💡 Seller Poll: What Were Your Growth Challenges in 2025?
Hello sellers,
We've been monitoring thousands of seller discussions in the Grow Your Business category, and have observed clear patterns in 2025. Understanding these trends helps us prioritise the resources and support you need most—but we want to hear directly from you about what's impacting your business.
What We're Hearing From Sellers
Based on analysis of over 4,000 forum discussions in Grow Your Business in 2025, here are the top challenges sellers are facing:
Advertising & Campaign Management
- Adverts stopping unexpectedly or failing to run
- Campaign manager access issues
- Budget restrictions and profitability concerns
Payment & Financial Issues
- Disbursement delays and fund holds
- Lending programme challenges
- Invoice and financial tracking problems
Pricing & Promotions
- Strike-through price display issues
- Promotion cancellations
- Voucher configuration errors
Sales Performance
- Traffic and order volume declines
- Seasonal performance variations
Promotional Events
- Deal eligibility and suppression
- Event performance below expectations
Share Your Experience
We're opening this discussion to understand what's genuinely happening in your business right now. Your insights help us advocate for better tools, clearer policies, and more effective support.
Please Tell us:
- Which of these challenges is affecting your business most significantly?
- What specific obstacle is preventing you from growing right now?
- What solution or resource would make the biggest difference for you?
- Have you found any strategies that helped you overcome these issues?
Your detailed responses help us identify where to focus our efforts. If you find a comment that resonates with your experience, upvote it to help us see which issues are most widespread.
Let's work together to identify the priorities that matter most to your success.
💡 Seller Poll: What Were Your Growth Challenges in 2025?
Hello sellers,
We've been monitoring thousands of seller discussions in the Grow Your Business category, and have observed clear patterns in 2025. Understanding these trends helps us prioritise the resources and support you need most—but we want to hear directly from you about what's impacting your business.
What We're Hearing From Sellers
Based on analysis of over 4,000 forum discussions in Grow Your Business in 2025, here are the top challenges sellers are facing:
Advertising & Campaign Management
- Adverts stopping unexpectedly or failing to run
- Campaign manager access issues
- Budget restrictions and profitability concerns
Payment & Financial Issues
- Disbursement delays and fund holds
- Lending programme challenges
- Invoice and financial tracking problems
Pricing & Promotions
- Strike-through price display issues
- Promotion cancellations
- Voucher configuration errors
Sales Performance
- Traffic and order volume declines
- Seasonal performance variations
Promotional Events
- Deal eligibility and suppression
- Event performance below expectations
Share Your Experience
We're opening this discussion to understand what's genuinely happening in your business right now. Your insights help us advocate for better tools, clearer policies, and more effective support.
Please Tell us:
- Which of these challenges is affecting your business most significantly?
- What specific obstacle is preventing you from growing right now?
- What solution or resource would make the biggest difference for you?
- Have you found any strategies that helped you overcome these issues?
Your detailed responses help us identify where to focus our efforts. If you find a comment that resonates with your experience, upvote it to help us see which issues are most widespread.
Let's work together to identify the priorities that matter most to your success.
142 replies
Seller_W0UadCH7lVBVG
Did I really just waste 2 minutes of my life reading that post of Amazons, only to find none of the obvious ones (Seller support, Fraud, Amazon not following policy, AZ challenges etc) are not on there.
Happy new year everyone and good luck in 2026 selling on this platform!
Seller_RguKGMHvWFmo3
"Based on analysis of over 4,000 forum discussions in Grow Your Business in 2025, here are the top challenges sellers are facing"
So what about the 4000 + alone posts about A to Z abuse and issues?
What about the 4000+ alone posts about Seller Support?
You state "Let's work together to identify the priorities that matter most to your success"
At no point have you said who within Amazon is looking at this and then what you plan to do with the information we all take the time to provide you.
What is the objective? You state We're opening this discussion. who? Whats your timeframe? When will we see changes?
