Amazon to Merge Duplicate Book ASINs

[mandy]

Merging Duplicate Book ASINs

In order to provide Amazon customers with a better discovery and shopping experience, duplicate ASINs for the same books will be merged beginning on November 13, 2007.  This will mean that sellers will not have to list on multiple single detail pages that refer to the same product.

ASINs will be merged when a duplicate ASIN is detected.  This will result in all merchant product data, image data, offers and seller listings for one ASIN (the “merged” ASIN) being transferred over to a second ASIN (the “retained” ASIN). The first ASIN will no longer be viewable on the Amazon.com website. We will make a concerted effort to retain the ASIN that has a higher sales ranking and more merchants using it.

If a listing in an inventory loader feed refers to the first ASIN after the merge, the listing will be assigned to the second or retained ASIN.  A warning will be displayed in the processing report and the new ASIN will be identified.  You should verify that the new ASIN correctly identifies the product you are selling and use the new ASIN in subsequent uploads.  You will not have to make any other change to your feeds.

In rare instances, you may believe that an incorrect merge has occurred.  If you believe an incorrect merge has occurred, contact Seller Support and include the original ASIN and the new ASIN in your correspondence.

http://www.amazonsellercommunity.com/for...dID=144649

From Auctionbytes:

Booksellers on Amazon.com's Seller Soapbox discussion board were preparing for the worst after reading of the marketplace's plans to clean up inventory listing guides called ASINs...

Sellers fear that making such a major change on the site could lead to technical issues or glitches. Others fear Amazon.com will make mistakes in merging the ASINs - and fear that Amazon might not support them in any buyer claims resulting from mix-ups...

full article: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m11/i14/s01

discussion on the Amazon boards: http://www.amazonsellercommunity.com/for...dID=144654&start=0&tstart=0