English
中文 (中国)
Last updated on January 6th, 2023
Written by Nicasio Co III
Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. In this case, the laws are Amazon’s terms and conditions and seller code of conduct. Violating them would prevent Amazon from providing first-class customer service to their buyers. Breaking any of their rules, even unknowingly, will result in an Amazon seller account suspension.
Your selling privileges could be revoked for any number of reasons. The most common causes have something to do with poor seller performance. However, many cases involve sellers not paying attention to Amazon’s policies.
Frankly, this isn’t surprising. A survey conducted by Deloitte, a professional services network, concluded that 91% of people agree to terms and services without reading them. For people aged 18-34, the percentage is even higher: 97%.
Let’s look at a few situations where sellers unknowingly broke Amazon’s rules because they didn’t know about them.
Amazon has made it clear that all information submitted to them and their customers must be accurate to prevent sellers from misrepresenting themselves or their products. The sellers’ forums are full of posts about attempts at opening an account only to be suspended a few days later due to Amazon’s team finding discrepancies in the information submitted.
These situations include:
Important note: Amazon will re-verify a seller’s identity if you upgrade or downgrade their selling plan (from an Individual Selling Plan to Professional or vice versa).
Any mention of your business will result in an Amazon seller account suspension. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t know about that rule. Amazon protects its exclusive rights to be the only business on display for buyers.
Many sellers should be aware of the situations that could possibly lead Seller Performance to think you’re promoting your own business. These include:
If you experienced an Amazon suspension, help can be received by consulting Amazon experts to guide you through the appeal process.
On the surface, it seems like a good idea. Put some reviews in your product image so that you can accomplish two things for the price of one. Wrong! Amazon has stringent product image requirements.
The best thing that can happen is for your listing to be removed. If you’re not careful, your account can be suspended pending an investigation. You don’t want that for the chance to include a few measly reviews in your product photos.
According to many sellers, Amazon is rarely lenient when it comes to multiple seller accounts. The reasoning is sound: sellers who lost their selling privileges permanently can’t open another account and resume the activities that got them banned. It’s the same with suspended accounts. It would be best if you worked with Amazon to resolve your violations of the rules and go for account reinstatement.
Haven’t you had enough of product claims that don’t even remotely resemble the truth? Well, Amazon wants to keep the competition clean by removing that aspect of advertising altogether.
The Federal Trade Commission states that customers should be protected from deceptive advertising and marketing practices that raise health and safety concerns. In other words, if you say it, you’d better be able to back it up.
Amazon prohibits any claims to mitigate, cure, treat, or prevent diseases without FDA approval. The list of those diseases includes, but not limited to:
If your product can treat or cure any of these diseases, you need to submit documents proving so to Amazon.
Having your account reinstated isn’t as easy as getting office 365 migration services, where you just hire people to put all your information in the cloud. Appealing your suspended account has a little more uncertainty to it.
The first step is to find out the root cause of the suspension. Amazon usually tells you what rule you violated from their terms and conditions and tells you how to appeal. Here’s the process:
Draft a response telling Amazon that you have realized your mistake and how it affected Amazon’s customers. Be as detailed as you can.
Put all the details of your action plan in your appeal letter, including the steps you’ll take so your violations won’t happen again. If possible, make your message easier to read by using short paragraphs, bullet points, and using bold on key details.
You might be losing a lot of money in sales, but sending a lot of emails to follow up on your suspension is a bad idea. It will just bury your original one. Give them time to process your appeal.
An Amazon seller account suspension isn’t the end of the world. You can even get experts to help you during the whole appeal process, get your account reinstated, monitor your performance for any problems, and optimize your listings to boost sales.
Contact us at [email protected] or [email protected], and let’s formulate a plan to get you selling in no time.
Last updated on March 17th, 2023 Written by Ken Zhou When looking for the best item on the Amazon marketplace, those at the top of search results are always our first options. It's an open secret: sponsored items are the first to appear, so we immediately think they're bestsellers or have good reviews. But what […]
Last updated on March 17th, 2023 Written by Ken Zhou Most answers online will say it takes 7 to 10 business days. It's correct, though applicable only in some circumstances. The answer is much more specific, depending on someone’s role in the marketplace. For starters, buyers and sellers go through different processes to get their […]
Last updated on March 17th, 2023 Written by Ken Zhou It’s no secret that Walmart is one of the most meticulously crafted marketplaces in the world. On top of that, they’re also meticulous when it comes to maintaining the performance of their sellers, which must be on par with their standards. While it has only […]
