Amazon Seller Update

Amazon is working actively for Sellers to make everything easy and valuable. Recently, Amazon has launched a bulk image tool where sellers can upload multiple images together to the Amazon Product Listings. Previously, you could only upload images and view the upload status for one product at a time. You can now upload up to 5 GB worth of product images at once with the bulk image upload tool and view the status of all your uploads in the image upload status report in Seller Central.

Every detail page in the Amazon store requires at least one product image, and we recommend you provide six images and one video. Good images make it easy for customers to evaluate the product. Images should be clear, informative, and attractive. The first image on the product detail page is the "MAIN" image and is shown to customers in search. The MAIN image must show only the product for sale on a white background, and the product should fill the image frame. Additional images should show the product in use or in an environment, different angles, and different features. Please note that video upload is a separate workflow. Search help pages to determine if it is enabled in your location.

Ref: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/imaging/upload?ref=nslp_at_GSAA4WZPVT48GCPU_nslnk_cta

Good images are must to make your listing stronger. Design Amazon Listing Images now!

Every seller must have a question: What is the ratio of my sales revenue in between organic and PPC. And this should be measure carefully to see how much money a seller is investing in PPC to get sales and in what proportion he/she is getting sales.

More Organic sales means more profit. It shows better organic result and keyword rankings of the products. Sellers used to gather multiple reports to know the organic sales vs PPC sales. Which was too much headache for the sellers and time consuming till now.

Now, Amazon has introduced a new feature on Seller Central Dashboard showing the organic sales vs PPC sales, with custom time period up to last 90 days and for each product also. Now, sellers can get data simply by applying filters and also can see in a visual graph.

To get more organic sales, you must have good keyword rankings of your product and Amazon Sponsored Ads is one of the key to get better rankings.

Hire Amazon PPC Expert now!

Customer Review works as an Oxygen for any sellers. Good customer reviews always help a seller to build their trust with the customers and increasing their purchases.

While reviews and feedback are important to customers and sellers both, the comments feature on customer reviews was rarely used. As a result, Amazon is discontinuing this feature on December 16, 2020.

Have proper keyword research of your product, optimize the listing, target sponsored ads, run promotions and increase your sales to gain more customer reviews. Hire Amazon Consultants now!

FBA Subscribe & Save’s new performance dashboard can help you better manage your Subscribe & Save business and help ensure a positive customer experience.

You can use the dashboard to improve your Subscribe & Save seller performance metrics. On the dashboard, you can review the following information:

• The number of units and revenue for shipped subscription orders
• Projections of units and revenue for orders that are expected to ship
• The number of active subscriptions
• Average revenue per customer
• The percentage of units not delivered because the ASIN was out of stock
• You can see these metrics for your overall Subscribe & Save business or at the ASIN level (up to 20 at a time) for weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly time frames.

It's been announced that Transparency is now available in Australia and Japan Also!

Transparency can help you proactively ensure that your customers are receiving genuine products. Its check item level authenticity of the brand products.

By enrolling into Transparency, you will get a unique code for your brand product which you will need to apply on the products. So that the Transparency system can check those codes and ship only products with applied code ensuring the customer will receive authentic products.

Previously it was available in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and India.

For more details, visit the Transparency page: https://brandservices.amazon.com/transparency

Other than Transparency, you can protect your brand by enrolling into Amazon Brand Registry, which comes with other benefits such as Amazon A+ Content, Amazon Storefront Design, Sponsored Brands Ads, Sponsored Display Ads, Amazon Posts and many more.

Good News for Amazon Sellers selling on Amazon.sa

Amazon has launched advertising features such as Sponsored Product Ads, Sponsored Brand Ads and Stores. Which let sellers advertise their brand products and reaching to relevant customers. This will help you to engage more shoppers to buy your products and tell your brand story.

Sponsored Products will let you advertise and getting more coverage of shoppers to purchase the products.

Sponsored Brands will let you advertise and creating brand awareness by showcasing multiple range of products to the customers.

Stores will help you to design your store with your brand products to attract buyers and inspire to get discover your product selection. You can design in different templates with no-cost.

Get benefits of this new features or hire Amazon Consultant to help you out!

Amazon has launched a new program called Climate Pledge Friendly which can be helpful to save the environment. It includes Amazon own certification, Compact by Design, to identify which of your products have a more efficient design.

To gain the Climate Pledge Friendly badge, the product should have one or more of the 19 different sustainability certifications to help preserve the natural world. That requires not having excessive air and packaging. This will be helpful for shipping and with small parcels, the carbon emission will reduce.

This will have a good impact on customers and they can find sustainable products to keep our environment safe.

See here How to Qualify?

Check Compact by design certificate here

Check the threshold for compact by design certificate here

Check Other certificates here

Don't have a UPC?

Listing the product without UPC was Big NO for Amazon sellers and availing a GTIN Exemption process was a headache.

To improve your experience, Amazon made an easy process of providing proofs for availing GTIN exemption.

Instead of any supporting letter from the Brand Owner, now seller can exempt for GTIN by simply providing Product Name, Images showing all sides (6 sides usually) of product packaging.

Reference: Amazon Product Listing using GTIN

Good News for the sellers who don't have the Brand Registry.

