Now that I’ve pointed out Google Product Search flaws, it’s time to take a shot at another major internet company. Anyone who’s ever used Amazon Marketplace is aware of the major problems and flaws in not just the Amazon system, but also in tech supports ability to logically answer questions.
Match This
Matching product in Amazon Marketplace is the most frustrating, time consuming, down-right painful experience in the history of internet marketing (ok maybe save selling on eBay…but that’s a story of its own). If you’ve ever tried to do an Amazon feed, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Why is it a problem matching products….let me count the ways. UPC’s, as with Google Product Search, are a big part of the formula for matching on Amazon. What happens when you have multiple ASIN’s (Amazon’s product identifiers) with the same UPC? If there’s two UPC’s, which means the same product with two separate listings, Amazon will almost always reject the product and not list it on either. Amazon then leaves it up to the retailer to completely change their data, whether it’s product name, description, etc., to try to match to one product or the other. Needless to say, Amazon should be fixing their product listings, not forcing a retailer to fit high quality product information to bad data.
Variation Breakage
The variation feature is great when it’s working but pretty bad when not. For those of you familiar with variations, Amazon allows you to add color, count, size, and other options which will all be listed on one ASIN. It seems some departments in Amazon Marketplace work very well with variations so if you have your feed set up correctly, you should see little problem getting it to work. Other departments though seem to be broken with variations matching on wrong products or in some cases; the variation seems to break the feed.
I’ve been told the same UPC can’t have multiple variations, i.e. 1 bottle of shampoo should have a UPC and 2 bottles of the same shampoo should have its own unique UPC. Most manufacturers (or if a retailer does a custom pack size) won’t have unique UPC’s for the same product in a different quantity pack size. Variation count should take over in this instance but Amazon won’t always let that be the case. Color variations can also have these issues with some manufacturers using the same UPC for one product and not every color of the same product.
Product Information
If matching products isn’t bad enough, another problem at Amazon is incorrect data. Amazon Marketplace is rife with old pictures, wrong UPC’s on products, bad product descriptions, and incorrect specifications. A search doesn’t take long to find refurbished product listed with full manufacturer warranties (normally reserved for new product), consumer products with old packaging for the picture, or almost any other type of merchandising issue. You would think Amazon, the king of internet retailing, would have enough department managers or merchandising management, who would be able to keep their site clean.
Tech Support
Don’t get me wrong, Amazon support is good to great 95% of the time but it seems when you have an advanced problem, they crumble under the pressure, or worse, don’t seem to care. Anytime an issue escalates beyond a simple fix, i.e. general feed issues, small matching problems, etc., it seems Amazon tech support has a problem getting the problem solved.
They’re especially troublesome when you point out flaws in their system. On more than a few occasions, Amazon support has been shown a flaw in how feeds are matched to products in various categories and on nearly every occasion, the tech(s) replied with generic responses that in no way made sense in response to the facts presented.
At the end of the day, Amazon Marketplace is a good place to be if you have the margin or aren’t concerned with Amazon borrowing your sales data to enhance their own product lineup but be aware of the many headaches that will arise with getting your products into their system.
P.S. It’s not a great new client acquisition vehicle either since you can’t market to Amazon customers so really it’s an expensive sales driver but at least it’s not a joke like Groupon, Living Social, and other social shopping/daily deals sites.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Are you saying a local mom and pop must match the UPC of a major retailer in order to display pic and price on an app like Shop Savvy? If not, how else can a local small business match their UPC product data for name and/or price comparion?
In some cases yes…a major retailer will use their own UPC’s for products and if they rank high for that product, you’ll need to use their UPC to link your listing with theirs.
For example, UPC 300054498601 is for the Centrum Specialist Complete Multivitamin: Heart, Tablets, 60 Ea.
CVS though uses their own UPC, 30005449860, for the exact same product. If Amazon ranks the CVS product at the top of their search results, every retailer would have to use the CVS UPC to be matched up correctly.