Amazon is cracking down on bulk review hoarding and abuse of variants!

Recently, Amazon US launched a campaign to severely crack down on users who violated the Vine program and banned stores! This news caught many sellers off guard and shocked them.

Many sellers suddenly received news that their stores were closed without any prior notice, and the reason for the closure was: abuse of the Vine review system and repeated creation of product variants.

The seller conducted a store inspection, and the results showed that he was involved in serious misconduct: namely, creating a large number of duplicate ASINs with the intention of improperly utilizing and maximizing the free review resources of the Vine program.

The core of this store closure incident lies in the sellers’ abuse of the Vine program, manipulation of variant settings, and duplicate creation of ASINs. These behaviors directly touched the two strict boundaries set by Amazon:

Triggering of Vine's hidden rules:

Although Amazon provides each parent ASIN with the opportunity to get 2 Vine reviews for free, there is an undisclosed rule that prohibits sellers from reusing this free quota by splitting variants, merging variants, or other means. In this incident, the seller clearly violated this hidden clause.

Upgrades to variant abuse detection technology:

Amazon's variant abuse detection algorithm has been significantly enhanced, and its review traceability system can deeply track and identify those who abuse Vine reviews by merging previous ASINs. At the same time, variant fingerprint recognition technology has become more advanced, and can accurately detect the existence of cloned ASINs through the comparison of information such as titles and pictures, thereby effectively combating variant abuse.

Simply put, this store closure storm was the result of three violations: Vine abuse + variant operation abuse + ASIN duplicate creation , which touched Amazon's red line.

1. Data segmentation and adjustment: If other sellers are found to have similar non-compliant operations, immediate measures should be taken to disassociate all variants involving Vine reviews to avoid potential risks.

2. Comply with regulations when participating in the Vine program: If you need to obtain reviews, you should consider using compliant methods, such as participating in the Vine program across sites, which is currently allowed by Amazon.

3. Strictly control variant management: When creating and managing variants, ensure that the differences between the sub-products under the same parent are moderate, and limit the number of adjustments to the variant structure per month, which is recommended to be no more than 2 times. Given that Amazon often conducts post-reviews, sellers need to plan ahead and actively avoid possible risks.

Finally, Amazon has intensified its supervision, but Ant still says: As sellers, we must plan ahead to avoid damage to our stores due to illegal operations. To achieve long-term and stable profits, following the principle of compliant operations is the key!