Amazon Hates Handmade Sellers
I have had enough and want a rant, feel free to join me.
Amazon really seem to hate Handmade sellers. I am not just whingeing, I have run my handmade businesses since 2004 and expect to work for my money, jump through a few hoops and comply with the marketplaces I sell in. I signed up for that and I roll with it. Amazon take unreasonable behaviour to another level. They are petulant, obstructive, they ignore requests for help or reply with a template response that has nothing to do with what you are asking them. They are deliberately opaque and I suspect they are trying to oust as many handmade sellers as they can. Currently they have waived the £30 monthly fee for handmade sellers, so they think were are getting too much of a free ride. However, they know that many handmade sellers will be reluctant to pay the £30 per month fee when it is introduced, which is why they keep extending the free period. They are pushing their other services to make money and making it very difficult for us to refuse. They are putting blocks on seller accounts without explanation and offering poor communication in response to queries. I have high standards customer care is my main priority, they can’t fault me on that so they look elsewhere. They ask for proof of handmade, they are given it, they ask again, it is provided. They verify my bank account, my payment card, then they ask again and it is done. Then they hold money without explanation. None of the reasons given in the policy apply and they cannot give a reason why they have done it. Then they want to reverify all the information again. And so it goes on.
Perhaps they treat regular sellers like this also but one of the things they have done is specifically harmful for handmade businesses. The sudden, arbitrary desire for all photos to have sterile white backgrounds. Now, I had many pictures with white backgrounds already but these were not good enough. It had to be digitally white, registering as 0000 or whatever the shade is. Has anyone ever managed to do this and still have an attractive product? I am not selling surgical instruments, I sell jewellery. They do not look good with digitally enhanced edges and stark backgrounds. I don’t dress my photos up to look fancy, no flowery props. You get what you see. Why isn’t that good enough for Amazon? Why isn’t ordinary white good enough? Why do you insist on making us redo all our work, time and time again?
After 5 years on Handmade and longer as an Amazon seller, I am giving up. Amazon demand too much. They are holding my money and cannot tell me why. The last couple of orders I made and shipped were entirely at my own expense because I have never been paid for them and it looks likely that I never will. Rather than pay me or explain why they are holding my money they took more. The money for my last order was added to the reserve amount already held. I currently have an order to make and send but suspect that, if I do, they will keep the money for this too. So I am not doing it. Amazon can make it and send it, I QUIT.
2 replies
Seller_lljyzgTxr5fgI
Then why have a handmade section?
Understandable because it is known that a lot of sellers claim “handmade” but are actually buying from China (one pops up on here fairly frequently)
That has always been the case on Amazon, in general
There are (and always will be) hoops to jump through on Amazon, general or handmade. You have to decide if it’s worth the effort to keep jumping. For most, it is; for some, it isn’t.
Seller_ljGXYifpOI0yP
I’m also at the end of my tether with Amazon. I have had to stop selling outside of the U.K. as they deduct they were deducting the buyers local sales taxes from my profit! Unlike Etsy who charge the buy and remit direct to the appropriate govt.
Constantly getting items suppressed as they don’t meet the photo requirements and having to retake until the item doesn’t look right but meets their criteria
Now today I woke up to a request to prove I’m making my items.
I’m just a small one person operation, I have a family to look after and a full time job. I’m really thinking of packing Amazon selling in it’s becoming too much hassle for the little money I make.
Just a note to other sellers, I expected that they were going to pick on me as my sales had suddenly dropped, in the past a drop on sale has resulted in a complaint/threat from Amazon. Hoping that my response to them will close the issue and sales will pick up again.