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Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

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Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#1
I sell 3d printed sleeves to attach an Apple Airtag to a Samsung TV remote. But Amazon thinks I am selling a Samsung device and has deactivated me for IP violations. My listings are very clear that this is FOR a Samsung device, and not an actual Samsung device. But Amazon's automated system can't figure it out. I am following their IP guidelines for compatible products (section 6C - https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/GZUQ6GBBXQVHQKF2):

You can see one of my listings here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FHZVVL1H

Every time I listed a new product for a different TV remote, my item would be flagged, but then I would go in and make a small edit, and that seemed to trigger some sort of review, and everything would be great.

Until last week, out of nowhere, my account has been deactivated.

To reinstate my account, they asked me to submit an authorization letter from the manufacturer or brand owner authorizing me to sell their products. Well, I figured, I am the manufacturer, so I wrote an authorization letter for myself, and even got it notarized for good measure, that I am legally allowed to sell these devices. But to no avail.

I have an option to "Submit new information." But have no new information to submit, and fear if I try submitting anything else, I'll be permanently banned or something.

The funny part is that on most of the products I have listed, I am losing money, just because of the FBA costs and the advertising costs. I lost about $250 last month between two of the variants.

The sad part is that I sell a book, Computer Engineering for Babies, and do most all my sales through my website, but do get a few orders a week through amazon for the book, and am now afraid the Amazon door is closed forever.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#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.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#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

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#4

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

>I suspect big sellers must have dedicated account managers

They do. Large 'first party' vendors have a completely different system, basically. Even large third party vendors have a more direct line to support.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#6
I don't know how to appeal the deleted account, but regarding not triggering this check again...

Emphasize your own brands and model number, and make the other brands more clearly a description, in the Amazon item title?

  FooCorp TagTeam S (sleeve mount holder to attach Apple AirTag to Samsung TV remote)
(Background on a simple filter: On eBay, it seemed like someone told counterfeit sellers that all they had to do was to copy&paste the string "For" in front of the brand name and model number, and then they could sell counterfeits. And sometimes black out the counterfeited brand name in the photos. So an item title might be of the format "For ", and mean it's definitely a counterfeit or knockoff of " ".)

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#8

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.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#9

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

> I suspect big sellers must have dedicated account managers

No clue how it is elsewhere but in Amazon India, the largest seller is Amazon itself which sells under a different name. That's their model. They were under scrutiny by the Indian Government [1] [2] [3] last time I checked. Keeps registering subsidiaries under different names.

So you are basically competing with Amazon itself, which also acts as a seller in their own store.

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/business/amazoncoms-retail-p...

[2]: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/13/tech/amazon-flipkart-india-an...

[3]: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-i...

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#10
> Every time I listed a new product for a different TV remote, my item would be flagged, but then I would go in and make a small edit, and that seemed to trigger some sort of review, and everything would be great.

They may have a filter for people who exceed a certain number of flags?

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