Seller Support

Buying 3P notes on your Amazon account? That is corporate espionage.

October 22, 2020 Leave a Comment

Amazon might not catch you, but blackmailers sure could

By: Lesley Hensell

For third-party sellers, dealing with Amazon can be frustrating and difficult. But that is no excuse to embrace corporate espionage. Unfortunately, a significant number of 3P sellers go down this road. This adds an unacceptable level of risk to their businesses. Buying 3P notes IS espionage. Before you completely dismiss this idea, think for a moment.

Have you been offered the notes on your Amazon account?

Have you paid a service or an Amazon employee for notations?

Or, have you heard about sellers paying for details on their competition?

All of these happen – daily. And all of them are subject to both criminal prosecution and civil litigation.

But is it really corporate espionage?

Yes, Virginia, these behaviors really are corporate espionage.

Here is why, Amazon’s data belongs to Amazon. In other words, this is critical business information regarding third-party seller accounts. This includes products, sales, risk management, payments, reviews, feedback and more. All of this data falls under the classification of trade secrets. Especially since Amazon promises to protect its third-party sellers from data breaches and prying eyes.

For example, here are some scenarios where 3P sellers have been known to acquire Amazon data – in direct contravention of the law:

Purchasing Seller Performance notes on their own account. There are companies that openly advertise they will obtain these notes for you. The service providers have insiders they pay off at Amazon for this information.
Buying competitor information. Sellers sometimes ask Amazon employees to give them data on their competitors, including sales volumes on specific ASINs.
Buying Amazon 1P data. In the boldest scenarios, 3P sellers pay Amazon 1P personnel to find out about Amazon’s vendors and pricing on competitive items.

In all three of these cases, the data being purchased is clearly Amazon property. Therefore, buying it on the down-low is clearly illegal. Buying 3P notes is corporate espionage.

What can realistically happen to you if you buy Amazon data?

Technically speaking, a third-party seller buying and/or stealing Amazon data could be criminally prosecuted. Will they? Doubtful.

In fact, it’s also unlikely they would be civilly sued by Amazon. Instead, Amazon would probably block their selling account and permanently hold their funds.

Can this happen? Yes. Amazon has busted employees on three continents for selling data. When they did so, they worked hard to discover which sellers were buying the information and blocked those accounts. They also held very large dollar amounts that were never disbursed.

Scenarios that have played out for many Amazon sellers.

Nobody talks about these scenarios as it falls under the heading of blackmail.

A Seller Support employee, for example, may be on the phone with a seller. They dangle the idea of providing competitive information, notations and the like. (Keep in mind that they likely don’t have access to much – if any – of this information.)

For instance, they will ask for payment and provide some information. Then later, the Seller Support rep demands more money, allegedly for “hot” information. If the seller refuses, the rouge Seller Support rep threatens to turn them in to Amazon and get them suspended, or to otherwise harm their account.

In conclusion, if the fear of breaking the law isn’t enough reason to avoid these tactics, perhaps the fear of blackmail will be. Stay safe. Keep it legal.

Above all, if you have questions about how to keep your account safe? Give us a call at Riverbend 877-289-1017

Lesley is co-founder and co-owner of Riverbend Consulting, where she oversees the firm’s client services team. She has personally helped hundreds of third-party sellers get their accounts and ASINs back up and running. Lesley leverages two decades as a small business consultant to advise clients on profitability and operational performance. She has been an Amazon seller for almost a decade, thanks to her boys (18 and 13) who do most of the heavy lifting.

New alerts from Amazon might mean you need to appeal.

October 22, 2020 Leave a Comment

Restricted Products – Should You Appeal? In one word – Yes!

By: Cathy Ceely

Does this mean you should appeal all Restricted Products warnings and product eliminations?

No, of course not.

The majority of Restricted Products enforcements will correctly remove items that are not allowed to be sold at Amazon.

Although sometimes these enforcements can be wrong.

Therefore giving you the chance to have an appeal.

What Restricted Products enforcement may be successfully appealed?

Here are some examples:

Commonly sold over-the-counter products are wrongfully suspended as a ‘prescription required.’
Item supposed to contain restricted ingredients, but do not.
Amazon says item is professional use only medical devices-but items are not

How do I appeal Restricted Products enforcement?

Don’t delete your listing. Even though the notification from Amazon says that sellers should delete listings and recall FBA inventory. That should only be done if an appeal is unsuccessful.
Take a hard look at the detail page and product itself before you appeal. Just because a similar product is still live at Amazon doesn’t mean your item should be returned.
You know that your item is allowed to be sold at Amazon? Then you will need to create a case with Seller Support to provide the information and proper documents.

How do I prevent Restricted Products enforcement?

Amazon expects sellers to know and follow its rules and policies for selling on the site.
Check and double-check Amazon’s policies on Restricted Products in Seller Central before listing a new item.
If you’re unsure if your item should be listed at Amazon –don’t list it.

Do you need help with a Restricted Product issue? Contact Riverbend Consulting by email or by phone (877)289-1017.

