What’s going on with amazon

When we started selling on Amazon it was definitely the strongest marketplace for us as a seller. I would say that this is no longer the case. After the past 6 months some things have not improved and others have got noticeably worse.

We have to deal with the same issues repeatedly and find it very frustrating. Some of the things that we have to deal with fairly frequently are,

• A-Z claims for items which have been delivered (Delivery scans and Royal Mail GPS data from handheld scan confirms this. Royal Mail state package has been delieverd to the correct address. Amazon ignore tracking and take funds from us to refund the customer anyway). We’ve seen in the past that a signature is accepted (which could be anyones, taken from anywhere) but a scan on the doorstep of the delivery address is not accepted. Surely a signature is less proof, but certainly no more proof of delivery.

• Tracking updates in customer accounts. Information on tracking/delivery (we use Royal Mail) is not updated in customer accounts. We probably get about 10 a week at the moment,

‘When can I expect delivery’
‘I haven’t got my item’
‘Is there a problem with my delivery?’

When we provide the tracking link from the Royal Mail website showing when the package was delivered we usually (95% of the time) hear nothing back or get a reply like ‘oh I checked by the hedge in the back garden. It must have been there all along…’

We even have a handful of customers who tell us things like,

‘Hi, I’m confused. My account says the item hasn’t been delivered, but I got it last week’

or

‘I can’t open a return request because my item says it hasn’t been delivered yet even though it
has’

There is clearly an issue with the delivery information that customers are being provided with.

• Used item received. Customer requested a return well outside of returns period, 75 days. When this was refused we had a report of a used item being received (clearly a workaround from buyer to get a refund). This affected our metrics.

• Incorrect information shown in listings. We frequently add stock to existing listings, many of which contain wrong or inaccurate information. Trying to get this changed by seller support is virtually impossible. Our record was 15 messages to try and get something which should/could have been resolved in one contact and less than 5 minutes. It’s massively time consuming. Why Amazon don’t give marketplace sellers control of their own descriptions (even on a single product page) is beyond me. So many contain bad grammar, poor formatting and irrelevant details. We have had to delete items before and just sell elsewhere as we have been unable to get the product information corrected.

• Returns. Compared to all other marketplaces our returns are pretty horrific on Amazon, mainly due to the inaccurate information shown in listings/refusal of seller support to correct, material shown incorrectly, sizing information missing or inaccurate and really poor quality images (better images shown in our inventory than those displayed by Amazon).

• Copyright violations. All of our products come from brand owners and license holders, but we have had multiple products removed for apparently being ‘inauthentic’. We can provide invoices, contacts, barcodes, contracts where applicable, images of all products. Trying to get listings re-instated is so arduous. We will get a product from Brand XXX, manufactured by company ZZZ removed, provide evidence to get it re-instated, then a month later have a different item from Brand XXX, manufactured by company ZZZ removed. Surely it’s not beyond the realms of possibility to record on our account that evidence of Brand XXX and company ZZZ have been provided.

• Feedback. This seems pretty difficult to get removed (unless it’s a product review). We’ve had feedback stating non delivery or late delivery when items have arrived within delivery timescales or feedback relating to products not supplied by us. Frustrating when you are told that nothing can be done, even when clear evidence is provided.

• Seller support. We seem to get lots of cut/pasted messages or messages that nothing to do with the question asked. We’ve seen a few forum posts questioning whether messages are read/responded to by humans or not. Getting answers usually takes multiple messages and often involves us just giving up. It’s very time consuming even for simple questions.