I’ve been selling on Amazon for about 1.5 years, focusing on a small, high-ticket home niche.

For a while, competition was light, and I built my way to BSR #1 with pure white-hat ops.

Daily sales were only ~40 orders (small niche, low search volume), but margins were healthy.

Then six months ago, waves of cheap competitors flooded in.

The average price in the niche dropped from $90 → $75, and now we’re seeing listings as low as $45–$65.

My conversion rate crumbled from 14% down to 9%.

I tested everything, and only price cuts worked — so I dropped my price from $100+ to $89 just to stabilize.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, a big seller from a related main category moved into my small subcategory with the exact same product, priced slightly below me.

I still could’ve competed because my listing, reviews, and keyword rankings were strong…

But within days of launching, they abused variations — merging their new listing into their existing high-review BSR listing from another node.

That listing has thousands of reviews, ranked ~2,000 in the main category.

Overnight, their traffic exploded.

My best rank was only ~10,000 in the main category. Even with all core keywords at position #1, my small node just can’t compete with their hijacked traffic.

My boss is furious and blames me for not defending properly.

I tried reporting them through Account Health → Report Abuse for variation abuse, but Amazon rejected it.

My boss wants me to keep submitting complaints, but I’ve heard repeated reports can trigger brand abuse warnings against ME.

Worse, I’ve seen sellers get split and then re-merge within hours — no consequences at all.

Here’s what I’ve already tried:

  1. Ad defense:

  • ASIN targeting right under theirs

  • Expanded to secondary big keywords

But CPC is ~$4 per click, conversion is under 4% — not sustainable.

  1. More promotions:
  • Increased coupons, BD, 7-day deals

Helped a little, but sales are still down ~33% from peak.

  1. Cross-traffic tricks:
  • Bundles, brand story, A+ comparison charts

Barely moved the needle.

I’m stuck and starting to doubt myself.

My boss is even hinting we should start using shady tactics too — “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

I really don’t want to go that route.

Any white-hat moves I’m missing?

Would really appreciate advice from people who’ve fought this exact battle.