The Importance of Merging or Removing Duplicate Amazon Listings
October 4, 2019
Establishing and maintaining a solid brand image may be difficult to achieve, but it can be done through brand consistency across all selling platforms. Ensuring that product description, key selling points, pricing, and imagery are the same – no matter what platform the product is viewed on or who the seller is – helps to create brand familiarity among consumers and also encourages ethical business practices for the brand, manufacturer, and their resell partners.
One practice that can be quite detrimental to brands (and is in violation of Amazon’s Terms & Conditions) is creating duplicate Amazon listings that sell the same product. Sometimes, unauthorized or rogue sellers – product resellers who buy products in bulk from manufacturers and resell them well below the manufacturer’s established minimum advertised price (MAP) – often create duplicate listings on Amazon to enhance their positioning on search engine results pages, thereby increasing their chances of a sale, while undermining the legitimate sales efforts of the brand and authorized resellers. Other times, sellers simply don’t take the time to research the UPC code for a specific product to find out if an original listing already exists.
There are a few important reasons that brand owners should ensure that there are no duplicate listings on Amazon, such as:
- Enhance Brand Consistency: Duplicate listings create brand inconsistencies that can contain varying descriptions, key selling points, pricing and imagery. As the brand owner, you want to have control over the messaging and sales efforts to better influence potential consumers.
- Maximize Sales Potential: Sellers want to make money, plain and simple. If there are duplicate listings and/or rogue sellers, this creates competition within the brand and can dilute sales for the brand, manufacturer and authorized resellers, which may ultimately lead to decreased sales and profits.
- Consolidate Product Reviews: One important factor that affects product rank are product reviews. If reviews are spread amongst multiple listings – especially a duplicate listing that advertises a legitimate brand and product but sells a counterfeit version of that product – it can negatively affect brand image and sales.
Finding duplicate listings can be extremely difficult and, once found, it can be equally as difficult to merge these listings into one product listing or have the rogue listing removed from the Amazon marketplace. Depending on the size of the brand and how many duplicate listings there are, merging a single duplicate into the proper listing can take a while, as Amazon needs to process and validate the request.
ZQUARED helps to streamline this process by identifying duplicate listings and filing a grievance with Amazon. If Amazon does not approve the listing merge, ZQUARED is able to contact our Amazon account representative who can help to isolate specific issues and then work within Amazon’s team to get them resolved. When working with our account representative, we are able to thoroughly explain the product identifiers so that they can easily identify the duplicate listings, as well as the proper listing to merge with. This collaboration brings about faster, more effective results for our clients!
For more information on how ZQUARED can help ensure your brand’s consistency by removing duplicate listings, contact ZQUARED today at 234.978.2733.
About ZQUARED
Our company was born from a service mindset. Our passion is helping you navigate the online retail space in a way never before imagined. With years of industry-leading experience selling on Amazon, our team’s primary goal is helping you achieve success. We have solutions for managing all aspects of the Amazon platform: design, fulfillment, product listings, enhanced brand content, headline and sponsored ads, MAP violations, and even social media marketing. Though understanding all aspects of this sales channel can be overwhelming, we break down every aspect of your brand and what you will need to increase sales on Amazon.