Amazon's new KYC has sparked heated discussion. Why are sellers so panicked?

Sellers can’t help but worry that the audit may impact their buying accounts, personal accounts, and distribution accounts. They consulted Amazon’s investment manager about this, and the reply they got was “Don’t worry, there is no KYC plan for the North American site yet”, which gave them some peace of mind.

However, sellers can also learn about what circumstances will trigger a KYC audit? What materials are required when it happens?

A new KYC menu has been added to the backend of Meiya . The investment manager said: Don’t worry

In recent days, some sellers have discovered that a new menu "KYC Information" has been added to the business information column in the Amazon backend . They were very surprised. After all, KYC is a common audit item on the European site. Why does it suddenly appear on the US site?

Upon hearing the news, sellers quickly checked the backend and also clearly saw this new service. "I checked the backend early in the morning and found this thing showing up on every account," said one of the sellers. People speculated about the intention of Amazon adding this menu and couldn't help but imagine a drama of "accounts being blocked due to failure of review". The industry was also in an uproar:

“Amazon’s US site requires KYC? Doesn’t that mean a major reshuffle???”

“When I saw KYC appeared on the backend of the US site, my back went cold. I had to contact the legal persons one by one…”

" This is shit, what should I do with the account I bought? I'm so confused ! "

"How many sellers can't sleep tonight."

"Personal accounts are even more trembling, so we still need to prepare in advance."

It is not difficult to see that many sellers are pessimistic about the addition of "KYC" on the US site , believing that if Amazon initiates this review, a considerable number of sales accounts will be cleared, with purchasing accounts and personal accounts being the first to be affected.

Why did the KYC audit on the US site cause such a big stir? The reason is simple: the audit is difficult to pass.

Some sellers who have never set up a European site don’t understand: Why does an audit make everyone so scared? Just comply with the platform’s requirements, and there is nothing to be afraid of as long as the information is true. But after checking the information, the seller’s attitude changed drastically: “ I read the rules, it ’s very troublesome. It’s really a headache . ”

Taking the European site as an example, if sellers want to sell or continue to sell, they need to provide Amazon with information about themselves and their business, which is the seller qualification review ( Know Your Customer).

The actual situation of sellers is different, and the time to trigger KYC review is also inconsistent. There are generally two mechanisms to trigger the review. One is to trigger the review immediately after the account registration is completed; the other is to trigger the review only after the account is registered and the online sales reach a certain sales threshold.

In addition, the information that sellers who are subject to review need to submit varies from person to person. In addition, some information is difficult to obtain, so many sellers label KYC as "troublesome" or "super troublesome."

Sellers analyzed that Amazon will require proof of address based on the specific account or information risk level. The simpler ones are credit card bills, while the more difficult ones are bank personal information comprehensive certificates, one license and one code (business license and unified social credit code), notarized ID card and business license, etc. The most difficult one is the company's public account statement.

However, some sellers clicked the KYC button in the Amazon backend and found that there was no specific content page.

Some sellers believe that this is a page display for Amazon's global sales, not that it will start auditing the US site. For example, the VAT business on the same page is just for display. "The European KYC audit is a requirement of the local government for Amazon. The platform is just implementing the policy. The US government has no such requirements for Amazon. Why should Amazon find work for itself?"

Yesterday, many sellers consulted the investment managers about the KYC of the US site , and the response they received was "don't worry". One investment manager said that the North American site has no plan to require sellers to provide KYC and VAT. The KYC and VAT buttons have appeared in the background of the US site recently. This is a normal adjustment of the page, and sellers do not need to do anything extra. Another manager said that internal communication is still ongoing, but it is certain that North America currently has no plan to add KYC review.

After hearing the news, the sellers felt relieved as they no longer had to “clear out the stock to ensure safety”.

Although it was a "reassurance", the incident still caused a little panic among the sellers. Some sellers believe that it is still necessary to prepare for a rainy day, gradually replace the accounts with problems with valid accounts, and send the link to the new account, and gradually switch. Otherwise, knowing that the account is risky and still operating with a heavy position, the danger is self-evident.

When encountering KYC audit, what materials should sellers prepare?

With the experience of KYC audit in Europe , some sellers are more stable. They have experienced KYC audit in Europe, so they will do things according to the rules and wait for the next step. So what materials should be submitted if KYC audit is encountered ? Sellers can make a preliminary understanding to prepare for the emergency.

Taking the European site as an example, if Amazon wants to conduct a KYC audit on the seller , the seller will receive a prompt "More information is needed" in the backend, and click the red prompt box button to enter the audit. The seller should first check the mailbox and performance notification. If you receive a notification, you must prepare the corresponding materials according to the requirements; if you do not receive a notification, you should prepare the corresponding materials according to the window opened in "Identity Information" in "Account Information".

