Recently, vendors using our proprietary software application Perispect to track sellers and pricing across online marketplaces have been spotting Amazon sellers advertising their products below MAP pricing. Many vendors do not realize that some of these sellers may be “scam sellers” who have many products in their Amazon inventory but do not ship anything to customers when they order and pay for products.
Here are 3 ways to spot a likely scam seller on the Amazon Marketplace:
“Just Launched” Sellers with More than 200 Products in Their Inventory
Sellers who have “just launched” in their profiles are starting out on Amazon with some inventory and are looking to be a part of the growing ecommerce market. However, some scam sellers will open up fake accounts on a daily basis with a huge amount of items in their inventory. If these items are not Fulfilled by Amazon (in other words, not an Amazon FBA Seller), then the seller oversees shipping the products to the customer. Customers and vendors should look out for these kinds of sellers, as they may never ship the products they say they have on Amazon.
Amazon 3rd Party Sellers with “Shady” Names
Perispect (our proprietary SaaS offering for channel monitoring) combs through a large number of sellers looking for contact and shipping information. Sometimes, the seller name can set off red flags. For example:
“!NOTE: Contact us prior to ordering>> SmartBuyPointGMAIL.COM!!”
“%BRAND NEW!!!%Mesmeric Fair% Please Contact me before buy → claudia66@reaagan.com”
“.BEFORE ORDER CONTACT: CLAYTON. 14D (at)GMAIL COM”
These are some examples of fraudulent sellers. The seller name contains contact information, like an email address, that is poorly formatted. The seller asks that the customer contact the seller prior to ordering. Customers and vendors should not contact these sellers because they will most likely attempt to scam them.
Sellers with Poor Customer Reviews
Scam sellers can be identified simply by looking at what other customers have written on the seller review portion of the information page on Amazon. Scam sellers will most likely have all negative reviews noting that products have not been delivered, and they are unable to contact the seller for further comment.
>>Best practice: Know your sellers.
When you know who is authorized to sell your products on Amazon, it’s easy to spot rogue and scammer sellers and avoid being the victim of an Amazon Scam. This is more manageable when you have a limited number of authorized sellers.
