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Seller Challenges
Hello Forums Community,
We would like to understand what challenges you have faced or continue to experience as a Seller.
Is there anything that you consider should be a priority to improve your experience.
Looking forward to hearing from everyone who wants to contribute.
Roberto
0 replies
Seller_hKyLVyBpSG16m
I am waiting over a monthfor Check in status after my shipment was delivered. My latest shipment has delivered on 6th of September and no update so far. I cannot open an issue before 30th of September system says.... Very sad I am losing sales...
Seller_hKyLVyBpSG16m
My top selling listings with over 200 positive reviews dissapeared from search results on mobile version. Same happens when I try to launch a ppc. Something is happening. It's a shadow ban or something. I can't figure this out. I am a seller since 2017 and brand registered. I have been improving quality and only got positive feedback from customers.I also price competitive. However for over a year I am gradually removed from the search feed . Mobile version is mostly affected.
Seller_3niOTG31LGoaL
FC need to be investigated. Notably BFL2, shipments there do not get checked in, items are lost, no help from Seller Central. Something is very very wrong at that FC.
Seller_NzEmZKTEdcpPZ
I wrote an extensive list of challenges, but this system doesn't let me post it. It says it contains inappropriate language (which is not true). Therefore, you can start with fixing this forum so the scripts are working properly. When it's ready - let me know and I will try re-posting the list again, I saved it. Or DM me and I will send it to you there.
Seller_r9wMm8LrE5iKj
Why do you ask? Is us whinging here going to stop the continued abuse we receive? Get Amazon to follow their existing policies? Make changes that are for the better (for US), not worse? Is your job to pretend Amazon gives a shirt? Because we're unconvinced.
I could list a dozen pain points, all of which are from Amazon not following their own rules, or pushing us down a slippery slope to unprofitability, but why waste the time? It's not going to do jack.
Seller_4zTahW98KCgmZ
i am having a major issue with a retuirned shipment and nobody helps in the Amazon team. I did everthing correctly and it seems PBI3 was not ready to accept shipments and my shiopment was not received so now is it fair that i have to pay all the shopment costs? This was an international shipping. This is absurd and ridiculous.
Seller_mIs92krSxnwtf
The UL4200A compliance approval process is frustrating, unfair, and considering the fact that without this approval some of us lose the ability to comfortably support a family, I'd say it's downright traumatizing. I jumped through every hoop. As requested, I spent a lot of money to get, "a full report from an ISO17025 accredited laboratory," and that report that clearly states, "APPROVED," has now been rejected by "consumer-buttoncell@amazon.com," 6 times. And every time I ask what's wrong with it, I get the same reply: "please submit a full report from an iso17025 accredited laboratory." There is no mention of what's missing or wrong. Incidentally, the report is from TUV SUD America - one of the largest product safety testing labs on earth. This is mental and emotional torture.
Seller_NzEmZKTEdcpPZ
SFP (Seller Fulfilled Prime):
-SFP Speed metrics should be illuminated. It's a completely worthless metric just about any way you look at it. Moreover, it's not being calculated correctly for 2-day in Thursday-Saturday period, and Monday through Friday for 1-Day delivery. Also, counting Sunday as delivery day in this metric is not smart, but Amazon's Leadership insists that it is a delivery day and "encourages sellers to work with the carriers". There are so many products we could offer at Amazon, but we do not because of this metric, which can kick sellers out of the SFP program easily.
-SFP On-time Delivery Metric counts everything against sellers, which is also not smart. Buyer is not at home or delivery location is closed on the first delivery attempt? - that's seller's fault. Bad weather somewhere on the way (even though the policy says this doesn't count against sellers)? - that's seller's fault. Truck broke down or flight was delayed? - that's seller's fault. Amazon incorrectly calculated Promised Delivery Date (and no service from any carrier is available to deliver on that day) - that's seller's fault. Holiday? - that's seller's fault. Just plain silly and puts sellers in constant risk of losing eligibility in the SFP program.
