We’ve had a few emails from Amazon sellers regarding enforcement of image guidelines, and it appears that the guys at Removethebackground.com are also being inundated with requests for help.
Amazon are informing sellers that some of their images are non-compliant and giving just 14 days to get them corrected. However they’re sending a sample file of sellers images saying “Please note that the sample sent to you contains both compliant and non-compliant ASIN images. We are not able to you just non-compliant images Please work to identify and amend those that are considered as non-compliant”.
Some of the points Amazon are picking up on are:
1. Non-pure white backgrounds
2. Multiple image views
3. Text/logos within images
4. Product packaging
Amazon are requesting (for requesting read “ordering”) seller to review their listings within 14 days warning that failure could result in Amazon seller account suspension.
We’ve heard that Amazon are actively working on an initiative across the “Softlines” categories to improve the visual representation of the ASIN images within the site and that that this requires consistency across images.
Amazon told Removethebackground.com that they are contacting their top offending sellers and insisting that they work towards adhering to the rules and regulations adding “We ideally want our contacted sellers to confirm receipt of our email and commit to work towards compliancy within the 14 days given. We will then assess each case individual in terms of time lines in resolving their full range of listings. We do understand that some ASIN images are more complex than others and may not be so trivial to solve, and take this into consideration“.
Amazon do have Style Guides (e.g. Shoes & Handbags and Clothing & Accessories) available which they’re emailing to sellers along with the request to correct images. They style guides detail exactly which product shots should be supplied and details of the composition of photos.
We’d recommend that even if you haven’t received an email that you request the style guide for your category and check your images before Amazon come calling. The closer it gets to Christmas the more onerous the 14 day grace period will become.
13 Responses
It is a bit of a crazy time to do this, we had around 8 images in jewellery that we had to change, some were images we had been trying with the jewellery on a wrist, still on a white background, but these are not acceptable either.
Maybe marketplace sellers are drawing direct sales away from Amazon with their non compliant power images?
The most likely reason is that they are building up a catalogue of products so that they can use them for their own needs. Pretty soon (if it’s not there already) you will find that any photo placed on their site becomes their property.
We are fairly new to amazon and 99% of our amazon listings we are the ‘child’. ie, we did not load on the image, we ‘joined’ an existing ‘parent’ listing (and get stuck with rubbish descriptions/images etc).
I know that most of the images do not have white backgrounds, so is this down to the parent listing person to change or if i have to as well, are we not repeating work here?!
If i misunderstand how a listing works in amazon, please feel free to educate me!
I have had this email twice. I have called Amazon and they said they did not send it.
It came from a .co.uk address but all of theirs are .com addresses.
Are you sure this is correct?
It was a very convincing email and I thought it was real but Amazon said it was spam.
It would be great to get a proper answer from Amazon on this.
i realise that ‘parent and child’ was about connecting to items already in the amazon catalogue, the point i was making is as this has an image already, (which of course should comply to amazon image policy), then why would everyone change their images if the original parent image only needs to change if not compliant?
I thought the the way amazon was set up was so the same products are in one listing (i know, thats abused massively!, but thats the theory), and we all link together from that one listing?