Seller_AlYpsVHv0gj21
user profile
Indy_Amazon
In reply to:
dunsterville34’s post
2 hours ago
@dunsterville34 @number_6 Acknowledging and want to say thank you for your feedback specifically around challenges you're facing as book sellers. I'll check on this with one of my colleagues who specializes in these issue types and get back to you on this thread.
Indy
Thank you for your reply. I have reprinted it here so it is out in the open for everyone to see and not hidden away in a "nested reply".
I have to be quite honest and say that this is probably the last we hear from you in this matter . Please prove me wrong and you or your colleague come back with some positive news.
To other sellers:
Can I suggest that all replies and further posts are directed to Indy's original post. That way we can more easily see what is going on
Seller_2MDS66zdjPMUU
@Indy_Amazon
"Please note that the examples provided are focused specifically within our Grow Your Business category as noted in the post." Quote
FIxing Amazon's endemic problems would support growth, Sadly Amazon should concentrate on issues that the sellers find frustrating rather than less relevant questionnaires.
"We're opening this discussion to understand what's genuinely happening in your business right now" Quote
We have told you time and again what is genujnely happening in our businesses . Why does Amazon not consider the problems that are increasingly evident as factors in limiting sales growth,
Please do not ask us again to discuss issues around a carefully curated list of issues that sellers find less relevant.
Seller_QFivb25YBNqBc
There is no bigger challenge than this one.
Seller_mxez2L8QjE6WW
@Indy_Amazon
As a follow-on to my previous reply.
Used book selling is basically a numbers game: the more you can list the more you can sell.
My inventory is currently 86611 books; my inventory on Amazon is 80827 books, a shortfall of around 5700+ books. Books I can't list because of the 'potential pricing errors'; the unnecessary need to get a publisher's approval to sell a second-hand book; the sudden change whereby Amazon stopped creating a listing for an unlisted book. When we were invited by Amazon to list our books on the nascent UK site all those years ago, we would send them our listing updates & they would create a listing if necessary. That was the set-up & we had to adapt our procedures to fit their requirements. We can still list them on Abe, but it is another way Amazon restrict ability to sell. Make those 5700+ books available & the business will automatically grow.
And while I'm on a rant - what about a bit of quality control of sellers, to get rid of the book-jackers who clutter up the catalogue with their non-existent books. Dozens operating out of Kayseri in Turkey, our well-know friend from Essex, all those US scrapers. They damage Amazon by disappointing customers when they can't supply the books. So what about suspending sellers whose feedback rating falls below 90%. Getting rid of the cowboys would allow more honest sellers to sell more - and keep Amazon's customers happier
Seller_ZVAz3d5lZuGid
@Seller_mxez2L8QjE6WW - again, spot on Cibba. I totally agree about getting rid of those sellers whose feedback is terrible - you're being very generous IMO with your 90% ! - but certainly if drops below 60%.
Am sure we all sound like a cracked record with the need for 'approval', and despite the mods saying they will look into the 'first sale doctrine', STILL nothing has changed.
There are far too many cowboys have jumped on the bandwagon, thinking they can list every book in the catalogue, and creating bogus ASINs - get rid of them too, and the dropshippers.
I think we are allowed to rant as we never see any changes !
Seller_FQHkqHJI5SqTh
I would be amazed if Amazon aren't aware of the dodgy dropshippers, they're so obvious, but have crunched the numbers and decided the bottom line is better with them than without.
And and as someone else mentioned they frequently get double commission: bookjacker lists and sells our book on the .com site; fills that order with an order on the .co.uk site.
Seller_tQCfsb3zoC4AP
Dear Amazon not that anyone from Amazon will pay any attention to anything any 3rd party says here I will endeavour to answer your question Seller Poll: What Were Your Growth Challenges in 2025?
A support system that believes they are a prevention system even the most simple requests will get the most incoherent response they appear to be terrified of giving actual answers
Amazon sending out fraudulent messages telling people their items may be lost which has led to extreme levels of theft from this site.
