Amazon always maintains high standards when it comes to product listings. Sellers must meet the requirements in order to successfully list a product on Amazon. Failure to do so may result in a suppressed listing. Amazon product listings require constant maintenance. It’s impossible to succeed on the platform with a “set it and leave it” strategy. Even a listing of a best-selling item can still be suppressed on Amazon.

What is a Suppressed Listing?

Suppressed listing occurs when a product listing has been hidden or deactivated because it doesn’t meet Amazon’s market standards. As a result, the listing will be hidden from search results until the issue is resolved. Although the suppressed listing will still be available in the seller’s dashboard, customers will not be able to search for it. Suppressed listings can be restored if you understand the issue properly.

Why Do Listings Get Suppressed?

The listings get suppressed because they don’t meet Amazon’s requirements. But this could be due to a different number of things, let’s take a look at the main causes.

1. Main image missing: The most popular cause of a suppressed listing is when an Amazon seller leaves the main image blank. Amazon will not allow a listing without the main image to show on the website.
2. Non-compliant main image: There should be only one main image of the product on an entirely white background.
3. Title is too long: Your product will get suppressed if the title is too long. It should be 200-250 characters at most.
4. Prohibited terms in title: There are several terms that cannot be used in the Amazon title. Study the terms of service and ensure your language keeps in line with what is acceptable. 
5. Non-compliant description: Including a piece of wrong information or cross-promotion of other products can lead a listing to suppression.
6. Missing attributes: Listings can get suppressed if there are certain fields without having a value in them.
7. Duplicate listings: If Amazon notices you have duplicate listings they may suppress one of them.

How Do You Know If Your Listing Has Been Suppressed by Amazon?

Amazon doesn’t warn its sellers when a product listing is suppressed and most often sellers don’t even know the products they have listed have been suppressed. 

There are two ways to find this out:

• Manual check: Regularly navigate to your Manage Inventory page and look for any suppressed listings there. Depending on the number of products you sell, this can become a little time-consuming.
• Use an alert tool: Our recommended option is to use Alerts by Helium 10. They offer and send notifications both via email and push notifications through the Helium 10 app.

How to Fix a Suppressed Listing?

Let’s discuss the process of fixing a suppressed listing:

Step 1: Go to your Seller Central Account, click the Inventory tab, and select Manage inventory.

Step 2: Select Search Suppressed and Inactive Listings from the Listing Tool menu bar.

Step 3: On the Fix your products page, click on Search Suppressed to see the full list of all your suppressed listings. Here you can see how many listings are suppressed and also the reason.

At this stage, there are two ways to fix suppressed listing. Though we will show you all the methods, you can choose any of them.

Method 1: Fix suppressed listings in the Issue Description by entering the missing values in the editable cells or selecting missing values from the drop-down list. Then click on Save.

Method 2: By using this method, you can fix suppressed listings in bulk with an Excel file. Let’s do it.

Step 1: Click on the Download Suppressed Listings report and download the file.

Step 2: Copy the file and open it with an Excel sheet.

Step 3: In the excel file, you can see different fields such as Status, Reason, SKU, ASIN, Product name, Condition, Status Change Date, and Issue Description.

Step 4: Now, click on Sort & Filter and select Filter. After this, you can filter the issue and solve them accordingly.

Step 5: Suppose, you want to update all the missing information and remove suppression. Click on the drop-down menu and select Missing info only.

Now you can see only the ASINs with missing information issues.

Step 6: Prepare your missing data and partially update them via Feed File.

It can take up to 24 hours to remove the suppression. If your listing remains suppressed after the stated time limit, get in touch with Amazon seller central support to resolve the problem.

How Can Suppressed Listings Impact Your Business?

You can clearly understand if any of your product listings get suppressed, they won’t appear in the search result. This will bring the sale of that product down to zero.

Also, the unavailability of a certain product will make the customers redirect to other brands. This leads to affecting your brand image and ultimately reducing your customer base.

How to Prevent Amazon Listing from getting Suppressed? 

Your listings can get suppressed anytime for various reasons. Here are a few things you can keep in mind to make sure that your product listings are not suppressed by Amazon quite often:

• Always be honest with the information you include in your product listings.
• Avoid product titles that use promotional language.
• Avoid mentioning or promoting your other products in product descriptions.
• Optimize your listings regularly to use keywords that are currently ranking on Amazon.
• Use A+ Content that accurately depicts the product.

Final Thoughts

Selling products on Amazon can get complicated sometimes. Amazon Seller Consultant can help eliminate the ongoing maintenance of your listings. At Ecomclips, we take the hassle out of Amazon seller management and let brands focus on creating winning products and businesses. We always make sure that your listings are Amazon-compliant. If you have any queries about selling on Amazon, feel free to comment below.