You can now upload videos for your listings if you have sold on Amazon for longer than a year and meet certain eligibility criteria. The uploaded videos will be eligible to appear in the images section of Product Detail pages.

If you are not a brand owner but are eligible to use this new feature, you will be able to upload a video for one ASIN at a time.

If you are a brand owner, you can continue to upload videos for up to 300 ASINs in your brand. Click Upload & Manage Videos under the Inventory tab to get started with this feature. Now, click on “Upload video” to see the video upload experience if you are currently eligible to upload.

Reference: Amazon Product Listing Video

October 13th to October 14th. Yes, Prime Day 2020, the most eagerly awaited festival is back with its final dates and with their epic deals for two days. Prime Day is an annual deal event exclusively for Prime members, delivering two days of special savings on products from small businesses & top brands.

Check Out here:

Prime Day in Amazon USA
Prime Day in Amazon UK
Prime Day in Amazon Australia

Amazon automatically cancels orders if they have not been shipped and confirmed within 30 days of the estimated ship date (ESD).

To protect and improve the customer experience, starting September 30, 2020, Amazon will automatically cancel any order which is not shipped and confirmed within 7 business days after the “ship by” date detailed in the “Sold, ship now” notification email. You can set this date by modifying your Handle Time, but please be aware this date is part of the delivery time calculation displayed on the offer listing and checkout page.

Reference: Modify handling time (Login Required)

Amazon has launched Sponsored Brands video (beta) in the UK and Germany.

This new format displays auto-playing video in desktop and mobile shopping results and is available in the United States, UK, and Germany.

Sponsored Brands video ads are keyword targeted, cost-per-click, and link customers directly to your product detail page, where they can learn more and purchase.

Sponsored Brands video allows you to:

1. Differentiate your brand
2. Help Increase reach
3. Set up your campaign easily

Quarter 4 is a peak season for the sellers. The biggest event Black Friday is almost scheduled in the last week of November 2020.

Please check with the deals and start preparation accordingly for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Black Friday 2020 is set to be another huge consumer event and the buyers has already started around the deals we can expect. Black Friday is on the 27th November this year with Cyber Monday following straight after on 30th November, just in time for the Christmas shopping season.

Amazon attribution is very useful while running non-amazon advertising to drive traffic to Amazon's details pages.

If you are running any Ads through Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads, or any other platform and driving traffic to Amazon. Then, please set up an Amazon Attribution account to analyze the actual off-Amazon result.

Refer to the below document for more detail:
Amazon Attribution Guide

Spending more time on PPC over a number of campaigns?

Here is the guide to optimize your PPC campaigns in a bulk to save your time.

I'd highly recommend using this guide and implement on your accounts whoever has hundreds of campaigns and spending more time.

Reference: Amazon PPC Advt Bulk Operation

Amazon launched negative product targeting controls for Auto Targeting (AT) campaigns and ad groups.

This new feature gives advertisers using AT a frequently asked for optimization tool that allows them to negatively target a product detail page by ASIN, just as they would negatively target a search query by keyword.  The feature has launched for all SP advertisers in all marketplaces.

The control is now available in UCB, UCM, and the Advertising API. Prior to this launch, negative product targeting was only available for Product Attribute Targeting (PAT) ad groups.

Benefits:

• Advertisers use negative targeting to optimize performance by removing ads from targeting when an ad-context (i.e. search term or detail page) underperforms when measured against some metric of interests such as conversion rate.
• They also use negative targeting to protect their brand image by stopping their ads from showing on contexts that are not aligned with values associated with their brand. Advertisers have historically been able to see performance on product detail pages through the search term report for all targeting types and can see when detail pages are not meeting their performance expectations.
• With this launch, advertisers can indicate that they do not want their AT ads to appear on a specific set of detail pages by negatively targeting the associated ASINs.

Amazon has launched Listing Quality Dashboard, a tool in Seller Central that highlights important listing improvements for customers. By adding the recommended information for your products on the Listing Quality Dashboard, you can:

• Improve discovery
• Enable the Product Overview experience (beta)
• Potentially reduce customer returns
• Take time-sensitive actions

Inventory Performance Index threshold change to 500 now

Inventory Performance Index threshold change and increased to 500.

Amazon is working to manage inventory performance to ensure all products have space available during peak. To enable this, Amazon is changing the IPI minimum threshold requirement to 500. Sellers below 500 will be subject to limits effective August 16, 2020 through the end of the year.

The majority of sellers will not be impacted by this change. Most sellers with IPI scores below 500 will have more storage space than last year.

You can improve your IPI by following guidance on improving sell through or reducing your excess and stranded inventory in the Inventory Performance Dashboard.

Reference: Inventory Performance Dashboard(Login required)

Long-term storage fee inventory cleanup

August 15, 2020 is Fulfillment by Amazon’s (FBA's) next scheduled long-term storage fee inventory cleanup. On this date, inventory that has been in US fulfillment centers for more than 365 days incurs a long-term storage fee of $6.90 USD per cubic foot or a $0.15 USD per-unit long-term storage fee, whichever is greater.

The long-term storage fee is in addition to the monthly inventory storage fee.

