It is not uncommon when on a Tuesday afternoon we receive a phone call from a stressed out Amazon seller who is at the verge of pulling their hair out. They have lost their selling privileges, they are suspended, and they don’t know what to do.
In this particular instance, the seller had prior suspensions, and was focused on one and only thing – getting back online as soon as possible. As many sellers are aware, their livelihood is in jeopardy.
Many sellers contact us after their own Plans of Action (POA) has been submitted and denied by Amazon. Other times, clients reach out to us after multiple denials when they feel Amazon has issued a final decision on their account.
We don’t believe in final decisions, and we always fight for our clients.
We always try to step in at the onset of the problem, as we want our clients to put their best representation to Amazon.
Attorney Amid reviewed the matter with the client thoroughly. We received copies of the suspension notice, and through a series of questions and review of their account, we were promptly able to ascertain the root cause of the suspension and work with them to draft a POA.
Any successful POA has three (3) fundamental parts:
Root Cause
Immediate actions taken to address the root cause
Long Term Changes made to ensure this does not recur
Our plans of actions are drafted by our Attorney’s, and we don’t outsource or use paralegals. We treat your matter with the same importance and priority as if it were our own.
Attorney Amid drafted and supplied the client a thorough POA which the client reviewed and approved. This was submitted to Amazon seller performance team. Within two (2) days, the client called us with praise – the clients account was reinstated.
If you are suspended, and are giving up hope, DON’T. Call us for a free consult and speak to a lawyer who can help you.
As an Amazon seller – a reality is that you will receive a certain percentage of your items back. This is a cost of doing business on Amazon. In today’s competitive marketplace, most sellers utilize FBA to gain a competitive advantage and drive up their sales volumes. However FBA presents many benefits and many detriments, most of which you have to balance to find out whether or not it is truly favorable to your business.
When selling through FBA – Amazon generally handles the returns which means that you have little to no control over the items being approved,, or received from a customer. You can get damaged, broken, or incomplete items back, and in certain instances you may receive no item at all.
In order to manage this efficiently, you should have an FBA auditing software in place which will access your Amazon reports, and balance your inventory to make sure that where possible you are reimbursed for the losses you may otherwise incur when selling on FBA. There are countless examples of such systems, and you may want to spend some time evaluating the various solutions to find which fits your business model best.
In addition to these items – you will receive your regular shipments coming back from Amazon. It is imperative that you inventory the shipment immediately upon receipt, verify that the contents are correct according to the packing slip, and the items are received complete, undamaged, and that the items are your original items. We have seen countless issues where there are items missing, incorrect items, or damaged items coming back.
Where you find yourself in this situation be sure to photograph and keep the following evidence:
Most products we buy whether online, wholesale, or retail come with some sort of a return policy and a warranty. In fact, some states require the items to carry this warranty to be retailed. Nonetheless, manufacturers are frequently denying warranty requests, and allowing consumers to be left without recourse.
For eCommerce merchants, this means that at the time of buying your inventory -research the warranty well as you may be unpleasantly surprised. We have many instances with nationally recognized household brands willingly refuse to warrant items, stating the items are “damaged” whereby the item has no damage, stating that they only warrant to the end user, stating that the item doesn’t have warranty, that the warranty is for a different region, or a host of other inaccurate and merit-less excuses, none of which would provide remedy to the merchant or a end user.
Its quite unfortunate that such matters require an experienced attorney who is aggressive enough to face these companies and enforce the terms of their warranty.
Our tip – read the terms of the warranty verbatim. In most instances your rights are clearly indicated there. If you need assistance in such matters, please feel free to reach LA Law Group and we would be happy to help.
eCommerce sellers are now finding themselves facing a whole new type of issue. Manufacturers and brand owners are making it hard for online sellers to stay in business by filing complaint through Amazon, eBay, or other marketplaces.
Have you received an intellectual property violation for selling brand new, as described products? If so, you are not alone. Whereas before manufacturers would strive to find and single out the sellers who were breaking the law and selling counterfeit or inauthentic goods, now commonly they are focusing on finding sellers who are “not authorized” distributors of the product. This means that if the seller is not licensed and authorized by the manufacturer, they may face these types of issues for selling their products. The manufacturers feel that this will reduce or eliminate gray market goods, and as well will force retailers to be authorized by them, and subject to their “MAP” pricing.
If you are an individual retailer, and selling goods for which you are not licensed to sell, this could happen to you. You may want to start by thoroughly reading any restrictions or limitations by the marketplace as well as fully understanding the condition guidelines. We strongly recommend you read the product warranty thoroughly and carefully as many manufacturers disclaim the warranty if it is not purchased from an authorized reseller, thereby your customer would have no warranty available to them and the listing would be against some marketplace policies such as Amazon which requires a manufacturer warranty on all new goods. This could cause complications for you if you are the merchant and receive this complaint as they would argue the item therefore is “not as described” and manufacturers are doing many test buys.
In these instances one successful and frequent argument revolves around the first sale doctrine and the privileges that are protected by it. If you have extra time you may want to read into this.
Our quick tips in such situations:
First – make sure you’re your products are as described, pictured, and the listing details are accurate.
Second – should you find yourself in this predicament do not be quick to respond before consulting with an attorney to give you proper guidance on how to address the matter.
Third – Don’t ignore this type of issue! It scarcely goes away and you want to deal with it in a reasonable time to avoid the opposing party from filing a complaint with Amazon and jeopardizing your selling privileges.
Remember – we at LA Law Group can and will help. Reach our team today for assistance.
Finally, we have spoken and they listened. Amazon has made major updates to their protocol on seller’s account suspensions. The good news is that they are easing up on the standard protocol which will be more favorable to sellers and provide sellers an opportunity to avoid suspension through a effective POA prior to being suspended.
Previously, Amazon sellers would face the notice of death, where they would find their account suspended, their selling privilege removed, and their funds frozen immediately upon a policy violation. Amazon has changed this with their new “pre POA” process.
What is this new “Pre POA” you ask?
A POA – also known as Plan of Action – was previously the primary method for a seller who was stuck in this predicament with Amazon. Upon suspension, the seller would receive “the notice”, and their only remedy to fixing the issue and reinstatement would be a plan of action that Amazon at its exclusive discretion would approve or deny. Time and Time again we have heard from sellers about how difficult, vague, and unfair this process was where Amazon could at its own discretion, with or without merit, decide the fate of the seller and their livelihood with little to no recourse.
With the new policy and changes, now Amazon is asking sellers to submit POAs prior toa suspension, thereby allowing a seller to take action and fix a potential issue prior to Amazon taking such harsh actions against their account.
Most Amazon sellers have faced suspension at one point or another and recognize this horrible experience. One moment, you are in business and taking orders, and the next moment, your Amazon selling account is suspended with little or no notice and you are out of business and the funds in your seller account frozen. It doesn’t take much to get suspended and where an Amazon employee believes you have violated their selling policies, you could end up with a suspension from Amazon and your selling privileges could be removed forever. Moreover, Amazon provides zero help or guidance as to why your account was suspended and won’t discuss it with you, in fact most often seller support will refuse to assist you.
**DO NOT APPEAL IMMEDIATELY** This is the most common mistake Amazon sellers make.
You need to address all of the specific points in their allegations and tell them the procedures you plan to put into place to make sure that another violation does not take place and demonstrate clearly why you should be reinstated. We can help you.
