A Guide to Competitor Attacks

If you’re selling a successful brand on the Amazon platform, you need to accept the harsh truth sooner rather than later: A Competitor Will Attack You.

Every seller with a top selling brand has a bullseye on their back – competing sellers want to replace you, and they’ll take every shot they can think of to successfully knock you out of the race.

Unfortunately, there are still far too many gaps in Amazon’s systems that allow these competitor wars to continue. Unless the platform finds a way to patch up those gaps once and for all, these attacks will keep happening – and it’s the most successful sellers who remain the most valuable targets. Your competitors love to take shots at the top.?

Here’s the good news: there are strategies you can implement to reduce your risk of falling victim to a competitor attack, and there are also methods you can apply rapidly if and when an attack does happen to you.

Of course, there are always new additions to the list of competitor attack methods. For now, though, we’ll jump into some of the most common methods of attack -- along with both proactive and reactive methods you can deploy to defend your brand.

Types of Attacks

• False IP Complaints. Intellectual property is powerful for brand owners – unfortunately, it’s powerful for sellers who want to sabotage a competitor as well. False IP claims are one of the most common methods used to take down a competitor’s listing.??
• Changing listing content to contain restricted words. This is another common form of sabotage that can be done through a variety of different methods. Here’s a fact about the Amazon catalog that surprises many sellers: anyone can list your ASIN and change the contributions, even if you have brand registry. Brand registry is powerful, but it’s not an all-encompassing shield that prevents competitor attacks. Through an ever-evolving list of black hat techniques, a competing seller can still successfully change your product’s ingredients list to “Ketamine, Codeine, Psilocybin, Chloroform, Peyote. China White” – and if you want your ASIN reinstated, the burden of proof lies on you.???

• Changing listing content to contain the competitors’ trademark. This is a clever and yet particularly nasty trick. We’ve seen many attacks that happen because a listing has been changed by a competitor to contain the competitor’s own trademark. Once the competitor successfully changes the listing content to include their trademark, they report the listing they just sabotaged – for violating their intellectual property.? Outrageously enough, that complaint that says you’ve infringed upon their IP is technically valid.?
• Changing a Competitor’s Listing from International Marketplaces. Here’s the scenario: you sell in the US only. Your best selling ASIN gets blocked, but Amazon tells you nothing has been changed on the back end. So, what happened? Ask the associate to take a look at Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, and Amazon.mx. If you’ve listed the affected ASIN on Amazon.com only, it’s possible that your competitor listed it on an international marketplace and added prohibited keywords from those platforms.
• Bombarding listing with 1-stars. This is a well-known method that’s fairly simple to accomplish – what’s the fastest way to make a competing ASIN tank? Review manipulation, of course. Amazon tightened the rules and added more severe repercussions for review manipulation in November 2021, but it’s still easy to buy fake reviews – and review service providers don’t care if a seller places an order to boost their own products or to destroy someone else’s. On a daily basis, top-selling ASINs get bombarded with negative reviews, which causes a huge drop in sales and sometimes even a suspended ASIN.?

• Bombarding listing with 5-stars. Essentially the opposite of the notorious “One Star Attack”, we’ve seen competitors get a little more creative and bombard a competing ASIN with positive reviews instead of negative reviews. This can cause that ASIN to get review blocked, trigger a warning for the brand owner of the affected ASIN, or even cause a full-blown account suspension. ?
• Ordering all of the units in a competitors’ inventory, causing them to go out of stock and drop in rank. If your competitor is committed enough to causing your demise, they can order every single unit you have in stock from several different fake buyer accounts. This causes you to lose your page one ranking almost immediately – going out of stock is one of the best ways to demolish any and all momentum your ASIN currently has.?
• Listing a competitors’ product on another channel at a higher or lower price. Amazon issues pricing violations based on an automated system. If your competitor lists your product on Walmart.com at a much lower price than you have it listed at on Amazon, Amazon’s algorithm will pick that up and hit your account with a violation for price gouging.?

Of course, there are always new additions to the list of competitor attack methods. We’ll continue to provide updates when we hear about more methods of sabotage. For now, though, we’ll jump into some of the most effective ways to prevent this from happening to you, and the quickest ways to resolve these issues if they do occur.??

Preventing Attacks: Proactive Methods

Proactive strategies are absolutely essential for Amazon brand owners who’ve been blessed with massive success. As we said earlier, your competitors will always take shots at the top. If you’re a highly successful Amazon seller, you have a bullseye on your back.?

