As an Amazon seller, you’ve likely worked hard to build your brand, maintain high-quality standards, and provide a superior customer experience. But what happens when a competitor, often backed by large Amazon aggregators, uses questionable practices that violate Amazon’s policies and unfairly boost their performance?

I recently encountered this issue when a competitor started including notes in their product packaging, incentivizing customers to leave 5-star reviews. This blatant violation of Amazon’s strict rules on feedback manipulation gave them an unfair edge, allowing them to climb the rankings and undermine my brand’s efforts.

Amazon aggregators—companies that acquire smaller brands and rapidly scale them on the platform—often have the resources to employ such tactics while avoiding immediate consequences. These strategies, although clearly against Amazon’s policies, can be difficult for independent sellers to fight against.

What’s most frustrating is how these aggregators can gain an unfair advantage by manipulating the system while compliant sellers like us are left trying to compete on a tilted playing field. It not only hurts our businesses but also erodes the trust consumers place in the marketplace.

If you’ve experienced similar issues—whether it’s review manipulation or other policy violations by competitors—I encourage you to share your story. The more awareness we raise, the more pressure we can apply to Amazon to enforce fair practices.

Let’s unite, discuss, and protect the marketplace from these unfair tactics.

Share your experience in the comments below!