10 Reasons Amazon Sellers Should Know About Amazon Account Suspension!
Being suspended from Amazon is a major headache for a lot of Amazon sellers, as it means they are unable to access the Amazon Seller Central dashboard. Additionally, the products previously sold by Amazon sellers will be delisted, and the balance of the sales in the account will be frozen, possibly forever.
However, as Amazon is a cross-border e-commerce platform, many worldwide sellers are unfamiliar with its policies and rules, so they may use their domestic e-commerce tactics on Amazon platforms. This inevitably leads to account suspensions due to policy and rule violations. If Amazon sellers can familiarize themselves with Amazon’s policies and rules beforehand, they can effectively avoid account suspensions. In this article, we have compiled some common reasons for Amazon account suspensions to help Amazon sellers avoid suspension.
10 Reasons for Amazon Account Suspension
Product Quality Issues
As one of the world’s largest B2C e-commerce platforms, Amazon places great emphasis on providing a positive shopping experience for its users so as to maintain its reputation and ensure customers can buy high-quality products on the platform. Therefore, it is crucial for both Amazon as a platform and every seller to offer top-notch products.
If you sell counterfeit or subpar products on the Amazon platform and consumers purchase them, only to find that the quality is terrible, you may receive complaints or negative reviews from buyers. In such a scenario, Amazon’s algorithmic detection mechanism will come into play and evaluate your store based on its actual performance. Then your Amazon account may be suspended or subjected to an audit. If an Amazon seller’s store is closed or suspended, it can lead to significant losses.
False Listing Page
According to Amazon statistics, there are currently 6 million worldwide sellers on Amazon. This means that competition on the Amazon platform is intense. Amazon’s algorithm rules play a critical role in determining the ranking of a seller’s store and products based on various data indicators. To obtain higher rankings and exposure, Amazon sellers will optimize their listing pages, including product titles, descriptions, and images, based on the platform’s algorithm.
However, when some Amazon sellers create an Amazon product listing, they have optimization problems such as adding photos that do not match the product or overusing keywords. At the same time, some sellers will directly paste and copy other sellers’ titles, images, product descriptions, and other false advertising problems. Many cross-border e-commerce sellers do not take these issues seriously, but if Amazon’s detection system discovers them, your store may face account suspension.
Product Logistics Issues
All the consumers are eager to receive their package after they place an order online, but as Amazon is a global e-commerce platform, and sellers come from all over the world, it will take longer times to receive the package than the domestic e-commerce platform. In order to improve the consumer purchasing experience, Amazon has made very strict rules that require the purchased goods to be delivered to the consumer within 15 to 25 days. If the delivery exceeds this timeframe, consumers may file a complaint, leading to the Amazon seller’s store being audited or restricted.
Additionally, Amazon has established performance indicators to constrain its sellers, one of which is maintaining a delayed shipment rate of less than 4%. If an Amazon seller fails to comply with this standard, Amazon’s system algorithm may suspend or ban the seller’s store. If you wish to accelerate your product’s logistics speed, you may consider joining Amazon FBA or establishing your overseas warehouse, which can effectively guarantee the product’s logistics speed.
Selling Prohibited Items
Although Amazon is a global e-commerce platform with 33 major product categories and over 25,000 product subcategories, there are still limitations on what you can sell on the platform. You can refer to Amazon’s official list of restricted products to effectively prevent your store from being banned for violating Amazon’s policies.
According to Amazon’s list of prohibited items, besides some products with special restrictions, some products require certification or permission to be sold on the Amazon platform. Therefore, before entering the Amazon platform, it’s important to confirm whether the products you intend to sell comply with Amazon’s platform policies to avoid losses from unknowingly listing restricted products which probably cause your account gets suspended.
Bad Customer Services
Online shopping is becoming increasingly important to consumers for two reasons. First, you can have more options to select goods from e-commerce platforms. Second, these platforms are committed to providing a friendly shopping experience to their customers. If a customer has a poor experience on a website or encounters difficulty during the purchasing process without receiving prompt help, they are more likely to leave a negative review, and this could be one of the reasons for account suspension.
In fact, negative reviews influence a brand’s reputation significantly, especially important in global online shopping. If a customer has a bad experience, it’s easy for them to take their business elsewhere, which is why providing friendly and timely customer service is crucial. This not only helps build trust with customers but also leads to positive reviews and helps improve a store’s reputation and rating, as well as avoid Amazon seller account suspension.
Order Cancellation
According to the latest data, Amazon currently has over 310 million active consumers in 180 countries and regions worldwide. With such a huge consumer base, it’s no wonder that Amazon has attracted countless sellers. Every cross-border e-commerce seller wants to successfully sell their products all over the world, which requires Amazon sellers to constantly explore new markets and expand their product offerings.