Seller_NzEmZKTEdcpPZ
-Buy Shipping continues highly unstable and lacks simple options. USPS options continue to show up with its options, even though we indicate that we ship via FedEx and UPS only. This distracts and slows down order processing sometimes. UPS options keep disappearing throughout the day once in a while. We have to wait sometimes for hours until the UPS options appear again. This causes to damage "handling metric" that Amazon keeps track of, delaying the shipment for hours sometimes. This is not a good experience for a buyer, who, I bet, would like to know as soon as possible that his/her order shipped. Buy Shipping continues to have issues with the UPS on Saturdays: UPS is not showing as an option in most of 1-day delivery orders because Buy Shipping thinks that if we ship something with Next Day UPS on Saturday, it won't be delivered until Tuesday, instead of Monday.
-Promised Delivery date to rural locations continue to be an issue, especially with the delivery day falling on Saturday. Many rural locations don't have such option from any carrier. Even Buy Shipping says so. No matter how we ship, we are automatically dinged for late delivery in such cases.
-SAFE-T process continues to be inconsistent in its decisions. You give them two identical cases and they will pay quickly in full in one case, but they will make it very difficult for you in the other. They ask for a piece of information/evidence, sellers provide it, but SAFE-T team denies and asks for the same thing over and over again, without explaining what they don't like about the evidence that they received. This shouldn't be a guessing game.
-Seller Support is useless. Absolutely useless. It has been a while since something was properly and quickly resolved. They reply with templates, either not reading about the issue, or not caring at all and simply go with a template that Amazon's internal system offers them to reply with.
-Catalog is a mess. We could be dinged and our listings removed for just a hint of not compliance with the listing policy, but other sellers get away with a murder. Proving that everything is authorized and in compliance with LOAs, invoices, photos of the products, etc. is worthless - everything gets denied without any explanation. Again, a guessing game, designed to waste everyone's time.
Seller_NzEmZKTEdcpPZ
-Creating listings is a hustle and there are many attributes that either outdated or don't belong to this category of the products at all. No matter how many times we indicate that such attributes are irrelevant, Amazon does not remove them from the list. For example: what does NBA/NFL/NHL team has to do with a computer?
-Amazon Lending Program closed, which is bad. Marcus by Goldman Sachs that Amazon Lending was offering is gone too, it looks like. It's not Parafin and some other company that are, pretty much, predatory lending companies because of their terms and high interest rates.
-Sudden freeze of the funds to "review the account" is ridiculous, especially with long-established, high-selling sellers. Our recent review was "to confirm that we ship and deliver everything to the customers", despite the fact that we always use Buy Shipping (i.e. Amazon gives us the labels and sees everything), we have zero complaints from the customers, etc. At the same time, we all know about foreign sellers who keep on selling for weeks and months, providing fake tracking numbers and Amazon catches on that only after a while, although they should have seen that from day one. And then such losses are passed on to us, sellers, in the form of higher commissions fees.
-FBA continues to cause pain to sellers. Despite all evidence, they can easily change from Received In-Full to a lower number of items down the road and then ask for invoices to prove that we have the items. How about showing us a video where it shows that the box is open at the FBA warehouse and what's inside? Such issues take forever to resolve. In most cases, it looks like, a warehouse worker simply put the items in a wrong location and Amazon can't find it. SS's replies "we did thorough investigation and concluded that the items were not delivered" is a complete joke. Every time after talking to our FBA account rep, or a MOD here, the items magically re-appeared and the issue was solved in our favor. What "investigation"? Nobody did anything!
Seller_NzEmZKTEdcpPZ
-Dealing with Seller Performance team is a nightmare, usually. For example: we went 0.3% below Premium Shipping eligibility because of the issues Amazon had (incorrect Promised Delivery date to a location that doesn't have such option at all). No matter what we wrote and explained, they wouldn't re-instate us and keep asking us for a plan of action to improve it. That means one of two things: either they don't read the explanation, or they simply don't want to acknowledge their system's glitch. Another example: some listings needed LOA. We provided it. A major manufacturer, standard LOA. Rejected. No explanation why, but Amazon asked us to get them a very special LOA with a bunch of specific conditions. We contacted the manufacturer , got to a director (a very hard thing to do), we received such LOA. Amazon rejected it anyway and kept on asking for the same thing. It's just impossible to deal with. We moved all products involved elsewhere and selling them there. Amazon gets no revenue and no commissions. Amazon likes to cause pain to itself and sellers.
