Every brand we onboard has an opinion about its A+ comparison chart. Which competitors to include without naming them, which rows to show, whether the checkmarks should be green.
Almost none of them have looked at the other comparison chart on the same page. The one Amazon built. Compare with similar items sits on the detail page below your bullets and above the product information block on most listings, and it does something your A+ chart never does: it puts your product next to three or four specific competitors, by name, with their prices and ratings, and fills the rows from structured attributes you may or may not have populated.
After managing hundreds of brands on Amazon, the pattern is consistent. The A+ chart gets three review rounds. The Amazon chart gets zero, because nobody thinks of it as theirs. It is on their page, in front of their traffic, using their data. It is theirs.
What the section actually is
The mechanics, as far as anyone outside Amazon can state them.
Amazon picks the competitors. When a seller asked on the forums why a rival kept showing up in the section on his own listing, Amazon’s community manager answered that the section is automatic, “based on what customers are selecting and the features for each of the products.” That is the whole published explanation. The comparison set is a function of what shoppers who viewed your product went on to view or buy, plus attribute similarity. You do not nominate the set and you cannot remove a product from it.
Amazon fills the rows from attributes. The rows are structured product attributes: price, rating, dimensions, material, weight, colour, and whatever category-specific fields Amazon deems comparable. The values come from the catalogue. If your material field is populated and a competitor’s isn’t, they show a dash. If it is the other way round, you do.
The rows vary by child. Sellers report the attribute set changes as a shopper switches size or colour within a variation family, because each child carries its own attribute record. Your best-selling child can look complete while a sibling in the same family shows three blanks in the same table.
It is rendered where the shopper is deciding. The chart appears after the shopper has scrolled past the buy box and bullets, which means it is read by someone who was interested enough to keep going and has not yet committed. That is the same reader your A+ content is written for. Amazon’s chart just gets to them first on a lot of mobile layouts, and it gets to them with your competitors’ prices in the same row as yours.
Confirm the placement on your own listings in the app rather than trusting a description, including this one. Amazon adjusts detail-page modules by category and device without announcing anything.
Why the blank cells are the expensive part
A brand’s instinct when it first looks at this table is to worry about the competitors in it. That is the wrong worry. You cannot change who is in it. You can change what your column says.
An empty cell is not neutral. A shopper reading a four-column table where three products list a material and one shows a dash does not conclude the fourth brand forgot to fill in a form. They conclude the fourth brand has something to hide, or that it is the least professional option on the page. That happens in under a second, and it happens on the surface Amazon built specifically for the shopper who is comparing.
We audited the top twenty ASINs on a home-goods account earlier this year and found the comparison table showing blanks on eleven of them, mostly on material, item weight, and a category-specific “special feature” field. The brand’s A+ comparison chart on the same listings was immaculate. Two charts on one page, one written by the brand and one written from the brand’s catalogue record, and only the first one had been looked at.
Attribute completeness is unglamorous catalogue work. It is also the only lever you have on the one comparison table the shopper is guaranteed to see with your competitors’ names in it.
The price row is a positioning decision you made by accident
The comparison set is built from shopper behaviour, so it tends to reflect what your shoppers consider alternatives. If your $34 product routinely appears next to three products at $14 to $19, the table is telling you something about how Amazon and your shoppers classify you, and it is telling every subsequent shopper the same thing.
That is not a bug to escalate. It is a merchandising finding. A premium product whose comparison set is entirely budget alternatives has a listing that is failing to communicate the tier. The fix is not a Seller Support case. It is a page that makes the price gap legible before the shopper reaches the table: the material in the title, the differentiating spec in Item Highlights, the claim that justifies the gap in the first two bullets, and the attribute fields filled so the table itself shows why you cost more.
Get that right and the comparison table becomes an argument for you. Leave it and you are paying for traffic that arrives at a table which says, in Amazon’s own typography, that a cheaper version exists.