FBA calculates inventory age on a first-in, first-out basis across the entire fulfillment network. Items sold or removed are deducted from the inventory that has been in the fulfillment network the longest, regardless of which unit was actually shipped or removed.

The Recommended Removals report automatically calculates, on an ASIN-by-ASIN basis, the number of items you would have to remove to avoid long-term storage fees—assuming no further sales. You may also use the Inventory Age and Inventory Health reports to identify the age of inventory by ASIN.

If you remove units of an ASIN that would be subject to long-term storage fees at the next inventory cleanup date, you won't be able to send us more units of that ASIN for three months after that date. The exception is your inventory of that ASIN falls below our projection of its sales for the next eight weeks.

For further details, see FBA long-term storage fees.

Note: All above references required login.

Amazon has launched a new program called "Program Recommendations". Keep checking it if you can get something useful to be implemented in your account.

The Recommended Programs page provides personalized recommendations, to help you prioritize the right tasks to build and grow your business on Amazon.

Reference: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/recommended-programs(Login required)

To maximize selection for customers during peak, Amazon is introducing ASIN-level quantity limits on products in FBA. Most products will have enough space available for over three months of sales.

You can view quantity limits for your products on the Restock Inventory page and the Restock report. Amazon will continually review this and, when possible, make adjustments to allow for more of your products.

For more details see Restock Inventory (Login required)

Now, we can create a Virtual Product Bundles which don't require to send a physical bundled product.

The virtual product bundles tool for FBA lets brand owners create ‘virtual’ bundles made up of two to five complementary ASINs which are purchased together from a single detail page.

Eligibility Criteria:

To be eligible to be added to a virtual bundle:

• ASINs need to belong to a brand that you own and that is registered in Brand Registry.
• ASINs need to have active FBA inventory in the 'New' condition.
• The following cannot be included in virual bundles: gift cards, electronically delivered products (like digital music, video, and books), and renewed/used ASINs.
• Product bundles can be created only in the US Amazon store.

How to calculate Multi-Channel Fulfillment Fees? Now it is easy to calculate Amazon Fees with Amazon Fee Calculator.

You can quickly preview per-unit Multi-Channel Fulfillment fees with Amazon's new fee calculator.

To download the calculator template, go to Multi-Channel Fulfillment and click the Fees tab.

Reference Link: Multi-Channel Fulfillment Fees Calculator(Login required)

And here, Amazon has gathered all useful information regarding MCF orders, such as How to create, who can do, benefits, plugins to integrate, multichannel integration tools, fees, fee calculator. etc.

Please go through the link for more details:
Multi-Channel Fulfillment(Login required)

Sponsored Brands redesigned desktop card

Availability: ads console, Seller Central, API
Launch date: 31-March
Reference: blog post

What launched?
A new taller desktop card creative template in the Sponsored Brands top of search placement. This new experience increases the height of the unit and makes both product images and brand logo more prominent.

What is the shopper experience?
Advertisers using a “true” brand logo will render this new creative experience. Advertisers using a lifestyle/custom image or the product image for their logo will render the existing regular height mobile carousel.

Note – make sure you use a “true” brand logo. Learn more about the definition of a “true” brand logo in our ad policies here.

Sponsored Display product targeting for sellers in the US
Launch date: 25-March
References:
Getting started guide(Login Required)
Optimization guide(Login Required)

What launched?
Product targeting in Sponsored Display is now available for sellers in the US. With product targeting, you can promote product discovery with ads that reach shoppers who are actively browsing similar or complementary products and categories on Amazon, and access more campaign controls and reporting metrics to make your performance advertising strategy work more efficiently. Product targeting ads may appear alongside product description pages, customer reviews, shopping results pages, or under the featured offer. A modified version of Sponsored Display product targeting is also available for vendors worldwide.

In the ads console, sellers will now be able to select from two options in the “Product targeting” field within the campaign builder.

Advertisers can then leverage the product targeting widget to select one or multiple product page(s) to show their ads, select one or multiple categories/browse node to show their ads, and refine the category selection based on price, brand, star rating, Prime status, and other filters.

Prior to launching their campaigns, advertisers can use the creative preview to see how ads will look like including a preview of any coupons or deals.

Ad Placement
Product targeting ads may appear adjacent to the featured offer and description sections within an Amazon product detail page on mobile and desktop. This gives advertisers an opportunity to be featured in a prime location and remain top of mind during the point of purchase.

Getting Started Guide_SD Display Beta_Purchases_SearchesGet Started with Sponsored Display – a new self-service advertising solution for Amazon Sellers. For a detailed guide about the Sponsored Brand Display Campaign refer to the below-attached documents! 1. Guide for SD Purchases/Search targeting Getting Started Guide_SD Display 2. Optimization Guide US-Sponsored Display-Optimization Guide

Amazon added two ways to help delight customers and grow your business, 1) The Customer Returns Tool and 2) Free Replacements For Customers.

