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Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

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Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#31

Post by throwaway150 »

ejo4041 wrote: post #26

Amazon Seller for 10 years here. I haven't had my account shutdown, but some tips that could help. At the top, your brand is listed as "Generic", this is because you do not have a brand registered. The way to have a brand registered with Amazon is to first get a Trademark for your brand. This will also help you fight against counterfeiters on Amazon that could try to sell their own version under your listing. In that…

> I haven't had my account shutdown,

You have been lucky so far, but there is no guarantee that luck will not run out tomorrow. The algorithms making these decisions are not open to review. They are opaque, and there is no way to know when something in your account might be flagged as suspicious.

> but some tips that could help.

I know you are trying to help, so thank you for that. So don't take this personally when I say this. I'm just frustrated with how things have turned out.

It is absurd that we have reached a point where people must rely on unofficial and unverified tips just to possibly avoid losing access to their source of income. It seems incredibly unhealthy for a market this important to be governed in this way.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#32

Post by rorylaitila »

Don't use other companies brand names in your product titles. Regardless of what other people get away with. Regardless of what is in the Amazon fine print. Don't use trademark logos in your product images. Make your own brand name. Make it "compatible with" in the product description.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#33

Post by nikkwong »

kelnos wrote: post #29
nikkwong wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has some terms in their TOS that you have to go through mediation on their terms—I tried to get the process started but could never get them to respond when I/we contacted their legal teams. I probably should have pressed harder, I'm sure there was some way to do it, but I wasn't able to figure it out at the time.

I feel like if you've made a good-faith effort to start the arbitration process they require you to do, and they ignore you, that is grounds for a lawsuit. And I doubt a judge would look favorably upon Amazon in that case.

You're totally right. At the time I didn't have much money for a lawyer, but perhaps I should look into it again now.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#34

Post by ejo4041 »

throwaway150 wrote: post #31
ejo4041 wrote: post #26

Amazon Seller for 10 years here. I haven't had my account shutdown, but some tips that could help. At the top, your brand is listed as "Generic", this is because you do not have a brand registered. The way to have a brand registered with Amazon is to first get a Trademark for your brand. This will also help you fight against counterfeiters on Amazon that could try to sell their own version under your listing. In that…

> I haven't had my account shutdown, You have been lucky so far, but there is no guarantee that luck will not run out tomorrow. The algorithms making these decisions are not open to review. They are opaque, and there is no way to know when something in your account might be flagged as suspicious. > but some tips that could help. I know you are trying to help, so thank you for that. So don't take this personally when…

I don't disagree with most of your comment, although I don't think my tips are questionable, they are well within Amazon's guidelines. I have been through counterfeiter issues on my account before and very familiar with the brand registry process. Changing listing titles also happens on a regular basis to chase trends in search results. My recommendations are pretty much directly from the cited guidelines in sellercentral.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#35

Post by iLoveOncall »

busterarm wrote: post #22
iLoveOncall wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even pretty small ones do. My wife has worked at Amazon as an account manager both for 1P and 3P sellers, some of those don't even make $100K a year on Amazon but still have an internal contact.

Depends on the category. My brother runs an Amazon store that nets more than that but his category is one of the strictest on the site and he gets no support.

I mean those programs aren't free for 3rd party sellers, so if he doesn't pay I'm not surprised, but it likely doesn't have much to do with the category.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#36

Post by tokyobreakfast »

mmooss wrote: post #12
tokyobreakfast wrote: post #2

Sell on Walmart Marketplace instead. Amazon caters to the ALLCAPS Chinese scam stores. They know how to game the system and have invested a lot of resources into it. Your little home-based business doesn't stand a chance. It's a matter of time before they clone your product and undercut you by half.

I understand the problems described for Amazon, though that doesn't make Walmart good or without the same or different problems and advantages. What is Walmart Marketplace like for sellers? And how is the sales traffic, relatively?

I can give you perspective as a customer. I can't imagine they treat sellers any differently. I quit Prime (after spending tens of thousands over the years) and Amazon immediately started treating me like a third-class citizen. Free shipping is normally 5+ days. Lots of mysterious shipping delays that never happened before. Obscene amounts of dark patterns trying to get me to sign back up for Prime. Literally every checkout flow is a maze where I have to ensure I don't accidentally click the wrong thing or I'll find myself on the hook for a subscription.

