8 Things Ecommerce Managers Should Be Doing With Amazon Category Listing Report

In this tip, I'm going to explain why and how to use Amazon Category Listing Report to update your catalog in bulk so that you can

• Create a catalog backup
• Update/delete product pages
• Protect your brand

I am an expert at doing things in bulk on Amazon because I had to manage catalogs with over 10+ million ASINs and make massive changes on the product detail page across multiple marketplaces (Amazon, Shopify, and Walmart) at the same time.

Unfortunately, I see sellers and ecommerce managers wasting days & weeks of time by not leveraging Amazon Category Listing Report (a.k.a. flat files) and bulk importing/exporting products by csv from Shopify, Walmart and other platforms. This article will be specific to Amazon, but applies to other marketplaces.

Tip: All mature channels have some sort of bulk product import/export option.

How To Get Access to Category Listings Report

Before I get to the real-life application, here's how to get access if you want to follow along, go to https://sellercentral.amazon.com/listing/reports Inventory Reports and select "Category Listings Report" from the drop-down. If you don't see this option, enter a ticket to request access to this report and they will add it to your dropdown. It's a fast turnaround from Amazon support to give you access.

Save yourself time, maximize your productivity and reduce inconsistency on your product page by using Category Listings Report on Amazon.

Let's get more actionable.

Create a Backup of Your Amazon Listing

I make mistakes. Amazon makes mistakes. Your sys admin & software makes mistakes. Competitors are out to sabotage you. A backup of your Category Listings Report will allow you to restore your products in just a few minutes. You don't need insurance until you need it.

Make a request, download and save it.  Not you have all your active and closed products on a spreadsheet.

Update/Delete Product Detail Pages on Amazon

Coordinate your SEO/PPC by updating your keywords to your title, bullet points, and other category-specific fields, making sure they are in sync to increase relevancy and rank.  When launching new campaigns to rank, I want to make sure my new keywords are in my title and bullet points.

Update your prices, quantities, handling time and shipping templates. Note: there are other types of flat files that can update just prices and inventory.

Create/remove your parent-child relationships.  If you ever had trouble creating or separating your products on the Amazon console, do this...

...To remove parent-child relationship, delete your child (yes, it's scary), wait 24 hours and add it back without any of the Variation sections filled out.

...To add parent-child relationship - simply add a new parent row to your flat file and update the Variation section identifying the parent and children products.

Add new products with specific launch and sales dates.  When you want to coordinate a massive marketing plan, set specific launch dates across the board with your product listing, promotion, and advertising start dates.

Enrich products information by providing additional category-specific data.  Do you want to show additional information on your product page and look like this?

Then do this. You can find this under the Discovery section of your spreadsheet (and some other places based on your category). I.e. material, length, edition.  This section normally sits above your bullet points and will push some of the ads below the fold.  

I had no luck changing my browse nodes or categories using the spreadsheet without submitting a ticket to support. Some sellers can, so give it a shot.

Set your Max Order Quantity to prevent customers from buying out your inventory when you accidentally created multiple coupons and promotions that can be stacked, never happened to me :)

Set your Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) to protect and prevent competition from undercutting you on the buy box not only on Amazon, but on all major marketplaces such as Chewy, Walmart and Target. This is important as these marketplaces often check prices and can penalize you for having lower pricing on another marketplace.

Brand Protection

Prevent hijackers by filling in as much product detail as possible. This will prevent them from using flagged terms (i.e. anti-microbial, insecticide, antiseptic) that can get your products temporarily delisted if you don't address them immediately. The frontend will expose a limited amount of fields. The Category Listings Report will reveal everything else.

Yes, that is true. Third-party sellers who don't know what they're doing can make mistakes that lead to incorrect listings, incorrect pricing, and other issues that can cause problems with your listing.

Tip: you might hear some gurus telling you to populate "everything" - please be careful, especially in the Compliance section of the spreadsheet. This might trigger unnecessary paperwork unrelated to your product and Amazon will remove your listing until certificates are provided. 

Take Action

At a minimum, if you read this far and never looked at your product report, download it and take a look.