Reflecting on 2024: How Was This Year for Your Amazon Business?
Hi everyone,
As we approach the end of 2024, it’s a perfect time to reflect on the year and share our experiences. Whether it was a year of growth, challenges, or somewhere in between, we can learn a lot from each other’s journeys.
Without sharing any confidential details, I’d love to hear your thoughts:
- How did 2024 compare to previous years for your Amazon business—more successful, about the same, or less successful?
- What do you think influenced your experience this year (e.g., product changes, new strategies, market trends)?
- If you faced challenges, what lessons did you take away, and how might they shape your plans for 2025?
Looking forward to hearing your stories.
All the best, Ezra 😊
Reflecting on 2024: How Was This Year for Your Amazon Business?
Hi everyone,
As we approach the end of 2024, it’s a perfect time to reflect on the year and share our experiences. Whether it was a year of growth, challenges, or somewhere in between, we can learn a lot from each other’s journeys.
Without sharing any confidential details, I’d love to hear your thoughts:
- How did 2024 compare to previous years for your Amazon business—more successful, about the same, or less successful?
- What do you think influenced your experience this year (e.g., product changes, new strategies, market trends)?
- If you faced challenges, what lessons did you take away, and how might they shape your plans for 2025?
Looking forward to hearing your stories.
All the best, Ezra 😊
72 replies
Seller_Nprc5XWvdLYk9
To be completely honest (which I what I hope you want).
There are too many unnecessary stresses caused by Amazon.
The stresses from Amazon far exceed those from other aspects of our business.
For example at the moment we have
A/Z claims granted for us apparently using an invalid tracking number. (but shipping bought from Amazon with Amazon Shipping as the courier - it seems the A/Z claim team and customer support do not recognise the new UK12341234 number sequence in use by Amazon Shipping as valid).
We have orders with shipping bought via ship.amazon for amazon shipping that are not included in any reports or tracking searches on the ship.amazon portal.
constant email reminders telling us we are not compliant with COO (country of origin) but the COO team who we emailed directly - say we are - and to ignore the emails .....
since the vat was charged from August on seller fees the reimbursement calculations for lost fba items does not work (it would normally deduct the vat from the selling price and also deduct fees from the selling price to calculate what a seller would have earnt if the item was not lost and had resulted in a sale) - but it deducts fees gross of VAT which is incorrect as this vat cannot be reclaimed elsewhere as it does not exist - whereas on a completed sale it does exist and is reclaimed from HMRC by the seller as a business expense. It might not be much in the scale of things but with the margins some of us have to work on it is required!
so long/short is that every reimbursement of this type for a UK VAT registered business since August 1st is wrong - but the amazon team insist it is correct.
the list goes on. . . . .
Seller_kKOdRZuhZIPPS
I've pretty much gone out of business.
I'm having to switch to FBM (the last of my FBA stock will be removed on the 10th December) because of not being able to block NI on FBA - as a result, my sales are down by about 80%.
Seller_tQCfsb3zoC4AP
Q1 I have been a seller on Amazon since 2008 this year has been my worst sales ever on the site our daily Christmas sales this year is what I would expect more for Aug /Sept sales
Q2 Amazon red tape which caused us to end all International sales. Amazon blocking products from being listed despite sending dozens of LOAs leicence agreements etc suppressing items mostly for no colour attribute no one has permission to simply add colour ie red on Amazon less than 10% of my inventory is available for sale. Lack of seller support the last case they understood and answered was in Aug 2019
Q3 main challenges is the extreme levels of theft with Amazon sending out messages saying products are lost and to ask for a refund which results in A-z claims which in turn leads to ODR which in turn leads to less sales so we get punished from people stealing from us . No seller support they do not understand English so you have to try and speak to them as if they are 5 years old which is demeaning to both me and them. No tools to fix any problems even for brands I am authourised for cannot fix
Lessons learned from 2008 to 2019 Amazon was top of the class service sales etc ever since the site has become extreme in its hostility towards 3rd party sellers no support no tools to do even the most basic of tasks daily punishments and threats and now worst of all dreadful sales. for 2025 downgrade on Amazon and upgrade and concentrate on other sales channels as on here I am flogging a dead horse. I have several repeat customers who now buy from us on other channels as they cannot find the products on Amazon most due to being either blocked or suppressed one however when told that item was on Amazon they did an experiment my product was on page 38 this was despite me being the only seller with this product most of the search results had nothing to do with my product
2024 on Amazon has been a horrific experience
Seller_mxez2L8QjE6WW
2024 has been quite a tough year (we sell used & O/P books). On the one hand you have the recyclers such as WoB, Awesome & the like driving down prices to a level that is totally uneconomic. On the other you have Amazon's policies which make life more difficult: the 'potential price violation' which is a blunt instrument, not comparing like with like; the corruption of the catalogue by the likes of the myriad Turkish sellers creating duplicate listing in direct (& unchallenged) violation of Amazon's rules; the utter uselessness of Seller Support. A straightforward request to - for example - remove 'Signed copy' from a title should be quite simple as it quite obviously will not apply to all copies of that book. Instead the SS bot-machine asks for invoices for 5 copies of the book within the last 6 months. Pursue the matter, and just get a load of cut'n'paste non-replies that the algorithms throw up. There are so many similar errors in the catalogue that we have to spend quite a bit of time contacting buyers to make sure that they are aware of such issues. If SS functioned properly such problems would diminish.
