Hello community,
I am not the sort of person that posts on forums but my experience over the past 48 hours has me wondering if I am not living in a parallel universe or comedy sketch, so as a last resort I would like to see if anyone else has had a similar experience:
1. I have created a brand expressly to sell exclusively on Amazon - japanese chef knifes. After lots of reseach, design and development I created the product, got it manufactured, got my EAN numbers, and created the amazon listings.
2. I then went through a week of the usual knife pain - (those of you who sell products like this will know) where AZ was telling me that the listing does not have the required "customer_restriction_type attribute" with the value “uk_18_knife”. Needless to say the listings all had the attribute ticked, etc. but this took 3 days to resolve.
3. Finally all 3 ASINS in total - all kitchen knifes, under 1 brand, A+ content in place, store in place, stock in place, start selling. Excited for the potential of Q4.
4. 48 hours ago I receive an email from Amazon that one of my listings is not compliant and that I have not ticked the "customer_restriction_type attribute" with the value “uk_18_knife”. I thought to myself - "here we go again". I contact seller support and they tell me I am restricted from selling this product, and they are not accepting applications for the rp_3p_offer category.
5. Spent 24 hours arguing with seller support them telling me I am not approved to sell knifes (when I had been selling knifes all along, and I am still selling 2 out of my 3 ASINS) Let me expand on this: I created 3 ASINS. All kitchen knifes. All the same size and shape (different look). But now all of a sudden I require approval to sell 1 of the 3. The other 2 I am approved for. The 3rd one I am not. That is because they are not accepting applications to sell in the rp_3p_offer category. (Is this a joke?)
6. This morning I manage to speak to someone who seems more alert who explained to me that the ASIN itself is undergoing "checks" to ensure "customer safety" and that he is unable to advise on the process duration.
In the meanwhile 1/3 of my stock is stranded in FBA incurring storage costs, the money spent of PPC to improve the ranking is wasted, my BSR is tanking due to no sales activity, and I am wasting daylight in the highest sales season not knowing IF, When, or how I will be able to sell my own product, that I designed, especially to be able to sell on Amazon.
So some questions come to mind - I am hoping others who are more experienced can help me with:
a. Why is there such a problem with this uk_18_knife attribute, everyone seems to be struggling listing knife products, why is no one at Amazon fixing this so the attribute exists in the listing detail page, and not just via the obscure flat file upload?
b. Why is Amazon randomly suspending one of my listings, arbitrarily and without warning, without consideration to the costs incurred to build a product and a brand?
c. Why is there such a culture of "we are taking action against a seller" rather than "working with the seller" - as if we are the enemy of Amazon rather than the business partner that shares in the success of this wonderful platform?
d. Why is there such lack of transparency in Amazon's processes, so that a business owner like myself can plan and navigate the process? How can a business owner have the confidence to invest in the Amazon platform given the arbitrary and unforeseeable nature of it's behavior?
e. Finally and most importantly - what is the escalation channel that I should take to discuss these issues with senior people in Amazon as the seller support team is clearly either unable, not trained, not empowered or not interested in resolving these issues. My thought was to produce a nice cover letter and download the case file and email it to every board member on Amazon's executive board all at once - in the hope that someone still cares about customers/selling partners. Any thoughts?
Case Nr. 10468296052
