Prohibited seller activities and actions

These Prohibited Seller Activities and Actions are established to maintain a selling service that is safe for buyers and fair for sellers of both products and services. Failure to comply with the terms of this policy might result in cancellation of listings, suspension from use of Amazon tools and reports, and/or the removal of selling privileges.

General guidelines

The following guidelines apply to both sellers of products and services. For guidelines specific to products or services, see the information following this section.

Shipment of BMVD Products

Books, Music, Video and DVD products offered through Amazon must be shipped within two working days of the date the order confirmation is made available to you.

Attempts to divert transactions or buyers:

Any attempt to circumvent the established Amazon sales process or to divert Amazon users to another website or sales process is prohibited. Specifically, any advertisements, marketing messages (special offers) or "calls to action" that lead, prompt or encourage Amazon users to leave the Amazon website are prohibited. Prohibited activities include the following:

• The use of email intended to divert customers away from the Amazon sales process.
• The inclusion of hyperlinks, URLs or web addresses within any seller-generated confirmation email messages or any product/listing description fields that are intended to divert customers away from the Amazon sales process.

Unauthorised and improper business names:

Your business name (identifying your business entity on Amazon) must be a name that: accurately identifies you; is not misleading; and that you have the right to use (that is, the name cannot include the trademark of, or otherwise infringe on, any trademark or other intellectual property right of any person). Furthermore, you can't use a business name that contains an email suffix such as .com, .net, .biz etc.

Inappropriate email communications:

Unsolicited emails to Amazon customers (other than as necessary for order fulfilment and related customer service) and emails related to marketing communications of any kind are prohibited.

Appropriate treatment of customer phone numbers:

Amazon provides professional sellers who fulfil their own orders access to customer phone numbers so that they can comply with carrier label requirements. If you receive this customer information, you are required to adhere to Amazon's customer personal information policy, which can be found in our Seller Agreement.

Please review the policy there and the guidance below to make sure that you are using customer phone numbers correctly.

• Proper treatment of customer phone numbers:
  • Print on labels to comply with carrier requirements.
  • Dispose of any customer phone number data that you retain after you have processed the customers’ orders.
  • Monitor who in your organisation has access to customer phone numbers – protecting this data is your responsibility.

• Improper treatment of customer phone numbers:
  • Never contact a customer using their phone number. To contact a customer about their order, only use Buyer-Seller Messaging. For more information, please see our Buyer-Seller Messaging FAQ.
  • Never share customer phone information with an external party.
  • Never pass along customer information of any kind, including phone numbers, outside of Buyer-Seller Messaging.

Direct email addresses:

Buyers and sellers can communicate with one another via the Buyer-Seller Messaging Service, which assigns unique Amazon-generated email addresses to both parties. Sellers are prohibited from providing or soliciting direct, non-Amazon-generated email addresses on the Amazon website or in correspondence through the Buyer-Seller Messaging Service.

Filing Infringement Notices as an Agent or Brand Protection Agency

Amazon understands that many brands may choose to have brand protection agencies or agents report intellectual property infringement on their behalf, and accepts submissions from authorised agents. However, Amazon does not permit individuals with active selling accounts to file infringement notices as an agent of a brand when the filing of those notices could benefit their own selling account (through removing competing listings, for example). Any person filing notices as an agent that benefit their own status as a seller may have their selling account terminated.

Misuse of the Amazon selling service:

All sellers are able to access and use the Amazon selling service. If a seller uploads excessive amounts of data repeatedly, or otherwise uses the service in an excessive or unreasonable way, it can create a disproportional load and impair the ability of other sellers to easily access and use the service. If you misuse or make excessive or unreasonable use of the Amazon selling service, Amazon may, in its sole discretion, restrict or block your access to product feeds or any other functions that are being misused until you no longer misuse them.

Misuse of Amazon Case Management or threatening Amazon employees

You can use our Seller Support Services in case of questions or problems with your Amazon Seller Account and you do have the possibility to rate the quality of the support our Seller Support Associates provide to help us on continuous improvement. It's prohibited to abuse this functionality. We measure our employees on high quality standards in order to be able to provide the best possible costumer service to you and we also expect a professional way of communication and a fair rating from our sellers towards our customers and employees.

Misuse of ratings, feedback or reviews:

Any attempt to manipulate ratings, feedback, or reviews is prohibited.

• Ratings and feedback: Ratings and feedback: The rating and feedback features allow buyers to evaluate the overall performance of a seller, helping sellers to develop a reputation within the Amazon Marketplace. You cannot post abusive or inappropriate feedback or include personal information about a transaction partner. This also includes posting ratings or feedback to your own account. You may request feedback from a buyer, but you may not pay or offer any incentive to a buyer for either providing or removing feedback. In addition, it is strictly prohibited to post ratings and feedbacks by spoofing or for commercial purpose.
• Reviews: Reviews are important to the Amazon Marketplace, providing a forum for positive or negative feedback about product and service details and reviewer's experiences. You should not write reviews for products or services that you have a financial interest in, including reviews for products or services that you or your competitors sell. Additionally, you should not provide compensation for a review (including free or discounted products). Review solicitations that ask for only positive reviews or that offer compensation are prohibited. You should not ask buyers to modify or remove reviews.

