Suppressed listings are challenging at the best of times and especially with Amazon Seller Central. I have virtually found that helping a seller get their Amazon presence right usually takes a considerable amount of time. It feels super frustrating to see your listing disappear from the search results all of a sudden. Not just the sales, the Amazon suppressed listing might damage your brand name. The good news is that if you get this right, it can actually be surprisingly easy to identify and resolve such problems.
Back to Basics: What is Amazon Suppressed Listings?
The first thing to know is what an Amazon suppressed listings actually are. An Amazon suppressed listing is effectively one that Amazon has removed from the search because it doesn't meet their requirements. This results from either incomplete or incorrect product detail page information, listing policy violations of Amazon, or even just because some images have not been attached. Amazon strives to give the best experience to each customer, and a part of that is making sure that all listings meet certain quality standards.
For example, the title may exceed the allowed length or have too many promotional words, the images may be of poor quality, some information such as dimensions or names are missing, etc. According to a report by Marketplace Pulse, up to 15% of a seller's listings may be suppressed at any one moment in time. This doesn't sound like a lot, but compared with the size of the actual catalog, it's a really big number of products.
Step 1: Identifying Amazon Suppressed Listings
The very first step to fixing Amazon suppressed listings is, of course, identifying them. Amazon does make this pretty easy within the dashboard of Seller Central. However, I have seen that too many sellers miss this critical step, either because they are not checking on their account often enough or they simply do not know where to look.
Following is how you can identify the suppressed listings in Amazon Seller Central:
- Sign in to Seller Central: Once you are on the inside, go to 'Inventory' tab.
- Manage Inventory: Once on this tab you will be presented with so many options. Click on 'Manage Inventory', and this is the page where you will find all your active listings.
- Suppressed Listings: Generally, on this page, there is a filter or notification showing a suppressed one. If there is an Amazon suppressed listing, the suppression reason will be shown by Amazons.
In my experience, this area should be monitored on a regular basis. It is tempting to think everything is fine and dandy, but a quick peek at your Amazon suppressed listings can nip small problems in the bud before they grow into giant headaches. According to research by Feedvisor, customers working to identify and actively work on the reduction or resolution of their suppressed listings have experienced between 10-15% of sales lift post-suppressed card resolution
Step 2: Analyze the Suppression Causation
Once you have found the Amazon suppressed listings, check for the reason they have been suppressed. Amazon provides a reason for each of the suppressions, but understanding these reasons and how to resolve them is what gets complicated. Here are some common reasons for Amazon listings being suppressed:
Probably the most common problems are missing/incomplete product information. This can be as simple as not including the brand name or having an incomplete product description.
- Image Issues: Amazon has strict guidelines when it comes to product images. If your images are low resolution, or if the main image doesn't show the product on a white background, your listing could get suppressed.
- High-Volume Title Violations: This can include titles that are too long or contain promotional language, as well as those in ALL CAPS. Accompanying this are pricing errors—Amazon may suppress your price if it finds you are charging far more than other listings.
In my opinion, what matters most therefore is awareness of Amazon's guidelines and ensuring to implement them down to the minute detail. That single minute detail may seem very insignificant. However, it is these trivial details that determine the fate of your listing whether it is going to be supressed or not.
Step 3: Correcting Amazon Suppressed Listings
Now that you know the reason for the suppression of your listing, it is time to remediate. This is the most critical step and requires attention to detail with a strong understanding of Amazon's listing policies.
Here's a step-by-step approach to fixing Amazon suppressed listings:
- Fix the Data: Begin with fixing the exact problem or reasons as to why Amazon gave the suppression. If it's a missing brand name, then fill in the brand name. If it's the cause of too poor quality of the image, then upload a high-resolution image. All should be in alignment with guidelines given by Amazon.
- Get Your Listings Fixed with Amazon's Listing Creation Service: If you are unsure of how to get the fix done for the issue, or you want to make sure your listings are at par with all parameters of Amazon, you could enlist the help of an Amazon listing creation service. These services are specialized in creating listings that follow all the rules and are crafted to avoid suppression.
- Review and Submit: After making your alterations, make sure to go over your listing. Make sure that the required fields got the proper information and that the requirements for images, title, and descriptions are according to Amazon's specifications. Then submit the listing for approval.
- So the key here is to keep patient: Sometimes, the review system through Amazon will take a few days, and it's also not uncommon to get more feedback—let's say a round or two of adjustments—for the listing.
My best advice: stay persistent, and it's for the best to keep tweaking and adjusting until that listing is in the clear.
Step 4: Avoiding Amazon Suppressed Future Listings
You don't want to incur the hassle of identification and fixing of the Amazon suppressed listings only to face the same problems all over again. Prevention is always the best cure, and hence you can take several steps to minimize the chances that your listings would be suppressed in the future.
- Keep Up with Amazon's Policies: Amazon changes its listing policies quite frequently, and it would be important to keep abreast of such changes. Getting into the routine of checking Amazon's policies for sellers would not hurt.
- Automated Listing Monitoring: Try to take maximum advantage of third-party tools that could keep a watch on your listings without human intervention. You would be informed in advance of such suppression with automated listing monitoring. Tools like Helium 10 and Jungle Scout can perform such actions.
- Ongoing Audits: Consider auditing your listings from time to time to ensure they all comply with Amazon's set guidelines. It is more crucial when you have a larger 'inventory' or are adding newer products from time to time.
These proactive steps not only help prevent suppressions but will also have improved your listings' quality, hence visibility and more sales. According to Sellics, sellers doing regular listing audits decrease the number of Amazon suppressed listings by 20% over time.
Key Takeaways
As we conclude our deep-dive into the steps to identify and correct Amazon Seller Central suppressed issues, we maintain the visibility of the listings, which is considered characteristic of longevity on this platform. So, here are three key takeaways to help you navigate these challenges:
- Proactive Monitoring: Keep checking your Amazon Seller Central dashboard for listings that might have been suppressed and make necessary right corrections immediately to avoid the potential loss of sales.
- In-Depth Review and Lightning Fast Corrections: Always know why your products are being suppressed, whether it's a lack of product information, poor image quality, violating titles, among others, and make corrections there and then.
- Avoid Suppressions: Stay appraised of the changing guidelines at Amazon, use tools for automated monitoring, and regular audits, which can make sure you are never being suppressed in the future and listings are optimized.
The following were the key strategies used to make sure your Amazon listings remain active and compliant enough to reach the target audience: Share in the comments below if you have faced the issues or have some valuable insight on this.
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