Amazon updates its bundling policy again, effective immediately

Following October 14, Amazon tightened its product bundling policy again in the fourth quarter of this year. New bundled sales products must be implemented immediately, and existing bundled products will be implemented starting in 2025. Even before the new policy, 12-year-old accounts were shut down because their bundled products did not meet the requirements. If rectification is not carried out in a timely manner, a large number of sellers will be impacted by the new policy.

Amazon updates its product bundling policy again

Recently, Amazon released an announcement on the update of its product bundling policy , which mentioned that the product bundling policy for multiple categories of consumables will be updated on October 14, 2024. Many sellers have reported that the policy lacks clarity and it is difficult to understand its impact on the business, and improvements should be made to the confusion that may be caused .

The updated bundling policy for the platform is as follows:

First, all bundles must be product configurations of the original manufacturer or brand packaging.

For example, you can list a bundle that contains Dawn dish spray and a dish spray refill that was originally packaged by Dawn. However, you cannot list a bundle of Dawn dish spray and a dish spray refill that has been repackaged. You also cannot combine Dawn products with gloves and sponges from other manufacturers or brands to create your own bundle.

Second, all products in the bundle must belong to the same brand .

Sellers may reconfigure and repackage products into bundles if they have a letter of authorization from the brand owner or manufacturer granting permission to repackage. All products in a bundle must belong to the same brand, and the bundle must use the same brand name as the products.

Third, gift basket products are bundled together in a way that is suitable for giving.

Gifts listed in the Gift Basket category may include products from multiple brands that are bundled together in a way that is suitable for gifting.

Regarding the supplementary bundling sales policy, some sellers still have doubts about the concept of gift baskets and believe that the meaning needs to be further clarified.

It is worth noting that Amazon's updated bundling policy is effective immediately , which means that all new bundles must comply with the updated policy. For existing bundles, the platform will begin enforcing the new policy on January 1, 2025. If a seller has a non-compliant bundle, they will receive an email reminder or a notification on the account health dashboard .

Amazon explicitly introduced a new policy on bundled sales because, on the one hand, consumables may be ingested, applied to the skin, or eaten by vulnerable groups such as children and pets. On the other hand, the platform has introduced stricter policies for bundles containing consumables to ensure that all consumables contained in the bundle are genuine and safe to use and consume.

Sellers call for more time to adapt to the new policy

As soon as the new policy came out, many sellers complained about the change that took effect immediately in the fourth quarter. They generally believed that the problem now was not adapting to the new policy , but that Amazon did not give sellers enough time to adjust.

Amazon started updating its policies in early December of the fourth quarter , expecting sellers to comply by January 1, 2025 , which lacks common sense, especially when sellers need to ship more inventory to prepare for the busy holiday season . Therefore , many peers pleaded with Amazon to extend the time for sellers to adapt to the new bundling policy.

As early as October 14, Amazon tightened its bundling policy. At that time, the platform decided to update the bundling policy for consumer goods in the groceries, pet products, maternal and child products, and health and beauty categories. That is, sellers can only publish bundled products created and provided by the original manufacturer, and the original manufacturer must be the brand owner of all the products in the bundle.

This means that sellers can no longer mix products produced by different companies together; at the same time, sellers can no longer list bundled products under "generic" brands or their own brands.

It is worth mentioning that Amazon mentioned at the time that it would not make any requirements for bundled products that have already been released before the end of the fourth quarter of this year; and after the policy is implemented, it will remind sellers of non-compliant product lists via email and account status control panel 30 days in advance to ensure that sellers have enough time to rectify non-compliant product details pages.

In mid-October, many sellers engaged in bundled sales should have followed the platform policy and made rectifications. However, due to many misunderstandings in the policies given by Amazon at the time, some sellers had no idea how to make adjustments.

When the time was extended from mid-October to early December, Amazon's attitude remained the same, and it would complete the rectification of non-compliant bundling sales by the end of 2024. The updated bundling sales policy has further explanations, reminding sellers to pay attention to the time nodes.

If the bundling policy is not complied with, Amazon may take certain measures, sellers may receive performance notifications, and in serious cases, the account security may be jeopardized.

12-year-old account was blocked for violating the bundling policy

As early as October, around the time when Amazon released its bundling sales policy, many sellers fell victim to non-compliant bundling sales issues.

An old seller who has been selling for 12 years said that they have been working with local Coca-Cola bottlers and have never had any problems. Suddenly, an account was deactivated, and the account protection department did not call . They did not even receive relevant emails, but only received a notification that 2 ASINs bundled with Diet Coke under their brand name were reported for violating intellectual property policies. The seller has the brand's invoices, reports, and verbal authorization , but it still doesn't help.

Another seller was also suspended for violating the bundling policy. He said that his assistant mistakenly listed 24 packs of decaffeinated Coca-Cola as other brands , so his account was suspended . Despite the invoice and the authorization letter from the local manufacturer , he still couldn't restore his account. In his opinion, it is difficult to understand that a human error, or even a bundled product that has not been actually sold , can cause his account to suffer heavy losses.

In the middle of the year, a group of sellers were also deactivated for violating the bundling policy. One of the peers had an account guarantee and had no past violations. In the end, he was told by the seller support staff that this was a serious violation and the possibility of restoration was not high.

It can be seen that since this year , Amazon has been cracking down on violations of the bundling policy, and once caught, there may be a risk of losing the account.

The seller whose account was suspended for violating the bundling policy appealed to Amazon, and Amazon said: "We need more detailed information to prove that your product does not violate our policy. "

Some industry insiders predict that this situation will continue to happen . There are millions of listings on Amazon that are really old, and some bundled products are not related to the brand or are not the same category of products.

After this bundling policy update, sellers must remember to check their product lists and make corrections by the end of 2024 to avoid being affected.

Amazon

Bundling Policy