Big news! Amazon sellers will have their funds withheld if they do not use the prescribed payment collection tools

Last night, Amazon suddenly announced a "payment service provider plan". I believe that many cross-border people couldn't sleep all night after hearing this news, especially those payment service providers who were not included in the plan. After seeing this news, it was a bolt from the blue...

In addition, Amazon UK announced yesterday that the return period will be extended again. Recently, some sellers have reported that they have encountered video audit verification, and they have to show their ID card and business license during the verification process, which has increased the difficulty of verification ...

Amazon launches "Payment Provider Program"

Yien.com learned that at around 00:12 am on February 2, 2021, the official WeChat account of Amazon Global Selling issued a notice on the "New Policy on Amazon Sellers' Use of Payment Service Providers". After reading the notice, the editor found that Amazon is becoming more and more compliant!

The notice mentioned that Amazon will officially launch the "Payment Service Provider Program" from now on to further enhance its ability to discover, prevent and deal with non-compliant behaviors , thereby protecting consumers and sellers from fraud and other violations . Sellers who use payment service providers to collect payments should choose payment service providers that participate in the program .

Amazon clearly stated its purpose at the beginning of the new policy. From this, it can be seen that non-compliant behaviors on Amazon will gradually disappear and compliance will be the general trend.

I believe many sellers are a little confused after reading this policy. Amazon has introduced a new policy, what should we do?

Amazon stated in the notice that if the seller does not use a payment service provider but uses your bank account to receive payments, no action is required ; if the seller chooses a payment service provider that has participated in this plan (as shown in the figure below) , no action is required.

In other words, sellers do not need to perform any operations when using their own bank accounts to receive payments, or using Wanlihui, Payoneer, pingpong, Lianlian Pay, or Amazon Global Payments.

However , starting from March 1, 2021, when sellers add new payment accounts provided by payment service providers, they should choose payment service providers participating in this plan.

Of course, some sellers do not use the payment tools specified by Amazon. If the payment company used by the seller does not intend to participate in the payment service provider program, the seller should switch to other payment service providers participating in the program before May 31, 2021, or replace it with an account you opened directly in the bank.

Amazon sellers need to pay attention to ↓

1. After May 31, 2021, if sellers continue to use accounts provided by payment service providers that are not participating in the program to receive payments, your funds reserve period will be extended to up to 21 days after the estimated latest delivery date.

2. Starting July 15, 2021, Amazon will stop paying sellers who use payment service providers that are not participating in this program .

Currently, in addition to Amazon's official payment tool, only four companies have participated in the program. These four powerful payment service companies have entered the cross-border e-commerce field very early. Many sellers are using these payment tools. Amazon has a reason for making this choice.

However, when it comes to the words "money" and "collection", the sellers can't stop talking↓

Seller A: When it comes to money, I always believe that I can spend more on handling fees and follow an authoritative third-party platform, which is more secure;

Seller B: In recent years, many platforms with low or zero fees have emerged to grab the market. Amazon has introduced many reliable service providers in the past two years. You can also check the backend. When it comes to judging reliability, just follow the platform.

Seller C: Once Amazon’s announcement comes out, I guess some small payment tools will be out of business.

What sellers need to worry about is that if the payment service provider you use is not included in the plan announced by Amazon, you must make a decision as soon as possible and change the payment tool as soon as possible to avoid unnecessary trouble for subsequent operations.

Amazon UK extends returns deadline until February 28

Since January, sellers on the UK site have not only been overwhelmed by the surge in returns, but also faced a series of problems related to Brexit.

Recently, Amazon issued a return notice for sellers on the UK site ↓

Due to the spread of COVID-19 and the latest restrictions in the UK , we are giving our customers more time to return products during these difficult times and have expanded the return window for orders on Amazon.co.uk. Regardless of your fulfilment solution, we ask that you cooperate with our returns policy.

This policy only applies to orders placed on Amazon.co.uk between October 1, 2020 and January 31, 2021. Under the new policy, the return period for these orders will be extended to February 28, 2021.

The simplest interpretation of this announcement is that the return period for orders placed by sellers on the UK site after October 1, 2020 will be extended to February 28, 2021, with a return period of up to 5 months!

However, as soon as this announcement was issued, it has caused dissatisfaction among a large number of foreign sellers ↓

Seller A: In other words, if an item has been used for 5 months, the buyer can still return it on the grounds of "defective"?

Seller B: This makes absolutely no sense. These policies will not affect the legal rights of customers. But who can guarantee the rights of us sellers?

Seller C: Not only that, there are also buyers who choose to return the goods due to "delayed delivery". Everyone knows that all express delivery companies, including the Royal Mail, are working hard to deliver the packages to customers.

Undoubtedly, Amazon's extension of the return period in the UK is another thing that makes sellers "angry". In addition, in the past two days, many sellers have received emails from Amazon about "video authentication"...

If you do not complete the video verification within 7 days, your account may be blocked.

I remember that at the beginning of last year, Amazon launched a test of video conference verification to improve the seller verification process. At that time, Amazon Global Selling said that with this test function, we can have one-on-one communication with potential Amazon sellers, so as to better prevent fraudulent behavior.

In the email that sellers recently received, Amazon said this ↓

To protect your account security, we require you to perform seller identity verification in order to continue selling on Amazon. You will need to schedule a live video call with our staff and present your original ID and company business license (if applicable) during the video call .

Please click the link below and select the date and time you would like to make a video call to complete the reservation. You can select up to 3 time slots and the video call is expected to take 20 minutes. Please make an appointment within 7 days of receiving this email , otherwise your identity review will fail and your seller account will not be able to sell on Amazon.

Before this, video review was only a function to verify the identity of the seller, but from this email, it can be seen that Amazon may be serious this time.

If the seller fails to verify his identity through video review within 7 days of receiving the email , he will face the risk of being blocked.

However, the editor also learned that not all sellers received this email. Some service providers said that accounts from 2019 or after 2019 may re-trigger video verification, and the sellers who received the email are also random.

Now, in addition to the second trial, sellers have another big mountain to climb ...

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