Generally speaking, the materials required for KYC review are divided into two parts: "Company and Personal Materials" and "Supplementary Materials". At the end of last year, Amazon officially sorted out all the materials. (Note that these materials are not applicable to all sellers. The materials required to be submitted by different sellers depend on the specific situation. Some reviews only require submission of part of all the materials.)

Company and personal materials include:

1. Scanned copy of the company's business license (individual sellers cannot pass the European site qualification review). Mainland companies need the original/copy of the business license ; Hong Kong companies need the company registration certificate + business registration regulations (the two documents must be combined into one PDF document);

2. Identity documents of the company's primary contact person and beneficiary, i.e. a scanned copy of the passport or the front and back of the identity card plus the personal information page of the household registration booklet;

3. Personal expense bills for the primary contact and beneficiary. This should be a photo or color scan of the original proof of address document with the name, residential address, and issue date of the relevant person. Amazon can accept a valid residence permit issued by the local government or any of the following documents:

- VAT invoice for mobile phone payment

- Utility bills or receipts such as gas, water, electricity, television, internet, mobile or landline

- Scanned copy of the main contact's personal account comprehensive information inquiry certificate with bank seal

- Bank /credit card statement or bill

- A bill from the property or property management company. Amazon does not accept leases from private landlords.

4. Proof of bank account owner. Any of the following documents is acceptable: bank statement, bank credit certificate, account statement provided by payment service provider (third-party payment collection company);

5. The latest and complete articles of association of the registered company must be a document that accurately reflects the names of all shareholders and the equity distribution, and must be signed by all beneficiaries and stamped with the company seal.

6. Authorization letter. If the primary contact person is not the legal person or beneficiary of the company, the seller needs to provide an authorization letter from the legal person of the company authorizing the primary contact person to actually operate the account.

In addition, Amazon may also require sellers to provide supplementary materials , such as notarized documents of relevant materials, scanned copies of personal /company bank account comprehensive information inquiry certificates, etc., subject to the specific requirements of the review team.

Although KYC audits give many people a headache, some sellers also pass them easily. "When we encountered KYC audits, we previously provided comprehensive credentials of customer information provided by the bank, and we passed them quickly," said one of them.

But in general, KYC is not a simple audit. Sales will be suspended first because the audit is triggered, and sales can only continue after the submission of materials is completed and the audit is passed. Judging from the previous audit progress in Europe, this process is relatively slow, so even if the audit is passed, the account will inevitably be affected to a certain extent.

The reason why the issues caused by KYC have attracted the attention of sellers is that if the relevant review fails, the seller’s account is at risk of being blocked. During the actual review process, sellers are even more troubled.

Many sellers suffered losses due to KYC audit failure

Looking back at the KYC review issue, the situation is a bit complicated. Many sellers have encountered the crisis of being blocked due to non-compliant information or mismatch of relevant information.

Seller Z introduced that he used clean and formal information to register a new Amazon account, and opened three sites in the United States, Japan, and Europe at the same time. He also used the link given by the investment manager when registering. The US site passed the review very quickly. The European site KYC review required different information to be provided each time, including company address, proof of legal person address, company articles of association, scanned copies of the comprehensive information inquiry certificate of the company's bank account registered on the seller platform, one license and one code application form, etc. After submitting the information, it was reviewed one round after another. After the company articles of association passed, a license and one code were required again. After submission, the platform believed that there was a problem with the articles of association. After repeatedly submitting the information, the store was still frozen due to failure to pass the review, and no appeal was given.

Sellers who fail the KYC audit always have bad experiences. Seller C has an old account of about one year, and its FBA performance has reached more than 200,000. The company is legally registered in China, but suddenly encountered Amazon's KYC audit. After providing more than 20 pages of information, it still failed to pass the platform's audit. The platform did not give a specific reason for the failure of the audit. Later, the account could not be logged in, and even orders could not be processed. The company did not know how to deal with the goods, which caused heavy losses to the company.

Like the two sellers mentioned above, there are many sellers who fail to pass the KYC review. Without exception, as long as the review fails, the account cannot be sold normally.

KYC audits have always been a problem for European sellers. This may be one of the many reasons why some sellers are deterred from entering the European site. Sellers entering the European site will also encounter many puzzling details during the KYC audit process.

In a topic initiated by a seller to discuss KYC experience, the first reaction of many sellers was: it is quite difficult, submitting information is complicated, and many times they can't even find the entry to submit the information.

When encountering the audit process, sellers’ “troubles” are different.

In a previous period of time, many sellers reported that they could not pass the KYC review with the Bank of China certificate , and some were rejected twice. Later, a colleague who encountered this problem shared a method: if the personal comprehensive information query certificate in KYC cannot be opened by the nearby Bank of China, you can go to a few more banks to try. I went to three banks and finally got it. A single personal comprehensive information certificate is so cumbersome, and it may not work in the process of trying.

