Amazon News: “Generic” Product listings, the new Vine pricing structure, and More

Today we're covering the outcomes and limitations of new generic product listings, the new vine pricing structure, and more. Welcome back to the Amazon Analytics Insider. Let's get you up to date. Last week Amazon announced that they were teaming up with Booking.com, expedia, Glassdoor, TripAdvisor and Trustpilot to launch the Global Coalition for Trusted Reviews. They're meeting this December for the second Fake Reviews Conference which is to be led by Amazon. As we all know, fake reviews are a huge area of concern for customers and sellers alike. Hopefully the coalition is able to bring about some clear action items to support sellers customers and to eliminate bad actors. Earlier this month, Amazon announced that they would grant sellers the ability to list unbranded products under the brand name Generic. This gives sellers exclusive control over any edits made to the product detail pages of their generic listings. If a seller tries to edit or add offers on another seller's generic product, they will receive an error message and be guided to create a new product listing. This policy is designed to protect the integrity of generic listings to ensure that sellers have more of an equal opportunity to compete. However, there's already a few kinks in this new program. The fake Lululemon belt bag and the seller commentary tell us that this policy has already begun to be abused by many. Multiple name branded products such as the belt bag are being listed as generic and other sellers note that this will only hurt their SAL because it creates multiple pages of identical products that will be shown to customers. Last week, Amazon implemented their new pricing structure for the Amazon vine program. The new structure includes two new lower priced tiers to make vine more accessible to brands with different budgets and products. Tier 1 is free and allows for 2 units per parent ASIN for 2 vine reviews. Tier 2 is $75 and allows for 10 units per ASIN for 10 vine reviews. Tier 3 is their already existing tier and is $200 which allows for 30 units for 30 reviews. These new fee tiers apply only to products that are enrolled in the program on or after October 19th. These past few weeks have yielded an exceptionally high count of sellers who seem to be struggling with the Customer Service by Amazon program. The program is intended to help sellers by handling their inbound customer service and product troubleshooting requests. But multiple sellers have stated that the program has caused multiple errors such as issuing refunds for delivered products, tanking sellers feedback rates, and issuing refunds for returns that show clear signs of customer abuse. To monitor cases like this, we're hoping sellers will look towards the removal shipment details Reports. Thanks again for joining me for the Amazon Analytics Insider. The link to the full written version will be available in the description box below. And while you're there, pay a visit to our help center for more information on how to become an Amazon data expert. And I can't wait to see you again every other Tuesday.