I started giving more business to Walmart. Free shipping promos are just that, same dollar threshold as AMZN but items often arrive in a day or two (sometimes same day). They arrive by the date stated. Free shipping is the default selection. Experience with third party sellers has been good. They do shill Walmart+ (their cheaper Prime equivalent) but it's not obnoxious and no dark patterns. They do have the Chinese products but for some reason they do not pollute the search anywhere near as bad as Amazon. It's easy to filter out third party products with one click. I know stuff I'm getting is not counterfeit - they seem to have much better control over supply chain than AMZN. Many products are drop shipped direct from the manufacturer.

Unfortunately the Chinese flea market junk is Amazon's bread and butter so they have intentionally made it difficult to exclude it.

The downside is Walmart's site is a bit rough around the edges but lately Amazon is doing a great job of destroying their own site in multiple ways - like removing the ability to print real invoices, removing the ability to effectively filter third-party sellers in search, etc.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#37

Post by TMWNN »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #8
IChooseY0u wrote: post #3

I think people would be surprised what is on the internal seller forums. There is really like a huge amount of issues that Amazon fails to help with. Literally everything from onboarding to protecting sellers from refund scams. I suspect big sellers must have dedicated account managers

Even pretty small ones do. My wife has worked at Amazon as an account manager both for 1P and 3P sellers, some of those don't even make $100K a year on Amazon but still have an internal contact.

What I've heard about having the "Premium" (pay) version of Amazon account manager: It's just another layer of the same of the usual awful seller support. Since the "manager" can't actually do anything, having one is worse than not having one.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#38

Post by throwaway150 »

ejo4041 wrote: post #34
throwaway150 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven't had my account shutdown, You have been lucky so far, but there is no guarantee that luck will not run out tomorrow. The algorithms making these decisions are not open to review. They are opaque, and there is no way to know when something in your account might be flagged as suspicious. > but some tips that could help. I know you are trying to help, so thank you for that. So don't take this personally when…

I don't disagree with most of your comment, although I don't think my tips are questionable, they are well within Amazon's guidelines. I have been through counterfeiter issues on my account before and very familiar with the brand registry process. Changing listing titles also happens on a regular basis to chase trends in search results. My recommendations are pretty much directly from the cited guidelines in sellerce…

Sorry, I didn't mean questionable. I meant unverified and I updated my comment soon before you posted yours. But looks like my "unverified" complaint was wrong too? Do you know if the seller guidelines doc is published somewhere? I tried searching but I see multiple results and cannot tell which one of them is the actual deal. Curious to find out what kind of guidelines they officially recommend. Could be a great resource for the community.

Is this the one? https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external...

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#39

Post by qiller »

tokyobreakfast wrote: post #2

Sell on Walmart Marketplace instead. Amazon caters to the ALLCAPS Chinese scam stores. They know how to game the system and have invested a lot of resources into it. Your little home-based business doesn't stand a chance. It's a matter of time before they clone your product and undercut you by half.

Big nod. I've been trying to register our company to sell customized products. It's been quite an ordeal with document rejections etc, and at the end they just said the rejection is final. No support, no appeals, no transparency. Yet those ALLCAPS companies seem have no troubles.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#40

Post by TMWNN »

mtlynch wrote: post #24
mmooss wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the problems described for Amazon, though that doesn't make Walmart good or without the same or different problems and advantages. What is Walmart Marketplace like for sellers? And how is the sales traffic, relatively?

I used to sell on Amazon, and Walmart Marketplace reached out to me to convince me they could offer me a better seller experience than Amazon. I was excited because I hated dealing with Amazon, but I had the call with the Walmart rep and he couldn't cite any benefit over Amazon. Would Walmart take a lower fee? No, it would be the same as Amazon. Would Walmart give back its fee if the customer sent the product back fo…

I sell on both platforms.

>Would Walmart take a lower fee? No, it would be the same as Amazon.

Walmart charges less in two ways:

* No monthly membership fee.

* Seemingly random fee discounts, up to and including 0%. More than once I've sold an item early in a day, then sold it again later that day with a different fee percentage.

>Would Walmart give back its fee if the customer sent the product back for a refund?

When Walmart refunds a customer, it takes from the seller's reserves exactly what was paid for the sale in the first place. No more, no less. It is Amazon that charges sellers a "refund processing fee".

While Walmart definitely has its issues, there are also many virtues vis-a-vis Amazon. It is worthwhile selling on both. My 2025 Amazon and Walmart sales are equal.

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