Lessons learned? Stop being a silly optimist and hoping that Amazon will listen to suggestions / complaints, let alone act on them. That's just pie in the sky.
Seller_SooKfqYdUflLd
Just more and more hoops to jump through like everything to be sent tracked regardless of value in the new year.
Waiting over 2 weeks for funds to be available in your account whilst they make interest on your money
Seller_fLJ3Hdgrt17Ze
Dear Amazon Seller Forum / Community,
After being with Amazon for several years, we are facing some of the most difficult challenges we’ve ever encountered in our business. The expenses associated with running FBA have become unsustainable, and we’ve made the difficult decision to pull out of FBA and explore other options.
We currently find ourselves in a tough spot, running the business with borrowed money while trying to figure out how to survive. A major issue we’re encountering is the high cost of sending and returning goods. We’ve opted for a "signed for" delivery service to ensure our products reach customers securely, but the delivery and return costs are eating into our margins.
Additionally, many customers order multiple sizes (from S to XXL), try them on, and return the sizes that don’t fit, leaving us with the burden of covering return shipping costs. Despite offering free returns on unwanted sizes, the fund we receive from Amazon is not enough to cover these sending and return costs, which is making it increasingly difficult to keep the business running profitably.
We’re now looking for advice on how to better manage these challenges. Is there a more cost-effective way to handle returns? Or perhaps there are other strategies that have worked for other sellers in similar situations?
We are doing everything we can to survive the next few months, and we would greatly appreciate any advice, suggestions, or support from the community. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers during this challenging time.
Thank you in advance for your understanding and support.
Best regards,
Smart Fashion
Seller_d8YGbIjNqwFxn
I have to say that our business goes from strength to strength. Sales are up on the previous year.
Our strategy has been to move away from FBA due to increased costs which makes our items unprofitable.
Challenges we currently have is other sellers being very competitive. There are some underhand tactics involved here as well which our competitors seem to get away with.
Challenge for early next year is increased RM24/48 postage costs in January which makes it harder to compete. Also GPSR is a worry as Amazon stance on Norther Ireland is unclear and appears not to be inline with the regulations.
Seller_g1iS3CyD4zQ2y
Dear Ezra,
Thanks for the opportunity to put forward some points.
1. We've been on Amazon since 2008 & this is a bad year. We are way down on the last couple of years.
2. I started to notice this in September, about the same time that the VAT changes came in. So something happened there.
Also I've noticed that Amazon listings are no longer top on Google - have Amazon stopped or changed their relationship with Google? It used to be that if you entered the top keywords for our products then Amazon would be top. As long as we were top of Amazon, which we were, then we would default be top of Google. That doesn't happen any more which is a huge blow I think.
There is also suddenly a hell of a lot more competition. I think Amazon's drive to recruit Chinese sellers has backfired, as its driving us UK sellers out of business. We just can't compete against their pricing and budget for advertising. Many Chinese brands that were nowhere a year ago are now top of our category. A side effect of this is our advertising costs have gone through the roof trying to compete.
The third major problem has been price increases, from our suppliers and also from Royal Mail/ Couriers & FBA. Stopping Small & Light was a big blow for us. Over the last couple of years these costs have gone up 30-40% but we've only been able to raise our prices 20% or less.
The fourth thing we face is competitors committing VAT fraud - maybe not on purpose but it is there. I know that VAT on Amazon is difficult to understand but I see competitors pricing for VAT after fees, not before fees if you know what I mean. If you are only paying VAT on what comes into your bank account then you can be a lot cheaper. It would be better if Amazon paid the full amount a seller earns into their bank account, and then bills for fees, rather than taking the fees beforehand. That way everyone would understand how much they earnt and how much VAT they need to pay. I believe that eBay does it that way.