Misuse of sales rank:

The best seller rank feature allows buyers to evaluate the popularity of a product. Any attempt to manipulate sales rank is prohibited. You should not solicit or knowingly accept fake or fraudulent orders, including placing orders for your own products. You should not provide compensation to buyers for purchasing your products or provide claim codes to buyers for the purpose of inflating sales rank. In addition, you should not make claims regarding a product’s best seller rank in the product detail page information, including the title and description.

Matching product offerings inaccurately:

When listing items for sale using an existing product detail page, the product being offered must be listed on a product detail page that accurately describes the product in all respects, including (but not limited to) the following attributes: manufacturer, edition, binding, version, format or player compatibility. Sellers should not match their item to a detail page with a different ISBN, UPC/EAN or other external identifier.

Uploading product images displaying inappropriately branded generic products:

Uploading images of products displaying your trademark affixed in a temporary or impermanent fashion (e.g. on a sticker or on product packaging, etc.) is prohibited where that product is a generic product not permanently branded with your trademark. Amazon reserves the right to remove, screen or edit any product images that breach this prohibition.

Creating duplicate Product Detail Pages:

Creating a Product Detail Page for a product already in the Amazon catalogue is prohibited.

Creating separate listings:

Sellers cannot create separate listings for identical copies of the same item. Individually listing the same item several times is confusing for buyers and frustrating for other sellers. Sellers must use the quantity field to offer multiple copies of the same item, and only list separately if offering the same item in different conditions.

Misuse of the Amazon A-to-z Guarantee:

Any misuse of the Amazon A-to-z Guarantee claims process is prohibited. Sellers who have an excessive number or monetary amount of A-to-z Guarantee claims are subject to termination. In cases where a buyer is dissatisfied with a product or service, they can contact you to make arrangements for a refund, return or exchange, as appropriate. Amazon reserves the right to seek reimbursement from you if we reimburse a buyer under the terms of the Amazon A-to-z Guarantee.

Misuse of Search and Browse:

When customers use Amazon’s search engine and browse structure, they expect to see relevant and accurate results. Any attempt to manipulate the Search and Browse experience is therefore prohibited. Prohibited behaviours include, but are not limited to:

• Artificially simulating customer traffic (via Internet bots, paying for clicks on organic search results, etc.)
• Providing misleading or irrelevant catalogue information (title, bullet points, description, variations, keywords, etc.)
• Adding product identifiers (brand names, product names, ASINs and so on), even if they are your own, to hidden keyword attributes.

For more context and guidelines, see Optimise listings for search.

Misuse of Product Customisation

You are not allowed to list the following products under the Customisation Programme – personal computers, laptops, computer towers, videogame consoles or tablets. This includes the refurbishing of the aforementioned base products.

When customers shop for customisable products on Amazon, they expect these products to be made-on-demand using the personal choices entered during the purchase process. Each custom field (for example, text input, image upload or configuration option) that the customer encounters when creating a customised product must serve the purpose of furthering the customisation of the customer desired product. Any attempt to manipulate custom functionality in a manner which circumvents existing Amazon policies, or misrepresents customised products is prohibited. Prohibited behaviours include, but are not limited to:

• Offering warranties: You are not allowed to offer any warranty (your own, third party or a manufacturer’s) as a customisation option.
• Bundling: You are not allowed to offer add-on products that do not further customise the item. For example, if you are offering a custom phone case, you cannot offer additional charging cords or other off-the-shelf accessories.
• Listing with a manufacturer’s UPC: Due to the nature of customisation fundamentally changing the manufacturer’s item, you are not allowed to use a manufacturer’s UPC when creating an ASIN. You can either enter your own unique GS1 certified UPC or you can apply for a GTIN Exemption.
• Offering free promotions: You are not allowed to offer free items as a form of customisation. For example, if you are offering a standard car stereo, you cannot ask if the buyer would like a free air freshener as your customisation. Your base product must have an element of customisation.
• Yes/No as a customisation: If you chose to use text or product configurations as your customisation, you are not allowed to offer a customisation that is a value of “yes/no”. This type of value does not add to the customisation of an item.

Violations and misuse of the custom feature set might result in loss of the custom feature set with the inability to reinstate.

For more context and guidelines, see the Amazon Custom Listing Guide.

Post-transaction price manipulation and excessive shipping fees:

Any attempt to increase the sale price of an item after a transaction has been completed is prohibited. Additionally, you cannot set excessive order fulfilment and shipping costs.

Pre-selling of BMVD Products:

Sellers should not list or match against Books, Music, Video or DVD products that Amazon designates as pre-orderable. BMVD products offered through Amazon must be shipped within two working days of the date the order confirmation is made available to you. It is also important to maintain accurate inventory records, as instances of “stock-outs” could be reflected in your seller Feedback Rating. If an item you are offering will not be available for immediate shipping upon order, either cancel the order or alert the buyer, and initiate a /refund if necessary. Amazon will immediately cancel any seller listing for Books, Music, Video or DVD items that Amazon designates as pre-orderable.

Listing prohibited products:

Parts or products from whale, dolphin, porpoise, shark, elephant (including elephant ivory) or from any other regulated endangered plant or animal are prohibited.