TAS 216 : Why Amazon Suppressed My Listing and Didn’t Know (Check Your Listing)

Have you ever had a time where you saw your Amazon private label product sales drop for a day, or two, or more? What have you done to check on that once you notice it? If you’re not checking on it, you could be missing out on sales because your listing is suppressed by Amazon for not adhering to the terms of service. On this episode Scott shares his own story of how a new product he place onto Amazon was suppressed, why it was suppressed, what he did to fix the problem, and what he suggests you do on a regular basis to monitor your product listings and ensure that your products are always live and ready to get more sales.

How Scott discovered that his Amazon listing was suppressed.

A normal part of Scott’s day every morning is to log into his Amazon seller account to check the status of his sales, inventory, and products and to check whether any red flags or issues have come up - like returns, seller feedback he needs to respond to, etc. But while he was traveling he was unable to stick to that routine and while he was offline some strange things happened, resulting in one of his listings being suppressed. Essentially, his listing was offline, not allowing anyone to see his listing or purchase the product. How did Scott figure out that the listing was being suppressed by Amazon? Listen to this episode to get all the details.

What can you do to unsuppress a suppressed listing?

 

Once you discover that your private label product has been suppressed by Amazon (taken off line) what can you do? First you need to scan through your listing in an effort to identify the things that might be wrong with your listing that is causing the suppression. It’s not always an easy thing to do because Amazon may not always tell you the specifics. You may have to go tab by tab through the back end of your listing to find any warnings or highlighted areas. It’s a tedious process but eventually you’ll find the problem. Listen to this episode to hear how Scott corrected a problem on one of his own listings and what he suggests you do to avoid this problem on yours.

Tips on optimizing your private label listing.

Scott has talked about this issue quite a bit on previous episodes but since new people are coming into the Amazing Seller community every day, he feels it’s appropriate to repeat some of the most important things. One of those is how to optimize your listing, including your titles, proper keyword formatting and completion, bullet points, images, descriptions, and more. On this episode Scott walks through those basic things again to help you first identify the problems your listing may have and second, to help you correct those problems so you can get your listing running as smoothly as possible, which will result in more eyes on your product and more sales.

Adding your primary keywords in your title is a powerful tactic for listing optimization.

If you’re trying to optimize your listing you have to start with your title. The title is the main thing that is going to be searched by Amazon to make keyword matches with search queries, so it’s important that you craft a keyword rich but natural title for your product to make the most of the keywords that people are searching for. That’s how you’ll increase your chances of your product being seen by people who are searching for it or something similar. On this episode Scott gives you his best tips for optimizing your titles including the rationale behind them and how you can go about doing them on your listings.

OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER

• [0:03] Scott’s introduction to the podcast!
• [0:32] Get into the next upcoming workshop.
• [2:52] How Scott discovered his listing was suppressed by Amazon.
• [4:12] What could cause a listing to be suppressed? It depends…
• [6:10] Why Scott’s title was causing issues with his listing.
• [8:20] Steps Scott took to resolve the problem.
• [9:50] Signs that your listing might be suppressed.
• [12:46] Tips on optimizing your title with keywords.
• [15:00] Updating keyword fields and bullet points and description.
• [19:00] A dip in rankings when you change your title: be patient.
• [20:37] The importance of finding relevant targeted keywords.
• [23:00] Pay close attention to your listing after making tweaks.

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

• www.TheAmazingSeller.com/workshop
• www.TheAmazingSeller.com/86 - with Karon about listing optimization
• www.TheAmazingSeller.com/resources - find Keyword Inspector and MerchantWords (affiliate links included)
• www.TheAmazingSeller.com/SplitTest - Find Splitly (affiliate link)