The last thing is I tried to get new suppliers on board this year but no-one would supply us because we sell on Amazon - more and more companies are managing their Amazon sales themselves or being very picky who resells. Another problem has been suppliers taking their products from us to sell themselves, at a discount to what we can do.
3. My lesson has been to downsize - we are moving to a smaller unit at the end of the year. This is sad for me as the business has been going nearly 20 years & I hope we can keep it going in smaller form.
Cheers,
Dave.
Seller_3Bellp4jUVZBD
Less robot damage sustained than in previous years, but at the same time, there is little left for robot to destroy regarding our account. All good eh ?
Reflecting on 2024: How Was This Year for Your Amazon Business?
Hi everyone,
As we approach the end of 2024, it’s a perfect time to reflect on the year and share our experiences. Whether it was a year of growth, challenges, or somewhere in between, we can learn a lot from each other’s journeys.
Without sharing any confidential details, I’d love to hear your thoughts:
- How did 2024 compare to previous years for your Amazon business—more successful, about the same, or less successful?
- What do you think influenced your experience this year (e.g., product changes, new strategies, market trends)?
- If you faced challenges, what lessons did you take away, and how might they shape your plans for 2025?
Looking forward to hearing your stories.
All the best, Ezra 😊
Reflecting on 2024: How Was This Year for Your Amazon Business?
Hi everyone,
As we approach the end of 2024, it’s a perfect time to reflect on the year and share our experiences. Whether it was a year of growth, challenges, or somewhere in between, we can learn a lot from each other’s journeys.
Without sharing any confidential details, I’d love to hear your thoughts:
- How did 2024 compare to previous years for your Amazon business—more successful, about the same, or less successful?
- What do you think influenced your experience this year (e.g., product changes, new strategies, market trends)?
- If you faced challenges, what lessons did you take away, and how might they shape your plans for 2025?
Looking forward to hearing your stories.
All the best, Ezra 😊
Reflecting on 2024: How Was This Year for Your Amazon Business?
Hi everyone,
As we approach the end of 2024, it’s a perfect time to reflect on the year and share our experiences. Whether it was a year of growth, challenges, or somewhere in between, we can learn a lot from each other’s journeys.
Without sharing any confidential details, I’d love to hear your thoughts:
- How did 2024 compare to previous years for your Amazon business—more successful, about the same, or less successful?
- What do you think influenced your experience this year (e.g., product changes, new strategies, market trends)?
- If you faced challenges, what lessons did you take away, and how might they shape your plans for 2025?
Looking forward to hearing your stories.
All the best, Ezra 😊
72 replies
72 replies
Seller_Nprc5XWvdLYk9
To be completely honest (which I what I hope you want).
There are too many unnecessary stresses caused by Amazon.
The stresses from Amazon far exceed those from other aspects of our business.
For example at the moment we have
A/Z claims granted for us apparently using an invalid tracking number. (but shipping bought from Amazon with Amazon Shipping as the courier - it seems the A/Z claim team and customer support do not recognise the new UK12341234 number sequence in use by Amazon Shipping as valid).
We have orders with shipping bought via ship.amazon for amazon shipping that are not included in any reports or tracking searches on the ship.amazon portal.
constant email reminders telling us we are not compliant with COO (country of origin) but the COO team who we emailed directly - say we are - and to ignore the emails .....
since the vat was charged from August on seller fees the reimbursement calculations for lost fba items does not work (it would normally deduct the vat from the selling price and also deduct fees from the selling price to calculate what a seller would have earnt if the item was not lost and had resulted in a sale) - but it deducts fees gross of VAT which is incorrect as this vat cannot be reclaimed elsewhere as it does not exist - whereas on a completed sale it does exist and is reclaimed from HMRC by the seller as a business expense. It might not be much in the scale of things but with the margins some of us have to work on it is required!
so long/short is that every reimbursement of this type for a UK VAT registered business since August 1st is wrong - but the amazon team insist it is correct.
the list goes on. . . . .
Seller_kKOdRZuhZIPPS
I've pretty much gone out of business.
I'm having to switch to FBM (the last of my FBA stock will be removed on the 10th December) because of not being able to block NI on FBA - as a result, my sales are down by about 80%.
