Is Amazon Suspension Kafkaesque? Discuss
Hi,
After selling on Amazon for a good few years as seller and vendor with a decent track record and having never been suspended, we made a boo boo over the festive period. Our MD, for the first time, gave us the two Mondays off between the weekend and Christmas Day and the weekend and New Years Day (Thanks boss!).
However, due to having never been off during this normal ‘working day’ we were unaware we had to suspend the seller account so, on both occasions, a few orders were shipped later than normal. Cue Amazon trying to ring us on a Saturday (bad form but now I know this is an expectation), us not being in and consequently not answering and the account gets suspended.
Roll onto today and we have had our fourth action plan rejected with the same email being returned asking for greater detail. This is after looking at the various templates that are floating around this forum and submitting accordingly.
I appreciate it is probably being read by a bot in most cases, and it is a fine line between too much information and too little detail, but we are starting to struggle with what is required. I could possibly get around the concept of ‘keep submitting until it resolves itself’ but I am mindful that too many submissions can kill an account. I would maybe have called it a day with Amazon long ago but they have our money and we were looking at greater FBA involvement this year so it is quite important.
What I am struggling with is the format that encapsulates the following:
“Our MD gave us an unprecedented holiday on said dates. We were unaware about having to suspend our seller account. We did, however, do the correct procedure for Vendor Central at the same time which shows that we can follow procedure. We’re sorry. We won’t do it again, simply by remembering to turn off the seller account next time.”
Although flippant, this is the case. It just feels ever so patronising and silly to send us the same daisycutter email giving us no real idea of what we must provide. It just becomes point proving and deliberately frustrating. Really you want a genuine and transparent conversation with an account manager, not ‘guess what they want’ dialog with a bot.
Any advice?
Thanks
Dan
62 replies
Seller_qZO3ZCjoBXEeL
Irrelevant. Amazon care that you did not ship the orders you were supposed to. They don’t really care why, just that you know it was wrong and what you’ll do to fix it.
@Kika will reply I’m sure asking to see the full suspension notice first but it seems that suspensions due to late shipments usually require actions like increasing handling time and shipping times to reassure Amazon that the customers will receive their items well within their expected delivery dates.
Essentially you have to be contrite - the delays were because of your company’s actions, so it is pointless blaming the MD. We were wrong, we accept we were wrong. While ensuring that we aren’t wrong in the future we are also increasing handling times to make sure it isn’t possible to be wrong and customers are always happy etc.
Seller_1qKTBDbgtHefM
Cripes, sorry to hear that but yes they do expect you to be around almost 24/7 365.
It seems to me you have already admitted your guilt about the error that caused the problem, I suspect your POA simply doesn’t address this issue to their satisfaction.
Kika is the expert around here and may be able to provide some further details, although I would recommend you post the original warnings and/or suspension notice, and any subsequent POA’s you have submitted. These will be required for review to see what part of them may be causing them to be rejected. If you post these, Kika, being the selfless person she is will undoubtedly be here in short order to provide you wish further info.
IMHO, I think you have an issue in that you took (you know what I mean, the MD ‘allowed’/‘made’ you) normal working days off. If this was a misunderstanding over a bank holiday i feel they might have accepted your POA but because it was a normal day, you guys really dropped the ball and Amazon won’t be happy.
I think you’re going to have to admit that you made a significant error, I’m not sure in what form you should admit it though.
You then need to tell them that you will never do it again, and that you have specifically appointed someone to monitor the Amazon account for messaging, dispatching and any other Amazon related contacts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year so that this can never happen again.
Others may also add further information, but I wish you the best of luck!
Seller_EJIX7rqDNQJi2
You have already submitted multiple insufficient appeals, this means that at this point you have maybe 1-2 last attempts left before Amazon responds with “this decision is final and we may not respond to additional e-mails regarding this issue”.
Your suspension is different than the usual Late Shipment Rate suspensions, because you have been selling here for years and failed to put your account on Vacation Settings or increase your Handling Time during time off.
Sellers usually get suspended for this reason after experiencing technical issues or simply forgetting to confirm dispatch despite the orders were already shipped. The situation was entirely your fault. Also, you missed Amazon’s attempts to contact you and give you a chance to prevent account deactivation.
Here is an example appeal addressing suspensions due to the Late Shipment Rate exceeding the 4% target. I would advise you to check it and then write a similar POA based on it and post it here for feedback:
Seller_oGFKRixtdkjxL
In part it’s a game - you tell them what they want to hear - that it was all your fault due to X, it will not happen again because you now have X,Y, Z in place to ensure it doesn’t. Bullet points.
Unfortunately suspension reviews are handled by Seller Performance, who seem to spend say 60 seconds skimming through.
We’ve had one suspension due to our ODR - when the review came back for more information - it specified packaging complaints, no customer has ever complained re our packing or even damage in transit. It didn’t instill much faith in the efficacy of the process TBH.
That’s quite scary considering your livelihood might depend on it - but that’s the way Amazon want’s it’s game to be played unfortunately.
Seller_fplN1T0FTy6H6
Yes, it is Kafkaesque. In a perfect world someone that understood the fact we aren’t machines would answer the telephone and you could have a sensible conversation. Hope it goes well.
Seller_NysYCylpmztu2
Kafka-esque barely covers what Amazon are. They are worse than the worst Victorian sweat shop employer.
You can never entirely turn off from Amazon even when you’ve put the shop on Amazon holiday settings. You are expected to check everyday for messages from disgruntled customers. Woe to you if you don’t reply within 24 hours .
I can only echo what the other the answers have said, In trying to get re-instated try to be contrite and come up with a plausible plan of action which they will be likely to accept-you really don’t have to follow through if they accept your plan -just turn the holiday settings on next time.
Seller_ihyM1E27NEy4N
Thanks for the advice everyone and Kika, for the template. I’ll have look at having a 24/7 365 phone (!!!) and increasing handling times which perversely makes the buyer perception worse and would not represent the typical practice which we have a great record for.
Ironically, we are in the process of moving everything to FBA so, if we can get through this process, we will remove all our seller listings to FBA so this actually can’t happen again.
I’ll draft a POA for forum perusal and advice but in the interim I wanted to ask, what actually happens if it reaches ‘final decision’ stage…is there an appeal process or is that it, account dead permanently? Also, what do people do for contingency purposes in those eventualities?
Seller_ihyM1E27NEy4N
Thanks, that is what I was thinking. We want to do the FBA thing in our own time with the ability to change our minds and not be beholden to a guarantee we make!
Seller_ihyM1E27NEy4N
OK, this 24 hour / 365 phone scenario.
We are only employed 9-5 Mon-Fri. Perversely, Vendor Central ‘know’ this so it is within Amazon’s grasp to know that that is when we, as a company, are available. If I get a phonecall to my personal phone on Friday night giving me 24 hours to draft an action plan because of pending suspension, that specifically is unlikely to happen as it would have to wait until the Monday to be properly looked at and responded to.
At that point does the phone availability matter as the net result is the same i.e. suspension. Or, the fact that someone answers their call to say ‘we can only realistically look at it on Monday during our normal working hours’ give you some special allowance to take longer than the 24 hours?
Seller_ihyM1E27NEy4N
Thanks everyone. Emergency number is useful, thanks. Yes, their rules of course.
Interesting that they choose Saturday to ring in a few cases. Also interesting they use the most outdated way of communicating the ‘emergency’ to you without sending an email first…or even following up with an email giving you a chance to respond within a certain timeframe.
