy of selling brands are those who can stock the large minimum order quantity Amazon now stipulates.
Stay on the right side of Amazon’s terms of service by using a bulk editing tool to amend listings efficiently. Get in touch with us to find out more about Amazon Business Integration.