With a few innovative proactive methods, you’ll reduce the visibility of that bullseye and keep yourself better protected from competitors.?

1. Activate Your ASINs on International Marketplaces. If you don’t sell in Canada and don’t ever plan to start, we recommend listing your branded ASINs on Amazon.ca at zero quantity. Here’s why: if your ASINs are completely absent from international marketplaces, your competitors can add them with malicious contributions. This can impact your active offers on the marketplaces you do sell on.?

2. Use an FNSKU instead of a UPC. For your brand registered ASINs, it is typically safer to use an FNSKU than a UPC. This allows Amazon to identify your physical products and associate them with your product listings if a competitor attempts to send your branded product into FBA. When you use an FNSKU as the identifier, there will never be any question as to whether it was you or your competitor who sent in a particular physical product – an FNSKU is unique to your seller account only.

3. Document EVERY Instance of a Possible Attack. As a seasoned operator, you likely know when something simply seems “off” – and on the Amazon platform, you’re probably right. Every time you sense a competitor attempting to harm your brand and your product listings, document it both for yourself and with Amazon through your case log. For your personal records, keep an ongoing list of every single event that may possibly indicate signs of an attack: dates, policy warnings, case IDs, suspicious patterns in your order reports, random minor changes to your listings, unusual trends in feedback or product reviews, and anything else you observe.?

This ongoing list will be one of your most powerful weapons when you need to work with Amazon to resolve a full-blown competitor attack. If you can show a pattern of suspicious activity, it is much clearer to Amazon that you are a victim of marketplace abuse and not a seller simply breaking the rules.

Report every instance of marketplace abuse aimed at your brand to Amazon, even if it seems minor. These reports create a paper trail that Amazon can refer to later on if your listing ends up getting blocked due to an attack.?

Resolving Attacks: Reactive Methods

Even when you’ve implemented every single proactive method possible, attacks still happen. Here’s when you must utilize the most powerful reactive strategies to counter the harm of an attack and get your listings back up and running as quickly as possible.?

It’s crucially important to keep your emotions OUT of your case log. We’ve seen it happen countless times and even been guilty of it ourselves – yes, Amazon’s system is causing your business major losses. No, it’s not fair that you’ve been the victim of an attack and still need to appeal to Amazon to get your ASINs back. Regardless, what you’ll need to focus on is the data: measurable, tangible, and clear-cut proof that the claims made by your competitors are entirely false.?

When you’ve been attacked and need to deploy the best reactive strategies to de-escalate the situation immediately, make use of the methods we’ve outlined here for the most effective and efficient resolution.?

1. Report the Attack Right Away.?Before you submit an appeal, it’s best to document the attack with Amazon as an instance of Marketplace Abuse for several important reasons. First off, when you’ve reported the attack to Amazon already, your appeal will be expedited and reviewed more quickly than if you skip this step. Second, the case you submit stating that your brand has been attacked adds to the “paper trail” we referred to earlier – if you’re attacked again in the future, the reinstatement process will be expedited further, due to a history of targeted abuse towards your brand.?

How to Report an Attack

Open a case from seller central and provide the details about the current situation. The crucial points you must include in your case are: dates, links, direct excerpts from Amazon’s policies that have been violated by the competitor, and a clear request for Amazon to document this instance of marketplace abuse.

Below, we’ve included a template that can be used for reporting attacks that can be customized as needed for your unique situation:

—---------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Team:

[Description of Abuse, Dates]

[Explanation of the proof you’re showing]

[Exactly what actions you’re requesting Amazon takes]

[URLs, Screenshots, etc.]

—---------------------------------------------------------------

2. Submit Documents and Information Before Amazon Requests Them.?For example’s sake, let’s say your competitor has altered your listing content to include a restricted ingredient. Now, you need to show proof that your product does not actually contain methamphetamine salts, or whatever outrageous content has been added to your ASIN. Keep the following documents and? files on hand, and when you have been attacked, submit them to Amazon right after you’ve reported the situation of marketplace abuse:

• Purchase Invoice. The invoice should be dated within the last 180 days and account for all of your sales within that time frame.?
• Documentation Showing the Ingredients or Materials in Your Product. For the example situation of a restricted ingredient in a consumable item, you’ll need a Certificate of Analysis, which shows proof from a lab of the true ingredients in your product.?For other categories, adequate documentation can be any of the following (and many more not listed here, as Amazon constantly adds new accepted document types): Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS), Children's Product Certificate (CPC), UL Certification, ISO Certification, Oexo Tex Certification?
• Product Images that Show All Sides of the Product. Keep 5-6 live images of each product in your inventory. The photos should show the UPC clearly, as well as the packaging and any instruction manuals or other items included with the product.?
• Your Brand’s Website URL. Include a link to your brand’s website where the affected ASIN product can be purchased. This page on your site should have the same content as your Amazon listing: UPC, model number, title, bullet points, applicable warnings or advisory statements for your category, ingredients and materials, and price should all be the same as your Amazon detail page. Also, this page should include a live checkout link to purchase your product.?
• Trademark Registration. Include the registration documents and certificate for your trademark from the USPTO. If your trademark is still pending, include the serial number and a PDF or image of its current status with the USPTO.?

