Seller Challenges
Hello Forums Community,
We would like to understand what challenges you have faced or continue to experience as a Seller.
Is there anything that you consider should be a priority to improve your experience.
Looking forward to hearing from everyone who wants to contribute.
Roberto
146 replies
Seller_hKyLVyBpSG16m
I am waiting over a monthfor Check in status after my shipment was delivered. My latest shipment has delivered on 6th of September and no update so far. I cannot open an issue before 30th of September system says.... Very sad I am losing sales...
Seller_hKyLVyBpSG16m
My top selling listings with over 200 positive reviews dissapeared from search results on mobile version. Same happens when I try to launch a ppc. Something is happening. It's a shadow ban or something. I can't figure this out. I am a seller since 2017 and brand registered. I have been improving quality and only got positive feedback from customers.I also price competitive. However for over a year I am gradually removed from the search feed . Mobile version is mostly affected.
Seller_3niOTG31LGoaL
FC need to be investigated. Notably BFL2, shipments there do not get checked in, items are lost, no help from Seller Central. Something is very very wrong at that FC.
Seller_NzEmZKTEdcpPZ
I wrote an extensive list of challenges, but this system doesn't let me post it. It says it contains inappropriate language (which is not true). Therefore, you can start with fixing this forum so the scripts are working properly. When it's ready - let me know and I will try re-posting the list again, I saved it. Or DM me and I will send it to you there.
Seller_r9wMm8LrE5iKj
Why do you ask? Is us whinging here going to stop the continued abuse we receive? Get Amazon to follow their existing policies? Make changes that are for the better (for US), not worse? Is your job to pretend Amazon gives a shirt? Because we're unconvinced.
I could list a dozen pain points, all of which are from Amazon not following their own rules, or pushing us down a slippery slope to unprofitability, but why waste the time? It's not going to do jack.
Seller_4zTahW98KCgmZ
i am having a major issue with a retuirned shipment and nobody helps in the Amazon team. I did everthing correctly and it seems PBI3 was not ready to accept shipments and my shiopment was not received so now is it fair that i have to pay all the shopment costs? This was an international shipping. This is absurd and ridiculous.
Seller_mIs92krSxnwtf
The UL4200A compliance approval process is frustrating, unfair, and considering the fact that without this approval some of us lose the ability to comfortably support a family, I'd say it's downright traumatizing. I jumped through every hoop. As requested, I spent a lot of money to get, "a full report from an ISO17025 accredited laboratory," and that report that clearly states, "APPROVED," has now been rejected by "consumer-buttoncell@amazon.com," 6 times. And every time I ask what's wrong with it, I get the same reply: "please submit a full report from an iso17025 accredited laboratory." There is no mention of what's missing or wrong. Incidentally, the report is from TUV SUD America - one of the largest product safety testing labs on earth. This is mental and emotional torture.
Seller_NzEmZKTEdcpPZ
SFP (Seller Fulfilled Prime):
-SFP Speed metrics should be illuminated. It's a completely worthless metric just about any way you look at it. Moreover, it's not being calculated correctly for 2-day in Thursday-Saturday period, and Monday through Friday for 1-Day delivery. Also, counting Sunday as delivery day in this metric is not smart, but Amazon's Leadership insists that it is a delivery day and "encourages sellers to work with the carriers". There are so many products we could offer at Amazon, but we do not because of this metric, which can kick sellers out of the SFP program easily.
-SFP On-time Delivery Metric counts everything against sellers, which is also not smart. Buyer is not at home or delivery location is closed on the first delivery attempt? - that's seller's fault. Bad weather somewhere on the way (even though the policy says this doesn't count against sellers)? - that's seller's fault. Truck broke down or flight was delayed? - that's seller's fault. Amazon incorrectly calculated Promised Delivery Date (and no service from any carrier is available to deliver on that day) - that's seller's fault. Holiday? - that's seller's fault. Just plain silly and puts sellers in constant risk of losing eligibility in the SFP program.
Seller_NzEmZKTEdcpPZ
-Buy Shipping continues highly unstable and lacks simple options. USPS options continue to show up with its options, even though we indicate that we ship via FedEx and UPS only. This distracts and slows down order processing sometimes. UPS options keep disappearing throughout the day once in a while. We have to wait sometimes for hours until the UPS options appear again. This causes to damage "handling metric" that Amazon keeps track of, delaying the shipment for hours sometimes. This is not a good experience for a buyer, who, I bet, would like to know as soon as possible that his/her order shipped. Buy Shipping continues to have issues with the UPS on Saturdays: UPS is not showing as an option in most of 1-day delivery orders because Buy Shipping thinks that if we ship something with Next Day UPS on Saturday, it won't be delivered until Tuesday, instead of Monday.
