Amazon Closes Two Loopholes for Vine Reviews & Partnered Carrier

This week Amazon announced that they had closed two loopholes related to Vine reviews and partnered carrier shipping. 

While Amazon didn't acknowledge they were loopholes sellers were exploiting, both methods were fairly well known in seller communities.

Vine Review Loophole

As most sellers know, you can get up to 30 reviews by enrolling an ASIN in the Vine early reviewer program.

Up until recently, some sellers had been creating several ASINs, getting 30 reviews, and merging those ASINs. The effect was you could potentially get well beyond 30 Vine reviews for a product.

Amazon this week changed their policy and announced that starting immediately, upon ASIN merges, a maximum of 30 Vine reviews would be eligible. 

Partnered Carrier Entered-Dimensions Loophole

Amazon relies on sellers entering accurate package dimensions for their inbound shipments with partnered carriers to give accurate costs. Inaccurate dimensions could result in fee re-adjustments from carriers such as UPS.

Up until recently, some sellers were deliberately entering dimensions far smaller than the actual dimensions to receive reduced partnered carrier fees. Amazon announced on April 17 that sellers will now incur any fee adjustments for erroneous shipment dimensions.

It's unclear right now though if the partnered carriers themselves will aggressively bill Amazon (who will subsequently bill sellers) for erroneous package dimensions.