I do agree that the forum is becoming another avenue to get through to Seller Support and that’s probably not what it is there for but I think the reason for this is that Seller Support, the A-Z team, Feedback Manager, Account Health Support and other such departments are not fit for purpose.

Many sellers are small businesses and when there’s an issue that is effecting their accounts what may seem trivial to us may be having a major impact to that seller. If the seller then contacts Seller Support and the response they receive is an automated message or a copy and paste of a help page that doesn’t in anyway address their problems then they are put in a desperate position and the natural reaction to this is to try and get help from anywhere they possibly can. Of course this is not ideal but then it is up to Amazon to improve their support.

I remember a few months ago we were asked on the forum to give input on how to improve the feedback manager. I provided an answer which was praised by a mod but several months down the line now I have seen absolutely no change in feedback manager. You would assume that having asked for sellers feedback on the policy that you would be able to see some improvements.

I am constantly requesting that DD+7 is scrapped as it is counterproductive and causing cash flow problems which inevitably lead to customer dissatisfaction and complaints, this is the experience of many sellers not just myself but it never gets addressed. I’m not saying they should just scrap it on my say so but there can be a response that gives some explanation as to why this draconian policy is in place other than it is to cover claims. The thing is if the policy didn’t exist I literally wouldn’t have any claims, so basically they’re holding my funds to cover claims that wouldn’t exist if the policy was not there. When you see that you have nearly £5000 held in your balance and you know that with even a quarter of that money you can fulfill all your orders easily and then Amazon releases £100 and you can hardly send any orders, can’t pay for new stock, can’t even pay yourself a wage then of course you’re going to want to know why. I want to provide a good service to my customers but instead I’m forced to send orders late leaving me at risk of claims and feedback issues because I’m being treated like I’m going to runaway with my customers money. I sell on eBay as well, they release all funds daily and it doesn’t take 3-5 working days to hit the account it’s instant. If there’s an issue they just charge your account, why can’t Amazon do the same?

From my experience I found that in many cases the mods have helped to fix issues for me while Seller Support has just dragged their heels so of course I find it better to reach out to them to help. I would rather just contact the correct support avenue and get a resolution but of course that rarely happens. I will say that I don’t post or tag mods for things like losing a buy box or something like that but then I can understand if you have invested time and money into developing a product or listing and then an unscrupulous seller comes along and hijacks the listing it can be extremely frustrating and damaging to a seller.

So where you are correct in what you are saying if the actual seller experience was improved by Amazon then sellers would not find it necessary to use the forum in the manner you described.