-Promised Delivery date to rural locations continue to be an issue, especially with the delivery day falling on Saturday. Many rural locations don't have such option from any carrier. Even Buy Shipping says so. No matter how we ship, we are automatically dinged for late delivery in such cases.
-SAFE-T process continues to be inconsistent in its decisions. You give them two identical cases and they will pay quickly in full in one case, but they will make it very difficult for you in the other. They ask for a piece of information/evidence, sellers provide it, but SAFE-T team denies and asks for the same thing over and over again, without explaining what they don't like about the evidence that they received. This shouldn't be a guessing game.
-Seller Support is useless. Absolutely useless. It has been a while since something was properly and quickly resolved. They reply with templates, either not reading about the issue, or not caring at all and simply go with a template that Amazon's internal system offers them to reply with.
-Catalog is a mess. We could be dinged and our listings removed for just a hint of not compliance with the listing policy, but other sellers get away with a murder. Proving that everything is authorized and in compliance with LOAs, invoices, photos of the products, etc. is worthless - everything gets denied without any explanation. Again, a guessing game, designed to waste everyone's time.
Seller_NzEmZKTEdcpPZ
-Creating listings is a hustle and there are many attributes that either outdated or don't belong to this category of the products at all. No matter how many times we indicate that such attributes are irrelevant, Amazon does not remove them from the list. For example: what does NBA/NFL/NHL team has to do with a computer?
-Amazon Lending Program closed, which is bad. Marcus by Goldman Sachs that Amazon Lending was offering is gone too, it looks like. It's not Parafin and some other company that are, pretty much, predatory lending companies because of their terms and high interest rates.
-Sudden freeze of the funds to "review the account" is ridiculous, especially with long-established, high-selling sellers. Our recent review was "to confirm that we ship and deliver everything to the customers", despite the fact that we always use Buy Shipping (i.e. Amazon gives us the labels and sees everything), we have zero complaints from the customers, etc. At the same time, we all know about foreign sellers who keep on selling for weeks and months, providing fake tracking numbers and Amazon catches on that only after a while, although they should have seen that from day one. And then such losses are passed on to us, sellers, in the form of higher commissions fees.
-FBA continues to cause pain to sellers. Despite all evidence, they can easily change from Received In-Full to a lower number of items down the road and then ask for invoices to prove that we have the items. How about showing us a video where it shows that the box is open at the FBA warehouse and what's inside? Such issues take forever to resolve. In most cases, it looks like, a warehouse worker simply put the items in a wrong location and Amazon can't find it. SS's replies "we did thorough investigation and concluded that the items were not delivered" is a complete joke. Every time after talking to our FBA account rep, or a MOD here, the items magically re-appeared and the issue was solved in our favor. What "investigation"? Nobody did anything!
Seller_NzEmZKTEdcpPZ
-Dealing with Seller Performance team is a nightmare, usually. For example: we went 0.3% below Premium Shipping eligibility because of the issues Amazon had (incorrect Promised Delivery date to a location that doesn't have such option at all). No matter what we wrote and explained, they wouldn't re-instate us and keep asking us for a plan of action to improve it. That means one of two things: either they don't read the explanation, or they simply don't want to acknowledge their system's glitch. Another example: some listings needed LOA. We provided it. A major manufacturer, standard LOA. Rejected. No explanation why, but Amazon asked us to get them a very special LOA with a bunch of specific conditions. We contacted the manufacturer , got to a director (a very hard thing to do), we received such LOA. Amazon rejected it anyway and kept on asking for the same thing. It's just impossible to deal with. We moved all products involved elsewhere and selling them there. Amazon gets no revenue and no commissions. Amazon likes to cause pain to itself and sellers.
-"Competitive price". A constant issue. Amazon mismatches the product we sell at Amazon with another product sold by somebody else elsewhere on the internet. When an item should cost $2,000, for example, but Amazon, suddenly, changes the competitive price to, say $1,200, the listing dies at Amazon. Opening SS cases doesn't help, challenging Amazon to show where they see such price. We move such products outside of Amazon immediately and all revenue/commissions goes to Amazon's competitor who doesn't have such silly malfunctioning tool. This also happens when a fraudulent seller shows up on a listing and sells the item at 50% of the price, just to trick the customers and Amazon. After a few such sales, Amazon thinks that this is a new "competitive" price and kills the future of the listing.
-Feedback. We all know how hard it's to get an unjust feedback removed and most causes are not covered by feedback removal policy. Although seller feedback became somewhat irrelevant at Amazon, it can cause Account Health issues.
-Amazon Customer Service. In SFP orders, Amazon is supposed to cover the customer service. They often don't. We keep getting all sort of messages sent to us by Amazon CS on behalf of the customers, sometimes for very simple things or things we don't even have an access to. We send customers back to Amazon CS, which creates bad customer experience, but there is nothing else we can do.