Customer returns tool

Amazon has added a tool to the FBA customer returns report page to give you greater visibility into reimbursements and customer returns. To quickly see whether you’ve been reimbursed, if you qualify for reimbursement, or if Amazon is still waiting for a customer return to evaluate:

Go to the FBA customer returns report
In the Important Message section, click input the order ID here to access the tool
Enter a Customer order ID to check your reimbursement status

Important: Before requesting a reimbursement, review the FBA customer returns policy.(Login required)

Amazon free replacements

Sometimes customers want a replacement for an item rather than just return it. With Amazon free replacements, customers can opt for a free replacement instead of waiting for a refund and then buying the same item again. Amazon ships an identical item (if available) from your inventory when a free replacement is requested.

Note: When a customer chooses a free replacement, you will see the item deducted from your inventory and a sale for $0 on your Customer Shipment Sales and Payments reports.

The customer has 30 days to return the unit (if possible), or they could be charged. Once the original unit is returned to Amazon, Amazon will evaluate it. If eligible for reimbursement, you will be reimbursed within 45 days of the customer replacement request.

Reference: Reimbursements(Login required)

Now you can set the Schedule Time to generate the advertising reports & don't miss any report. The new update gives the "Recurring" option which allows you to set the time duration for the future.

Login to seller central and go through the below path to generate a recurring advertisement report
Reports > Advertising reports > Create Reports > Delivery > Select Recurring

Fix your suppressed listing via Bulk Operation

Now you can fix suppressed inventory in bulk via uploading a template file just like the way we do for variations. Below is the link which mentions the steps for fixing suppressed inventory.

Reference: How do I bulk activate suppressed listings?(Login required)

New to FBA for 2020 is the FBA New Selection program. This program allows sellers to enroll in new-to-Amazon ASINs for fee reductions and other benefits. Sellers must opt-in before they're qualified to take advantage of this new program.

For more detail - Click here(Login required)

Now you can optimize your A+ Contents using data-driven decisions.

Amazon has recently introduced a new feature called "Manage Your Experiments" where you can upload two versions of A+ Pages for one ASIN. Each of these versions will be randomly shown to the customers visiting your detail page. At the end of the experiment, Amazon will provide results as to which A+ Page has got you more sales.

Check your eligibility for A/B Test(Login Required)

What’s your product’s best side? All of them! In these photos, the product appears to spin so that the buyer can examine it from all angles. Eg. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0078ZTWP4 Categories currently enabled for sellers to use 360-degree product views include:

• Home
• Home Improvement
• Furniture
• Lawn & Garden
• Lighting
• Kitchen
• Sports & Outdoors
• Toys
• Cameras
• Automotive
• Pets

Instead of creating new ads, the seller can copy campaigns that are currently running, have already ended, or are archived. The seller can also copy campaigns that were not approved and can make necessary changes so that they can comply with Amazon's ad guidelines before resubmitting.

To copy a campaign in the campaign manager:
- Navigate to Campaigns.
- Click All Campaigns.
- Find the campaign you want to copy.
- Click Copy under the Action column for your campaign.
- Modify and create your copied campaign using the steps for your campaign type: Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Products, Sponsored Display, Lockscreen Ads, and Sponsored Products campaigns using custom text.

Note: Performance metrics such as impressions, clicks, and sales are not copied to the new campaign. Sponsored Products campaigns are generally eligible to go live as soon as you submit them. Sponsored Display, Lockscreen Ads, Sponsored Brands ads, and Sponsored Product campaigns promoting Book ASINs are considered "pending" while Amazon is reviewing them. The review process is usually completed within 24 hours, but may take as long as three business days. We will email you once your ad has been reviewed.

Amazon will no longer support Free Shipping Promotion starting January 13th, 2020. Seller can make any necessary edits to our Free Shipping Promotions in Advertising > Promotions prior to this date.

If any such kind off promotion is running in your account then make the necessary changes.

On January 13th, 2020, all Pending and Active Free Shipping Promotions will be terminated by having their status automatically updated to Expired and the Free Shipping promotion type will be removed from the Create a Promotion page in Seller Central.

If seller would still like to provide free shipping for customers, seller can set this up by updating the Shipping Settings within the Settings tab.

In the Year 2019 year Amazon has invested more than $15 billion in infrastructure, programs, people, and 150 new tools and services to help Amazon sellers grow their brands and businesses. Amazon also invested billions of dollars to expand FREE One-Day Delivery to more than 10 million Prime-eligible items.

Driven by FREE One-Day Delivery, this was the largest one-year investment Amazon has ever made in FBA. Nevertheless, in 2020, Amazon will make only moderate increases (about 3%) in fulfillment fees, below the industry average, because Amazon remains committed to the seller's continued success. Amazon will also decrease select referral fees and introduce an exciting new selection program.

Please review the fee change pages below. The changes will take effect on February 18, 2020, except where noted.

Reference:
2020 US referral fee changes(Login required)
2020 US fulfillment fee changes(Login required)
2020 FBA fee changes for monthly storage, Label Service and removal orders(Login required)
2020 FBA Small and Light fee changes(Login required)
FBA New Selection program(Login required)

Changes to program policies

Listed below are upcoming changes to Amazon’s program policies.