An Az claims and feedback system that is not fit for purpose
A catalogue that is now that poor that even if Amazon became interested in fixing would probably take several years to fix its current state.
The inability to fix incorrect information on a catalogue page
The inability to list new products as you need up to a dozen different permissions to list one single product.
Policies that directly contradict each other leading to an inability to function
Amazon holding on to payments for 6 weeks before getting payments.
The extreme drop in sales in particular over the festive period 70% down on last year when last year had a drop of 50% from the previous year.
The extreme fees that are now charged for what has become a very substandard service
According to Amazon over 50% of its profits comes from 3rd party sellers on a normal site these sellers would be treated like gold on Amazon we are treated like 💩 considering that the hostility towards 3rd party spellings is beyond disgusting
The fact that none of these appeared in the 4000 discussions you followed either shows you were very selective in which discussions you followed or shows just how disconnected you are from your 3rd party sellers. And their actual problems they face on Amazon. If I counted 100 business problems I can assure you that 99% of them would be caused by Amazons behavior
I would rather you ignore this vent rather than sending me a condescending cut and paste.
Seller_Fg2fqaWOnEtha
Absolutely, 100%. That would give us a more robust voice and some visibility. I have some experience in digital marketing, campaigning and lobbying and when there were issues with Etsy payments I thought we needed some kind of group to advocate for and represent online sellers. If I had the time I would start it, but if there is a group of people interested in this, I'd be prepared to help.
Seller_RAXEWLxQ2dbmN
This is possibly where the catalogue rot set in.
It provided a loophole for the 'bookjackers'/dodgy dropshippers to create overpriced bogus duplicate ASINs of books alread in the catalogue. Amazon obviously made it too easy to create redundant duplicates.
If we - without any inside knowledge of Amazon's systems - can spot the obvious rogues, it should be plain sailing for Amazon itself to stop the creation of all these redundant ASINs and to bar the sellers who create them. They are almost all based overseas and their subterfuge is as plain as day...but Amazon apparently still cannot see it, many years after it began!
All of this is why I cannot take Amazon seriously when it comes to policing its own catalogue. The high price thing has been shown up to be a complete joke when millions of overprices bogus ASINs are left standing while legit listings are taken down for being a penny over the 1970 RRP...
Seller_KlbXZHzQGSDZv
@Indy_Amazon
Two main items prevent us from growing on Amazon.
1. Incorrect asin that were created some time back by people no longer on here.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07TS8WQVP
an example shown above the correct title should of course be By Annie Pattern Out and About amazon title annie pattern zip closure.
In the past we have tried to have these corrected but after wasting 2 hrs you get to oh your not the brand owner you cant correct this.
And yet the chinese sellers regularly hack good listing gut them and then repost as there stuff with all the good feedback moved to their dodgy stuff.
2. We sell fabric mainly and a lot cannot be listed as there are no upc on the bolts not an issue so much as we just sell elsewhere. However when some of the items which are precuts they can be listed on here. Now you may get four variations of the precuts which we buy from our wholesaler covering from 1 to 4 of the variations. You put the UPCs in here to list the items and your lucky if 1 out of three come up these days were as 5 years ago you usually had all four listed. Why is this its because if you try to list without it allready being on your poured down a tunnel of requirements which youo fufil but usuallt get to the point where the listing breaks down. Now from previous experience if it does not come up under the UPC we just walk away and sell elsewhere.
Those are the two main ones for us for number 2 its a lost cause for number 1 I believe that its an easilly fixed issue with humans who can clear up obvious errors without asking the world if the title is wrong and you can see what it is in the photo then why require all the song and dance to get it changed.
Time is not on a small businesses favour we dont have it to mess abouth with seller central going round in circles to be fobbed off at the end. an hour or two spent trying to resolve an issue on here is much better spent listing elsewhere
Seller_w0NuiqSLJxWvi
Having to wait 14 days to get funds released then a further 5 days for it to hit our bank. If we got paid quicker cash flow would be far superior. Waiting an extra 10 days after delivery for funds to be released is just wrong
