When I give talks about Amazon to publishers and sellers, one of my Ten Commandments of Amazon is “thou shalt not trust Amazon seller tech.” The slide I show features a picture of an old-fashioned wooden roller coaster, the shaky kind that you swear you’ll never ride again because the thing feels like it’s about to fall apart.
That’s Amazon seller tech in a nutshell – a rickety roller coaster. It’s designed to launch quickly and run fast, but it’s built on an aging, creaking infrastructure. There are lots of slapped-together patches that don’t solve underlying problems, and even worse, when you tell the inexperienced attendant (aka “seller support”) about critical problems you get a blank looks and shrugs. If you somehow manage to escalate a support case, you’ll be lucky to any sort of technical resolution unless it’s a widespread issue that affects Amazon’s bottom line.
Here are several examples from just this morning. This is the Amazon error message I saw when I clicked the prominently displayed “Vendor Scorecard” tile in Amazon Advantage, an FBA-like service used by publishers & media companies:
No point in filing a support case. Unless it’s impacting the bottom line, or its failing to “delight customers,” nothing will happen.
Here’s another issue I spotted on Twitter: A+ content not loading!
Ummm – yo @amznsellerhelp Why are like 90% of listings on Amazon missing A+ content today? LMAO. I’d like a refund on my PPC since I’m sending ppl to my page and it is just blank – It’s even missing for your own Amazon Basics items. Not a good look.
— Michael Patrón (@michaelpatron0) October 16, 2023
In this case, the Amazon tech issue did get fixed. That’s because it’s clearly affecting Amazon’s bottom line. Amazon claims an 8% boost for standard A+ content, 20% for Premium A+:
So A+ modules not appearing on Amazon Basics (huge money makers for the company, which is currently being sued for anti-trust behavior) and 3rd party sellers’ brands means less sales and commissions for Amazon.
You could also argue that A+ content not appearing means fewer “delighted customers,” but no one aside from the most ardent Amazon lifers believes the dogma that Amazon really cares what customers think. If Bezos and Jassy did care, they would immediately order a redesign of the most visible Amazon tech that customers see – the Amazon website.