Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

Post by mmooss » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 10:33 PM UTC

mtlynch wrote: post #46

TMWNN wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? Whe…

This was 3-4 years ago, so it's possible that they've improved since then or that the rep I was speaking to was misinformed, but at the time, he told me there was no fee advantage on Walmart Marketplace, and I tried to be polite in my reaction of, "Then, why would you be an attractive alternative?"

Post by binarysolo » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 10:59 PM UTC

nikkwong wrote: post #16

Good luck. Amazon banned my seller account 7 years ago because my wife, who was also an amazon seller, used our shared CC (which has my name on it, although she's an authorized user) to pay her $45/month seller fee. The account had $48,000 in it at the time I was banned, and I was never able to get the money back; after an endless number of hours of pleads with their teams, mails to jeff@amazon, working on it from th…

Post by TMWNN » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 12:37 AM UTC

binarysolo wrote: post #74

TMWNN wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They already take 50%+ of our revenue for all expenses As mentioned my revenue is far smaller, so I need larger margins. My total marketplace fees plus shipping spend in 2025 was 26% of revenue. My net margin was 28%, but the metric I focus on is margin on COGS; that was 60% in 2025 and 54% lifetime. Hearing your account and that of another seller with close to seven figures revenue makes me think I should aim for s…

My fees are high but my COGS are low -- they're typically We make ~30% before labor and net 10-20% after everything so it works OK. Most bigger sellers I know live in the 10-30% net range. Our Walmart store is pretty sad, cross product lines we sell between 1-10% of our rev on Amazon :( ... but that's also because our products (home and kitchen) have lower cost competitors on Walmart itself. We're the mid-premium pro…

Post by JasonADrury » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:06 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #15

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

When you look at a forum like that you have to realize that the actual scammers also post convincing complaints (omitting incriminating details). They likely outnumber the legitimate cases. It's all part of gaming the system.

Post by binarysolo » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 4:35 AM UTC

TMWNN wrote: post #75

binarysolo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My fees are high but my COGS are low -- they're typically We make ~30% before labor and net 10-20% after everything so it works OK. Most bigger sellers I know live in the 10-30% net range. Our Walmart store is pretty sad, cross product lines we sell between 1-10% of our rev on Amazon :( ... but that's also because our products (home and kitchen) have lower cost competitors on Walmart itself. We're the mid-premium pro…

> My fees are high but my COGS are low -- they're typically 45% for me in 2025. >but our typical unit pricing is $59 ASP in 2025 ($63 average revenue per sale). >Most bigger sellers I know live in the 10-30% net range. Yes, that's the impression I've gotten of the marketplace megasellers, of 10% margins being the norm. Not quite the old dotcom joke of losing money on every sale but making it up on volume, but you kno…