Content Strategy

Amazon Product Content Changes – March 2021

If you are selling on Amazon in the USA, a few rules have updated this March that may affect strategy on your product detail pages. Each detail product page covers a single unique item and must help give the customer a comprehensible and harmonious buying experience. In order to follow this guideline, closely follow the relevant style guides and do not use other code such as HTML or JavaScript. If a product already has a detail page, do not make a duplicate. New product pages can be made for new versions of products and make sure to accurately categorize and describe products.

The Amazon Quick Start Style Guide has general rules that apply to all products in the marketplace. Some types of products may include extra style guidelines and can be found in the Template for Specific Categories. These are important to follow when writing listings for products. Breaking the standards can create a negative customer experience and result in selling privileges being temporarily removed. It all comes down to being reasonable and helping the customer understand the product. Ensuring that sellers follow the guidelines and rules creates a fair marketplace. That is why requests for positive customer reviews, spoilers on books/music/videos, typing in all capital letters, and links to other websites to place orders are prohibited. These details do not enhance the buying experience and can be detrimental to sales. Product image requirements are in place to deter obscene and offensive content. While these may seem, obvious, at some point in time, someone else thought otherwise.

When adding detail pages do not add details that infringe IP rights of others. It is imperative that nothing except products are listed on the Amazon Marketplace. Using detail pages must not be used to cross-merchandise or cross-promote another product. Detail pages must not be created for products that are already in Amazon’s catalog. False product identification information in detail pages is obviously prohibited and includes UPC codes and publication dates.

The soul purpose of editing detail pages is to better and more accurately describe the product as it was originally listed. This allows for additional details, clarifications, grammatical fixes and removal of content that may violate policy. Do not edit a page to use it for a new version of the product. New versions, colors, sizes, materials, and varying features of a product must be listed on a new ASIN. Rebranding requires creating a new ASIN instead of updating the existing ASIN. This is also the case if an unbranded product becomes branded, it requires an new ASIN.

To make sure your brand is following marketplace protocol, hiring an advertising company (like PointStory) to handle your campaigns ensures compliance.