It seems preferential treatment to some sellers
I have a question and concern regarding today’s deal page and eligibility for the same.
Do everyone get their products eligible for today’s deals? If you do then do you even see on today’s deals pages?
We are not seeing any of our products eligible for the deals but we do see similar products as ours on deals pages. The biggest issue we figured is that if you start browsing today’s deals pages and count sellers whose products are eligible and showing there are mostly CLOUDTAIL, APPPARIO AND SOLIMO. We saw almost 90 to 95% products offered there are from these companies. There are hardly any products offered by other sellers on these pages which means deals are only meant for these companies?
Does Amazon care for any other sellers other than their partnered sellers? Has this become a platform for their own benefit? I see Cloudtail offering products in almost all categories and coincidently offering only fast running items.
Even if products from other sellers become eligible do they even see any sales? We had very bad results for this when our products became eligible once in blue moon.
Amazon suggests to increase promotion ad budget when deals are running but it is not converting in sales.
There are lots of serious questions and concerns regarding this practice from Amazon and may be it’s time that they answer/resolve these else sellers might start leaving platform.
I hope other sellers will respond here with their experience.
It seems preferential treatment to some sellers
I have a question and concern regarding today’s deal page and eligibility for the same.
Do everyone get their products eligible for today’s deals? If you do then do you even see on today’s deals pages?
We are not seeing any of our products eligible for the deals but we do see similar products as ours on deals pages. The biggest issue we figured is that if you start browsing today’s deals pages and count sellers whose products are eligible and showing there are mostly CLOUDTAIL, APPPARIO AND SOLIMO. We saw almost 90 to 95% products offered there are from these companies. There are hardly any products offered by other sellers on these pages which means deals are only meant for these companies?
Does Amazon care for any other sellers other than their partnered sellers? Has this become a platform for their own benefit? I see Cloudtail offering products in almost all categories and coincidently offering only fast running items.
Even if products from other sellers become eligible do they even see any sales? We had very bad results for this when our products became eligible once in blue moon.
Amazon suggests to increase promotion ad budget when deals are running but it is not converting in sales.
There are lots of serious questions and concerns regarding this practice from Amazon and may be it’s time that they answer/resolve these else sellers might start leaving platform.
I hope other sellers will respond here with their experience.
27 replies
Seller_ycjzF4HkU5BsQ
No we never get our products eligible for today’s deals
Seller_F1ftkwdkxmWVV
yes it is because i am also not able to do
Seller_4V3UKHCbfM4Pd
Count listing on today’s deal pages from these companies. For example I checked first page and I keep checking everyday. I found 27 products listed (shown) on first page are from these companies vs only 5 from other sellers. I hope this improves else this platform will become only for cloudtail or other amazon partnered companies.
Seller_4V3UKHCbfM4Pd
More counting numbers to understand.
Page 2 : 3 products from other sellers out of total 32.
Page 3 : 7 products from other sellers out of total 32.
Page 4 : 8 products from other sellers out of total 32.
And so on…
Seller_Zl6wC4rW7f0cW
To be eligible for deal :
- Goods need to be in FBA or you have to be a Sellerfullfilled prime. Ideally FBA in various locations of India
- You need to have an account manager who gets you tagged in DODs. IF no account manager then anyway tough to reach the deals stage.
Now account managers are not a common sight on amazon unless you have reached some level of sales or you can pay for it.
PS: DOD’s will not make you reach any heights but increase your ‘average daily orders’ to a certain minimum each time.
Regards
Pramod
Seller_pz8RMPeSr0mER
every statement you wrote I completely agree…they are also destroying the market selling at the price sellers get from brand or distributors…
Seller_LqKv6upFTa5t4
cloud tail never follow any policies of amazon search product on amazon sold by cloudtail and check in details , cloudtails list a product in multiple categories one product have four to five categories , and also cloudtail list product in not realated gategories i complaint multiple time to amazon but never i get proper answer , i give some asin here check
ASIN - B01GFTEV5Y , ASIN - B00VK5MCMI THIS TWO PRODUCT IS BELONG TO OTHER CATEGORIES BUT WHAT IS DOING THIS TWO PRODUCT IN " CHOPPER " CATEGORIES , WHO SAID INDUCTION STOVE IS VEGETABLE CHOPPER OR INDUCTION PRESSURE COOKER IS VEGETABLE CHOPPER , THIS IS ONLY FOR INCREASE VISIBILITY OF PRODUCT , AND AMAON TEAM NOT STOP TO DO THIS , WITH IN A YEAR ONLY CLOUD TAIL AND SOME AMAZON BRAND ARE SALE IN AMAZON AND OTHER SELLER ARE NOT ABLE TO SELL IF THIS THING IS CONTINUE , IF ALL SELLER NOT RAISE VOICE AGAINST CLOUDTAIL AND AMAZON THEN IT IS TOO TOUGH TO SELL ON AMAZON WITH IN A YEAR , TIME TO MAKE A UNITY.
