Multiple Sellers On Our Amazon Japan Listing

We are the sole sellers for Kid Transit on Amazon Japan. We created the custom packaging for the products, we arranged shipping from China to Japan, we got the products through customs in Japan, and we arranged couriers to take the products to the Amazon warehouses. We even needed to prove to Amazon that we had the rights to sell Kid Transit’s products in Japan before they made our listings active.

Read all about how we took Kid Transit’s Baby Car Mirrors from Amazon UK to Amazon Japan in our in-depth case study here.

Multiple Sellers on our Amazon Japan Listing

After all of this effort the last thing we expected to see were other sellers on our Kid Transit listing. Unfortunately in April and May 2017 we noticed multiple sellers on our listing. These sellers were offering very low prices for the item and we knew straight away that something was not right. Screen shot below (FYI we are selling under the name BananaPanda).

On 26th April 2017, I contacted Amazon Seller Support straight away in English. Amazon Japan gives the option to contact seller support in English. Here’s the support message:

***
Hi, I am the official selling of the Kid Transit Baby Car Mirror (ASIN: B01I9HX55C).

I have noticed recently that several other sellers are selling on this ASIN. These sellers cannot be selling NEW products because I am the only one who owns the products to sell as new. Also, their prices are very low and I am worried that they are selling inferior products that could damage the Kid Transit brand reputation.

Please, could you look into the other sellers selling on this ASIN and block them from selling on this ASIN.

Thank you
Neil Curtis
***

There was no reply to this support case for several days, so on the 1st May 2017 a new support ticket was opened but this time we drafted a message in Japanese. Here it is:

***
いつもお世話になっております。
私は公式にキッズトランジットのベビーミラーの出品者です。（Kid Transit Baby Car Mirror (ASIN: B01I9HX55C).）実際には私がイギリスでこのブランドを所有し、私の別会社より日本に出品しております。

最近になってわかったのですが、このASINで他社または他の人物が販売しております。
いわゆる’乗っ取られ’では無いかと心配しております。
私のみがこの商品の販売者であるため、他社または他の人物が同じミラーを新品として販売する事は不可能です。それだけではなく、この他社または他の人物は私の設定価格よりも安く販売しており、それは粗悪品を販売し、私が実際に販売しているキッズトランジットのブランドにダメージを与え、今まで築き上げた信頼性を崩してしまうのではではないかと心配しております。

このASIN: B01I9HX55Cでの他社、他人の販売者の調査と、ブロック対処をお願いします。

早急の対応をよろしくお願い致します。
***

Within 1 day we had a reply and all other sellers vanished from our listing.

Does contacting Amazon Japan in Japanese help? Put it this way, we are still waiting for a reply to our English support case.

Why were there multiple sellers on our Amazon Japan listing?

The reason there were other sellers on our listing was because Amazon got hacked. These hackers were setting up brand new Amazon Seller accounts and offering products for sale on our listing (and plenty of other peoples listings too). The goal of these hackers is not 100% clear. They are either trying to make a quick sale without actually owning the product to ship out, or they could be selling inferior versions of products, although this is unlikely. Another reason could be that they hoped to make a sale and then gain access to the buyers details. They could then doing dishonest things with these details.

Whatever the motives of the hackers there was a definite effect our our sales. While we still made some sales there was a drop whenever there were multiple sellers on our listing. For a few days / weeks we saw multiple sellers come and go, but now it looks like Amazon has finally plugged this hole. Sales are getting up to the level they were before this issue and hopefully we will not see it again.

Summary

While it looks like no long-term damage has happened here it is worrying that situations like this can occur. Luckily we check all of our listings daily as well as our vital performance statistics. We therefore identified this issue quickly, but we can see other sellers who do not check their listings regularly being impacted significantly by this and similar issues.

We also have the expertise to communicate with Amazon Seller Support in Japanese to get a quicker and more efficient resolution. Unfortunately communication in English does not seem to get the same priority as when you communicate in the native Japanese language.

If you need any help or advice please get in touch