What does an Amazon account suspension mean?
In case of Amazon account suspension, you lose any Sales rights. This means that as a seller you lose the right to sell your products on the marketplace. In some cases it also comes only to a blocking in Parts of the account. There is, for example, the possibility that one is blocked for own shipping (FBM) and can only sell via FBA. In addition, Amazon can block part of the product range if the requirements for blocking are present for the respective products.
Important: In the event of an account freeze, Amazon will freeze sales that are still to be paid out for approx. 90 days in order to deduct any returns from them, although outstanding orders can still be shipped.. If the account of an Amazon seller is locked, he will not receive the due payment from Amazon. In this case, he must wait until the account is unlocked again to access the so-called Amazon balance to be able to access
If the account is blocked, the message appears in Amazon Seller Central: "Your account has been deactivated". In addition, Amazon notifies the respective seller by email about the deactivation and lists the reasons that led to the blocking.
How does an account suspension occur?
Amazon provides high requirements to retailers who sell via the platform. This affects all areas of the supply chain: from the Product authenticity, about the Shipping, the Returns processing up to the Customer communication. Amazon measures the performance of the seller on all these areas. The e-commerce giant very sensitive when these requirements are not met by merchants. Violations of these requirements therefore often lead to account suspensions.
Concrete reasons that can lead to blocking:
Poor seller performanceIf a seller's performance does not meet Amazon's requirements over a certain period of time, this can lead to a suspension. For example, a rate of order defects above 1%, an excessive amount of negative feedback, A-to-Z warranty claims, or credit card chargebacks are insufficient seller performance.
Sales policy violations: If merchants violate one or more of Amazon's policies, they may also be blocked. For example, sending marketing-related emails to customers or requests for positive reviews may cause a block.
Incorrect seller information: Incorrect information about the Amazon Seller can also lead to suspension. In the most common cases, this is incorrect incorporation documents or outdated company addresses. Also, people often fail to enter all beneficial owners. Anyone holding more than 25 % of the shares must be named to Amazon.
Patent and plagiarism allegations or counterfeit goods: Copycats or similar are not uncommon on Amazon. Amazon treats such cases very rigorously by blocking such products or even merchants.
Compliance Violations: In the battle for the Buy Box, retailers or resellers must be extremely careful when setting prices. If Amazon detects collusion when setting prices, this corresponds to a violation of antitrust law, which can lead to an account suspension of the respective merchants.
The existence of double accounts: Amazon can identify merchants who have two Amazon accounts by data such as sales tax identification number (VAT ID), Name identify the shareholder and Co. If duplication of this data is detected, both accounts are blocked.
What can be done about an account freeze?
The Unblocking of the seller account is a process that starts with the submission of the Action Plan can be handled by means of an Amazon procedure. The action plan includes 3 essential questions to which a seller should answer concretely:
- What are the causes that led to the blocking?
- What measures has the seller already taken?
- What measures will he take in the future to ensure that these problems do not arise again?
When creating and implementing the action plan, there are points that Amazon says are essential:
- Be clear and precise.
- Provide an explanation for each problem.
- Add evidence for all items.
- Highlight important areas in your evidence documents.
- If you refer to things, name them in the editorial plan so that the Amazon employee can see them (case ID, batch ID, return number ...).
- Write briefly and get to the point. An action plan should be no longer than one page.
You can find out more about the creation and implementation of the action plan at here.
What can be done in advance to prevent account suspension?
Not every violation leads directly to an account suspension. As a rule, Amazon pronounces a Warning in advance. According to experience, Amazon warns the respective Amazon seller in about half of all cases before the seller is blocked. In this case, Amazon informs in advance about the exceeding of a key figure and gives the seller time to remedy the grievance.
For example, if there are violations of review guidelines, a seller can delete the reviews of friends, family, etc. and indicate that he will refrain from such behavior in the future.
Regarding our last post: What is the Amazon ACos?
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