Listing reinstatement help - ongoing for 3 months
Hi, I’m hoping someone may be able to shed some light on my current situation.
Mid-March this year I had a listing become inactive, it’s a health supplement. Multiple competitors products in the same and similar category also became inactive and disappeared from Amazon at the same time (this isn’t a PPE product or anything relating to Covid 19). The next day I received the following email:
Attention: Notification of Product Removal
Dear Seller,
We are writing to let you know that products(s) you have offered for sale on the Amazon.co.uk Marketplace have been removed due to potential safety issue.
We remind you that you are responsible for the products you list on the Amazon.co.uk Marketplace, and for complying with our policies and all applicable law. Please review your inventory and remove any of your listings that may be affected by this notification. Please note that further listing of these products on the Amazon.co.uk Marketplace may result in the removal of your selling privileges.
Please note that you should not ship any pending orders for this product yourself. You will be temporarily unable to create a removal order for the Affected Product(s) for a period of 30 days. After 30 days please create a removal order in Seller Central to arrange for the removal or disposal of any Affected Products in our Fulfillment Centres. If you are unable to create a removal order after 30 days, please contact Seller Support for assistance.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Regards,
Product Compliance and Safety Team
After a number of cases and phone calls with Seller Central to try and get some clarity I was told some loose information that:
‘The product has unauthorised health claims and do not comply with EU Food Safety Regulations.
Please provide the document which states that your product is complaint and not related to any unauthorised health claims’.
They didn’t state the particular ‘claim/s’ that was made however after researching on the EU Food Safety Regulations website I believe it’s probably because I had some wording relating to ‘weight management’ which although is known for the product, it isn’t backed up by the EU as an authorised claim. I was unaware of that but clearly I’m in the wrong so I take responsibility for that – assuming that was the claim they pulled the listing on.
Amazon said in order to begin the reinstatement process all affected inventory must be removed from fulfillment centres. So I created a removal order and the product has been trickling back to me. Covid 19 has not helped matters due to some FC’s being paused or delayed. The removal order is still ongoing.
Based on the assumption that the above claim was the issue and after speaking with an Amazon representative (who was helpful) on the phone I updated the listing and listing images removing any hint of what could be seen as a health claim.
I sent a request to Amazon through the ongoing Case to please look at reinstating the ASIN as there are no longer any unauthorised EU Food claims being made on the product, listing, listing images etc. I also supplied them with the Certificate of Analysis of the product which was requested (however COA’s are irrelevant in regards to EU claims as they don’t state what the product does, only the make up of the ingredients and tests around that).
This has been going on for over 3 months at this point.
Yesterday I received a reply to the Case in Amazon:
‘ Hello from Amazon Selling Partner Support,
Thank you for your continued patience.
We have received an update from our internal team and we regret to inform you that the ASIN can not be reinstated.
They have stated 'We have analyzed the documentation, and as already mentioned, we are unable to move forward with the reinstatement process based on the provided documentation. We cannot reinstate this ASIN due to product have unauthorized health claims and do not comply with EU Food Safety Regulations. ’
We do not have additional information in this regard.
We can not action further and we appreciate your understanding.
Have a nice day.
Please let us know how we did.’
So this is where I currently am with the matter and I’m unsure what to do next. I now understand that the listing made a claim which was not on the list of EU authorised claims (though it’s still very vague as to what the exact issue/claim was). However because of this, I don’t have the documents they had requested earlier in the process; ‘ Please provide the document which states that your product is complaint and not related to any unauthorised health claims .’.
At this point they haven’t officially asked me to send them a plan of action, but I’m thinking that is what I need to do? Explain where I went wrong, explain what I have done to address the issue and explain how this won’t happen again.
Any advice would be appreciated! I’ve tried to give as much detail without it becoming an essay, sorry for the length.
Matt
9 replies
Seller_BS5lg2keRs2QO
Not my area of expertise, but a couple of thoughts.
I read that as two separate issues. Looks like you have removed the claims, but is the product itself compliant with the regulations? (as in the ingredients or whatever else those regs cover)
Seller_JvIi7qQwsJOvK
Hello @LN1,
Basis your post I can understand that you have received a notification about an ASIN being removed as it is in violation with the product safety policy and that you have provided the Certificate of Analysis of the product.