Seller_tQCfsb3zoC4AP
Q1 I have been a seller on Amazon since 2008 this year has been my worst sales ever on the site our daily Christmas sales this year is what I would expect more for Aug /Sept sales
Q2 Amazon red tape which caused us to end all International sales. Amazon blocking products from being listed despite sending dozens of LOAs leicence agreements etc suppressing items mostly for no colour attribute no one has permission to simply add colour ie red on Amazon less than 10% of my inventory is available for sale. Lack of seller support the last case they understood and answered was in Aug 2019
Q3 main challenges is the extreme levels of theft with Amazon sending out messages saying products are lost and to ask for a refund which results in A-z claims which in turn leads to ODR which in turn leads to less sales so we get punished from people stealing from us . No seller support they do not understand English so you have to try and speak to them as if they are 5 years old which is demeaning to both me and them. No tools to fix any problems even for brands I am authourised for cannot fix
Lessons learned from 2008 to 2019 Amazon was top of the class service sales etc ever since the site has become extreme in its hostility towards 3rd party sellers no support no tools to do even the most basic of tasks daily punishments and threats and now worst of all dreadful sales. for 2025 downgrade on Amazon and upgrade and concentrate on other sales channels as on here I am flogging a dead horse. I have several repeat customers who now buy from us on other channels as they cannot find the products on Amazon most due to being either blocked or suppressed one however when told that item was on Amazon they did an experiment my product was on page 38 this was despite me being the only seller with this product most of the search results had nothing to do with my product
2024 on Amazon has been a horrific experience
Seller_mxez2L8QjE6WW
2024 has been quite a tough year (we sell used & O/P books). On the one hand you have the recyclers such as WoB, Awesome & the like driving down prices to a level that is totally uneconomic. On the other you have Amazon's policies which make life more difficult: the 'potential price violation' which is a blunt instrument, not comparing like with like; the corruption of the catalogue by the likes of the myriad Turkish sellers creating duplicate listing in direct (& unchallenged) violation of Amazon's rules; the utter uselessness of Seller Support. A straightforward request to - for example - remove 'Signed copy' from a title should be quite simple as it quite obviously will not apply to all copies of that book. Instead the SS bot-machine asks for invoices for 5 copies of the book within the last 6 months. Pursue the matter, and just get a load of cut'n'paste non-replies that the algorithms throw up. There are so many similar errors in the catalogue that we have to spend quite a bit of time contacting buyers to make sure that they are aware of such issues. If SS functioned properly such problems would diminish.
Lessons learned? Stop being a silly optimist and hoping that Amazon will listen to suggestions / complaints, let alone act on them. That's just pie in the sky.
Seller_SooKfqYdUflLd
Just more and more hoops to jump through like everything to be sent tracked regardless of value in the new year.
Waiting over 2 weeks for funds to be available in your account whilst they make interest on your money
Seller_fLJ3Hdgrt17Ze
Dear Amazon Seller Forum / Community,
After being with Amazon for several years, we are facing some of the most difficult challenges we’ve ever encountered in our business. The expenses associated with running FBA have become unsustainable, and we’ve made the difficult decision to pull out of FBA and explore other options.
We currently find ourselves in a tough spot, running the business with borrowed money while trying to figure out how to survive. A major issue we’re encountering is the high cost of sending and returning goods. We’ve opted for a "signed for" delivery service to ensure our products reach customers securely, but the delivery and return costs are eating into our margins.
Additionally, many customers order multiple sizes (from S to XXL), try them on, and return the sizes that don’t fit, leaving us with the burden of covering return shipping costs. Despite offering free returns on unwanted sizes, the fund we receive from Amazon is not enough to cover these sending and return costs, which is making it increasingly difficult to keep the business running profitably.
We’re now looking for advice on how to better manage these challenges. Is there a more cost-effective way to handle returns? Or perhaps there are other strategies that have worked for other sellers in similar situations?
We are doing everything we can to survive the next few months, and we would greatly appreciate any advice, suggestions, or support from the community. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers during this challenging time.
Thank you in advance for your understanding and support.
Best regards,
Smart Fashion
Seller_d8YGbIjNqwFxn
I have to say that our business goes from strength to strength. Sales are up on the previous year.
Our strategy has been to move away from FBA due to increased costs which makes our items unprofitable.
Challenges we currently have is other sellers being very competitive. There are some underhand tactics involved here as well which our competitors seem to get away with.
Challenge for early next year is increased RM24/48 postage costs in January which makes it harder to compete. Also GPSR is a worry as Amazon stance on Norther Ireland is unclear and appears not to be inline with the regulations.
Seller_g1iS3CyD4zQ2y
Dear Ezra,
Thanks for the opportunity to put forward some points.
1. We've been on Amazon since 2008 & this is a bad year. We are way down on the last couple of years.
2. I started to notice this in September, about the same time that the VAT changes came in. So something happened there.
Also I've noticed that Amazon listings are no longer top on Google - have Amazon stopped or changed their relationship with Google? It used to be that if you entered the top keywords for our products then Amazon would be top. As long as we were top of Amazon, which we were, then we would default be top of Google. That doesn't happen any more which is a huge blow I think.
