Plugging Revenue Leakage on Amazon: Part 1 – Erroneous “Unavailable” ASINs & Suppressed Listings

July 25, 2022

In this 2-part blog post, we’ll take a look at the topic of revenue leakage on Amazon and how brands can start plugging the drain and reaping in more profit. Once you know where to look, we’ll present both manual and automated approaches to fixing the problem.

Let’s start with a basic understanding of why the onus is on brands (not necessarily Amazon) to fix the problem. With over 70% of Amazon purchases being Prime offers, customers are Amazon customers, not brand customers. While you do have to focus on driving demand for your brand and on converting shoppers, fixing the “leaky bucket” – lost revenue even after successfully attracting shoppers – is a brand’s responsibility. In ecommerce, revenue leakage drivers range from buying friction that causes cart abandonment to cybersecurity issues that lead to fraudulent transactions.

It is really a big deal? You bet. On inspection, a global healthcare and devices company found they were losing an estimated 7% of their Amazon revenues to leakage. And yet, brands often neglect or may be ill-equipped to adequately address revenue leakage.

In part 1 of this blog, we’ll focus on the problem. In addition to the causes listed above, there are other contributors to revenue leakage that can be easily solved by monitoring them closely and using automation to take quick corrective actions.

Erroneous “Unavailable” ASINs

On Amazon, your products can sometimes be erroneously listed as Unavailable. This can happen if you failed to provide a quantity for your products when you created them or as a result of delayed or stale inventory data. Sometimes Amazon does have inventory on hand but a glitch or error keeps the listing from being available for consumer purchase.

Manual Solution: Your team must identify ASINs that Amazon erroneously lists as Unavailable, flag them and report them to Amazon and follow up to get them corrected.

Automated Solution: Using a machine-learning led approach to finding erroneously listed ASINs automatically issues filing tickets to get them resolved. Brands can take it a step further by identifying the ASINs causing the most lost revenue due to unfilled POs and focus on addressing those first. This prevents revenue loss by reducing the number of times products are not available for sale.

Suppressed Listings

Amazon product listings require constant maintenance and upkeep. It’s impossible to succeed on the platform with a “set it and leave it” strategy. There is substantial work to be done while a product listing is live. If any elements of a listing fail to meet Amazon’s requirements over time, it will be suppressed or deactivated until the issue is resolved. And if a listing is suppressed, that immediately translates to lost revenue for every hour the listing is down until it is fixed.

Manual Solution: Consistently check product listings to ensure everything is up to date.

Automated Solution: Quickly identifies suppressed ASINs, actions them, and gives brands a weekly report on which ones could be resolved automatically and which require further action and what those actions are.

In part 2 of this blog, we’ll take a deeper look at the challenge of managing third-party (3P) sellers and best practices around preventing duplicate ASINs and losses due to unfilled POs. So, stay tuned! If you’re ready to learn more about automation and how CommerceIQ can help, drop us a note today at [email protected].