Blog, Amazon Vendors, Guide

Enhancing data quality for Amazon vendors: Common issues and solutions

Learn how to address common data issues on Amazon, including missing manufacturing data, incorrect catalogue listings, and more to improve ecommerce management.

Author:

Benjamin Weyrich

Navigating Amazon's intricate data ecosystem often feels like assembling a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces. For ecommerce managers of Amazon Vendor accounts, persistent data issues can derail operations and diminish reporting accuracy. Addressing these challenges head-on can significantly boost your data quality and streamline your ecommerce processes.

Identifying and Resolving Frequent Data Challenges

Missing Manufacturing Data

In Retail Analytics the manufacturing view provides comprehensive access to data concerning all brands associated with your brand registry. This encompasses crucial information like sales, inventory, and glance views. Nonetheless, two prevalent issues may lead to the absence or incompleteness of your manufacturing data.

Scenario 1: No Products Displayed

Problem:

If none of your brand’s products appear in the manufacturing view but are visible in sourcing data, it's likely a connection issue. Your Vendor Central account lacks proper connection to the brand registry.

Solution:

To fix this, connect your brand registry to your Vendor Central account and submit a support ticket detailing the problem with specific ASINs. For example, you can use this text:

"I am the brand proprietor of the brand {YOUR BRAND}. While I possess the brand registry, I'm encountering a lack of manufacturing data for these products. Below are some affected ASINs: {insert ASINs here}. Please investigate and resolve this matter."

Scenario 2: Partial Product Absence

Problem:

While your brand registry is properly connected, certain products within your brand are conspicuously absent from the manufacturing view despite appearing in the sourcing data.

Solution:

Submit a support ticket via Vendor Central with the following message:

"The following ASINs - {INSERT LIST OF ASIN} are associated with my brand but are not visible in the manufacturing view. Kindly investigate and resolve this issue."

Based on our experience with hundreds of resolved cases, we can confidently say that this method typically yields positive results even within the initial interaction. Usually, you can expect a response indicating that the data will be rectified within the following 14 days. In the majority of instances, the issue is resolved within just 48 hours. However, if you haven't observed any improvement after 48 hours, we advise opening a new case using the same message.

Absent Report Tab (B2B Sales)

Frequently, users encounter situations where a particular reporting tab within Retail Analytics fails to display or lacks any data. This issue commonly affects the B2B sales view, a feature accessible to every Amazon vendor. This report provides insights into the involvement of business customers in your sales activities.

Problem:

The business sales view either appears empty or is entirely absent from your Retail Analytics interface. Previously, Business, Prime Now, and Fresh views were exclusively enabled for specific vendor accounts, leading to their occasional invisibility for certain accounts.

Solution:

Submit a support ticket with the following message:

"The business sales view is entirely empty / absent from my Retail Analytics interface. Given our substantial sales volume to business customers, this absence can't be correct. Kindly investigate the reason behind the unavailability of this sales view and resolve the issue."

Similar to the earlier recommendation, initiating this case typically yields positive results upon the first attempt. The key is to provide specific details about the missing information and to clearly outline the issue within the case.

Wrong products in your catalogue

If you notice items within your catalogue that aren't your own, it may indicate that other companies are incorrectly listing products under your brand, or it could be a mistake on Amazon's part during the uploading and modification of product information in their system.

Problem:

ASINs are not registered under your vendor account and unrelated to your brand.

Solution:

Submit a support ticket with the following message:

"The following ASINs - {INSERT LIST OF ASINs} are present in my Retail Analytics data despite not being listed through my vendor account and not belonging to my brand. Kindly investigate and remove these products from my Retail Analytics data."

Differences in your historical data

Amazon's data is constantly changing. At Catapult, we collect millions of data points from Amazon every day and witness the constant fluctuations as we compare new values to previously reported values.

Problem:

Unfortunately, you cannot solve this issue alone. Your first action should be to consistently assess the extent of data changes and ensure a certain level of transparency. Usually, data variations are minimal, so you can safely disregard them. Occasionally, however, major changes can occur.

Solution:

In such instances, cross-reference your internal systems with the updated data from Amazon. This process enables you to evaluate how to interpret the new information, ultimately assessing the reliability of Amazon's reports as they evolve.

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Replicated Reporting Data Among Vendor Accounts

Duplicated manufacturing data frequently arises when multiple Vendor Central accounts exist within a single country. This occurs because both accounts are linked to your brand registry, allowing them to access all manufacturing data.

Problem:

You observe identical manufacturing data in two distinct vendor accounts. Both accounts are associated with the same brand registry.

Solution:

Ensure that your brand registry is exclusively linked to one of your vendor accounts. This ensures that manufacturing data is reported solely within one account, eliminating duplication.

Recovery of Derived Metrics

Following Amazon's transition from Brand Analytics to Retail Analytics, several derived metrics, such as CR, LBB Price, and ASP, were removed from Vendor Central. However, this doesn't imply that the data is lost. Though certain metrics are no longer displayed on Vendor Central, only one metric, the lost Buy Box rate, is genuinely unavailable. The other "lost" metrics, such as sell-through rate and conversion rate, can still be derived from the available data accessible via Amazon.

Problem:

The migration resulted in the removal of certain metrics from Vendor Central, leading to confusion about data availability.

Solution:

While some metrics may no longer be directly accessible, they can still be calculated from existing data:

Conversion Rate (CR)

=

Ordered Units / Glance Views

Sell Through Rate

=

Shipped Units / Net Received Units

Average Sale Price (ASP)

=

Ordered Revenue / Ordered Units

Manually calculating these metrics can be time-consuming and prone to errors. An automated solution like Catapult can streamline this process by automatically calculating and visualizing these metrics. Additionally, it offers the ability to compare metrics across various products, categories, and markets within relevant time frames.

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What's next?

Expanding globally has a lot of opportunities. Through diversification across countries, you mitigate risks and seize emerging prospects elsewhere, especially when confronting reduced demand in one market. The agility to swiftly redirect investments and expansion endeavors toward high-potential markets is crucial. Catapult offers the indispensable planning tool for identifying, capitalizing on, and evaluating these opportunities. It achieves this by integrating retail, marketing, and product data across various countries, empowering strategic adjustments in budget and investment to drive growth.

Putting the pieces together

Understanding these nuances enables better strategic decisions and can be enhanced by tools like Catapult, which provides real-time, integrated data views across departments, crucial for manufacturers operating in multiple countries. Our tool, crafted with input from Amazon vendors, features a centralized dashboard that automatically converts Amazon data into a clear, actionable perspective on your performance.

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