Is it legal that Amazon denies sellers the agency to refuse orders without penalty to their metrics?
Is the practice legal within the EU for Amazon to be compelling (basically coercing) sellers to accept all orders once purchased? In my view, Amazon does not give any agency to the seller in these cases if the may want to refuse an order for certain reasons like security, emotional etc without the seller’s account metrics being jeopardised.
I am of the view that a seller owns their inventory and until the sale is finalised, it is still their property and they should reserve the right to cancel the order at any point prior to that. A sale contract is agreed between 2 or more parties and either of the parties can pull out of the sale transaction at any point until it is finalised. Given that the buyer has the right to cancel the order at any point up to an including 30 days after the purchase for any reason and no reason at all (with EU jurisdiction). Why should the seller not be able to cancel an order as well without their metrics being penalised by Amazon?
In an open market, outside the Amazon bubble, sellers have a right to pull out of transactions before they are finalised or to refuse and refund a transaction in so far as the seller does not have ‘market power’.
If Amazon are compelling / coercing independent / third party sellers to accept all orders and refuse no orders, can it then not be argued that Amazon are by extension, treating these sellers as employees and as such Amazon is potentially liable to paying these sellers a standing wage above and beyond whatever their sales disbursements are?
This issue has some parallels with the recent class action lawsuit brought against the taxi transportation company Uber by its UK independent drivers.
I will like to hear other sellers’ opinions on this.
Is it legal that Amazon denies sellers the agency to refuse orders without penalty to their metrics?
Is the practice legal within the EU for Amazon to be compelling (basically coercing) sellers to accept all orders once purchased? In my view, Amazon does not give any agency to the seller in these cases if the may want to refuse an order for certain reasons like security, emotional etc without the seller’s account metrics being jeopardised.
I am of the view that a seller owns their inventory and until the sale is finalised, it is still their property and they should reserve the right to cancel the order at any point prior to that. A sale contract is agreed between 2 or more parties and either of the parties can pull out of the sale transaction at any point until it is finalised. Given that the buyer has the right to cancel the order at any point up to an including 30 days after the purchase for any reason and no reason at all (with EU jurisdiction). Why should the seller not be able to cancel an order as well without their metrics being penalised by Amazon?
In an open market, outside the Amazon bubble, sellers have a right to pull out of transactions before they are finalised or to refuse and refund a transaction in so far as the seller does not have ‘market power’.
If Amazon are compelling / coercing independent / third party sellers to accept all orders and refuse no orders, can it then not be argued that Amazon are by extension, treating these sellers as employees and as such Amazon is potentially liable to paying these sellers a standing wage above and beyond whatever their sales disbursements are?
This issue has some parallels with the recent class action lawsuit brought against the taxi transportation company Uber by its UK independent drivers.
I will like to hear other sellers’ opinions on this.
0 replies
Seller_EJIX7rqDNQJi2
It’s Amazon’s site and if they choose to make their rules more customer-friendly than the minimum requirements by the law, sellers who refuse to accept the conditions are free to register and sell elsewhere.
No online selling platform would allow their sellers to freely cancel orders at their own discretion without any maximum allowable target for this, creating negative buying experience.
Seller_qZO3ZCjoBXEeL
Without existing case law or rulings Amazon will continue to run their site as they please.
Seller_Wqg5EgqxuOwDD
Amazon wants to give buyers confidence that orders will be fulfilled. Without that confidence they’d lose customers. Having said that I do think there should be the ability to block buyers so that a seller is not put in the position of having to fulfill an order where the seller has had a previous bad experience with a particular buyer.
Seller_wRGBSSwJnzaDE
That’s an interesting point. As I recall from running a B&M shop it was perfectly legal to refuse a potential customer’s offer, for any reason. Can’t find a huge amount on the subject from a quick Google, most results relate to refunds, but did happen across this though it dates from 2005 so is a little old now.
Finally, dispatch the goods. If a typo mislabelled an item costing £200 at £2 and someone ordered 500 of them, the site could politely – and legally – refuse the order. This is because by following the procedure set out above the dispatch of goods is in effect the acceptance of the offer made by the consumer at the start of the process. Until this point there has been no acceptance and only an acknowledgement.
https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/guides/selling-online-an-overview-of-the-rules
Which suggests that until the moment of dispatch no contract has formally been entered into.
I have no experience in law, or refusing service on here (apart from the occasional cancellation when I can’t find something), and offer the above purely from an observational and objective point of view.
