Amazon's latest adjustment affects more than 30,000 sellers, and some sellers may go bankrupt

According to the latest news from foreign media, thousands of sellers on Amazon's UK and European sites have been informed that their loans will be delayed for up to a week. Some small and medium-sized sellers have said they may go bankrupt as a result.

It is understood that Amazon said it has notified these sellers that in the future, after the store places an order, the funds will not be directly deposited into the account, but will only enter the seller's account about a week after the product is delivered.

Local media commented: "Many sellers will experience cash flow disruption."

Before this, sellers usually only had to wait about three days to receive the payment, but now many sellers may have to wait more than ten days or even longer.

Sellers said in interviews: "This move could paralyze their operations, and the cash flow squeeze could even lead to their bankruptcy."

Several sellers said they were “locked” by Amazon for thousands of pounds. One seller even said that Amazon “detained” more than 100,000 pounds, which directly affected his daily business.

In fact, it is not just Amazon. Recently, many platforms have said that they will partially withhold sellers’ funds as a guarantee. In May this year, the well-known e-commerce platform Etsy announced that it would withhold up to 75% of the sales of some sellers, but eventually gave up this policy under pressure.

Dozens of Etsy sellers said their funds had been unfrozen following the media outcry, though some said they still hadn’t had their funds restored.

Amazon said there are 225,000 small and medium-sized enterprises on its UK and European sites , of which about 15% of sellers, or about 33,750 stores, may be affected by the change.

One seller said that due to the delay in funding, he will not be able to pay employees' wages or repay loans on time, which will jeopardize the future of his business and may even lead to bankruptcy.

It is understood that a large number of sellers have written letters to protest Amazon's new policy, saying that the policy "has paralyzed thousands of small businesses financially, unable to pay wages, bills, and even taxes."

In response, an Amazon spokesperson said: "This policy will not affect more than 85% of sellers in Europe. We hope that this policy will ensure that some sellers have sufficient funds to resolve possible problems, such as product returns or customer claims."

"We recognise that this may cause disruption to sellers' cash flow, which is why we are providing affected sellers with three months' notice to help them prepare for this change."

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