-"Competitive price". A constant issue. Amazon mismatches the product we sell at Amazon with another product sold by somebody else elsewhere on the internet. When an item should cost $2,000, for example, but Amazon, suddenly, changes the competitive price to, say $1,200, the listing dies at Amazon. Opening SS cases doesn't help, challenging Amazon to show where they see such price. We move such products outside of Amazon immediately and all revenue/commissions goes to Amazon's competitor who doesn't have such silly malfunctioning tool. This also happens when a fraudulent seller shows up on a listing and sells the item at 50% of the price, just to trick the customers and Amazon. After a few such sales, Amazon thinks that this is a new "competitive" price and kills the future of the listing.
-Feedback. We all know how hard it's to get an unjust feedback removed and most causes are not covered by feedback removal policy. Although seller feedback became somewhat irrelevant at Amazon, it can cause Account Health issues.
-Amazon Customer Service. In SFP orders, Amazon is supposed to cover the customer service. They often don't. We keep getting all sort of messages sent to us by Amazon CS on behalf of the customers, sometimes for very simple things or things we don't even have an access to. We send customers back to Amazon CS, which creates bad customer experience, but there is nothing else we can do.
Seller_NzEmZKTEdcpPZ
-Customers are not receiving messages sent to them by sellers because customers opted-out from receiving them. Customer can go to their Amazon Account and find it there. Well, that's great, but is Amazon aware of the fact that just about all customers have no idea about this and where the messages are located? How about making an Alarm Icon in the upper right corner of customer's Amazon page (all pages), indicating there is a message waiting for them? Just like any other website and app has?
-Amazon Customer Service overriding the return policy time-frame and lets customers return products way beyond the return period. I have no problem with Amazon doing that with the items that Amazon owns and sells - if they want to lose money, that's Amazon's business. But don't force that on sellers. And then, don't give us a hard time when we ask for the SAFE-T reimbursement.
Seller_otJsqd9s3YofJ
constantly lost inventory shipments to FBA. it's about 50% of our shipments are delayed or lost for 30 days or more. it's ridiculous, how are we expected to do business.
Seller_xbNbb8BNtssv3
For the Mod... you have plenty of issues sellers have provided. We will be waiting for the issues to be addressed and an action plan shown. Otherwise, this is just a gimmick that will provide nothing to sellers but waste their time stating the issues. That is one major issue. Sellers no longer believe Amazon will actually do anything to support them.
Seller_DLuLFe9eg9z9x
I would be doing just fine if amazon would stay out of my handling and shipping times....
Seller_X5fUeZ3HjIbKA
Please do not remove the current manage inventory page. The new version is simply awful on so many counts. Please listen to your sellers otherwise they will migrate elsewhere...
Roberto_Amazon
@Seller_X5fUeZ3HjIbKA We have received a lot of feedback on the new manage inventory page. Our team recently hosted an Ask Amazon event (closed) to collect feedback and answer questions related to this update:
If you have additional questions or concerns about the Manage All Inventory page, please feel free to include them in a new thread in the Create and Manage Listings category.
Seller_ENBrTBTSn3PDq
I would post if I thought it would MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!!!!
Seller_9VHDVAZ6JlHOE
The primary challenge my business encounters is the extended lead times for processing and making products available for sale through FBA. As a seller of seasonal items, particularly Christmas and Easter decor and gifts, I have to carefully manage inventory projections. While I strive to meet expected customer demand, I am often conservative in my estimates due to the potential risks associated with Long-Term Storage Fees (LTSF), removal costs, and losses incurred through liquidation of excess inventory. I project that if I had the ability to restock in mid-November through early December, it could result in an additional $1.2 million in sales.
Seller_LAnyaUmHTJjX7
The account health team is not qualified or trained to deal with specifics of alleged IP infringements.
