As the only giant in assuring people from all walks of life the ever perfect purchasing experience, amazon stands out from the crowds of its competitors known as Wish, eBay and whatever occurs to you on mind. And with Jeff Bezos topping the fortune list, you may have also witnessed a sharp rise in number of your previous business partners made a success out of themselves by selling with Amazon. 

Admirable as their achievements are, many of us however, are purely obstructed with sufferings. From the perspective of an amazon seller who have been enduring policies of all kinds that hinder me from making a more progressive step ahead, instead of a well ended success story, it’s a “parchment of battle” I wish to talk about.

     

As an ordinary guy with one credit card issued by bank 6 years ago, I am in possession of this only seller account registered and approved by Amazon in late 2014, since when I have thrown myself into monthly struggles against Amazon. “Your Amazon selling privileges have been removed”, on week(s) basis, this is literally a regular greeting from amazon knocking into my seller central. 

Covering a fairly wide range of policy violations, from order defect rate, late shipment to intellectual property issues at times. (I’d rather not post a screen shot of my performance notifications even though I was strongly suggested to do so, as it’s shameful to self-disclose those scars of terrible account management.) 

It’s universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a large fortune must be in need of a good health, so does your seller account, as a robust seller account with solidly good performance metrics guarantee you a larger chance to success considering the potentially large sales and profit you can make for yourself from it. 

     

Yet accumulate from those endless appeals in the past 5 years, with this article, I wish to share my own experience in how to deal with it when your account is “red-flagged”, and what a proper appeal that can be accepted by Amazon account monitors looks like.

Comparing to all other policy violations, a seller account can very much likely be deactivated for order defect rate exceeding the target of less than 1%. For simple reasons concerning profit (let’s be realistic), and unlike FBA offers, merchant fulfilled offers can help you save a rather large amount of costs including order handling fees, picking & packing fees and of course, fees for amazon logistics. More seller-friendly as merchant fulfilled offers are, this privilege is tricky at the same time. 

   

It economizes in your pocket but puts your account in severe risks of customer complaints where you’ll always find yourself vulnerable facing the charges with amazon’s adjudication on if your guilty or not. Believe me, such adjudication is biased for buyers’ good, NOT for you!

So when you are removed for order defect issues including charge back claims, A-Z claims and negative customer feedback, you are supposed to immediately take the following actions before try you luck by composing a pointless message to amazon. (Beware, the first a couple of appeals over-weighs than ever, so make them count, and waste them NOT!)

     

1* You ought to decide what causes customer claims and negative feedback that lead to the removal/suspension of your selling privileges. This is rather a simple procedure to complete, just look back to the previous 2-3 months of customer claims and feedback records. 

Take a pen and write them down, put the similar complaints together, you will know if customers are complaining about your item quality, your order delivery time, item hazard, your order completeness, or whatever you can name it. Be discreet.

     

2* Pick out these specific defective orders, and APOLOGIZE to these customers. Just switch you position with these buyers, when you are offended and not fully respected, you wish to be apologized to what you are offended for. 

So you must reach out to these buyers for your failure to provide them with the best purchasing experience and best quality product they paid for and have every right to get. Be sincere.

     

3* You are a step closer to contact amazon account monitors, but not yet. Looking back to all merchant fulfilled orders in the past couple of months, you might find a large proportion of those orders are not delivered yet, and they are the potential crisis you have to face up with sooner or later. 

As these orders can also be delivered later than expected, customers are about to file more claims against you, against your performance metrics, before losing control it, you must be proactive to keep the effect of this crisis to the slightest while you still can. 

       

If I were you, I would immediately compose another warmhearted message to those other sellers who are yet to receive their orders. Don’s just ask, you are expected to point out the fact the order(s) might be delivered late, and then come to a specific solution to it, e.g. “I will immediately refund you with an extra compensation if the order shows no sign of delivery in the next week”. 

Instead of being worthless anxious, customers wish to know you are standing by their side and will always make things right for them. Even if the order is truly delivered late, you still have a large chance to be appreciated instead of being scolded. Be proactive.

After the above actions were implemented, you are ready to make an appeal to regain your selling privileges. Sellers commonly acknowledge this plays the most important role in appealing their account back, but as far as I can tell, a plan of action is indeed important, but not vital. 

The above actions you just implemented however speaks louder than bare words (plan of action), so make sure you send you plan to amazon only AFTER you have conducted a thorough investigation into this exact issue and shaped full understanding on the root causes.

A successful appeal consists the following 3 key part:

     

* Identification on the root causes that led to the removal of your selling privileges.

* Identification on what exact steps you have taken to resolve these issues (causes)

* Identification on what specific measures you have taken to prevent these issues (causes) from striking your account again.

To take to above ODR issue as an example, after analyzing all the customer claims and feedback months away from the account suspension, you will know the “troubles” that led to your ODR peaking and further account removal. But these “troubles” such as late delivery or concerns about product quality are NOT the root causes. 

The root causes in this event go much deeper as you should clearly come up with and then clearly point out in the POA that it’s your carrier lacking in qualification that causes order transition to delay, and it is your manufacturer’s lacking in quality control effort that causes your products to come with quality issues. 

But these are only for your reference, as cases vary, and you are supposed to elaborate in a more specific and precise way. Make a list of these root causes before you continue with actions to resolve them.

In this third part, you may simply take it as a “BOLD” for the actions taken in part 2 above. That is to say, all you need to do is making oaths to amazon that you will stick to the above resolutions to protect your account from being impacted by the same or similar issues identified. 

You may strengthen your valid supplying chain with the new supplier who is able to guarantee product quality and your will keep a close business relationship with your new carriers who are more reliable than the previous one. 

But don’t just copy and paste those contents from part 2, you must re-organize these actions from the perspective of a person locking forward to the future to come.

Now, you may send this plan of action to amazon, and I believe you can expect to hear good news from them in short if you strictly abide by the above tips.

     

As a concussion, an accepted appeal aiming at successfully regaining selling privileges must contain your confession (acknowledgement of the violation and willingness to take your responsibility), your understanding on the reasons (radical analysis on the root cause of your account removal), your determination (firm, solid and unquestionable actions already taken to resolve these issues) and your foresight (proactive measures competed or you will adhere to hinder them from coming back in future selling).

     

As noted previously, amazon policies vary and sellers are constantly challenged with different violation risks. But the principle of make a successful appeal will remain the same. It’s not easy to make it with your first attempt, but it’s simple to lay onto the table what you did wrong and what you can do and will do to make a difference. There is not sample POA for these cases because it does work for each other, even it does, it will not work every time. So it’s you own dedication taht matters.

As the saying goes, “ a frog inside of the well with a limited view”, are you, my friend, this very frog yourself ?