There will come a time in the lives of Amazon third-party sellers when their product listings will mysteriously disappear from the marketplace. The Amazon Standard Identification Number may still appear on the inventory section of the Seller Central account, but the actual product listing page is no longer displayed to shoppers.
When your ASINs apparently go missing from the Amazon Marketplace, there could be many reasons why this happens. Let’s look at three of the most common reasons shoppers can no longer find your products:
You Are Trying to Sell Restricted Products
Even though the process of creating a new ASIN is supposed to catch restricted products, there may be situations when you are able to complete the process and the product will be listed for a few days until you notice it has been suppressed.
One example would be a crafts kit to make floating Chinese lanterns, which for some reason cannot be stored in the Fulfillment by Amazon center. The system may allow the ASIN to be created until FBA center employees receive your inventory and move to suppress your ASIN. Keep in mind that since you are selling a crafts kit and not a lantern, you may still be able to sell it on your own instead of using the FBA service.
Intellectual Property Issues
This situation is a bit tricky for sellers who offer accessories in the automotive and consumer electronics categories. Let’s say you sell decorative clocks that can be installed on the dashboard of Chrysler Crossfire vehicles; if you include the make and model in your product description when creating the ASIN, there is a chance that it will eventually be flagged for an intellectual property violation.
In this case, you should open a case with Seller Support to figure out the best way to compose your product description without infringing upon intellectual property. It is more common to run into these issues in the electronics category, particularly if you sell protective covers for mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets.
Hijacked ASINs
This is the most problematic reason why your ASINs may become suppressed. When Amazon customer service representatives start receiving multiple complaints from shoppers about mismatched orders or counterfeit products, they will quickly move to suppress those ASINs, and this is something that happens to sellers unaware that their product listings were being targeted by unauthorized sellers.
While it is fairly easy to explain this situation to Seller Support for the purpose of reinstating the suppressed ASINs, there is a greater problem insofar as lost sales and tarnished reputation.
This is where Brandlox comes into play
The best measure to avoid hijacked ASINs is to use an online loss prevention system that notifies you whenever unauthorized sellers try to latch on to your product listings, and this is what Brandlox can do for you.
Brandlox is a subscription service that constantly monitors your ASINs and sends you notifications as soon as another seller tries to piggyback on your listings without your permission. You can choose to receive these notifications on your smartphone so that you can take immediate action.
Aside from sending you ASIN alerts and notifications, Brandlox also provides you with useful tools such as cease-and-desist letters and test purchases that you can use against counterfeiters to get them removed from the Amazon Marketplace.
Seeing your ASINs suppressed because of hijackers is the last thing you want for your Amazon e-commerce venture. To prevent this from happening, you need the solid protection that Brandlox provides. Learn more about this online loss prevention service by subscribing today.
