Rogue Sellers Taking Advantage of Amazon Best-Seller Badge to Boost Sales and Deceive Customers
Scammers are taking advantage of the Amazon best-seller badge to deceive customers and boost their own sales.
Scammers are taking advantage of the Amazon best-seller badge by strategically placing popular items in categories that don't sell as much, making them look like top sellers. The items typically targeted for this scam include smartphone mounts for car dashboards, phone cases, and USB drives. A particular mount recently showed up in the “replacement axle. ”
This scheme is having a significant negative impact on merchants, who are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases. The perpetrators are winning by boosting their own sales, which can jump significantly with the best-seller label. To combat this scam, Amazon needs to more aggressively crack down on these rogue sellers and provide better transparency about how the best-seller badge is awarded.
Until then, online shoppers need to be more vigilant and take the time to really look at products before making their purchases on Amazon.
Spencer Soper