The AI layer is reading the same data
Amazon’s Help Me Decide feature, live in the shopping app for U.S. customers, offers a recommended product plus an “upgrade pick” and a “budget option” after a shopper has viewed several similar items. It runs on browsing history, product details, and reviews.
We are not going to claim to know the weights inside it, because nobody outside Amazon does. What is safe to say is that it is doing the same job as the comparison table with a language model in front of it: assembling a small consideration set from products the shopper looked at and deciding which one is the upgrade and which is the budget option. The inputs it can read are the same structured fields the table renders. A product with blank attributes is illegible to both.
This is why we keep pushing attribute completeness as creative work rather than admin. The comparison table is the visible version of a classification that is also happening invisibly, and it is happening more often every quarter.
The 30-minute audit
Do this on your top ten revenue ASINs, in the Amazon app, this week.
Find the table and screenshot it, dated. Scroll each listing until you hit Compare with similar items. Screenshot the full table. Amazon does not archive this and the set changes; a dated screenshot is the only record you will have of who you were compared to going into Q4.
Write down the competitors and their prices. If the set is cheaper than you across the board, that is a tier-communication problem on your page. If it is more expensive, you are the budget option and your creative should be making the value case rather than the premium one.
Count your blanks. Every dash in your column is an attribute field you can fill this afternoon. Cross-check against the competitor columns to see which fields Amazon is rendering for the category. Those are the fields that matter.
Check two children, not one. Open a second size or colour and look again. If the attribute set differs between children in your own family, you have inconsistent child records and the fix is a flat file, not a creative brief.
Compare it to your A+ chart. If your A+ comparison chart argues on rows that the Amazon table does not render, you are arguing in a language the shopper’s second source of truth does not speak. Where the rows overlap, make sure the values agree. A material that reads “stainless steel” in your A+ and shows a dash or “metal” in the Amazon table is a credibility problem you built yourself.
What to fix before peak
Working back from the mid-October start of peak fulfillment fees and the October 20 Black Friday deal-submission close, there is time to do the catalogue side of this properly. Attribute edits land in hours, not the seven-to-ten business days an A+ resubmission takes, and they do not restart a review clock.
Prioritise by contribution, not revenue. A blank material field on a $60 product with 40 points of contribution costs more than the same blank on a $15 product, and the $60 product is the one whose comparison set is most likely to be cheaper than it.
Then leave it alone. The comparison set will move through Q4 as competitors launch, stock out, and drop price. Screenshot it monthly, watch for a new entrant undercutting you, and do not chase it with a bid change. A new product in your comparison table is a market fact, not an ad problem.
FAQ
Can I remove a competitor from Compare with similar items on my listing?
No. Amazon’s stated position is that the section is automatic and driven by customer behaviour and product features. Seller Support may investigate a specific case but there is no seller-facing control over the set. Spend the effort on your own column instead.
Why does my product show blanks when competitors show values?
The rows are populated from structured attributes in your catalogue record. A blank means the field is empty or Amazon could not map what you entered to the comparable attribute. Fill the field in Seller Central, or via flat file for a family, and check the table again after it re-renders.
Does the comparison table affect ranking?
Not directly in the way people mean. It affects conversion on the detail page, which is a ranking input. A shopper who reaches the table and leaves for a cheaper alternative in it is a lost conversion on a session you paid for.
Should my A+ comparison chart match the Amazon table?
Where the rows overlap, the values must agree. Where they do not overlap, your A+ chart should carry the rows you win on that Amazon’s table does not render, which is the entire reason to have one. Do not include rows in your A+ chart that the Amazon table contradicts two scrolls later.
Why is my product being compared to much cheaper items?
Because the shoppers who viewed your product also viewed those items, and Amazon treats them as attribute-similar. That is a signal that your page is not communicating the tier before the shopper starts comparing. Fix the title, Item Highlights, bullets, and attributes so the gap is explained, and the set usually drifts toward genuine peers over a quarter.
If you’re looking for a team that manages every lever — creative, advertising, and operations — Velocity Sellers works with brands doing $100K+/month on Amazon. Contact us for a free account audit.
