Are You Making These Amazon Listing Policy Mistakes?

There’s arguably nothing more important than getting your product detail page right. A good listing not only convinces a customer that your product is worthy of their investment, it also sets the proper buyer expectations, which can lead to fewer returns, negative reviews, and poor seller feedback. But above all else, a good product page complies with the Amazon listing policy.

Listing policy violations are climbing and causing sellers some serious problems. Many of these issues are avoidable, so let’s dig into the guidelines and identify some of the biggest mistakes that sellers make. We’ll also discuss recent Amazon news that impacts your product pages and why going the extra mile with listing optimization can lead to more success on the marketplace.

Amazon Listing Policy: The Do’s and Don’ts

The Amazon listing policy centers around one thing: giving customers a clear and consistent buying experience. In order to do this, Amazon says you must do certain things and refrain from others. Here are some of the biggest do’s and don’ts to remember in regards to Amazon’s product detail page rules:

Do

• Follow all relevant style guides
• Accurately categorize and describe your items
• Create new pages for new products or versions of a product
• Create valid variations that relate to a primary parent product
• Use capital letters only for the beginning of each word (not ALL CAPS) in the title, bullet points, and description
• Meet all established image guidelines

Don’t:

• Use HTML, JavaScript, or other code
• Have product titles that exceed 200 characters, including spaces
• Place watermarks on images, photos, or videos
• Have any time-sensitive information
• Create more than one page for the same product
• Include obscene or offensive materials, other website links, contact information, details about price, availability, or condition, plot spoilers, advertising, existing reviews, quotes and/or testimonials, or requests for new reviews
  
  

Amazon’s Quick Start Style Guide is the best place to start to get the basics covered. It’s important to note that some products and categories have additional style guides and/or lower title character limits. Product images must also meet certain standards, with additional requirements for select categories.

Top 5 Listing Policy Mistakes

No matter if you’re just getting started or are an established seller, here are some of the most common listing policy mistakes to look out for.

IP Infringements

The Amazon listing policy states that you must not add any details which infringe upon the intellectual property rights of others. There are three types of IP rights that Amazon is concerned with:

• Copyrights, or legal protections for original works of authorship
• Trademarks, or legal protections for any words, symbols, designs (or a combination thereof) that are used by companies to identify their goods or services
• Patents, or legal protections for inventions

IP infringements can cause a whole host of problems, including the loss of your selling privileges and even costly legal issues. Always be wary of your wording and make sure your content isn’t in violation of any IP rights.

Cross-Merchandising or Cross-Promoting Products

The marketplace prohibits you from using a product detail page to cross-merchandise or cross-promote a product. Your Amazon listing must be unique to a single item; you cannot promote other products from your catalog on the page. If you really want to give visibility to your other products, consider adding A+ Content or creating a bundle. There are many ways you can cross-promote products without violating Amazon policy — you just have to get a little creative!

Using an Existing Listing for a New Version of a Product

If you have a new version of a product that includes changes in the item’s name, color, size, material, and features, it’s considered fundamentally different and must have its own listing. (And no, you can’t add the newer version as a variation, either.) We’ve seen plenty of new sellers innocently make this mistake, but it can also be a not-so-sneaky way to try and piggyback off another product’s reviews. Amazon is well aware of this tactic and will absolutely take action.

Looking to build up your product reviews? Find out how FeedbackFive helped these sellers see a 41% increase in average daily reviews

Not Having Valid Variations

Speaking of variations, misuse of ASIN variations is another common listing policy violation that will land you in hot water. First things first, is there a valid parent-child relationship present? Here’s a quick checklist:

1. Are the parent and child products fundamentally the same?
2. Can the items share the same title?
3. Are the items’ differences minor enough that they don’t alter their core use?
4. Can customers reasonably expect to find them together on a single product page?

Once you’ve established (or re-confirmed) that your variations are valid, make sure you add them correctly to Amazon. This can also be the root cause of the error, so follow the directions very carefully.

Rebranding an Existing ASIN

Are you interested in or in the process of rebranding? It’s not as simple as it may seem, but you may already know that by now. If you want to rebrand a product on Amazon, you must create a new ASIN instead of updating the existing one. This still applies even if the product is unbranded and does not undergo any changes except for the brand name.

The Importance of Amazon Listing Optimization

Once you’ve got the basics covered, then it’s time to really make your listing shine. An Amazon listing optimization is one of the best ways to improve search visibility, drive more sales, and even get more reviews.

Colton Ward, Director of Account Management at Buy Box Experts, explains how following Amazon's listing policy creates a solid foundation for successful listing optimization.

If you want to sell your product on Amazon, you NEED to optimize your product listings. The customer needs to see and feel consistent brand messaging to instill the same level of trust they would have had in the store. Following Amazon listing policies will help all sellers achieve this goal of selling on the platform in the best and most seamless process possible.

Colton Ward
Director of Account Management
Buy Box Experts

There’s a lot to consider when you’re optimizing your pages. Are you using Amazon SEO effectively? Is your content optimized for mobile? Are your images and video up to par? Is your A+ Content engaging enough for your audience?

These tasks require a lot of special knowledge and skill, so you definitely want to consider consulting industry professionals like those at Buy Box Experts (formerly Nozani). Check out this webinar that we did with their team to learn more about listing optimization and get some expert tips!

Next Steps: Master the Rules and Monitor Your Account

Be sure to become familiar with all of Amazon’s policies for writing, adding, and editing product detail pages. It’s imperative that you get this information right — Amazon won’t give you too many chances to do so.

You can monitor your policy compliance on the Account Health page in Seller Central (found under the Performance menu). If you receive a warning from Amazon, try to remedy the situation as quickly as possible.

Many of these problems can be avoided by a thorough examination of the guidelines and working with experienced Amazon consultants. If you're looking for a reputable Amazon consultant or service provider, our partners page is an excellent resource! And, as always, if you have any questions about these providers or the Amazon marketplace in general, please don't hesitate to reach out!