Seller_fMsCVAHNu4txH
Amazon are not forcing you to complete the sale, the metrics simply track the number that you do cancel, and prompt investigation if failing to meet the standard expected.
The Amazon metrics have no meaning outside of the Amazon system. Isn’t it reasonable for Amazon to have monitoring in place?
The whole platform is based on consumer confidence, and it thrives on it. If there’s no targets for sellers to meet, then that consumer confidence would quickly disappear and the platform would start to lose traction.
Seller_cJms0GbotqqtV
Yes, Amazon’s practice on this is perfectly legal.
The Amazon marketplace operates on the basis that is is connecting willing sellers with willing buyers. Sellers do have the right to cancel a transaction, for whatever reason. However, any seller who repeatedly cancels transactions must be aware that by doing so they are causing inconvenience for the buyers on which the marketplace, and Amazon’s own retail business, depends. That is why Amazon keep track of cancellations initiated by sellers.
The right of a buyer to cancel a transaction, or to request to return an item for a refund, is enshrined on consumer protection law. Any seller who is unwilling to comply with that legislation is in the wrong line of business.
Paul
Seller_1qKTBDbgtHefM
On Amazon, we’re not really sellers, but “glorified full fillers”.
They’re Amazons customers on their platform and you/we have applied to be part of the fulfillment of those orders. They’re not our customers and so we have no rights to block them.
If you accept selling on Amazon you accept those rules and IMHO it entirely legal.
Unlike on eBay where you are a discreet seller & you can choose to ban individuals if you deem them to be undesirable, on Amazon you’re just fulfilling their orders.
You’re not in an open market, you’re working FOR Amazon who are in the open market.
Seller_QlN0mmCAFPtjZ
Sometimes things carry along as they have been until someone comes along and challenges it .
Seller_fMsCVAHNu4txH
As with so many posts on these forums, there always appears to be a subtext of Amazon being the ‘Big Bad’.
There are many, many, many frustrating things about selling on Amazon, but with every extra opportunity comes more risk and more complexity.
I’m not a defender of Amazon, their policies and lack of actual seller recognition frustrate no-end. But I knew what I was getting in to before I signed-up.
IMHO… Sometimes sellers just need to take a step back and consider how things work in the ‘real’ world (outside of Amazon) where there are still stupid rules to follow, customers can still be very difficult, scammers will try to scam, refunds, damages, and losses still come out of your own pocket, things get lost, service costs are going-up, every contract has more and more clauses, the level of expectation from consumers is rising, and the market is more crowded than ever.
The legality of some of Amazons Ts&Cs actually matters less than if you actually want to sell on here.
Challenge them if you will, if you win… great. But if you feel so strongly about the unfairness of it all, why trade here in the first place?
Believe it or not, Amazon don’t have anywhere near a monopoly. Online sales only make up about 18% of all UK sales, and even if Amazon had 50% of that (which they don’t) that would still only account for 9% of all the sales every day. In reality it’s probably closer to 4%.
The nearest ‘real world’ comparison to Amazon is probably a concession stand inside a Boots store. Any idea what hoops you’d have to jump through to get one? Easier than clicking ‘Sign-Up Now’ on a website?
Seller_ssiDkSdwo1PHf
So by your logic, any retail platform who opens their doors to smaller third party sellers should remain above reproach no exceptions? Well, you may like tugging your forelocks but i am not so inclined. They say who knows little believes all and expects little and who know more believes less and expects better. You are free to decide where you stand on the issue. Let me illustrate this with a little story: Many yores ago, there was once a browser called Netscape Navigator and a social media platform called Myspace. these were very big fishes in the little ponds of their days. Those were the days when people were content with and grateful for very little.Some people somewhere believed those services were not good enough and they needed to change or they risked being deprecated and becoming the past. Some other people felt that these services were just fine, that users should be grateful that they even existed and that the users should just ignore whatever their source of discontent with the platforms were. Along the way came Internet Explorer and Facebook. They virtually relegated these older services to the wastelands of digital history.
I am sure that before the Uber case went to trial there would have been individuals who reasoned like you are reasoning now. They would have asked like you “Why rock the boat”? “Why not just put up”? They would have admonished: “Remember it is worse outside than in this cosy bubble with its imperfections, warts and heavy bias”! Well the case went to trial and the rest is history. I hope you have been able to learn a few life lessons from that little story.