Seller_J7RoOv4vrI95Z
HI Sellers,
First of all, let me confirm you that CLOUDTAIL is no other partnered seller of Amazon but it is Amazon only. Amazon sells on their website through this name. Since, amazon has their own warehouses where they keep stocks of every category and be ready to ship n deliver asap, that’s why every product listed under cloudtail says fastest delivery.
Now, I’m not sure whether it’s true or not but I believe, they must be using the inventory of sellers like you who works under FBA, where you guys handover your inventory to them to increase your sales through FBA or being a Prime Seller. But, are you guys actually able to increase your sales? Mostly not, instead of this you block your inventory n money with them for 1 month, where they come back after a month and say, “since we received only few orders for your products, you can take your inventory back” where in the same month they have already used your inventory to deliver their orders received under Cloudtail and gives you back the fresh inventory (ASSUMED). Because most of us sell those products which have no bar-code and listed under UPC exemption.
So, now we can assume why our products do not easily qualify for the deals page and even if they do, why we don’t get enough orders.
Thanks,
Flower Engine
Seller_v365X5MSsfNGD
Short answer on Preferential Treatment to CLOUDTAIL, APPPARIO AND SOLIMO: Yes they give.
Long answer below:-
Unfortunately Amazon has become a biased platform, which gives preferential treatment to Cloudtail, Appario and Solimo. It is not just limited to deal of the day. It is related to almost every aspect, be it lightning deals, applicable policies, product ads, infringement , rankings etc.
Think of Amazon as a big mall owner which has its own products/shops present in it along with shops of other owners .Products sold from their own shops give them good margin and help in building the brand. Whereas from other shops they get only the rent or in some cases a percentage/commission. So obviously they will promote their own shops/products.
This is not new, You can go to the Reliance,More, Apollo pharmacy or Easy day store, and you will find lot of their private label products, product which are owned by them. They promote them heavily by keeping their private label products in the prime area since they have total control over it. They can also keep their own Tea in stock and make other brand tea like tata tea etc out of stock. You will also see that how keen Apollo pharmacy salesman is in selling their own products.
So what Amazon has been doing “now” is the same, they want to make profit from India Operations which is currently in losses. Sooner or later every seller has to realize it. This is what flipkart is also doing,But Flipkart was never an open/fair platform since its inception so we were used to of it. It’s only the Amazon India platform which is getting changed every year and its losing it’s core values, which we all sellers loved. 3-4 years back it did not matter whether you are Amazon preferred seller or any other seller, Only the product quality mattered. But now it has changed.
But to say future is doomed for every other seller is also not right. e.g. Let’s suppose there are n number of people who like tata tea, and let’s suppose they don’t get that it in More store as they only sell their own brand. What will customer do? Some of them will obviously switch to what is available option for them, try it and if they like it they will buy them again. Some percentage of customers will get unsatisfied and will switch to other stores which keep tata tea. These unsatisfied customers do matter to More store owner. This is where they have to play very carefully, ultimately customer is the king. And yes Seller does not matter to online platforms, as long as customer is happy and it gets what it wants.
So the strategy of Amazon, Flipkart seems to be get into every category, and slowly command over it with their own brands. If Solimo is Amazon brand as mentioned in their listings, They can show Solimo Ad to 99% of the customers at all places, be it top, left, right and center. It is happening in all categories in which Solimo deals as I write. This gives them an edge over other products and brands. In all the agreements of these platforms which we sign, It tells us what we have to do and how they will pay us,fine us. Nowhere is it mentioned that they can’t list/promote their own products, or they can’t give preferential treatment. So let’s accept this new normal.
Since these are #1 and #2 online platforms in India with majority market share, There is nothing we can do as a Seller to stop this. What we can do is to become more customer centric and offer best quality product and services.
Seller_RLiRMwrzxK9mN
Amazon & fk have never been an open marketplaces and they will never become one. unlike ebay which is pure market place. and as you might have noticed, in these platforms they charge money beforehand for promotional and advertising. where in ebay, you are only charged ONLY when you sell an item. how cool is that! why not they use the same strategy . they don’t because, it is how they operate. i have opted for these promotions and advertisements on both here and fk, my money of 5k consumed in an day and i have got less than 10 sales. it’s not worth it. and i suggest others NOT to fall into this trap especially on amazon and fk. no matter how much you spend, there will be only three sellers listings on the first page and that will surely not us.
I hope they make these promotions like how ebay does, deduct money only if item sells. it’s so simple and i promise every seller here likes it and don’t have to annoy and force us to opt for promotions and spend your time explaining and giving webinars on it. you look like a policy agent when you do that. manipulating might work for sometime, but it eventually shows what you are trying to do at some point of time…
