1 million products sold! Two top sellers’ funds were frozen

The two largest Amazon sellers of the same brand were suspended and their funds were frozen. Before that, they sold more than 1 million products. After being hit, they failed to pass multiple verifications. One of the sellers directly accused the platform of entering the market to compete and break the rules, "plundering" sellers in this way.

Sellers’ funds are frozen if they are hit by Article 3

Seller David has been selling on Amazon since 2013. Recently, he was suddenly suspended and his funds were frozen.

David received an email from Amazon : “Your account is currently under review in accordance with Section 3 of the Amazon Business Solutions Agreement. During the review, FBA shipment creation functionality will be disabled and your funds will be withheld in accordance with our Funds Withholding Policy.”

Why did this happen? We took this action because we believe your account or related accounts may have been used to engage in deceptive or illegal activities that harm customers and our store, such as selling counterfeit inventory and infringing intellectual property rights.

Amazon sellers jokingly called this email "the evil third item" . Sellers who are affected by it will have different degrees of impact, and some even lose their accounts.

A large part of David’s business comes from Amazon. He can’t ship or make shipping plans. When he goes to the Amazon shipping page, it says “The shipment creation feature has been temporarily disabled. For more information, go to your case log. ” When he clicks on the case log link for Seller Support, there’s nothing there.

To verify the authenticity of the account, David had to complete a video audit and listed the ASIN in question at the bottom. David sells many different products on Amazon and he didn’t know which one was the problem. The total number of ASINs submitted to Amazon was less than 100.

After completing the review, Amazon asked for verification of various documents. Since 98% of David’s store sales came from a single manufacturer, and more than 500,000 products from this manufacturer were sold through FBA, he sent Amazon thousands of invoices from this manufacturer to resolve the sales restriction issue.

Later, David was asked to review some of the same documents and some new things via video. Although he had already done the video verification, he was also asked to provide his ID card, credit card statement, a bunch of business information, invoices, authorization letters, etc. Amazon told him that he could submit an appeal according to the instructions on the " Account Health " page of Seller Central. David checked the account health of Seller Central and found no problems.

According to Amazon’s prompt, David ’s problem lies in the account health and seller support case log, but no further reasons can be found in either aspect. His problem is at an impasse and he can only submit a pile of business documents repeatedly.

This week , David received another email that did not mention his previous submissions, but thanked him for participating in the video call on August 9. To complete the identity verification, please provide the following information. David confirmed that he had submitted these documents before, and some of them had been submitted multiple times.

He couldn't help but question whether Amazon had ever received the information he submitted and whether the platform's incompetent reviewers would ruin his 10-year business.

"The level of frustration and worry is absolutely extraordinary ! I've had countless sleepless nights since this started, worrying that the platform might suspend your account even if you know you've done nothing wrong. This situation is hurting our business every day. Our employees and livelihoods are at risk, " said David.

Amazon enters the market and competes with sellers?

David 's concerns also come from the fact that his peers have experienced the same thing as him.

According to David , fellow seller Nick and he sell products from the same manufacturer. They are the two largest sellers of similar products on Amazon, and have sold more than one million products of a certain brand on Amazon in total.

But when Amazon entered the field (selling similar products), their account was suddenly facing a serious threat, and Nick was unable to sell anything like him.

David 's problem has not been solved yet, and he suspects that Amazon is competing with them. He said: "Amazon's entry may not be related to the problem with their account, but the timing of all this is very coincidental, and Amazon's carelessness in handling a very serious problem for sellers is very suspicious."

"They (Amazon) want to steal your money and inventory, and they may be under pressure to provide positive results for shareholders. I have seen many posts where sellers' inventory has been stolen in various ways and then Amazon sold it as their own inventory. For example, I submit reports to agencies in various states every day, and they ignore my requests to resolve the problem. They stole my inventory and caused me to lose thousands of dollars. I wrote an email to Andy Jassy, ​​and his assistant sent me a link to the FAQ section." A seller in the industry said bluntly about what David and Nick had experienced.

Another seller lamented: " This is crazy! There is no clear path for the process of liquidating an account. We are blindfolded and wandering in a minefield, trying to find the right way to get our account back to normal. I have been selling on this platform for 18 years and I hold my breath every time I receive an account warning. As a seller, one false counterfeit claim (usually for free returns) can destroy my business ! "

It may be normal for sellers to lament that they are restricted by the platform or that Amazon will compete with them. However, David’s experience is likely related to Amazon’s recent restrictive policies on brands.

David and Nick sell products from the same brand and are restricted from selling them at the same time. Amazon has recently conducted strict inspections and updated the sales policies of many brands on the platform. Many categories, brands, and products require Amazon's approval before they can be sold, and in some cases, restrictions and policies will change. As categories grow, the platform will continue to make new decisions on which products should be restricted based on a variety of factors.

During Amazon's strict inspection, David and Nick are not the only sellers who have been affected. Currently, a large number of sellers have been deprived of their sales rights and their funds have been frozen by Amazon because they have not obtained brand authorization.

One seller said, "I only sell products from 2 different brands, and I have a sales license but was still suspended. My account was closed after the third video interview. All documents, including the ID card provided in the video, were requested multiple times. Some sellers who were suspended suffered heavy losses. Some sellers' accounts were under review for 5 days and lost $200,000 in sales."

Many colleagues found out through searching for reasons that a certain brand they were selling had been detected by Amazon. The platform would check the seller’s products. If any sales were found to be unauthorized by the brand, the seller’s sales rights would be removed.

" Amazon business has turned into a heart-pounding game ! " lamented an Amazon seller.

Amazon

Seller