2015 was another great year for e-commerce sellers with sales continuing to increase year-on-year. It’s not all been great news for sellers though, with an increasing number of Amazon accounts being hit with the dreaded Amazon account suspension.
What can you do?
This blog post will detail how you can protect your Amazon seller account and how you can get your account reinstated including what to include in your plan of action (more on that later).
Every day hundreds of honest third-party sellers get suspended, denied or banned by Amazon.
What’s the difference?
Suspension means you still have a chance to appeal. You’ll need to work a plan of action.
Denied means your appeal was rejected but you still have a chance to submit a revised plan of action.
Banned is the worst scenario of the three. Basically, you’re out of there. Your appeal has failed more than once and Amazon will no longer read your emails.
Ah well, l’ll just open another account…Not so fast—you’ll also be informed that it’s against Amazon’s terms and conditions for you to open another seller account. Darn!
Sellers who’ve been suspended often get frustrated with the fact they can’t pick up the phone and speak to someone to resolve the issue. Every minute a seller is suspended, they’re losing money! In some instances, it can take weeks or months for sellers to get reinstated.
Amazon selling privileges are removed for three reasons:
Amazon feel your performance is taking a dive. They want to operate a competitive marketplace that values good customer service.
You’ve violated Amazon’s policies. Remember it’s Amazon’s house and you have to abide by their rules.
Selling a restricted product.
You can find out why your account has been suspended by checking your Performance Notifications within Seller Central.
A suspended seller will also receive a notification titled “Your Amazon.com selling privileges have been removed” with a list of ASINs that Amazon believe have violated their policies.
Performance-related suspension notifications will start off like this:
“We have removed your Amazon selling privileges because of buyer complaints about the condition or description of items they received from you.”
I thought we were friends Amazon.
Sellers are then expected to create a plan of action based on the information contained within the notification.