However, if Amazon sellers are unable to accurately measure their product orders and inventory on the platform, it can lead to situations where they have to cancel orders due to over-selling. This can potentially result in the suspension of their store or being subjected to review by Amazon. Therefore, to prevent a large number of canceled orders, it’s important for sellers to properly manage their order and inventory levels, otherwise, Amazon will suspend the account.
Violating Copyright Laws
No matter it’s in your own country or in the international market, copyright infringement has always been a serious issue. However, many sellers are tempted by the huge profits to take risks, even though they know that selling copyrighted products without authorization is illegal. Nonetheless, this behavior is strictly prohibited by Amazon, and it’s an issue that every Amazon seller should take seriously.
E-commerce sellers who want to develop international cross-border e-commerce platforms or markets should pay attention to copyright issues. If you want to use e-commerce platforms, you need to strictly follow the platform’s rules. Otherwise, you may have violated copyright laws, which can lead to your Amazon seller account being suspended. Copyright infringement is also a common issue that many Amazon novice sellers often encounter, as seen in many real case-sharing examples on Amazon seller forums.
Poor Amazon Performance Metrics
Amazon has an algorithm for ranking products and stores on its platform, and good performance metrics can lead to more exposure and higher rankings, resulting in more natural traffic and ultimately, increased sales. This creates a positive feedback loop. Many Amazon sellers have achieved remarkable success on the platform by building a solid reputation and offering high-quality products.
In reality, Amazon’s potential performance metrics include various factors such as product listing pages, product reviews, customer service, shipping speed, and more. Every Amazon seller knows, if Amazon discovers that your performance metrics are poor, it may suspend your Amazon account or close your store.
Enticing Consumers
With so many sellers on the Amazon platform, competition has become extremely fierce. In addition to price wars, many sellers also engage in practices prohibited by the Amazon platform in order to obtain good reviews. Some Amazon sellers offer consumers reward money or coupons in order to obtain positive reviews. However, such practices can result in your Amazon seller account suspension. Many Amazon seller account suspensions are caused by such issues.
Furthermore, while Amazon’s huge user base attracts countless sellers, many Amazon sellers don’t want to follow Amazon’s strict rules and policies and choose to set up independent cross-border websites. Some even attempt to redirect traffic from Amazon to their independent site, which is also a policy violation on the Amazon platform.
Fake Orders and Reviews
Having a high rating on the Amazon platform can bring higher exposure and ranking, ultimately promoting more product orders. Therefore, many sellers nowadays tempt to use tactics such as fake reviews and fake orders to quickly boost their product and store ratings, even at the cost of violating Amazon’s policies.
In fact, in the 2021 “Amazon account suspension wave,” many Chinese Amazon sellers had their stores frozen or suspended due to fake reviews and other similar behaviors. Some even found themselves unable to withdraw their sales earnings, resulting in significant financial and intangible losses. While some sellers may feel lucky, they eventually face the consequences of their actions as Amazon continues to crack down on these prohibited practices.
Therefore, it’s important to have a long-term sales plan and growth strategy for your brand on Amazon in order to promote healthy and sustainable growth.
Common FAQ about Amazon Account Suspension
What is Amazon account suspension?
Amazon account suspension occurs when a seller on the Amazon platform violates the policies and rules set by Amazon. This can result in the suspension or freezing of the seller’s account. Once the account is suspended, the seller cannot continue selling on the platform and may even be unable to withdraw the funds earned from their sales until the account is reinstated, or gets their account permanently banned.
What do you need to do if your USA Amazon account is suspended？
After your USA Amazon seller account is suspended, Amazon usually provides an opportunity for sellers to appeal the suspension by submitting an appeal letter prepared in advance. It is important to not create a new Amazon seller account. Sellers cannot operate multiple seller accounts. If Amazon detects another account related, they will suspend the second account as well. If you are unsure how to prepare an appeal letter for Amazon, you can seek assistance from Expert Planet for getting your account reinstated.
What are the common reasons for Amazon account suspension?
There are various reasons why an Amazon account is suspended, but this doesn’t mean that there are no clear rules to follow. These rules include maintaining product quality, efficient logistics, complying with restricted items policies, avoiding copyright infringement, and not engaging in practices that deceive customers. When an Amazon account gets suspended, it can cause significant financial loss to the seller, and in some cases, they may never regain ownership of their store. Therefore, before entering the Amazon marketplace, it’s important to learn about the policies through the Amazon seller forum or official website to prevent your account from being suspended.
Amazon Suspension Summary
In the past few years, Amazon has suspended a lot of seller accounts and suspended the account until the sellers register a complaint with Amazon. To succeed in selling products worldwide through Amazon, Amazon seller knows how important a long-term plan for brand building and sales is needed, and shortcuts should be avoided. Since it will cause a big loss if Amazon suspends the account.
If you encounter operational or other related issues in e-commerce, you can also seek professional advice from e-commerce experts on the Expert Planet platform to help your e-commerce business grow.