However, this may not be enough or accepted to support your claim that they do not violate the policy. Also making changes to your listings and recalling the inventory from FBA warehouse wouldn’t solve it as they are only corrective measures.
I’d suggest that you proactively provide a plan of action explaining the following points to avoid any kind of account review.
1. Root cause: Try and understand the “why, what, who, where and how?”
- After reviewing your current business model and processes, why do you believe the items that you wanted to sell might be falling under this category of violation?
2. Corrective Measures: What have done about it?
- Once you identify the primary root cause, what could you do or have already done to fix it?
- What have you done, and what did you change within your business model or processes to eliminate those root causes?
3. Preventive Measures: How can you control it? Think long term!
- Think about the changes you can make that will help you avoid similar issue in the future.
- Mention the steps that you can actually implement in your business.
- The preventative measures you can take to ensure that you do not sell products that may be in violation.
Here are a few things to consider as you create your plan:
– Sourcing: Source your products from trusted suppliers.
– Listing: Confirm your listings accurately describe the product.
– Product testing: Establish product safety testing to ensure products are safe to use.
– Labeling: Make sure the product has appropriate warning labels for usage.
– Condition: Ensure the product is shipped in the described condition.
– Shipping: Implement a quality assurance process so products are stored, packed, and shipped appropriately.
– Expiration date: Confirm that your products are not shipped close to or past the expiration date.
While considering the above points, I also want you to read the policy links below and show your understanding of them in your appeal.
– Condition Guidelines (https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/200339950)
– Product Detail Page Rules (https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/200390640)
– Prohibited Seller Activities and Actions (https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/200386250)
Once you are ready with the plan of action, send it across to our seller performance team and once they review, they will assist you accordingly.
Thanks and stay safe!
Ruth.
Seller_GDMWm7JwiHmin
Hopefully someone can offer some guidance.
We sent an action plan to seller performance (seller-performance@amazon.co.uk) on 05/06/2020 for the above issue and have not had any reply back. I don’t expect them to get back straight away but would be great to get an indication on how long it usually takes them to get back. I have not created a case on Amazon and have only sent an email. Would you advise creating a case as well or?
Matt
Seller_GDMWm7JwiHmin
Hi, I have a bit of a development I’d like to share and try and get your thoughts and advice.
We submitted our POA appox 3 weeks ago (above in a previous post), we haven’t received anything directly from seller-performance@amazon.co.uk that we sent the original POA to. However, we did receive a sort of off the cuff reply from a case on Amazon.
We had a separate case opened about some missing inventory of the ASIN’s affected by this issue. Amazon has lost some of our inventory and are saying they cannot reimburse us due to the products being marked as defective due to the whole ‘We cannot reinstate this ASIN due to products have unauthorized health claims and do not comply with EU Food Safety Regulations.’ Which is what we are trying to address with Amazon through our POA. In the Amazon case we chased them to find out where the lost units are and we told them we had submitted a POA for the ASIN’s and asked if they had an update for that. Amazon replied to that case with the following:
'Hello from Amazon Selling Partner Support,
I understand that you are writing to us regarding the ASIN X. Kindly allow me to assist you.
Upon research, I see that the plan of action provided by you was not enough to reinstate the ASIN.
We cannot reinstate this ASIN due to products have unauthorized health claims and do not comply with EU Food Safety Regulations.
We will not be able to to offer legislative support, and if the selling partner needs regulatory advice, he should contact his manufacturer, importer or some certification institute.
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Thank you for selling with Amazon.’
As mentioned we haven’t received a direct email from the seller performance team about our POA (it’s been over 3 weeks), so is this reply to the case a truthful/accurate response from Seller Support and our POA wasn’t enough, or are they simply mentioning the POA because we brought it up and are just passing the buck/delaying a response again?
Should we always receive a reply from the Seller Performance team regarding a POA or do they sometimes not reply at all?
What should we do next? They haven’t offered any directions (now or from the start) as to what is wrong with the ASIN’s apart from the generic: ‘We cannot reinstate this ASIN due to products have unauthorized health claims and do not comply with EU Food Safety Regulations.’
We believe we have addressed the issues of unauthorised health claims and not complying with EU Food Safety Regulations in our POA as well as the Certificate of Analysis we attached alongside. Should we chase the Seller Performance team?
Any help would be appreciated!