1) Reorganization of Customer product reviews policy - Effective December 27, 2019
2) Category, product, and listing restrictions- Effective December 27, 2019
3) Clarification to FBA Inventory Placement Program Terms and Conditions - Effective December 26, 2019
4) Clarification to Communication Guidelines

Reference: Amazon Changes to program policies(Login required)

Amazon Predictions 2020: 5 Big Changes to Look for in the New Year

1) Amazon will end its Buyer-Seller Messaging Service.
2) Amazon will bring Singles Day to the U.S.
3) Amazon will enter African markets.
4) Amazon will make sweeping changes in response to fake reviews.
5) Amazon will end FBM for certain categories.

Reference: Amazon Predictions 2020

Effective January 1, 2020, we are changing the IPI threshold for storage limits to 400 (previously 350). Storage limits will continue to be evaluated on a quarterly cycle. For example, if the seller's IPI score is less than 400 during the week of November 11, 2019, sellers will be notified in their potential storage limits for Quarter 1 2020. The sellers will then have six weeks to improve the IPI score. If the sellers IPI score is still below 400 during the week of December 23, 2019, storage limits will apply for Quarter 1 2020. Sellers who maintain an IPI score of 400 or greater will have unlimited storage for standard size and oversize items (monthly storage fees and long-term storage fees still apply).

References:
Inventory Performance Dashboard
Manage Excess Inventory
Inventory Age
Fix Stranded Inventory

Green Monday is a booming retail sales opportunity for eCommerce businesses. eBay really started the whole idea. The major online marketing realized that the second Monday in December, on average, was one of the top shopping days in December.

When is it?

Green Monday is the second Monday in the month of December. This year, that’s December 9, 2019. This is the perfect time for online shoppers because it ensures that they’ll have enough time to have their online purchases delivered in time for the holidays.

Reference: What is Green Monday?

If you’re taking time off soon, adjust your Seller Central settings to avoid receiving orders while you're away. You can change your listing status to Inactive, just be sure to check for pending orders since they won’t be cancelled automatically. It's important, even if your listings are set to inactive, to process return requests and respond to messages from customers within 24 hours.

Listing status for vacations, holidays, and other absences If you can’t fulfill orders for any reason (family emergency, inclement weather, going on holiday or vacation, etc.), you can change your Listings Status to Inactive. This will remove your self-fulfilled listings from Amazon product detail pages and search results within one hour. When you are ready to sell again, you can change the status of your listings back to Active.

Before changing the status of your listings, check for any pending orders, since these will not automatically be canceled. You might want to set your listing status to Inactive prior to the date you will be away, since pending orders may take time to resolve.

1. In Seller Central, hover over Settings in the top-right corner of the screen, and then click Account Info from the drop-down menu.
2. On the Seller Account Information page, in the Listings Status section, click Going on vacation?
3. On the Vacation Settings page, you can change your settings for one or multiple marketplaces, as detailed in the following table: Do you sell in one marketplace or multiple marketplaces? Your available options you only sell in one marketplace.

Enhanced brand content is now upgraded to A+ content. Along with the new name, which is now the same across both Seller Central and Vendor Central, Amazon has made several improvements:

Publish A+ to many ASINs at the same time, not 1x1 to SKUs - Before, sellers needed to submit A+ Content to one SKU at a time, including all the child SKUs in many categories. Also, sellers needed to deal with confusing differences about whether to submit A+ for a parent or child SKU. No more.

The new A+ Content Manager experience enables you to create a piece of content and search for and apply the content to many different ASINs - not SKUs - from different ASIN families. We also show you the image, ASIN title, and other information on the ASINs, not just the SKU like before.

Reference: A+ Content News(Login required)

Amazon shoppers all over the world are looking for products like yours. Help put yours right in front of them—advertise in your eligible marketplaces.

Benefits:

1. Reach a new customer base to help grow your sales.
2. Launch campaigns in minutes, no language skills needed.
3. Pay only when your ad is clicked.

A 7-Day Deal is a time-bound, promotional offer where an item is featured for up to 7 days on the Amazon Deals page. 7-Day Deals will also receive a “Limited time deal” badge in search results, driving more visibility to your deal and brand. You can create both 7-Day Deals and Lightning Deals on eligible products in the deals Dashboard in Seller Central.

These deals are created to help sellers get rid of excess Inventory & boost their product rank rapidly.

Note: It may happen many of your products appear eligible for Lightning Deals, but none are showing for 7-day deals because this program is still rolling out.

Reference:
Eligible products(Login required)
Deals Dashboard(Login required)

Amazon's New Feature - Outlet for FBA sellers

Now all Fulfillment by Amazon Professional sellers can take advantage of Outlet to help increase sell through, improve cash flow, optimize inventory levels, and reduce total storage fees on overstocked inventory.

Customers shop Outlet for markdowns and deals on overstock, clearance products. Amazon helps drive customers to Outlet through direct emails and ad placements, including on Amazon’s homepage.

Reference: About Amazon Outlet(Loing required)

Vendors and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) authors will soon see a change in the advertising console: a redesigned navigation menu.

What's new?

• Flexible Design
• Quick access to your campaigns, Stores, reports, and bulk operations
• Billing and payment methods located at one link.
• Easy-to-find manage users feature
• Access to the support center

We periodically review FBA removal and disposal fees. As a result of our most recent review, we are adjusting certain FBA removal and disposal fees in Europe, effective September 3, 2019. We’re notifying you now so that you have time to plan for these changes.

