MGR eCommerce Edge Weekly | May 12, 2021
Top News This Week
Amazon’s Cracking Down on Rule Breakers Big & Small
Amazon has blocked several large Chinese merchants for alleged “suspicious behavior”, in a move that industry insiders said is part of a targeted crackdown on questionable business practices sellers on the platform, including those based in China.
Two of the larger sellers who are currently banned from Amazon are Aukey & Mpow, both of whom do 9 figures or more in sales on Amazon annually. There is no official word on why they were banned, but it is almost certainly due to them being caught using ‘black-hat’ practices like buying fake reviews, inflating false sales numbers, and more.
Review and web traffic manipulation is a long-standing issue facing Amazon platforms, but the problem is not an easy one to solve.
Amazon has been working for years to fight the problem, having banned “incentivized reviews” since 2016.
In its 2020 Brand Protection Report, released on Monday, Amazon said it had spent over US$700 million and employed more than 10,000 people to crack down on fraud and abuse.
Amazon has made the message very clear, they don’t care how big or small you are, if you break their rules they will bring down the hammer on you.