In addition, some seller accounts have encountered KYC audits. During the audit, any legal person holding more than 25% of the shares needs to provide information on the beneficiary. If they do not provide it, there is a risk of association. Of course, if the legal person holding more than 25% of the shares is also the legal person of another account, then providing the information may be related, but not providing it will fail the audit, which makes the seller helpless.

During the KYC review, sellers must always pay attention to whether their pace is in sync with that of their peers. Some sellers passed Amazon's review using their residence certificates without submitting any bills. Later, they found that not many of their peers passed the review in this way, and they began to worry that their situation was special and they would face another review.

Of course, since some sellers are worried about encountering KYC audits repeatedly , there are precedents.

A seller talked about his experience of encountering KYC audits three times: After registering a new account, we took the initiative to trigger KYC because we were worried that the product would be discontinued after sales, which would cause losses. After submitting relevant information, the audit lasted about half a year. Later, this account made a hit product. After the European team expanded, a sub-account was opened, which triggered KYC again. The sales rights of the main account were suspended. After passing the audit, we received an email from Amazon to verify the seller's identity.

The seller lamented that he had to go through three KYC audits in two years , each lasting half a year. Although the pass rate was high, the audit process took a long time. If there was a problem with the intermediate information, the time would be extended indefinitely, which caused a lot of trouble for sellers who encountered audits and did not understand the process.

According to industry insiders, compared with other audits, the passing rate of KYC audit is relatively high. As long as there is no problem with the information, it can basically pass the audit. However, this audit with a higher pass rate has caused sellers headaches due to details. The Amazon audit cycle is even more sensitive to sellers.

The situations that trigger KYC vary. Sellers must not make mistakes or omissions.

For European sellers, only those who have passed the KYC audit can sell for a long time. KYC is a must. After triggering KYC, many sellers suffered losses due to the long audit cycle affecting sales. Some even failed to pass the audit after half a year, and their accounts were directly closed.

According to the actual situation of different sellers, the situations that trigger KYC review are generally divided into the following categories:

1. When the cumulative sales amount of sellers on the European site reaches 5,000 euros or more, an audit will be triggered. Although sellers can be audited during the period from 5,000 euros to 15,000 euros, there may be omissions in the audit materials during this period. Therefore, sellers on the European site should prepare relevant materials for KYC audit when registering an account;

2. When changing credit cards;

3. When modifying background information such as identity information and contact information;

4. When modifying the receiving account;

5. Change the company address (such as registered address, etc.). If the KYC has been reviewed during registration, a second review may be triggered after the address is changed;

6. Even if you do nothing and do not change any information, Amazon will still conduct periodic KYC audits.

When sellers on the European site open a new account, KYC will be triggered sooner or later , and the specific time varies. When KYC is triggered, the seller will be required to provide corresponding information in the background identity verification.

Under normal circumstances, if the account performs well, you only need to submit basic information. However, if the information is not clear or consistent, the platform will suspect that there is a problem, and the account risk factor will be upgraded. Then the platform will ask the seller to provide more information. At this time, each seller will face different problems. Some will require proof of address, some will require submission of official documents, etc., which further complicates the review process.

As the audit becomes more complicated, KYC review will become more difficult. One of the questions sellers often encounter is whether the account name of the receiving account must be the company name. Obviously, the receiving account name must be the company name. There are generally three ways for sellers to receive payments: 1. Domestic bank account; 2. Bank account in the United States/Hong Kong; 3. Third-party deposit account. You can choose one of the three methods.

It is worth noting that if the seller’s company is a limited company, the bank account must be consistent with the company name. If it is a personal business operator, a personal account can be used.

When more information is required, the seller should also be careful when obtaining notarized documents of relevant materials. They can go to the local notary office to notarize these documents and keep the original VAT invoice properly. You can directly consult the staff of the notary office for the specific process.

In fact, Amazon requires sellers to prove their qualifications, so is there a time limit for submitting the qualification review documents required by the backend ?

According to the Amazon platform, the time will be mentioned in the notification email from the review team received by the seller's account, and the time requirement in the email shall prevail. If the time limit is not mentioned in the notification email, the seller should prepare the documents and submit them as soon as possible to avoid prolonging the review cycle.

Finally, there is one point that sellers should pay special attention to. During the KYC review process, sellers must make sure not to make mistakes or omissions when proofreading and supplementing identity information. Once submitted, no information can be modified. Sellers must fill in relevant information accurately. After the review is passed, please do not modify it at will unless necessary. Any modification may re-trigger the review for verification.

Although the KYC review of the US site has not yet been officially launched, since relevant prompts have appeared in the background, it may be enabled in the future. This also reminds sellers to ensure compliance with regulations. Only in this way, when the platform tightens relevant policies, sellers will not be ruled out.

In fact, like the KYC audit on the European site , platforms like Amazon will also conduct periodic and routine audits on product reviews and product-related certifications. The specific requirements for the audit are also gradually becoming stricter. Each audit is urging sellers to operate in compliance.

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