Removal and disposal fee changes (starting September 3):

- Domestic removal fees: We will reduce removal fees for standard-size and oversize units in UK fulfillment centers. For fulfillment centers in Spain, the removal fees for oversize items will increase.
- Cross-border removal fees: We will reduce cross-border removal fees for units stored in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, and Czech Republic.
- Disposal fees: We will increase disposal fees for units stored in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the Czech Republic. The upcoming rates are based on unit weight and size.

Reference: FBA removal and disposal fees(Login required)

Finding the right services and tools to market and sell products has always been a challenging task for new businesses. Amazon Launchpad can help you jump-start your business on Amazon by showcasing your new and emerging products to millions of Amazon customers.

The Amazon Launchpad program includes onboarding support including account setup, troubleshooting, and more. The seller can also receive marketing support including placements on Amazon Launchpad family of storefronts, email, and online events (for example, Holiday Gift Guide). In addition, Amazon Launchpad members enjoy access to webinars and training to support continued growth on Amazon.

Reference: Amazon Launchpad Program(Login required)

The Customer Reviews section of the Brand Dashboard enables you to sort, filter, read, and respond to incoming product reviews for your products. These reviews can help you understand common customer concerns, and you can also report reviews that do not conform to Amazon’s customer review policies. The dashboard enables you to keep track of which reviews have been examined and/or addressed.

The Brand Dashboard is available in the U.S. for selling partners who have registered their brand in Brand Registry and own a brand, or who serve as an agent, representative, or manufacturer of a brand. If you’re not eligible for the Brand Dashboard today, visit the page to see instructions on how you can apply for access to this new tool.

Reference: Customer Review on Brand Dashboard(Login required)

Tax collection for orders shipped to AR, IN, KY, NM, RI, VA, WV, WY States - Effective July 1, 2019

Based on the changes to Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming State tax laws, Amazon will begin calculating, collecting, and remitting sales and use tax for all orders shipped to customers in the eight states listed above on July 1, 2019.

Your existing tax calculation settings, order details, and payment reporting will update automatically to reflect this change. Changes to your tax settings or seller account are not required based on the state law changes. However, you may consider working with your tax advisor to determine if your business has any other ongoing tax remittance or reporting obligations.

Reference: Tax collection -Effective July 1, 2019(Login required)

Amazon has announced a new update on Stranded Inventory which may save time and make things easy.

Previously, each stranded listing that was unblocked or had met qualifications required sellers to click Edit and then Save and finish. Now when listings are approved by Amazon, they become automatically available for customers within 24 hours.

Sellers can also now set the time (up to 30 days) that inventory is stranded by clicking Edit automatic-action settings on Fix stranded inventory. The new automated settings are set for a default of 30 days.

Reference: Automated fixes for stranded inventory(Login required)

Now sellers can find A+ Content Manager instead of Enhanced Brand Content in the Seller Central.

Reference: A+ Content manager

Avoid appointment cancellations and shipment rejections by providing complete PO information!

To ensure a problem-free delivery, make sure that both you and your carrier follow the requirements for shipping less than truckload (LTL), full truckload (FTL), and full container load (FCL) to Amazon fulfillment centers.

The requirements include the following:
- Provide accurate purchase order (PO) numbers.
- Provide complete shipment details on your appointment request in Carrier Central. Appointments may be deleted without notice if this information is incomplete.
- Submit only one appointment request per shipment, and manage any delivery time changes through Carrier Central. See the Carrier Central User Manual for additional help.

If a shipment arrives at a fulfillment center and the bill of lading does not match the PO numbers from the appointment request, your shipment may be rejected.

References:
Seller requirements for LTL, FTL, and FCL deliveries(Login required)
Carrier requirements for LTL and FTL deliveries(Login required)

From July 22, 2019, Amazon will suppress ASINs from Amazon Search whose titles do not comply with Amazon’s product title requirements.

This is because our research shows that the ASIN titles that violate our policies result in poor customer experience. Please review Amazon’s Product Title requirements prior to July 15, 2019, to verify that your current titles meet our guidelines.

Reference: FBA product title requirements(Login required)

Amazon has come up with a new update for video uploads which allows you to add different types of Videos, Auto-generated thumbnails.

It will be soon available under Inventory Tab:
Inventory > Upload & Manage Videos

For more details see, New Video Management Experience

The Buyer-Seller Messaging Service enables you to communicate with buyers via Seller Central or your email account. You can contact buyers to complete orders or to respond to customer service questions.

If you don’t receive a response or your message is blocked, please keep in mind that buyers can opt out of receiving unsolicited messages.

If your message is critical to completing the buyer’s order, you can ensure it is sent by following the instructions mentioned as Buyer-Seller Messages.

For more details see, Buyer-Seller Messages(Login required)

The descriptions for some of the inventory adjustment reasons in the online version of the Inventory Adjustments report have been updated to provide more clarity.

The Inventory Adjustments Report shows the history of adjustments to your inventory in response to issues such as disposition changes, misplaced inventory, found inventory, and ownership corrections.