There is also suddenly a hell of a lot more competition. I think Amazon's drive to recruit Chinese sellers has backfired, as its driving us UK sellers out of business. We just can't compete against their pricing and budget for advertising. Many Chinese brands that were nowhere a year ago are now top of our category. A side effect of this is our advertising costs have gone through the roof trying to compete.
The third major problem has been price increases, from our suppliers and also from Royal Mail/ Couriers & FBA. Stopping Small & Light was a big blow for us. Over the last couple of years these costs have gone up 30-40% but we've only been able to raise our prices 20% or less.
The fourth thing we face is competitors committing VAT fraud - maybe not on purpose but it is there. I know that VAT on Amazon is difficult to understand but I see competitors pricing for VAT after fees, not before fees if you know what I mean. If you are only paying VAT on what comes into your bank account then you can be a lot cheaper. It would be better if Amazon paid the full amount a seller earns into their bank account, and then bills for fees, rather than taking the fees beforehand. That way everyone would understand how much they earnt and how much VAT they need to pay. I believe that eBay does it that way.
The last thing is I tried to get new suppliers on board this year but no-one would supply us because we sell on Amazon - more and more companies are managing their Amazon sales themselves or being very picky who resells. Another problem has been suppliers taking their products from us to sell themselves, at a discount to what we can do.
3. My lesson has been to downsize - we are moving to a smaller unit at the end of the year. This is sad for me as the business has been going nearly 20 years & I hope we can keep it going in smaller form.
Cheers,
Dave.
Seller_3Bellp4jUVZBD
Less robot damage sustained than in previous years, but at the same time, there is little left for robot to destroy regarding our account. All good eh ?
Seller_Nprc5XWvdLYk9
To be completely honest (which I what I hope you want).
There are too many unnecessary stresses caused by Amazon.
The stresses from Amazon far exceed those from other aspects of our business.
For example at the moment we have
A/Z claims granted for us apparently using an invalid tracking number. (but shipping bought from Amazon with Amazon Shipping as the courier - it seems the A/Z claim team and customer support do not recognise the new UK12341234 number sequence in use by Amazon Shipping as valid).
We have orders with shipping bought via ship.amazon for amazon shipping that are not included in any reports or tracking searches on the ship.amazon portal.
constant email reminders telling us we are not compliant with COO (country of origin) but the COO team who we emailed directly - say we are - and to ignore the emails .....
since the vat was charged from August on seller fees the reimbursement calculations for lost fba items does not work (it would normally deduct the vat from the selling price and also deduct fees from the selling price to calculate what a seller would have earnt if the item was not lost and had resulted in a sale) - but it deducts fees gross of VAT which is incorrect as this vat cannot be reclaimed elsewhere as it does not exist - whereas on a completed sale it does exist and is reclaimed from HMRC by the seller as a business expense. It might not be much in the scale of things but with the margins some of us have to work on it is required!
so long/short is that every reimbursement of this type for a UK VAT registered business since August 1st is wrong - but the amazon team insist it is correct.
the list goes on. . . . .
Seller_Nprc5XWvdLYk9
To be completely honest (which I what I hope you want).
There are too many unnecessary stresses caused by Amazon.
The stresses from Amazon far exceed those from other aspects of our business.
For example at the moment we have
A/Z claims granted for us apparently using an invalid tracking number. (but shipping bought from Amazon with Amazon Shipping as the courier - it seems the A/Z claim team and customer support do not recognise the new UK12341234 number sequence in use by Amazon Shipping as valid).
We have orders with shipping bought via ship.amazon for amazon shipping that are not included in any reports or tracking searches on the ship.amazon portal.
constant email reminders telling us we are not compliant with COO (country of origin) but the COO team who we emailed directly - say we are - and to ignore the emails .....
since the vat was charged from August on seller fees the reimbursement calculations for lost fba items does not work (it would normally deduct the vat from the selling price and also deduct fees from the selling price to calculate what a seller would have earnt if the item was not lost and had resulted in a sale) - but it deducts fees gross of VAT which is incorrect as this vat cannot be reclaimed elsewhere as it does not exist - whereas on a completed sale it does exist and is reclaimed from HMRC by the seller as a business expense. It might not be much in the scale of things but with the margins some of us have to work on it is required!
so long/short is that every reimbursement of this type for a UK VAT registered business since August 1st is wrong - but the amazon team insist it is correct.
the list goes on. . . . .
Seller_kKOdRZuhZIPPS
I've pretty much gone out of business.
I'm having to switch to FBM (the last of my FBA stock will be removed on the 10th December) because of not being able to block NI on FBA - as a result, my sales are down by about 80%.
Seller_kKOdRZuhZIPPS
I've pretty much gone out of business.
I'm having to switch to FBM (the last of my FBA stock will be removed on the 10th December) because of not being able to block NI on FBA - as a result, my sales are down by about 80%.
Seller_tQCfsb3zoC4AP
Q1 I have been a seller on Amazon since 2008 this year has been my worst sales ever on the site our daily Christmas sales this year is what I would expect more for Aug /Sept sales
Q2 Amazon red tape which caused us to end all International sales. Amazon blocking products from being listed despite sending dozens of LOAs leicence agreements etc suppressing items mostly for no colour attribute no one has permission to simply add colour ie red on Amazon less than 10% of my inventory is available for sale. Lack of seller support the last case they understood and answered was in Aug 2019
Q3 main challenges is the extreme levels of theft with Amazon sending out messages saying products are lost and to ask for a refund which results in A-z claims which in turn leads to ODR which in turn leads to less sales so we get punished from people stealing from us . No seller support they do not understand English so you have to try and speak to them as if they are 5 years old which is demeaning to both me and them. No tools to fix any problems even for brands I am authourised for cannot fix
Lessons learned from 2008 to 2019 Amazon was top of the class service sales etc ever since the site has become extreme in its hostility towards 3rd party sellers no support no tools to do even the most basic of tasks daily punishments and threats and now worst of all dreadful sales. for 2025 downgrade on Amazon and upgrade and concentrate on other sales channels as on here I am flogging a dead horse. I have several repeat customers who now buy from us on other channels as they cannot find the products on Amazon most due to being either blocked or suppressed one however when told that item was on Amazon they did an experiment my product was on page 38 this was despite me being the only seller with this product most of the search results had nothing to do with my product
2024 on Amazon has been a horrific experience
Seller_tQCfsb3zoC4AP
Q1 I have been a seller on Amazon since 2008 this year has been my worst sales ever on the site our daily Christmas sales this year is what I would expect more for Aug /Sept sales
Q2 Amazon red tape which caused us to end all International sales. Amazon blocking products from being listed despite sending dozens of LOAs leicence agreements etc suppressing items mostly for no colour attribute no one has permission to simply add colour ie red on Amazon less than 10% of my inventory is available for sale. Lack of seller support the last case they understood and answered was in Aug 2019
Q3 main challenges is the extreme levels of theft with Amazon sending out messages saying products are lost and to ask for a refund which results in A-z claims which in turn leads to ODR which in turn leads to less sales so we get punished from people stealing from us . No seller support they do not understand English so you have to try and speak to them as if they are 5 years old which is demeaning to both me and them. No tools to fix any problems even for brands I am authourised for cannot fix
Lessons learned from 2008 to 2019 Amazon was top of the class service sales etc ever since the site has become extreme in its hostility towards 3rd party sellers no support no tools to do even the most basic of tasks daily punishments and threats and now worst of all dreadful sales. for 2025 downgrade on Amazon and upgrade and concentrate on other sales channels as on here I am flogging a dead horse. I have several repeat customers who now buy from us on other channels as they cannot find the products on Amazon most due to being either blocked or suppressed one however when told that item was on Amazon they did an experiment my product was on page 38 this was despite me being the only seller with this product most of the search results had nothing to do with my product
2024 on Amazon has been a horrific experience
Seller_mxez2L8QjE6WW
2024 has been quite a tough year (we sell used & O/P books). On the one hand you have the recyclers such as WoB, Awesome & the like driving down prices to a level that is totally uneconomic. On the other you have Amazon's policies which make life more difficult: the 'potential price violation' which is a blunt instrument, not comparing like with like; the corruption of the catalogue by the likes of the myriad Turkish sellers creating duplicate listing in direct (& unchallenged) violation of Amazon's rules; the utter uselessness of Seller Support. A straightforward request to - for example - remove 'Signed copy' from a title should be quite simple as it quite obviously will not apply to all copies of that book. Instead the SS bot-machine asks for invoices for 5 copies of the book within the last 6 months. Pursue the matter, and just get a load of cut'n'paste non-replies that the algorithms throw up. There are so many similar errors in the catalogue that we have to spend quite a bit of time contacting buyers to make sure that they are aware of such issues. If SS functioned properly such problems would diminish.
Lessons learned? Stop being a silly optimist and hoping that Amazon will listen to suggestions / complaints, let alone act on them. That's just pie in the sky.