3. Know How and When to Escalate Your Case. At this point, you’ve already reported the attack to Amazon. If you don’t get a sufficient resolution within a 3-5 day time frame, escalate the case. You can do this by either sending an email to a high level email address (check the violation notification and see what email sent it)?from the admin email on the seller account.

Product Reviews and Competitor Attacks

Product reviews on Amazon are a blessing and a curse. Every seller has a love-hate relationship with reviews, but either way, your product reviews must be carefully monitored for certain factors that can indicate a competitor attack. By monitoring these factors, you’re able to see when an attack may be in the very near future, as well as provide crucial data points to Amazon if and when an attack involving product reviews does happen.?

Velocity and Timeframes. When you notice an influx of reviews within a time frame of a couple of days – positive or negative – it’s important to take note. This is clear proof that a competitor is behind the bombardment of reviews, as it is statistically impossible for authentic customers to be leaving reviews at such an unnatural speed and/or on the same dates.?

Correlations. When genuine buyers leave a real product review, it’s not unusual to see common remarks over and over, such as “great product”, “love it”, “highly recommended”, etc. But when you start to see the exact same comments, with multiple buyers using the exact same words, that’s when your sixth sense should be sending out alarm bells. This is not natural. If product reviews are truly genuine, the wording is always going to be different.?

If we observe the way 20 different customers write a review, we will find 20 unique ways of saying the same thing every time. If the words in the review content are identical across dozens of product reviews, it’s not natural, and it needs to be documented for the sake of protecting your brand.

Overlaps. We’ve been studying “overlaps” in product reviews for years now, and the value of tracking this activity is incredibly powerful. When you see the same buyer profile has left negative reviews for 6 out of your 10 branded ASINs, it’s abuse – document it, save the links to both the customer profile and the reviews themselves, and report it to Amazon.?

Communicating with Amazon

Dealing with Seller Support and Account Health Support is most sellers’ least favorite aspect of selling on Amazon. Between the broken English in the case log, the “call backs” that never come, the vague responses, the fact that you’ll never get the same associate on the phone again, the references to the “internal team”, and so much more, talking to Amazon is, understandably, infuriating.?

We have some unique tactics for making this a much smoother process – and getting what you need handled much faster.?

Do’s and Don’ts of Talking to Amazon

DO be polite. Regardless of your frustration level, remember that the associate you’re speaking with does not have control or authority to take care of your requests right on the spot. That’s a fact, they aren’t just saying that to avoid doing their jobs. Speak to seller support with respect – make a joke about their dogs barking in the background – tell them you understand that this process must be frustrating for them as well. They may not be able to solve your issue on the spot, but if you simply speak to them with respect and understanding, you can be sure that your case WILL be escalated to the proper team by that associate.?

DON’T open multiple cases for the same issue. When you’re dealing with any issue of any kind, it’s crucially important to keep the communications regarding that issue on the same case ID. It can be tempting to open case after case and shout from the hilltops why Amazon must solve your concern RIGHT NOW – but this actually slows down the process dramatically, because once you open all those cases, ALL of them must be resolved before the issue is actually resolved.?

DO follow up. In line with the previous point, it’s helpful to follow up and simply ask for an update. Write back on the same case, one simple sentence: “Hello, we have been waiting for a resolution on this case since [DATE]. Please provide an update at your earliest convenience.” If you don’t hear back in 24 hours, do this again and use the CC method with the proper escalation emails as we reviewed earlier.?

DO be extremely detailed. Provide as many details and data points as you possibly can. At a certain point, Amazon will not be able to ignore or deny you at all, because the proof is right in front of them, outlined and backed up by concrete facts. ?

DO answer the survey. You’ll get an email survey that requests a rating for the associate after you speak to Amazon on the phone – answer it. If they helped you, give them a great rating. If they did not help you, give them a poor rating – this will help you get a better response next time.?