My seller account was suddenly shut down over 2 months ago, 1 ASIN was flagged for using a trademarked term in the listing ( which according to Amazon policy, one is allowed to if its used as a descriptive) All of the account health staff that I have spoken to were absolutely clueless on exceptions on the use of trademark words in listings.
I design and produce products under my own brand ( the designs are a combination of my creative and public domain images) using the theme Alice in Wonderland ( book/character in public domain so no copyright)
Despite appealing with solid evidence that I didnt violate amazon policies my account remains shut.
The worse part is that when I asked about getting my FBA inventory back, I was merely told that I cant unless i reinstate my account which I'm not able to
As a small business, my inventory is precious to my livelihood and not returning back to me is a significant drain on my finances.
Seller_LlUiLE7aY45QL
Hello @Roberto_Amazon thank you for asking this question.
The most important challenge that I face is the incompetent, negligent, and irresponsible customer service representatives that handle cases when they are created. I can’t count how many hours I have spent sending email or on the phone with customer service representatives that either don’t understand the problem I’m having or flat out don’t care.
I have a case open right now where I’m not getting the answers I need and the customer service team is not listening to the issues and concerns at hand
I think all of us sellers would agree that the #1 problem we have when selling on Amazon is dealing with poor customer service.
Seller_0y5AN5tyn4EUB
1. You are probably sick and tired of hearing this but Amazon needs to allow sellers to use the old Manage Your Inventory. The new format is not user friendly, more time consuming and we either have to minimize so the screen is barely visible or scroll to get from one end of screen to another. I find myself doing other things now when I used to edit my inventory.
2. Fix Seller Support.
a. I refuse to disable my roboblocker in order to receive calls from Amazon. I have not been able to receive a call from Seller Support in well over a year because all Seller Support is located outside the US, Amazon calls are seen as robocalls, they ring once and do not go through. They also do not show up on my Caller ID. Why is it that I can receive calls from Ebay and not Amazon?
b. Allow Seller Support staff to use common sense and loosen the leash so they can actually provide Support. Allow Seller Support to look at the product detail pages in order to fix a problem.
c. Understand that most older media has been discontinued and that there is no need for Seller Support to request a non-existent manufacturer's url for a product.
d. Make it easier to remove glaring mistakes.
Sure that I am forgetting something but these are the most irritating.
3 Allow sellers to specify if an item is out of print or deleted by the manufacturer. I do not know of any cassettes or vinyl that were made before 2000 that are still in print yet Amazon shows that they are still in circulation. Amazon used to have that option to add that an item is no longer in print but removed it for some strange reason.
4. Be less rigid about verifying bank ID - seller support line and leadership team members, internal team and I have spent countless hours over the last four weeks and it is still not fixed.
5. Be more flexible about extended vacations (3-5 months). When on an extended vacation, I work on my inventory and other things and all this should be taken into consideration before declaring that the account is "Inactive." I have to take extended vacations for medical and other reasons and I should not have to worry about being hassled during that time or before I am ready to start selling again.
6. Do not make sellers lie in order to update old listings or add new ones. If you mandate a complete release date on media, unless it is a Japanese release, the seller is forced to make up a date. If you mandate that, on music, a seller list artist, composer and performer, the seller will have to lie because he may not know the composer's name(s). All fields are necessary but only one needs to be mandatory. I quit creating new product detail pages because of this.
7. I know that Amazon is in love with Branding but I hate it because someone can completely take over listings that i created and I am not even able to see or edit my Condition Statements and have to apply to sell an item that I originally created. I have deleted many of these listings and will probably delete more. This is another reason that I have not created any new product pages in quite a while.
8. Be more flexible about Pro fees. I started selling Pro on November 1 and cancelled on June 1 and was told that I had more time on my subscription which made no sense at all and made me feel that I was overcharged.
9. Amazon needs to let sellers block customers who abuse them. I had a customer give me negative feedback because I did not send her the CD she wanted even though I sent her the CD she ordered and Amazon did not remove the feedback. I also had a customer who purchased factory sealed CDs, opened them and then returned with scratches saying that she ordered the wrong CDs. I reported her and six months later she ordered another CD - cancelled the order and deleted the listing from Amazon.
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