For more details please read: Inventory adjustments

Starting June 10, 2019, in accordance with FBA policy, inventory that is stranded for an extended period will be classified as unsellable and must be removed from Amazon fulfillment centers.

If your inventory is stranded, we will notify you by email. If you don’t activate your listing or create a removal order within 30 days of receiving this email, your inventory will be classified as unsellable. For more information, see the stranded reason table on Resolve stranded inventory issues.

Inventory classified as unsellable cannot be converted back to sellable. It must be removed from fulfillment centers or it will be disposed of at your cost after 30 days.

On Fix stranded inventory the Date of the stranded event column tells you when the inventory was stranded. The Date classified as unsellable column states when listings will change to unsellable.

Inventory stranded for the following reasons does not require removal.
Future listing sell date
Listing closed
Listing closed and inventory error
Under hazmat review
Merchant fulfilled
Merchant fulfilled (including dangerous goods information required)

For more information, including tips on avoiding stranded inventory, visit Stranded inventory and Required removals.

Note: All the above reference required login

Amazon has introduces new feature for sponsored brand campaigns.

Now, you can add negative keywords to your sponsored brand campaigns. The seller can add negative keywords and negative products while creating a campaign, or add them later in the campaign manager.

Please check your campaigns it is available now!

For more more details see, Add negative keywords(Login required)

Amazon is continuously improving the Account Health experience by making it easier for you to view and address all policy violations and defects affecting your account health in one place.

In the year 2019, Amazon has added Suspected Intellectual Property Violations, Restricted Products Policy Violations, and Customer Product Reviews Policy Violations to the Account Health experience.

In the past, Amazon has communicated these issues elsewhere in Seller Central, in your Performance Notifications inbox, or via email. Please take a moment to view your Account Health and address violations and defects in a timely manner.

Reference: Account Health(Login required)

In May 2019, Amazon removing Amazon’s generic size charts from product detail pages on Amazon.com and replacing them with brand-specific size charts. If you are a Brand Registered Seller, Amazon recommend that you contact Seller Support to create a brand-specific size chart for each Product Type. Brand-specific size charts provide detailed measurement information for customers to ensure a product will fit. This will improve the customer experience and help reduce size-related returns.

Note: Brand-specific size charts are only available to Brand Registered Sellers at this time and are specific to a Department (Women, Men, Boys, Girls, Baby) and Product Type (Dress, Pants, etc.).

Reference: Brand-specific size charts(Login required)

In May, Amazon removing Amazon’s generic size charts from product detail pages on Amazon.com and replacing them with brand-specific size charts.

If the seller has a Brand Registery, Amazon recommends the seller to contact Seller Support to create a brand-specific size chart for each Product Type. Brand-specific size charts provide detailed measurement information for customers to ensure a product will fit. This will improve the customer experience and help reduce size-related returns.

Note: Brand-specific size charts are only available to Brand Registered Sellers at this time and are specific to a Department (Women, Men, Boys, Girls, Baby) and Product Type (Dress, Pants, etc.).

For more details see,  Brand-specific size charts(Login required)

Standards for Brands Selling in the Amazon Store

Amazon obsesses over providing our customers with the best possible shopping experience. Since the inception of our store, one way we have ensured a great customer experience is by sourcing products directly from Brands and selling them to customers in our store ourselves. In order to preserve that customer experience, we may choose to source products from some Brands for sale by Amazon only. Other Brands can operate as sellers in the Amazon store if they can consistently maintain our standards for customer experience. However, to prevent customer confusion, if any of the Brand’s products are sold by Amazon, the Brand may not also sell those products as a seller in the Amazon store.

Amazon measures customer experience in a number of ways, including high in-stock rates, delivery experience, price competitiveness, and selection coverage. Amazon offers several tools and services to help you meet our standards and sell successfully in the Amazon store, including tools for inventory management and automated pricing, fulfillment services like Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), and services to grow and protect your Brand like Brand Registry.

If sellers cannot maintain our standards for customer experience, they might lose certain privileges associated with operating as a seller in the Amazon store (including having their offers featured on product detail pages), or the seller might lose the opportunity to operate as a seller in the Amazon store altogether. In that case, sellers can still offer to sell their products to Amazon so that we can sell them to the customers.

Price Per Unit (PPU) information is used by customers to compare and evaluate products during their shopping journey. Amazon will be implementing the following data requirements for U.S. sellers.

1) Starting June 12, 2019, products sold within the U.S. Consumables product types listed below will require all new listings to include the unit count attribute, which was previously optional. Unit count includes a value (unit_count, e.g. "5") and a unit type (unit_count_type, e.g. "ounce"). The unit type will be restricted to the following units:
- fluid ounce
- ounce
- pound
- gram
- count

2) Data submissions without this information may fail. The scope of this change includes any product-level data submissions, whether through Excel templates, Seller Central, or XSD feeds.

3) Similarly, on June 12 products sold within the same U.S. Consumables product types will also require updates to existing impacted listings to include the unit count attribute. ASINs without unit count information or with invalid values in the unit count type attribute will still require this information when listings are updated. Any updates that do not include this information will be rejected.

