FTC's Latest Move Sends a Clear Message Against Amazon Reviews Hacking
There's never a dull moment when it comes to Amazon and Amazon sellers. This time, it's all about the Federal Trade Commission. For the very first time in their history, they are cracking down on Amazon review hacking.
The FTC has taken action against a supplement marketer known as The Bountiful Company for abusing Amazon's features to deceive customers. They have fined them a whopping $600,000.
The FTC has accused Bountiful of using review hijacking, a tactic they claim is deceptive, to merge its newly introduced supplements on Amazon with well-established products that had more product ratings, reviews, and badges to create an impression of higher product ratings and reviews, as well as "Amazon's Choice" and "Best Seller" badges.
The tricky thing about this decision from FTC for Amazon sellers is that some things that we never thought were illegal are now deemed illegal by the commission. Some of these aren't even against Amazon's TOS.
Bountiful took advantage of Amazon's feature that allows vendors to create variation relationships between similar products that differ only in narrow, specific ways such as color, size, quantity, or flavor.
Products with a variation relationship share the same product detail page on Amazon.com and appear as alternative choices, so shoppers can compare and choose among similar products.
They used this loophole to create numerous variation relationships for their new supplement products with different formulations.
But according to the FTC, this practice has no place in the ecommerce space. It's a misrepresentation whose only purpose is malicious intent to deceive customers through false claims.
To unpack what this means for Amazon sellers, I am joined by Shannon Roddy.
Key Takeaways
- The case against Bountiful (01:51)
- Legitimate and illegitimate variations of Amazon listings (04:20)
- Amazon's responsibility to warn sellers (10:21)
- How Amazon can provide listing transparency to customers in their platform (13:03)
- Why the FTC is looking to clean up reviews for ecommerce platforms (18:17)
- The issue of product reviews on Amazon (20:58)
Additional Resources:
Article in question
-------
- Schedule a FREE consultation with the Ave7 team
- Grab the FREE Amazon Seller Central Checklist
- Get the book “The Amazon Jungle” book by Jason Boyce
- Learn more about Avenue 7 Media
----
Day 2 Podcast has a goal of helping Amazon sellers learn how to launch, grow and protect their brand on the world's largest online marketplace (and beyond).
Follow us on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode!