I Used to Love Amazon
I started selling on Amazon about 15 years ago and loved the platform. Both from a buying and selling standpoint, it was great; made a decent amount of $$ here selling and the products we bought were delivered fast and generally good quality.
Fast forward to today and I ABSOLUTELY HATE AMAZON. The toxic culture they have created for 3P sellers is abusive at best and outright right illegal at worst:
1. Suspected IP
2. High Price Errors
3. CPC Re-verification (well know massed produced toys).
4. FBA Storage Fees (need full time accountant to keep track).
5. Lost, stolen, Damaged FBA Inventory
6. Supply Chain Authentication (can anyone tell me what a valid wholesale invoice is to Amazon).
On top of it, the incompetent Seller Support and the inability to fix any of the above problems plus dozens more makes this place absurd. Suspension is literally a valid concern everyday, even for large accounts and even when you follow Amazon's ridiculous rules (there are many and they change often).
As I have stated before we try not to buy from Amazon, will not support this abusive platform. What will it take for this evil (maybe not the right word) company to be made accountable?? As of this morning Amazon has a $1.97 Trillion market cap, 3-4th largest company in the world, this is absurd; granted all of the other larger trillion $ companies are not great either, but Amazon and their behavior towards millions of small business 3P sellers is staggeringly bad.
At this point I see no way Amazon will change, they make too much $$ and appear to be rewarded for their bad behavior. I have opened dozens of cases, spoken with captive team members at length, emailed the leadership team multiple times, tried the moderators here, even called my AG and nothing (it is actually getting worse).
Generally curious as to what others feel it would take to end this nightmare? Also curious if anyone is happy with Amazon, forums are very negative right now, but there must be some (maybe?) that like Amazon?
I Used to Love Amazon
I started selling on Amazon about 15 years ago and loved the platform. Both from a buying and selling standpoint, it was great; made a decent amount of $$ here selling and the products we bought were delivered fast and generally good quality.
Fast forward to today and I ABSOLUTELY HATE AMAZON. The toxic culture they have created for 3P sellers is abusive at best and outright right illegal at worst:
1. Suspected IP
2. High Price Errors
3. CPC Re-verification (well know massed produced toys).
4. FBA Storage Fees (need full time accountant to keep track).
5. Lost, stolen, Damaged FBA Inventory
6. Supply Chain Authentication (can anyone tell me what a valid wholesale invoice is to Amazon).
On top of it, the incompetent Seller Support and the inability to fix any of the above problems plus dozens more makes this place absurd. Suspension is literally a valid concern everyday, even for large accounts and even when you follow Amazon's ridiculous rules (there are many and they change often).
As I have stated before we try not to buy from Amazon, will not support this abusive platform. What will it take for this evil (maybe not the right word) company to be made accountable?? As of this morning Amazon has a $1.97 Trillion market cap, 3-4th largest company in the world, this is absurd; granted all of the other larger trillion $ companies are not great either, but Amazon and their behavior towards millions of small business 3P sellers is staggeringly bad.
At this point I see no way Amazon will change, they make too much $$ and appear to be rewarded for their bad behavior. I have opened dozens of cases, spoken with captive team members at length, emailed the leadership team multiple times, tried the moderators here, even called my AG and nothing (it is actually getting worse).
Generally curious as to what others feel it would take to end this nightmare? Also curious if anyone is happy with Amazon, forums are very negative right now, but there must be some (maybe?) that like Amazon?
53 replies
Seller_z64mvMnldCUX4
Ditto. We also live in fear on a daily basis for any of our ASINs to be suspended at a moment's whim. It's disgusting that you can be a high performing seller with great metrics and one particular complaint, outright fraud by another seller or a certain keyword the bots do not like can take a million-dollar product down instantly. I describe Amazon like a rich abusive uncle who can molest or beat you down you on one day and the next day shower you with riches. Police wont help and you have nowhere else to go. So do you suck it up and take the abuse and riches or say no and be in the poor house?? Such is the Amazon dilema....
Seller_G1dITKzjrjqtm
I see the largest problem is the infiltration of Chinese sellers. They get special treatment and are bringing the quality of the Amazon experience down.
Seller_sUCPPgZ4lnYXh
Totally agreed on this incompetent of the Seller Support. They don't even have the effort to look into your problem. They just copy and paste. Endless loops of cases. This is just to name a few.
Seller_FQrqePm2noJq0
Totally agree. I have been an Amazon seller for over 20 years (books) and have had very high customer ratings throughout my tenure. The recent, ridiculous restrictions on small sellers...one must apply to sell! and have an invoice! for any book one wants to list because Amazon wants "to protect our customers" is absurd. There is no Seller Support and I am shutting down my once profitable small business as a result. The Amazon Machine chews you up and spits you out.
Seller_KcEtz9Bkb8qhY
Amazon does not care, Bezo's on his yachts spending all the cash generated from fee's .. the company knows its hurting smaller sellers . they dont care.. the company is trash.
Seller_RH5P8CqOqaNrO
Imagine nearly everything you mentioned, and as of January Brand Registry suddenly removed your PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS from 5 of your most popular items, and refuses to put the necessary marketing content back.
Thus causing 73% reduced sales. AND, two DOZEN cases later, Brand Registry STILL wont put product descriptions back in the title on the product listing pages that we had for 10 YEARS.
Awful employees.
We hope the FTC helps resolve it. We created a case with them. Because, all our competitors have product descriptions, we no longer do.
Seller_HRcJa1gdGHeov
I feel your pain and wish you luck. We tried our attorney general and quickly got shuffled off to the local BBB; left a few messages at BBB but never heard back. Very frustrating, I feel at a pretty fundamental level that what Amazon is doing is really wrong but wherever we turn the path is blocked to try and fix it.
Seller_iFsHzWds1kKaz
Don't forget about the mysterious browse node changes that move your products to unrelated categories. If those products have variations (size or color) some of which are in the correct category and others moved to Amazon bot determined categories... BAM! inconsistent child variation policy violations start to hit. Plead guilty or appeal as a mistake? Well if you appeal, then you're stuck in a loophole of rejected appeals that never get resolved. In the meantime, you wonder when the suspension will come for nothing you did other than adding a product to the catalog in the product category you were approved to sell in.
Seller_MMrWdIBTOJB0l
Believe me, I'm a 6 year seller. Found a winning product, then these china sellers purchase customers to bash your account complain it's fake and that's it. 11 complaints is all it took. Nothing you can do was even possible. Invoices obviously were rejected. There's no perfect way to sell on Amazon, but only by being aggressive like these china sellers will make the cut. Inform act, c'mon, they did all this just to shut you down anyway. The inform act only got to us legit sellers. But the one's who are doing the bad, they're still laughing.
Seller_TNGt4Y2bie81C
I am sorry to hear of your experience. Although I still consider Amazon a very tiny amount of our overall volume, we average $170K-$250k every year..6 years on.
I imagine we only come here to plead our case and ask for help. I have and do. Rarely do you see upbeat news from us here. I am very happy with Amazon as a seller. Hope you turn it around and enjoy the abundance that is here for you to take advantage of.
Seller_HRcJa1gdGHeov
That is the key with Amazon you have to keep them small; as soon as they start to dominate your economic universe you will be susceptible to their ridiculousness.
