Fair Pricing now an " Official Violation "?
Hi Guys,
I was just looking at my account health and I noticed I have a new red triangle under Policy Violations
in the category " Other Policy Violations ".
Investigating I find it is 20 odd " Violation of Amazon Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy ", all dated 31st March 2021
Now, obviously we are all family with " Fair Pricing " saga since the start of the Covid Pandemic. As we know it is typically Amazon insanity and often illogical or devoid of any sense, be it commercial or human.
I have in the hundreds currently affected, and I get regular emails. I’ve just ignored it. Occasionally I try to fix.
Obviously others have books First Editions, Signed Copies.
My " Violations " include a couple of comedy DVDs, of the type Mr Flavour Of The Monthy live at the 02, that sold in the hundreds of thousands for 9.99 - 12.99 by Amz themselves at Christmas 2016, but now eponymous and unwanted, clogging up charity shops, the Buy Box is around 3 or 4 quid and 30 odd 1p second hand sellers, my listing of 3/4 quid over the original RRP has now turned up as a " Violation ". Others are are rare items on which I am the only seller, or sealed old school video games, again where I was the only likely seller.
These de-activations have been going on for a year now, but just interesting that I have these 20 odd " Violations " as of March 2021, and the concern is, does the rest of the affected listings eventually become " Violations " and does it become a suspension / banning issue ?
Anyone else noticed anything ?
0 replies
Seller_snWsqDJGqg4sY
yep i had 16.I have just located them and deleted the listing and the violations have gone.I am just going to start relisting them maybe tomorrow…any used cds…if rare I have listed under collectible before and they have been ok.I too am the only seller on a rare cd sometimes and it annoys me that i can’t state the price.We should be able to state the price,whatever it may be and if anybody wants to buy it,they can.
Seller_sFEUMUfeW5484
Yep, I’ve got a few. Price fixing and very illegal. Amazon are being investigated for this currently and have received large fines in the past.
Seller_B4VbHpnDLDLAU
We had about 6/7, problem is amazon had reduced there prices by around half our cost price which we were selling at a fair price but due to above we got the fair price violation.
Seller_SlXZyY9vz3zbX
If you sell against Amazon itself and it’s a slow moving line you can trigger high price alerts without warning. For example if you sell at £30 and Amazon sells at £25, you will only get the buy box if you use repricing software (and can take the hit on your margin) or when Amazon sells out. The problem is that if a line moves slowly, Amazon periodically drops the price until they clear their stock.
Say in the above example, they drop the price by £5 a month and they sell through at £10, they then decide not to re-stock as the line is too slow at moving and they remove themselves from it. What then happens is every seller selling at the normal retail price of £30 gets hit with a high price alert because the last know selling price point was £10 by Amazon itself. All other sellers deleted the product to get rid of the alert and that item is no longer sold on Amazon.
Day by day our enthusiasm for this platform is eroding (it’s actually soul destroying) and we’re seriously on the verge of deciding whether it’s worth continuing. The amount of time we’re spending on dealing with issues thrown up by Amazon day after day could be better spent developing the business elsewhere. We’ve not listed new inventory on Amazon for months now…
Seller_sFEUMUfeW5484
The thing is Amazons policy says that substantially higher prices will trigger the warning/violation. I’ve had these for being 2p over.
Seller_j4qOx3FnSoENm
A big problem with this is also if a product is supplied and sold by Amazon (so amazon themselves not a third party FBA seller) and they want to get rid of the stock as it’s been sitting there and not selling then they will drop the price drastically and then hit you with a fair pricing metric hit or price alert.
We had this with a few products where they were £40 RRP and we’ve had them for a while (FBM) but it’s not like underwear has a sell by date so they are quite happily sitting in our warehouse waiting for the day they will sell.
Amazon selling the same product dropped the price from £40 to £4.95 and instantly we get hit with a fair price warning.
Seller_zMdVY1OvvxqwA
Yes, I had some the other day. Removed the listings and the warnings went away, but I found the whole thing extremely worrying. Amazon’s illegal price-fixing is bad enough but if they’re suddenly going to start linking it to official violations, with the implied potential for account suspension, it becomes a different kettle of fish. The totally random and unfair nature of their price-fixing and listing removal makes it virtually impossible for us to protect ourselves against. We become dependent on another seller NOT suddenly listing a rare book for a fiver, because if they do, our listings are immediately ‘overpriced’ and we have violated the ‘fair’ pricing policy. Amazon doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘fair’!
Seller_l78koE9kGCu59
Yup, I woke up to 27 too. All but 1 were long time OOS so long gone too. The one genuine offender was already inactive due to high price from about a year ago. I’ve just left it as the price was VERY fair and competitive. Just another crazy idea from the “New Policy” department who have to justify their parking spaces I guess.
Seller_fFylOZ9rejlBH
Nice to see there are no FAN BOY replies on this post.
Every time I post, I am just about to post about the way the layout their Seller Fees invoices, and showing any signs of being critical all the fan boys come out to play. They must be having a day off.
To be honest, I really wish I wasn’t having to pull my hair out on Easter Sunday attempting to do my accounts accurately using their figures.
Seller_n33KwLeg9XOvi
No - but I just check mine. Thankfully I am ok - but I will keep an eye on it. Thanks for the heads-up @Everybody_Has_One
EDIT - just checked my 
account - 2 on there. It appears easy to resole - by just editing pricing / or deleting listing (and selling elsewhere)
One of items - the RRP (List Price) is $19.99 - as shown on amzn. My price $19.75. But as lowest price is currently $6.99 - this seems to be why.
These 2 SKU’s also appear in “Price Alerts”
