I have personally purchased your product as a gift for my sister and she loved it. I really hope that Amazon realizes their mistake.
Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?
11–20 of 112 posts
Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?
#12Make a new account - the only thing that works.
Amazon has no qualms delisting businesses making tenth of megabucks on Amazon, and it is very unlikely that they will make an exception for a small business.
Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?
#13There's going to be a massive rise in this sort of stuff over the next few years. Firstly consolidation, then organisations too large to care about their clients, then semi-automated punishment. Always remember that Amazon is in the same business as everyone and they can burn you down in a second if they decide they don't care. It's a pond full of bureaucratic crocodiles and the biggest one is boss. On numerous occasions companies have shipped me "fuck you" instead of what I paid for and Amazon won't deal with that. It's no better than a traditional market now. The good traders lose to the bad ones, the customers lose to everyone and the only winner is the landlord.
The only thing you can do is refuse to play.
I'd get a (off shelf) storefront up on a domain you control and can remain in control of and start looking for alternative sources of customers. If you have a customer database of any kind, send out marketing emails with product / brand relaunch. Start posting on twitter, insta, google adwords, popular related forums, everything you can. If you have a loyal customer base they will find you again. I know I would.
Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?
#14I have no idea how to help but your product looks wonderful and I think I'm going to buy it - I'm sorry you're going through this
Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?
#15It looks like your listing is removed but your account is still active. Is that right?
You need to do a little bit of research on the type of response they are looking for as far as your "plan". You are talking to them and sending them screenshots as if you are talking to a human that cares. They do not. Your messages are going into a queue of thousands where low paid, unskilled workers are skimming through then as fast as possible and clicking approve or deny.
You need to work the system, adjust your responses according to what their blanket response says and just keep at it. Modify your plan and resend it. But wait for them to respond each time before you message again.
Don't over do the detail. But create a numbered list with what you are going to do to correct the problem. I had the same issue with one of my accounts. It took maybe 9 letters until they finally reinstated me. There was nothing special in that 9th letter. It probably just got read by someone in a good mood that day.
If this is your first issue and you don't have any other serious issues with your account, you should be able to get it back.
Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?
#16A family member had the same problem recently. Amazon "deleted" all seller accounts in Europe, because they allegedly didn't sell anything. There was only an US seller account left to contact support. We send support requests over the request platform (forgot the name), to one of the email addresses we got from another support request and to a local post address of Amazon. We got answers from all sources, from different persons with quit different results. Some told us to use the EU support request platform (which was no longer available). Some answers told us the same thing the automatic email said.
There is no quality control here, no due process. Luckily (literally luck), all stores got reinstated after a week. At some point, we provided evidence that those seller accounts did in fact sell products and our requests were forwarded to an internal business department. There, finally, someone realized that Amazon made a mistake.
Our case isn't yours, but that's the only thing I can tell you. Shotgun initial requests to 3-5 addresses. Make it quit clear that you a) are generating value for Amazon b) want to continue doing so and c) fixed the issue (or better that there actually wasn't an issue and you got flagged for the wrong reason).
Ultimately, this is a question about policy. Big platforms need to be regulated. They are no longer a single business you can avoid. They are a platform, a monopoly holding influence over our daily lives, with the power to destroy financial existences due to algorithmic decisions. You never know beforehand what could go wrong, there is no proper way to contact Amazon in emergencies (like a hotline). You have no way to reinstate your seller account if Amazon simply says "no". (Maybe you could sue them, but you're going to be bankrupt long before that process is finished). Power imbalance is at the root of all injustice and exactly the reason we need rights to protect those with less.
I sincerely hope you can save your business.
Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?
#17Unfortunately, your best bet is to hope this gets enough attention here that an Amazon employee on some higher level happens to see it. This is more or less the case with a lot of these tech companies right now. You have my upvotes, hope it helps.
Also to further your point into existential territory. I remember hearing Elizabeth Warren saying her plan was to break up BigTechCo's and thinking to myself about how ridiculous it is and how she's totally pointing her guns in the wrong direction. But after these events and some reflection; it's true. These companies are clearly only accountable to themselves leaving everyone else to go f* themselves. Consumers may…
"I held a reasonable opinion until my bias got involved"
Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?
#18Unfortunately, your best bet is to hope this gets enough attention here that an Amazon employee on some higher level happens to see it. This is more or less the case with a lot of these tech companies right now. You have my upvotes, hope it helps.
Also to further your point into existential territory. I remember hearing Elizabeth Warren saying her plan was to break up BigTechCo's and thinking to myself about how ridiculous it is and how she's totally pointing her guns in the wrong direction. But after these events and some reflection; it's true. These companies are clearly only accountable to themselves leaving everyone else to go f* themselves. Consumers may…
I can't see how breaking up Amazon helps this kind of thing. Sure you could break of AWS, you could separate fulfilment stuff from the main marketplace and have Amazon itself just another marketplace seller, you could insist they use 3rd party courier companies, not start their own etc.
But fundamentally there is still a website that has listings and someone has to patrol it for quality / spam. Those people will have to use algorithms, and they will make mistakes.
Don't get me wrong. Breaking up Amazon is a good idea, and should happen, but it's unlikely to help here.
Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?
#19I always found dealing with Amazon Kafkaesque outside of "my parcel didn't arrive - ok we send a new one" or "I don't want this - ok send it back". Some of my interactions ended with involving the police who solved them in my favor.
Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?
#20I have no idea how to help but your product looks wonderful and I think I'm going to buy it - I'm sorry you're going through this
+1 looks like a really cool product and I’m probably gonna buy one as a gift. Insane that a clearly legit product like this can be banned with no recourse at these sites. They should invest some of their smart people into improving the UX for these situations.