Seller_mxez2L8QjE6WW
2024 has been quite a tough year (we sell used & O/P books). On the one hand you have the recyclers such as WoB, Awesome & the like driving down prices to a level that is totally uneconomic. On the other you have Amazon's policies which make life more difficult: the 'potential price violation' which is a blunt instrument, not comparing like with like; the corruption of the catalogue by the likes of the myriad Turkish sellers creating duplicate listing in direct (& unchallenged) violation of Amazon's rules; the utter uselessness of Seller Support. A straightforward request to - for example - remove 'Signed copy' from a title should be quite simple as it quite obviously will not apply to all copies of that book. Instead the SS bot-machine asks for invoices for 5 copies of the book within the last 6 months. Pursue the matter, and just get a load of cut'n'paste non-replies that the algorithms throw up. There are so many similar errors in the catalogue that we have to spend quite a bit of time contacting buyers to make sure that they are aware of such issues. If SS functioned properly such problems would diminish.
Lessons learned? Stop being a silly optimist and hoping that Amazon will listen to suggestions / complaints, let alone act on them. That's just pie in the sky.
Seller_SooKfqYdUflLd
Just more and more hoops to jump through like everything to be sent tracked regardless of value in the new year.
Waiting over 2 weeks for funds to be available in your account whilst they make interest on your money
Seller_SooKfqYdUflLd
Just more and more hoops to jump through like everything to be sent tracked regardless of value in the new year.
Waiting over 2 weeks for funds to be available in your account whilst they make interest on your money
Seller_fLJ3Hdgrt17Ze
Dear Amazon Seller Forum / Community,
After being with Amazon for several years, we are facing some of the most difficult challenges we’ve ever encountered in our business. The expenses associated with running FBA have become unsustainable, and we’ve made the difficult decision to pull out of FBA and explore other options.
We currently find ourselves in a tough spot, running the business with borrowed money while trying to figure out how to survive. A major issue we’re encountering is the high cost of sending and returning goods. We’ve opted for a "signed for" delivery service to ensure our products reach customers securely, but the delivery and return costs are eating into our margins.
Additionally, many customers order multiple sizes (from S to XXL), try them on, and return the sizes that don’t fit, leaving us with the burden of covering return shipping costs. Despite offering free returns on unwanted sizes, the fund we receive from Amazon is not enough to cover these sending and return costs, which is making it increasingly difficult to keep the business running profitably.
We’re now looking for advice on how to better manage these challenges. Is there a more cost-effective way to handle returns? Or perhaps there are other strategies that have worked for other sellers in similar situations?
We are doing everything we can to survive the next few months, and we would greatly appreciate any advice, suggestions, or support from the community. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers during this challenging time.
Thank you in advance for your understanding and support.
Best regards,
Smart Fashion
Seller_fLJ3Hdgrt17Ze
Dear Amazon Seller Forum / Community,
After being with Amazon for several years, we are facing some of the most difficult challenges we’ve ever encountered in our business. The expenses associated with running FBA have become unsustainable, and we’ve made the difficult decision to pull out of FBA and explore other options.
We currently find ourselves in a tough spot, running the business with borrowed money while trying to figure out how to survive. A major issue we’re encountering is the high cost of sending and returning goods. We’ve opted for a "signed for" delivery service to ensure our products reach customers securely, but the delivery and return costs are eating into our margins.
Additionally, many customers order multiple sizes (from S to XXL), try them on, and return the sizes that don’t fit, leaving us with the burden of covering return shipping costs. Despite offering free returns on unwanted sizes, the fund we receive from Amazon is not enough to cover these sending and return costs, which is making it increasingly difficult to keep the business running profitably.
We’re now looking for advice on how to better manage these challenges. Is there a more cost-effective way to handle returns? Or perhaps there are other strategies that have worked for other sellers in similar situations?
We are doing everything we can to survive the next few months, and we would greatly appreciate any advice, suggestions, or support from the community. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers during this challenging time.
Thank you in advance for your understanding and support.
Best regards,
Smart Fashion
Seller_d8YGbIjNqwFxn
I have to say that our business goes from strength to strength. Sales are up on the previous year.
Our strategy has been to move away from FBA due to increased costs which makes our items unprofitable.
Challenges we currently have is other sellers being very competitive. There are some underhand tactics involved here as well which our competitors seem to get away with.
Challenge for early next year is increased RM24/48 postage costs in January which makes it harder to compete. Also GPSR is a worry as Amazon stance on Norther Ireland is unclear and appears not to be inline with the regulations.
Seller_d8YGbIjNqwFxn
I have to say that our business goes from strength to strength. Sales are up on the previous year.
Our strategy has been to move away from FBA due to increased costs which makes our items unprofitable.
Challenges we currently have is other sellers being very competitive. There are some underhand tactics involved here as well which our competitors seem to get away with.
