11/21/2022
To Amazon Suits,
Amazon 3rd party sellers make up about 60% of retail sales. This trend will only continue to grow as we move into 2023, I would like to provide some feedbacks aggregated from my fellow sellers small and big.
1) Seller Support Experience – It is simply a mess, a complex case gets thrown into 10+ different agents and each person with different signature titles… going back and fourth for weeks.
Amazon Seller Support, Case Management Specialist, Escalation Resolution Specialist, on and on. Once a case gets escalated, it should be assigned to one person and that agent should be held accountable to actually fix the issue in a timely manner. This is very time consuming for most sellers to work on this instead of actually growing their business.
Recent cases of issues with asins took us roughly 5-6 weeks for one asin. Now, you multiply that across 10000+ skus x 100000 sellers, that’s a lot of sales lost for taking so long to fix/reactivate an asin that seller support goes in 5 different departments to diagnose the issue.
Almost every seller agrees that seller support is a nightmare to deal with. This can be optimized down to 1-2 weeks max to resolve issues.
When a seller reports another seller abuse,it does not get taken seriously. I had seen a case where a seller publicly reported a seller abusing code of conduct, and they were the one that got warning from Amazon. There must be a better process of investigations.
Amazon is the best marketplace, and the standard currently is not great.
2) Dedicated catalog team to fix asin related restrictions that can actually explain how to reinstate. A lot of the times the responses are *due to our policy* we cannot fix it. Meanwhile the seller hasn’t done anything wrong or raise any flags for it to be removed. Hence, the product limitations back in early 2022 with many sellers being blocked on many asins despite being approved on the brand already. Half the asins blocked and the other half can sell? Makes no sense. Another example is the *Your account does not qualify error* pertains to brand approval
The algorithm was introduced and even seller support had no clue what to say aside from pass it on internal team. Almost every issue is routed into internal team with regular seller support not able to do anything. Sellers could apply for some big brands but auto denied on others. There is no consistency.
3) Section 3 suspensions have gone wild and no one at Amazon can reinstate or provide a path forward. False related suspensions – if a seller provides proof that they are not related, then there must be a better way to reinstate. Algorithm and internal metrics can be wrong based on context and real-world situations.
4) Auto prepaid returns label program – Currently there is 0 transparency on how Amazon calculates how much the return label is when a buyer initiates the return, just auto bills seller account. This leads to some items being overcharged for return label that doesn’t make any sense. It would just cost a seller $10-15 dollar to return but Amazon charges $40-50? Seller Support cannot explain. In addition to unclear return label charges, if a buyer returns more than 1 unit, the system only issues 1 label, cannot do more than 1 label right now. This affects customer experience as they are paying a lot for a return label when it should be way cheaper.
5) A to Z claims process – Why are customers able to just instantly file for a claim refund without even contacting the seller once? As Per Amazon’s policy, this is either due to poor training or just simply laziness on customer service agents.
6) False counterfeit complaint – Why does Amazon forces seller to provide LOA otherwise it will not be considered valid appeal? Whereas counterfeit without test buy accepts the appeal no issues. Amazon’s IP policy states that they do not enforce distribution agreement. False proof of counterfeit from rights owner is not real proof.
7) Inauthentic complaint – Unable to verify supplier. Asking sellers to provide supplier suppliers is almost impossible, Amazon’s invoice denial rate has gone way up since Jeff left.
😎 Pricing alerts – sellers have to deal with increase cost of goods and inflation as well, when Amazon raises fees, sellers should be able to raise without being blocked constantly and submitting an appeal to seller support is impossible. Due to our policy, the listing will stay blocked despite no other seller selling it. Why is there no protection when an item is sold for way lower? Low pricing alert? An item that historically sells for $150 , and selling it for $20…
9) Redesigning Seller central – Instead of spending the budget to make the seller central look better, or the automated system in seller central to auto resolve issues (it doesn’t), can we prioritize improving seller support resolution? Sellers need faster solution to fix actual issues, the longer it takes to fix issues, the more money and resources lost. An answered case does not mean the issue is resolved, new metric based on resolution, not how many cases are answered.
10) FBA lost & damaged inbound - Receipts are being denied as not valid proof of purchase. This is false and it is valid. Even invoices are being denied for a supplier not being verified despite providing proof of it being verified. Many sellers complain about not being reimbursed for lost shipments to Amazons warehouse.
11) FBA restocking limits – Amazon had said that it had too many warehouses then suddenly reduce inventory for many sellers. Communication has been horrible as stated by many sellers.
12) Clarity on receipts vs invoices – Receipts are valid proof of purchase. Can we have some love for RA/OA sellers instead of just brand owners?
13) Release seller funds – Many sellers have had their funds held despite providing proof of delivery and everything. There should be no reason to continue holding after 90 days agreed on the policy. Sellers need to pay inventory/debt/employees too.
14) Doug Herrington and Andy Jassy escalations? Emergency to resolve critical issues in 24hours
15) Additional awareness from customers – I feel like most customers do not even know 3rd party sellers exist on Amazon? Promotions and awareness campaign would be great to support more small businesses as they are the one that fuels the customers luxury experience.
I do believe that Amazon is doing the right things overall most of the time and there are many to be improved upon. AI and algorithms aren’t 100% accurate and Amazon needs to acknowledge this to address outliers as we continue to live in the automated world. If Amazon takes these suggestions, I believe it will greatly benefit. Seller trust as it has been low for decades.
Credits Thai Nguyen
