You shipped the code you meant to ship. The question is what that code was pointing at.
For cases we accept: a field-by-field comparison of unit against record, the page as it stood at order time, and a disposition for each inventory version.
A real person reads your case and replies within about an hour.
ASA Compliance Group operates Amazon Sellers Appeal. On different-item files we compare the unit with the record, reconstruct the page history, and realign both in Seller Central.
Include the affected orders, the stated difference, and photographs of the unit and packaging beside the listing. Four short steps. Or Shamosh reads every intake.
Or Shamosh · Founder and lead strategist
5,500+ enforcement cases since 2016. Every intake is personally assessed before acceptance.
Send what you have, including prior DIY or agency appeals. We say what is viable in writing before you commit.
Questionnaire
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* Across ASA’s accepted and fully managed enforcement cases (all notice types we take on), not different item matters alone. Details under Proof.
This finding means the item customers received materially differs from the product on the detail page, even where the seller shipped exactly the internal code they intended. That last part is what makes it confusing: the warehouse did its job and the complaint is still correct.
The difference decides the whole investigation, so it is worth settling before anything else. A catalog answer sent to a proven pick error reads as evasion, and a fulfilment audit sent to a mapping problem finds nothing wrong because nothing in the warehouse was.
The differences that count are the ones a customer would notice: model or generation, size, colour, pack count, region, voltage, language, formulation, included accessories, packaging version, or a manufacturer revision.
Those group into three origins, and the origin decides who can fix it:
A revised model, a new formulation, a different case quantity, a component dropped from the box. Usually discovered from the complaint rather than a notice.
Genuine goods, produced to different expectations: voltage, plug, language, warranty, regulatory marks, regional formulation.
The product stayed the same and the page it is attached to changed, so a mapping that was correct when it was made is not now.
Amazon's product detail page rules carry the principle underneath all three, that one record describes one product.
Almost all of these begin with something the supplier or the catalog did, rather than something the seller did.
The manufacturer revised the product and the record still describes the previous one, or the reverse. Sellers often learn about the revision from the complaint rather than from the supplier.
Obtain the manufacturer's change notice and compare identifiers, specifications, dimensions, formulation, compatibility, accessories, warranty and packaging. Then decide whether it is the same product revised, or a distinct model that needs its own record.
A two-pack fulfilling a single-unit record, or a bundle whose composition changed. Quantity is one of the differences customers notice immediately and complain about precisely, which is why it surfaces fast.
Genuine inventory produced for another market. The goods are authentic, and that is not the question. Voltage, plug type, language, warranty terms, regulatory marks, formulation and included components can all differ while the product remains genuine.
Where the complaint is really about territorial distribution or material differences asserted by a rights owner, the lane is parallel import violations, which turns on different evidence.
The item looks the same and is not. An ingredient list changes, a cable is no longer in the box, a material is substituted. These are the hardest for a seller to notice, because nothing about the receiving process flags them.
Or's rule here is worth stating on the page: a packaging change is not automatically immaterial. Whether it matters depends on what changed inside it, not on how different the box looks.
The most purely administrative version, and common after a catalog edit. The code was attached to a record that has since been changed by another contributor, so the mapping was correct when it was made and is not now.
This is where the page at order time matters more than the page today, and where the incorrect detail page lane may be the actual remedy if the record rather than the inventory is what moved.
Reviewers are comparing a physical unit with a record. Most rejected responses prove the warehouse worked instead.
Proof that the intended code shipped, with nothing about whether that code was mapped to the right record.
A change dismissed as packaging when it affects compatibility, warranty, region, ingredients, quantity or instructions.
The record is updated while the historical units and the orders that produced the complaints go unaddressed.
Another contributor is named, with no contribution history and no physical-product evidence behind the claim.
Two genuinely different products consolidated onto one record to simplify the fix, which creates the next complaint.
A single product image offered as identity proof, with no identifiers, specifications or side-by-side comparison.
Settle which of the two problems you have, then prove product identity. Everything else follows from those.
Record the exact complaint, the record and code, the affected orders, the fulfilment channel and the stated difference. Then answer the threshold question in writing: is this a mapping problem or a pick problem? The rest of the file depends on it, and it is answered from the order records rather than from impression.
Where returns exist, the returned unit is the single most useful piece of evidence in the case, because it is the actual object the customer received rather than a description of it.
Put the physical unit and the record side by side and mark each field identical or different, with photographs and manufacturer specifications behind it:
The output is a statement of which physical unit belongs on which record and why, rather than an argument that the two are close enough.
A screenshot of the record today does not show what customers saw when the affected orders were placed, and on a case caused by a catalog edit that gap is the whole defence. Category Listings Reports, contribution history, dated captures and support cases are what reconstruct it.
This evidence is also perishable in practice. It gets harder to assemble the longer the case runs, which is an argument for pulling it early even if the response is weeks away.
Each version in stock needs a decision: remap to the correct record, segregate, relabel, remove, or restrict from sale. Where the versions are genuinely different products, one of them usually needs its own record, which is an ASIN creation question rather than a merge.
Then the states, four of them and not interchangeable: prepared, uploaded, processed and live-verified. Physical work has its own version of this: relabelled and segregated are claims until they are dated and evidenced.
If the returned unit is available, say so. It usually settles in one photograph what a page of argument cannot.
Scoped historical outcomes on cases we accepted and fully managed. One seller voice below; deeper galleries live on account reinstatement.
Population: historical cases ASA accepted and fully managed (we prepared the compliance response and ran follow-ups in Seller Central). The figure combines reinstatement and restoration work across notice types in that managed population, not different item matters alone. Declined intakes and self-serve template buyers are not in the rate.
Success: reinstatement or restoration of the privileges Amazon had restricted for that file (account, listing, verification, funds, or related, depending on the case). Amazon decides every outcome; the rate is not a guarantee for future cases.
Review: the underlying records were independently reviewed. Verified as of .
More methodology context and galleries: account reinstatement proof.
“In less than 24 hours after the appeal, my account was reactivated with all products available for sale.”
More outcomes and video proof: account reinstatement proof.
For sellers who already have the Performance Notification. Broader questions: full FAQ library.
If Amazon says customers received a different item, start with the questionnaire.
Listing removed rather than mis-described: listing reinstatement. Other notice names: all suspension types.
