Amazon Competitor Sabotage: What to Watch for in Q4

As Amazon sellers, you’re probably all too familiar with the intensity of competition during everyday sales, let alone during peak months. The holiday months bring sales bumps, but they also carry heightened scrutiny by Amazon’s automation bots and aggressive maneuvers (of all kinds) by unscrupulous sellers.

Protecting yourself from Amazon competitor sabotage and attacks is not just a precaution you MAY need to take—it's a necessity. Such attacks could be particularly damaging if you fail to anticipate them in advance, so why not plan ahead, just in case?

At ecommerceChris, we’ve seen all the tricks and tactics that competitors use to knock you off your game. While some illicit methods recede into the background, others come at you out of nowhere. Amazon sellers must be on high alert during high sales periods like Q4. Knowing how to defend yourself effectively is crucial to maintaining your business's integrity and profitability, and to keep you focused on selling – not emergencies.

7 Common Amazon Competitor Attacks

Here are the top seven competitor attacks to watch out for this peak season and strategies for how to defend yourself effectively.

1. Backend Keyword Abuse

Backend keyword abuse is still a common, if now better understood, tactic used by black hat competitors to sabotage your listings. It involves inserting inappropriate or misleading keywords into your backend search term fields, often without your detection. Illicit ASIN contributions by unauthorized parties happen consistently, even in an age when Amazon can identify these very easily.

Such abuse could result in your listings getting flagged for policy violations. ASIN suspensions are common, especially where the words added indicate illegal substances and trademarked terms. In extreme cases, the whole account goes down.

What to Watch For:

Unexplained performance notifications that you’ve never seen before, indicating immediate changes are required for your detail pages prior to a deactivation.
Unexpected policy warnings or listing suppressions that ask you for compliance or testing documentation that has nothing to do with your type of product.
Sudden changes in search term rankings, or a sudden category change.

Preventive Measures:

Regularly audit your backend keywords, via automation and manually, as a backup.
Use software tools like SellerPulse to monitor changes to your listings.
Educate your team about the importance of compliance and proper keyword usage. Stop mistakes in their tracks, before an ASIN takedown happens!
Make sure you don’t overreach on listing optimization attempts to boost your sales rank with terms that will get you auto-suspended, or worse!
Get ready to research and report abuse by competitors or any illicit actors.

2. Detail Page Content Manipulation

Another prevalent attack involves editing or directly changing your detail page content. Competitors may:

1. Add prohibited wording or trademarked title terms.
2. Upload inappropriate images to replace your previous photos.
3. Contribute misleading information to detail pages that serves to confuse buyers about what’s included, or what the product does or doesn’t do.
4. Trigger Amazon's automated systems to flag and suppress your products by duping catalog teams into making incorrect/inaccurate product description changes.

What to Watch For:

Unusual modifications to product titles, bullet points, or descriptions, including changes of names of the brand (from yours) or insertion of well-known brands to attract Amazon’s bots working to prevent Intellectual Property violations.
Inaccurate or inappropriate images appearing on your listings.
Any attempt to weave in misworded phrases or confuse buyers with language unrelated to your particular product

Preventive Measures:

Set up alerts to notify you of any changes to your detail page titles and images.
Keep detailed flat file records of your original content to replace bad content fast, and to discourage future unauthorized changes.
Maintain a regular schedule for reviewing your listings and designate a specific agency employee or internal staffer to monitor changes/execute plans to respond quickly, beyond the basics of seller support or Account Health calls.
Be ready to contact Abuse Prevention teams inside Amazon with details, and be prepared to follow up if they don’t reply or don’t understand what happened!

3. Illicit Purchases to Submit Negative Feedback

Competitors may buy your products with the sole intent of finding faults and reporting them to Amazon. This can include claims of expired products, safety issues, or condition defects. If not addressed properly, such activity can lead to potential ASIN suspensions or even account takedowns.

What to Watch For:

Work to identify consistent patterns of negative reviews or complaints that sound alike – and collate them in an organized sheet for presentation to Amazon.
Monitor multiple returns or reports from a single buyer/analyze buyer history.
Keep detailed records of prior bad buyer accounts/previous similar attacks.

Preventive Measures:

Investigate any suspicious activity, especially any clusters of bad buying.
Implement quality control measures to ensure product consistency and don’t assume any bad review or comment means you’re under attack!
Address legitimate customer concerns promptly to prevent additional bad comments or further review by Amazon teams.

4. Fake Review Campaigns

Some sellers have perfected the art of creating fake social media accounts, bogus company pages, or product review groups to generate the illusion that you’re abusing Amazon policies. These campaigns could mislead Amazon policy investigators into believing that you are manipulating your sales rank and/or positive review count– by encouraging buyers to visit pages for free items, discounts, or other promotional benefits.