The change will apply to the following Consumables product types:

• BEAUTY
• BODY_CARE_PRODUCT
• FRAGRANCE, HAIR_CARE_PRODUCT
• HAIR_REMOVAL_AND_SHAVING_PRODUCT
• LUXURY_BEAUTY
• MAKE_UP, SKIN_CARE_PRODUCT
• HEALTH_MISC
• DAILY_LIVING_AIDS, DIETARY_SUPPLEMENTS
• HEALTH_FOOD, OTC_MEDICATION
• PERSONAL_CARE_APPLIANCE
• SEXUAL_WELLNESS
• BABY_FOOD
• GROCERY

If you supply products for sale on Amazon, you must comply with all federal, state, and local laws and Amazon policies applicable to those products and product listings.

In the United States, a broad range of products are subject to regulation as pesticides and/or pesticide devices, including products that you may not immediately think of as pesticides. Any product or device that is either: (1) intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest, or (2) makes any antimicrobial, antifungal, antibacterial, or pesticide claim (each, a “Pesticide”) must comply with the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (“FIFRA”), including (in most cases) registration with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”). Some common examples of pesticide devices include:

- Ultraviolet Light Units
- Sound Generators
- Insect Traps
- Ground Vibrators
- Water Treatment Units
- Air Treatment Units

EPN: https://www.epa.gov/pesticides

For More detail: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/G202115120(Login required)

Sometimes we are just curious to know the inventory of Hijacker, so we can expect his exit from the listing. Well in this case, here you go.

So, how do you get the stock on hand of the product?

- First, open the product listing of the ASIN you want to get the inventory for.
- For example, let's take Ir Illuminator in USA.
- Open the HTML Source Code of this page. Simply click the [CTRL]+"U" key combination, or use right-mouse-click and select the "View Page Source" menu item.
- Activate the text search function on the HTML source page by clicking the [CTRL]+"F" key combination and search for the word "stockonhand" or "stock".
- If the browser finds the "stockOnHand"/"Stock" word - look for the number next to it. This will be the number of units this product has in stock!

Following our Ir Illuminator example - at the time of record, they were having 9 units in stock.

Amazon has launched "Amazon Live", a live-streaming platform for product demonstrations and one on one shopper seller interactions to further drive online sales.

Reference: Amazon Live

Amazon is getting into the live-streamed home shopping business with Amazon Live, where its sellers and brands can broadcast themselves hawking wares through a new app - Amazon Live Creator.

Amazon has launched "Amazon Live", a live-streaming platform for product demonstrations and one on one shopper seller interactions to further drive online sales.

For more information: Amazon Live

Amazon has introduced a new feature - Brand Dashboard

This dashboard is exclusively available for brands to help manage Brand Health metrics that impact the customer experience.

For more detail Click here.

Amazon launches 'Project Zero' initiative to let brands remove counterfeit listings of their products

Amazon has announced a few new steps to combat fake and counterfeit listings. The e-commerce giant on Thursday debuted 'Project Zero,' an initiative aimed at eliminating the spread of counterfeit items on Amazon.

As part of Project Zero, brands will be able to remove counterfeit listings from the site without Amazon's help.

- Select brands now have the ability to take down suspected counterfeit listings
- Amazon is also using AI to flag listings and serial numbers to authenticate items
- 'Project Zero' is free to join but the serialization service costs a small fee per unit

For more details please click on the link given below,
https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazon-project-zero

Now customers can submit only 5 number of reviews per week on Amazon except the verified purchaser. The count is calculated from Sunday at 12:00 am UTC through Saturday 11: 59 pm UTC.

Customer’s ability to submit Amazon Verified Purchase reviews will not be impacted. This policy also does not apply to Vine reviews or reviews on digital and physical books, music, and video.

Starting February 15, 2019, long-term storage fees will be eliminated for items that have been in a fulfillment center for 181 to 365 days. Long-term storage fees still apply for items that have been in a fulfillment center for more than 365 days. and they have also reduced its fees to $0.50 per unit to $0.15 per unit.

Amazon has announced the following changes for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)

Long term Storage Fees: Starting February 15, 2019, long-term storage fees will be eliminated for items that have been in a fulfillment center for 181 to 365 days. Long-term storage fees still apply for items that have been in a fulfillment center for more than 365 days. and they have also reduced its fees to $0.50 per unit to $0.15 per unit.

Fulfillment fee changes, see US FBA fulfillment fee changes(Login required)

New Bidding strategies in Amazon.co.uk will apply in both Automatic & Manual Campaigns.

You can choose from three bidding strategies. Pick the strategy that works best for your campaign's objective. This setting applies to all bids within your campaign.

For more details, see the Bidding Strategies(Login required)

Bid+ replaced by "Bids by Placement"

Bid+ has been replaced with 'adjust bids by placement’. With Bid+, you could only set a 50% boost for the top of the search (first page) placement. With 'adjust bids by placement', you can set up to a 900% increase for the top of search (first page) as well as for product detail placements. Existing campaigns that used Bid+ are now automatically translated to new settings of bidding strategy = Dynamic bids - down only, and bid increase top of search (first page) = 50%. These campaigns will continue to perform in the same manner as before.