Challenge for early next year is increased RM24/48 postage costs in January which makes it harder to compete. Also GPSR is a worry as Amazon stance on Norther Ireland is unclear and appears not to be inline with the regulations.
Seller_g1iS3CyD4zQ2y
Dear Ezra,
Thanks for the opportunity to put forward some points.
1. We've been on Amazon since 2008 & this is a bad year. We are way down on the last couple of years.
2. I started to notice this in September, about the same time that the VAT changes came in. So something happened there.
Also I've noticed that Amazon listings are no longer top on Google - have Amazon stopped or changed their relationship with Google? It used to be that if you entered the top keywords for our products then Amazon would be top. As long as we were top of Amazon, which we were, then we would default be top of Google. That doesn't happen any more which is a huge blow I think.
There is also suddenly a hell of a lot more competition. I think Amazon's drive to recruit Chinese sellers has backfired, as its driving us UK sellers out of business. We just can't compete against their pricing and budget for advertising. Many Chinese brands that were nowhere a year ago are now top of our category. A side effect of this is our advertising costs have gone through the roof trying to compete.
The third major problem has been price increases, from our suppliers and also from Royal Mail/ Couriers & FBA. Stopping Small & Light was a big blow for us. Over the last couple of years these costs have gone up 30-40% but we've only been able to raise our prices 20% or less.
The fourth thing we face is competitors committing VAT fraud - maybe not on purpose but it is there. I know that VAT on Amazon is difficult to understand but I see competitors pricing for VAT after fees, not before fees if you know what I mean. If you are only paying VAT on what comes into your bank account then you can be a lot cheaper. It would be better if Amazon paid the full amount a seller earns into their bank account, and then bills for fees, rather than taking the fees beforehand. That way everyone would understand how much they earnt and how much VAT they need to pay. I believe that eBay does it that way.
The last thing is I tried to get new suppliers on board this year but no-one would supply us because we sell on Amazon - more and more companies are managing their Amazon sales themselves or being very picky who resells. Another problem has been suppliers taking their products from us to sell themselves, at a discount to what we can do.
3. My lesson has been to downsize - we are moving to a smaller unit at the end of the year. This is sad for me as the business has been going nearly 20 years & I hope we can keep it going in smaller form.
Cheers,
Dave.
Seller_g1iS3CyD4zQ2y
Dear Ezra,
Thanks for the opportunity to put forward some points.
1. We've been on Amazon since 2008 & this is a bad year. We are way down on the last couple of years.
2. I started to notice this in September, about the same time that the VAT changes came in. So something happened there.
Also I've noticed that Amazon listings are no longer top on Google - have Amazon stopped or changed their relationship with Google? It used to be that if you entered the top keywords for our products then Amazon would be top. As long as we were top of Amazon, which we were, then we would default be top of Google. That doesn't happen any more which is a huge blow I think.
There is also suddenly a hell of a lot more competition. I think Amazon's drive to recruit Chinese sellers has backfired, as its driving us UK sellers out of business. We just can't compete against their pricing and budget for advertising. Many Chinese brands that were nowhere a year ago are now top of our category. A side effect of this is our advertising costs have gone through the roof trying to compete.
The third major problem has been price increases, from our suppliers and also from Royal Mail/ Couriers & FBA. Stopping Small & Light was a big blow for us. Over the last couple of years these costs have gone up 30-40% but we've only been able to raise our prices 20% or less.
The fourth thing we face is competitors committing VAT fraud - maybe not on purpose but it is there. I know that VAT on Amazon is difficult to understand but I see competitors pricing for VAT after fees, not before fees if you know what I mean. If you are only paying VAT on what comes into your bank account then you can be a lot cheaper. It would be better if Amazon paid the full amount a seller earns into their bank account, and then bills for fees, rather than taking the fees beforehand. That way everyone would understand how much they earnt and how much VAT they need to pay. I believe that eBay does it that way.
The last thing is I tried to get new suppliers on board this year but no-one would supply us because we sell on Amazon - more and more companies are managing their Amazon sales themselves or being very picky who resells. Another problem has been suppliers taking their products from us to sell themselves, at a discount to what we can do.
3. My lesson has been to downsize - we are moving to a smaller unit at the end of the year. This is sad for me as the business has been going nearly 20 years & I hope we can keep it going in smaller form.
Cheers,
Dave.
Seller_3Bellp4jUVZBD
Less robot damage sustained than in previous years, but at the same time, there is little left for robot to destroy regarding our account. All good eh ?
Seller_3Bellp4jUVZBD
Less robot damage sustained than in previous years, but at the same time, there is little left for robot to destroy regarding our account. All good eh ?
