RESOURCES

Amazon has always guaranteed an atmosphere of constant change for brands that sell on its platform. This year has been no exception, especially with vendor purge rumors and product descriptions mysteriously disappearing. Most recently, major changes to Enhanced Brand Content have caught the attention of sellers that use creative content to promote their products. Continue reading to learn more about these changes and what they mean for vendors.

A Breakdown of the Changes to Enhanced Brand Content 

• New A+ Content Manager 

Now, both vendors and sellers have access to the new A+ Content Manager. Before these changes rolled out, creative content platforms were completely different between Vendor and Seller Central. 

• Seller Central 

While always very similar, Seller Central’s Enhanced Brand Content is fully changing over to A+ Pages, previously found only in Vendor Central. 

• Vendor Central 

Vendors now have access to new modules, previously only available in Seller Central. Below are screenshots of these new modules. 

What Do These Changes Mean for Brands? 

At first glance, this change looks to be nothing more than a rebrand of Enhanced Brand Content. However, access to these new modules creates an opportunity for brands to better appeal to consumers through larger images. For example, Portage Notebooks, uses the 970 x 600 Image Header with Text module. 

Vendors specifically have new access to the product description module. Before this change, A+ product description modules were only available to sellers because Enhanced Brand Content overwrote this section in Vendor Central. 

With this change, we expect for our clients that work within both Vendor and Seller accounts to have a much more seamless experience. They will be able to provide a greater level of consistency across listings and product detail pages making for a more refined catalog. 

Could These Changes Mean Something More? 

At this point, we can only speculate Amazon’s end-game for updates like these. Our strategists and technical analysts at Marketplace Strategy think there is reason to believe these changes, combined with the aforementioned mysteriously disappearing product descriptions, could be a sign Amazon plans to move away from the product description field entirely. 

While trying to upload product descriptions for clients, our team has run into snags and received the following message from Amazon support: 

“Regarding product description update, I would like to inform you that as per the recent update vendor central no longer accepts HTML tags but as an alternative, you can use the A+ Content feature which allows you to describe your product features by including a unique brand story, enhanced images, and text placements.”

Since Amazon support is encouraging brands to use A+ modules, these updates to Enhanced Brand Content make sense.  

The text within product descriptions has always been a part of MPS’s content strategy because it’s recognized by Amazon’s search algorithm. On the other hand, at least for now, the product description section module within A+ pages isn’t crawled by the search engine (Note: Confusingly, A+ modules are recognized by other major search engines like Google.) 

These updates could potentially mean Amazon plans to forgo product descriptions as a separate field and fully integrate them into A+ content. If this happens, A+ product descriptions may begin to be crawled by Amazon’s search engine in the future.

If there is any constant brands can rely on in the world of Amazon, it’s change. These most recent updates to Seller Central are just some of the many to surely come in the future. We look forward to seeing how Amazon continues to improve the experience for brands across the entire ecosystem.

If your brand needs support from a strategic partner or has any questions about these changes, we’re here to help.