What to Watch For:

Sudden influxes of positive or suspiciously glowing reviews, almost overnight.
Comments on product reviews citing great offers or giveaways online or on social media. Anything that may look like they’re trying to get the attention of policy teams.
Sudden performance notifications citing Amazon’s detection of abusive behaviors that led to the deletion of a large number of new positive reviews.

Preventive Measures:

Use Amazon's built-in reporting tools to flag suspicious reviews, with the intention to follow up if you get ignored.
Regularly search for and report fake social media accounts or groups spreading false information about your products. Google search your products and company name to see if anyone has created a fake page for your brand.
When pushing Amazon to delete fake positives, cite the pages created by competitors or by black hat agencies and indicate the accurate, real links to your company or brand website.

5. Reports of IP Claims

False intellectual property (IP) claims can be particularly damaging. If you’re facing bogus complaints, it’s crucial to have all necessary documentation ready and to be set to dispute anything baseless that unscrupulous competitors or their attorneys throw your way.

Steps to Take:

Proof of Authenticity: Document your products’ authenticity and supply chain or sourcing thoroughly. This helps prove your products are genuine and not infringing on any IP rights.
Authorization Letters: Obtain letters of authorization from the rights owners, if you’re selling another brand’s products. These letters should be on company letterhead and clearly state that you have permission to sell the products.
Counter Notices: Work with a seasoned IP attorney to file DMCA counter notices if you’re hit with fake copyright complaints. Those are trendy attack methods every Q4, although your attacker may wait until Black Friday to do it.
Be prepared with a strategy and pre-written IP dispute appeal, expecting that you’ll face this type of listing takedown sooner rather than later. Better safe than sorry!

6. Effective Abuse Reporting

And when you reinstate your listing and recover from each attack, make sure you report it to Abuse Prevention teams, if only to document it in case it happens again. Most sellers forget about that and skip this step once their listings are back up and the crisis ends. That’s the worst possible decision you can make, as without the proper motivation, Amazon may forget about it, too! That may come back and haunt you.

When reporting abuse to Amazon, ensure your report is detailed and well-structured.

Steps to Take:

Introduce the Issue: Clearly explain the problem you are facing, the origin of the attack, the damage it created, and what you’ve tried to do to fix it. Be direct and to the point.
Financial Impact: Detail how much money you’ve lost due to this, and how much you’re scheduled to lose over the next days or weeks if it remains unresolved. Quantifying the impact underscores the seriousness of the situation.
Actions Taken: Describe what steps you’ve taken so far to resolve the issue or where else you’ve reported it– for example, seller support cases or catalog teams or even to your SAS core rep if you have a paid account manager. Lay out the dates and times you contacted those teams. Attach any generic, canned replies.
Timeline and Proof: Emphasize (using a bulleted timeline) how prior efforts failed to produce results, and indicate that you will escalate it via email (or otherwise) if internal teams continue to ignore you.
Escalation: Clearly state what action you want Amazon to take now and where you’ll be reporting or escalating it next, whether it’s a reinstatement of an ASIN, actions to be taken against a repeat abuser, or anything else pertinent.

Tired of Trying Yourself? How to Hire the Right Kind of Help

Choosing the right third-party services can make a significant difference in managing and defending your Amazon account. Avoid ineffective or questionable services by doing your homework and making a decision not just on one appeal, but strategy.

Steps to Take:

Research Thoroughly: Look beyond the sales pitch. Investigate the service provider’s track record and understand how your fee will be spent. Don’t just rely on review sites! They are notorious for allowing padded reviews.
End Bad Practices: Ensure any bad business practices are stopped before Amazon intervenes. Prevention is better than dealing with punitive actions later.
Understand marketplace enforcement and realistic claims. Often, services over-promise and under deliver. Don’t make an apples-to-oranges comparison with a friend or colleague’s situation, which may or may not match yours. And don’t use any templates – Amazon has seen, and ignored, them all before.

7. Escalating Your Abuse Report

Understand from the outset that if initial attempts to resolve the issue fail, you have to escalate abuse to get Amazon to care. You may need to escalate it multiple times, to different levels of executive ranks, or even to different teams. This involves a more detailed and assertive approach.

Steps to Take:

Detailed Evidence: Include all relevant information and proof of abuse in your escalation. Ensure nothing is left out that could support your case!
Focus on Failures: Highlight how Amazon’s processes have failed to address the issue despite your efforts to report it. This shows that the problem lies beyond your control – but within theirs. They need to act!
Cost Impact: Explain (again) the financial impact and how it has damaged your business. This adds weight to your case and helps them to understand that you won’t be going away anytime soon, nor will you give up.

By staying alert to these common Amazon competitor sabotage methods and following the above steps, you can effectively protect and defend your account, which helps ensure a smooth, profitable holiday season.

At ecommerceChris, we’re dedicated to helping you navigate these challenges with confidence and expertise. Stay informed, take action, and safeguard your business every step of the way, to make the most of your peak holiday sales!