[Crew Review] Amazon scammers target Best Seller badge

Don’t miss out on our last public webinar of the year. Ian Sells from JoinBrands will show you how to effectively work with TikTok influencers and inspire customers to say something about your products. See you on December 14!

With more people set to shop online during the holidays, some Amazon sellers are willing to use every trick in the book to get more sales. Lately, the most popular technique employed is taking popular products and putting them into less competitive categories to ensure they get that coveted Best Seller badge.

This may not be an entirely new black-hat tactic, but it became big enough to catch the media’s attention.

Here's how it blew up.

Amazon Top Terms

Check out which Amazon keywords are winning the most clicks and conversions from November 20th to December 3rd. 

After record sales over the Black Friday weekend, the countdown for the festive season has officially started. There are just a few weeks left until Christmas, which means there’s no time to waste when it comes to finding presents. 

Three of the top terms this week are “boyfriend stocking stuffers,” “boyfriend gift”  and “stocking stuffers for her.” The sales for these products are 141 units, 1,610 units, and 1,136 units per day, respectively. We expect more gift-related sales as Christmas gets closer.

Amazon Sets Default MCF Packaging to Unbranded

MCF sellers were celebrating when Amazon announced it began shipping Multi-Channel Fulfillment orders using unbranded packaging. With this change, sellers can use Amazon’s efficient network to fulfill orders made through other platforms such as Walmart, which does not allow any Amazon markings on the packages.



This is free and applies automatically to what Amazon calls the “unbranded packaging preferred category.” This is one of the two categories affected by the change and products are shipped using unbranded packaging by default except when it takes longer to ship and deliver. The second category applies when sellers “select Only ship with blank boxes, guaranteeing unbranded packaging, regardless of shipping and delivery times.”

However, not all products are eligible to be fulfilled using unbranded packaging. The following are excluded:

• Non-sortable inventory
• Apparel
• Footwear
• Items larger than 56 in.
• Items heavier than 49.9 lbs.

Despite these limitations, this is overall good news for sellers who use MCF.

Amazon’s Deal to End Antitrust Probes

Although Amazon thought it was being treated unfairly when the EU started investigating its use of third-party sellers’ data, it has been reported that the tech giant has entered into an agreement that will save it from paying a hefty fine.

As part of the agreement, Amazon pledged to treat rival products fairly when it comes to the buy box. Details of the agreement are expected to be announced on December 20, according to the Financial Times. Once formalized, the company has to honor it for at least five years.

Taking the deal seems to be a smart move for Amazon, considering it can face fines under the Digital Markets Act, which took effect last November. The DMA is an EU regulation that imposes new obligations on large e-commerce platforms to ensure all players are treated fairly. Companies that don’t follow the DMA can face fines as high as 10% of their worldwide turnover.

Goodbye, Page 1

Every website wants to be on Google’s first page for a relevant search term. There’s only a limited number of sites that the page can accommodate, so the competition is quite fierce. However, Google’s latest changes can make writers rest a little easier.

Google introduced continuous scrolling for desktops, which displays an equivalent of 6 pages per search result before the user is prompted to load more. This mimics the mobile version and most social media platforms and comes after complaints about the alleged degradation in the quality of search results.

Your Favorite Seller Tools in 2022

It’s been an EcomCrew annual tradition, and we’re not breaking it this year.

Once again, we’re asking Amazon sellers what their favorite tools are. Has yours changed since last year?

If you tell us, you’ll get a chance to win a whole year of EcomCrew Premium membership.

Take the survey.

Here’s One for Our Neighbors to the North

Selling online is not just about finding profitable products to sell and keeping the revenue up. One of the scariest (and most expensive) things that can happen to an online business owner is getting a liability suit—especially without insurance to back you up.

This is why EcomCrew has partnered with Foxquilt to provide Amazon-compliant insurance to Canadian sellers. Their products are available to Canadian Amazon businesses selling in Canada and/or the US.

It takes less than 10 minutes to get a quote, choose a product, and get your certificates.

Get insured with Foxquilt.