Losses exceed $100 million! Amazon employees were paid to cheat sellers...

Affected by the wave of account bans, the latest data shows that the proportion of top Chinese sellers on Amazon has dropped significantly, which is vividly reflected on the US site. In addition to being "bullied" by the platform, Amazon sellers will also be bullied by consumers and even platform employees.

Recently, news broke that after Amazon updated its return policy, consumers became addicted to "refunds without returns" and sellers were forced to give away their products for free. Other news showed that consumers colluded with Amazon employees to defraud Amazon sellers by filing AZ claims after ordering high-value goods such as electronics and hardware tools to earn refund fees.

In addition, a former Amazon employee founded a third-party seller consulting company after leaving the company, and then colluded with current Amazon employees to commit crimes. They not only disabled the listings of platform sellers, but also illegally obtained confidential information of platform sellers , causing economic losses of more than $100 million ...

Amazon's former and current employees colluded to commit crimes, causing economic losses of more than $100 million

As the saying goes, "You can guard against thieves day and night, but you can't guard against thieves in your own home." Amazon, as the world's largest e-commerce giant, can't manage its own employees well. It's really sad...

According to foreign media reports, an employee who resigned from Amazon used his personal connections to join forces with former colleagues working at Amazon to engage in shady activities, helping sellers increase sales and attack their competitors.

It is understood that Rohit Kadimisetty set up a third-party seller consulting company after leaving Amazon in 2015. It was nominally a "seller consulting company", but he was secretly doing illegal activities!

Recently , Kadimisetty admitted that he conspired to commit interstate and international bribery . In a plea agreement submitted to the U.S. District Court in Seattle, Kadimisetty stated that he bribed his former Amazon colleagues in exchange for confidential information of sellers on the platform.

Kadimisetty also admitted to paying Amazon employees to disable other sellers’ listings in order to direct shoppers to Kadimisetty’s clients’ listings, thereby increasing sellers’ sales .

In addition to the above violations , he also acted as an intermediary to help other market consultant representatives arrange similar services for their clients.

Perhaps some sellers have never violated any regulations on Amazon, but their listings were inexplicably shut down. Perhaps this so-called "seller consulting company" did this for profit.

Some sellers said: "Amazon can't manage its own people well, and the sellers are the ones who suffer in the end. How should we account for the losses and suffering we have suffered?"

U.S. prosecutors estimate that the fraud ring caused more than $100 million in financial losses last year , including gains to merchants who benefited from the scheme, lost sales to competitors and costs to Amazon.

According to the plea agreement, Kadimisetty's clients gained "an unfair competitive advantage on the Amazon marketplace" by relying on information provided by Amazon employees , and federal attorneys recommended that Kadimisetty be sentenced to up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $50,000.

Amazon did not immediately respond to questions about allegations that its employees participated in the bribery scheme . No Amazon employees have been charged as part of the investigation .

This is not the first time that Amazon employees have colluded to commit fraud. Last year, some so-called "marketing consultants" bribed Amazon employees to help their clients restore blocked accounts and assist in attacking competitors.

In the past two years when online sales have surged, Amazon has had such a vicious incident. It can only be said that it has poor control, but "it's hard to guard against thieves in the house", who can guarantee that such fraud incidents will not happen in the future? As a small and medium-sized seller with no power, I can only pray for the best...

Amazon sellers are being slashed again due to the prevalence of “refund without return”

Amazon sellers are not only bullied by platform employees, but also by consumers. It is reported that since Amazon updated its return policy, the trend of "refund but no return" has become more prevalent. Recently, many Amazon sellers have reported that the return rate has soared:

There has been a sudden increase in the number of refunds recently , and all of them do not require returns.

20% of the refunds in return orders are non-returnable. If the buyer chooses the wrong product, the refund is also non-returnable .

Many of the products cannot be returned. They were not selling well and were clearing out at a loss, and now there are still a few that cannot be returned - done .

I received more than 200 "non-returnable" orders in less than half a month, which means that all the money for these 245 orders is gone, and all the goods are gone. Amazon is a crappy company.

…

One seller said that he had seen many reasons for refunds: such as "I accidentally ordered the wrong product" and "I found a better price somewhere else", etc. Amazon actually supports buyers to refund but not return the goods, which is really unscientific.

The editor has learned that more and more consumers are taking advantage of policy loopholes to get sellers' products for free. There are even video tutorials on Youtube that teach people how to refund without returning goods. In addition to videos, searching for keywords related to "Amazon return cheat" on Google will yield all kinds of illustrated text tutorials.

Although Amazon has always attached great importance to consumer experience, pampering consumers too much will only hurt the sellers. I hope that the platform will pay more attention to the sellers' voices and protect their rights.

The proportion of top Chinese sellers on Amazon has dropped significantly!

I still remember that last year and the beginning of this year, many training institutions claimed that "you can easily earn 100,000 yuan a month by selling on Amazon", which also attracted a large number of novice sellers to rush to sell on Amazon.

In January 2021, Marketplace Pulse released a statistic that 75% of new sellers on Amazon are from China, while in January 2020, Chinese sellers only accounted for 47% of new sellers. This shows that the growth rate of new Chinese sellers is very rapid.

Recently, Marketplace Pulse released another report, saying that "Chinese sellers are losing market share on Amazon"...

This year's account blocking wave has dealt a heavy blow to some Chinese sellers, with many big-selling brands having their accounts blocked. As a result, the market share of Chinese sellers on Amazon has shrunk.

Marketplace Pulse also reported that Chinese sellers lost market share because Amazon suspended the operations of hundreds of Chinese sellers in April and May, but the suspension has now been lifted.

It is reported that currently only 38% of the top sellers in Amazon's four markets, namely the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan, are located in China, a slight decline from 40% at the beginning of the year.

Among the four markets of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan, Chinese sellers have shrunk the most on Amazon in the United States this year, while in the other three markets, the share of Chinese top sellers has remained basically flat until recently when it began to decline.

Chinese sellers have reportedly been losing market share on Amazon for much of 2021. Previously, Chinese sellers had been increasing their market share among top sellers year after year: from 16% to 22% in 2017, from 23% to 26% in 2018, from 26% to 33% in 2019, and from 35% to 42% in 2020.

For a long time, the market share of American sellers on Amazon has been shrinking, while Chinese sellers, who make up the vast majority of new sellers, have stopped growing their market share. While the direct-to-consumer business from China to Amazon has not been interrupted, it seems to have lost considerable momentum.

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