Online shopping giant Amazon has permanently banned over 600 Chinese brands across 3,000 different seller accounts.
The South China Morning Post reported the numbers earlier, citing an interview with an Amazon Asia VP on state-owned television.
Amazon’s crackdown began amidst reporting by The Wall Street Journal’s Nicole Ngyuen about how companies like RavPower offered gift cards in exchange for reviews.
Following my fake review story, listings for Amazon-native electronics brand RAVPower are gone.
— nic nguyen (@nicnguyen) June 16, 2021
The company offered $35 gift cards for reviews on a product that was sold directly by Amazon itself. RAVPower acted as a wholesale vendor on that listing.https://t.co/6nazZZ5Wtb pic.twitter.com/znp9u48YHV
It’s not clear which other Chinese brands might be included in Amazon’s latest crackdown — and it’s quite possible some of their products will escape Amazon’s net.
Here’s Amazon’s full statement:
Amazon works hard to build a great experience in our store so that customers can shop with confidence and sellers have the opportunity to grow their business amid healthy competition. Customers rely on the accuracy and authenticity of product reviews to make informed purchasing decisions and we have clear policies for both reviewers and selling partners that prohibit abuse of our community features. We suspend, ban, and take legal action against those who violate these policies, wherever they are in the world.
We will continue to improve abuse detection and take enforcement action against bad actors, including those that knowingly engage in multiple and repeated policy violations, including review abuse. We are confident that the steps we take are in the best interests of our customers as well as the honest businesses that make up the vast majority of our global selling community.
