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Top Mistakes That Will Get Retailers Kicked Off Amazon

Top Mistakes That Will Get Retailers Kicked Off Amazon 2

As the largest third-party provider to Amazon, we take pride in not only giving you tips and best practices but also keeping

you up-to date on channel information to make sure you’re doing all the right things. If you are unaware of how strict Amazon’s

requirements are for retailers, then you may already be making these critical mistakes that can result in suspension or

termination from Amazon. Considering Amazon is the fastest-growing marketplace with 42% growth in Q1 alone, this is an

e-commerce channel you cannot afford to be suspended from due to neglecting their regularly enforced guidelines. Once you

get kicked off Amazon, it is extremely difficult to get back to an active status.

Pay close attention to the following top mistakes that will result in termination from Amazon so you can avoid this blow to your

e-commerce strategy and overall revenue.

Mistake

#1 FAILURE TO RECOGNISE THAT AMAZON OWNS THE SHOPPERS AND THE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE Amazon takes great pride in managing the entire shopping experience for its buyers. The company

has designed a channel and experience that shoppers know and return to time and time again. From

the initial search to the final receipt of a product, and everything in between, Amazon expects all

retailers to operate in the same manner as Amazon itself. Most importantly, Amazon has achieved

this status by prohibiting any sales transactions, advertising or other means of communication with

Amazon shoppers that would direct them off Amazon. Even having a link to your webstore on a

product listing or description field can be viewed as grounds for being dropped from Amazon.

Mistake

#2 IGNORING AMAZON’S GUIDELINES FOR EMAIL COMMUNICATION Amazon only allows email communication between retailers and buyers that pertains to order

fulfilment, such as shipping confirmations and customer service inquiries. In this case, you DO NOT

want to utilise transactional emails as a means of additional marketing. This also includes email

marketing such as incorporating hyperlinks, URLs or other Web addresses within confirmation

emails, specifically since they would direct the buyer away from Amazon.

Mistake

#3 OPERATING MULTIPLE SELLER ACCOUNTS FOR THE SAME PRODUCT LINE Amazon does not allow a retailer to have more than one account and will terminate both accounts if

this restriction is violated. In very rare cases, a retailer is able to obtain an exemption by going to the

“Contact Seller Support” section and choosing “Other account issues” from the “Account Settings”

section of the form. The only valid reason that will be considered is if your business operates two

very distinct product lines. If a retailer is granted multiple accounts, the two accounts cannot sell the

same products.

Top Mistakes That Will Get Retailers Kicked Off Amazon 3

Mistake

#5 MISMATCHING OR DUPLICATING PRODUCT DETAIL PAGES Considering the confusion this causes the customer, Amazon has very strict guidelines about product

detail pages and does not tolerate the creation of duplicate pages to attempt to highlight your own

product. When listing items already in existence on Amazon, you must use the correct product

detail page that has the same ISBN, UPC or EAN and accurately describes the product and all its

attributes.

Mistake

#6 CHANGING YOUR PRICES POST-CHECKOUT AND USING EXCESSIVE SHIPPING FEES Clear shipping prices are not only a best practice we suggest regardless of channel, but one that

Amazon requires. A quick way to get kicked off Amazon is misleading the shopper into purchasing

an item and then tacking on extra fees, including excessive shipping rates after the checkout process

has been completed.

Mistake

#7 ABUSING THE CUSTOMER RATING AND REVIEWS FEATURE Manipulating ratings and reviews for your products by falsifying product reviews or forcing buyers to

submit feedback is another way to lose selling privileges. You are welcome to solicit feedback from

buyers to help your seller history, but you must allow the buyers to freely express their opinions.

Furthermore, you cannot include any personal information about a transaction partner within a review

or use abusive, inappropriate language.

Mistake

#4 USING AN INCORRECTLY FORMATTED OR MISLEADING “BUSINESS NAME”Your Amazon “business name” is your seller ID – it must accurately reflect your business and cannot

infringe on another company’s trademark or other intellectual property. Furthermore, it cannot contain

.com, .net, .biz or other such suffixes. For example, having a misleading name such as “toy seller”

when you actually sell apparel is simply one more way to get kicked off Amazon.

Top Mistakes That Will Get Retailers Kicked Off Amazon 4

Mistake

#8 NOT MONITORING YOUR USE OF THE AMAZON A-TO-Z GUARANTEEAmazon will drop any retailer that has an excessive number or GBP amount of A-to-z Guarantee

claims. Customers file A-to-z Guarantee Claims when:

• Their order never arrived, or

• The product they received was materially different than what they were led to expect. This covers

damaged, defective, misdescribed or misrepresented products, as well as missing parts.

An A-to-z claim is typically the buyer’s last resort; Amazon will direct a buyer to approach the retailer

initially. Amazon will likely seek reimbursement from you, the retailer, if they had to reimburse one of

your buyers based on the A-to-z Guarantee, so this infringement could be quite costly. We suggest

avoiding this misstep by proactively working with unsatisfied buyers to supply a refund, return or

exchange and not relying on the A-to-z Guarantee.

We hope this guide will help you stay aligned with the strict requirements given by Amazon.

ChannelAdvisor’s customers have benefited from year-over-year growth of 72 percent on Amazon

alone, so it’s clear the importance of following each and every requirement to ensure you don’t

miss out on this opportunity. ChannelAdvisor’s Premium Marketplaces solution automates the most

tedious of tasks when listing on Amazon and eBay to make sure your listings have all the right

information, as well as show up in all the right categories.

With Marketplaces’ Amazon features you can:

• Dynamically transform inventory data, such as product titles, to ease and quicken transition from

eBay to Amazon

• Using the Categoriser, automatically insert Amazon site browsing information ensuring your

products are found by shoppers in the right places on Amazon – saving hundreds of hours of

data entry

• Easily add unique products that don’t exist in Amazon’s catalogue from within the application

• With Product Match, continuously update product data to ensure your products are always listed

on the best product detail page

• Real-time product status dashboards show where products stand in the process of going live on

Amazon

• Full integration with Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) to create, track and modify products, shipments

and orders fulfilled by Amazon’s shipping service

ABOUT CHANNELADVISORChannelAdvisor is a global e-commerce platform provider that helps retailers sell more online through channels

such as marketplaces, paid search and comparison shopping, and with webstores and rich media solutions.

Widely respected as a trusted advisor for more than 3,000 top e-commerce brands, ChannelAdvisor calms the

chaos of online selling by enabling retailers to submit one inventory feed to the ChannelAdvisor platform where it

is translated to fi t the specifi cations of hundreds of e-commerce channels and distributed accordingly. In 2010,

ChannelAdvisor managed more than GBP 1.7 billion in annual gross merchandise value (GMV) on behalf of

retailers of all sizes including Joe Browns, Republic Retail, Speedo, and Carphone Warehouse. ChannelAdvisor’s

European headquarters are located in London, United Kingdom, with additional offi ces in Ireland and Germany;

global headquarters are in North Carolina, USA and other offi ces are located in New York, Seattle and in Australia.

For further information, visit www.channeladvisor.co.uk.

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