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Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?

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Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?

#31
post #15

It 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 f…

Yeah it is insane. Trying to approach these appeals like you are talking to a regular person just results in failure. A whole industry has popped up around writing Amazon appeals.

It is silly, the whole process encourages you to wildly over promise in your plan, a reasonable set of steps to solve the problem likely won't get you anywhere. Even have to admit to and propose a fix to problems that were never there to fix their check boxes.

There is also a wall between account managers and the seller performance teams, we have had account mangers pushing to get our account back on and not being able to help.

OP- There is a lot of information online so just continue to research and work out exactly what they are looking for, what their check boxes look like, and then write something that hits them all. On the positive side it is rare a final determination from them is actually final and they will generally still look at things after the deadlines they have set.

Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?

#32

The only way to protect against commercial deplatforming is to promote and sell through your own website, with a choice of payment processors. It's hard work but there's really nothing else to say. Every other presence should be considered as a disposable inbound funnel. Instagram or Twitter deleted you? Start a new account and link back to your website again.

As much as possible but it is never perfect as you always depend on someone. Organic search rankings, Google/Facebook ad accounts, PayPal (in ecommerce at least I think you probably give up some sales if you can't offer it).

It is always tempting to sink time into the platforms as well to increase volume even if it is a risk.

Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?

#33
post #12

Make 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.

Very hard to successfully do this, basically have to commit to going full stealth with a different company, owners, emails, bank accounts, IPs ect.

Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?

#34
post #18
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I can't see how breaking up Amazon helps this kind of thing

Read up on the break-up of Standard Oil.[0]

If we took that approach with a tech giant, we'd end up with lots of smaller independent companies which compete with each other in their markets, not companies which each (still!) completely dominate one particular market segment.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil#Breakup

Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?

#35
Don't know what to say. You should move away from amazon. It is already a monopoly. Recently I flagged a product which has all 5(10s of them, not a singe 4 or -ve reviews!). Looked at the reviews on page 1, all single lines, great product, received promptly etc. None properly describing the product. I was almost convinced to buy, then dig through the reviews and found that the reviews are not related to the product at all. The product is a vitamin supplement, the reviews related to some skin cream not available on street. And it's directly an amazon prime product (not from market place).I was raged and immediately contacted amazon cs and had a lengthy chat and they said some one will get back to me and do something about it. Never heard anything back and the product stays and people still get fooled.

Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?

#36
Don't try to make a new account as others have suggested. You're essentially guaranteed to be permanently delisted by Amazon if you do this and they react. Instead, send a polite but compelling email to jeff@amazon.com explaining the situation in full.

I once had an issue that Amazon's customer service wouldn't address. I emailed jeff@amazon.com and had a response within a week, with a full resolution to the matter.

Worth a shot?

Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?

#38
Wow, thanks for sharing, unbelievable story, hope you can find a quick resolution. Hopefully the buzz from this post ends up being a net positive for your business.

To anyone questioning why breaking up big tech is important, just imagine doing nothing wrong an receiving a form email like this in regards to your livelihood: https://i.imgur.com/gWewbd1.png

Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?

#39

The only way to protect against commercial deplatforming is to promote and sell through your own website, with a choice of payment processors. It's hard work but there's really nothing else to say. Every other presence should be considered as a disposable inbound funnel. Instagram or Twitter deleted you? Start a new account and link back to your website again.

Whenever I read this advice, I can't help but feel it's futile.

Do you realize how hard it is to gain people's attention without being on one of the major platforms? How do you get people to come to your website, to trust your service and give you their credit card details? How do you accept payments? You have to use something like PayPal or Stripe, also platforms which can ban you for any (or no) reason. The economics are unworkable, and platforms are unavoidable.

This is our new reality.

Re: Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do?

#40
I recommend that you read the article below. At the very least, you might find some solace in knowing that you are not alone. Alternatively, you could reach out to some of the consultants mentioned in the article, who specialise in unravelling the Amazon ToS and act as arbitrers.

Good luck.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon-marketpl...

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