Cathy utilizes 20 years of Amazon experience to advocate for sellers. She has extraordinary knowledge regarding Amazon selling policies and seller enforcement. Cathy was a founding member of the Amazon Executive Seller Relations and Product Quality teams, and Operations Manager for Seller Performance in Seattle. She was a Senior Program Manager with the Marketplace Growth team (now Strategic Account Services). Cathy has raised, trained and shown champion Doberman pinschers for 40 years.

Amazon is not out to get you – the seller

October 19, 2020 Leave a Comment

No, Amazon is NOT targeting sellers

By: Lauren Barbera

I get it. You’re chugging along, happily selling and following (to the best of your knowledge) Amazon’s policies. Then…

BAM!

Your Account Health Dashboard starts lighting up like the skyline on the Fourth of July.

Your Performance Notifications start piling up.

It can feel like Amazon has you in their crosshairs and have taken time out of their day to focus on making specifically YOUR life difficult.

While still alarming and frustrating, I can assure you that your Seller ID wasn’t pulled out of a hat to be the focus of Amazon’s enforcement arm for the day. Amazon is not targeting sellers.

Let’s go through some of the reasons when and why Amazon enforces policies, and why that can feel like a tsunami wave at times.

Bad press leads to an overreaction or rushes the technical end of Policy and Enforcement Teams

Amazon hates bad press. The Risk Mitigation teams (i.e. the Policy arm behind the enforcement teams) are hard pressed to move fast when bad press unearths a vulnerability in Amazon’s policy and policing of Third-Party Sellers or the catalog.

Are these Risk Mitigation teams generally full of smart, thoughtful people? Yes. Are they staffed with incredibly talented software engineers? Absolutely. However, asking multiple teams to roll out new enforcement (which entails a manual audit, code creation, creating externally facing policy, and training front-line investigators) in a matter of 24-72 hours is error prone. Amazon has a Leadership Principal called “Bias for Action” and rolling out half-baked policy or enforcement changes on a tight timeline is the lived version of this philosophy.

Enforcement “Bots” and other policies are rarely reviewed for possible abuse by bad actors

Have you ever gotten a slew of fraudulent Notices of Claimed Infringement from non-existent “Rights Owners”?

Have you had your products taken down and received warnings because a competitor has found which keywords to leave in feedback or Product Reviews to game the system?

It feels like an overwhelming battle to convince Amazon that these actions are due to malicious intent for a reason. Amazon built these systems with the underlying belief that those parties complaining are honest. It’s rarely- if ever- considered as to if the system used to police third party sellers can be used in a manner for which it was NOT intended.

In my time working for these teams I do not recall a single internal policy that require investigators evaluate the veracity of the complaint or the honesty of the complainant.

Bad apples spoil the barrel

Amazon knows that, when a buyer is burned by a Third Party Seller, they buy less over the course of their “Customer Lifetime”. So, they try to focus on preventing dissatisfied customers by looking at past bad actor Sellers and use their behavior to try and predict when other sellers might “go bad” and put friction in place in an attempt to weed out the bad guys. The problem with this “shoot first, ask questions later” method is that a LOT (and I mean a LOT) of bad-guy behavior prior to actually engaging in bad deeds looks an AWFUL lot like standard selling behavior.

Have you ever been asked to supply evidence of your identity? Perhaps evidence that a new product you have added to your listings is genuine even before you have made your first sale? Well, those bad guys are to blame. Somewhere, a bad guy has used a false or stolen identity and has sold a fake version of your widget.

Amazon is constantly playing catch-up to those bad actors while trying to predict the future so that the same bad guy behavior does not repeat simultaneously. Make no mistake, the Enforcement and Policy teams have little to no concern how these proactive measures might hurt your business. Their ONLY goal is risk mitigation (e.g. reducing bad press) and a positive buyer experience. All of this is measured with metrics, like “reducing complaints about product condition by X% Year over Year”. There are NO metrics within the enforcement arms that look at, “Sellers that Abandoned Amazon after enforcement.” In fact, sellers that DO end up abandoning Amazon are generally assumed to be bad guys that Amazon has somehow scared off.

Technical Timelines often have coinciding launches

Amazon typically does not coordinate enforcement launches between different enforcement groups to ensure that they do not overlap. The Safety team doesn’t care if or when the Seller Fulfilled Prime team launches enforcement and vice versa. And, like nearly all business, big product (e.g. enforcement) launches are scheduled quarterly. In addition, there are several periods of “Code Freeze” at Amazon, meaning that there will always inevitably be teams that launch changes RIGHT at the last minute concurrently.

In conclusion, while we know that this doesn’t remove any frustration, we do hope that it sheds some light on why it can feel like policy infractions are doled out inconsistently and in waves. Rest easier knowing Amazon is not targeting sellers.

Do you feel like you’re being hit with a policy tsunami? We at Riverbend are here to help! Give us a call at 877-289-1017

Lauren helps clients find real-world, scalable solutions to their problems and translates them through the Amazon lens. Lauren worked for Amazon for nearly 12 years, first in Seller Performance Operations, then on the business teams managing Seller Performance programs. She tirelessly worked to address authenticity, fraud, money laundering, and condition, all while providing front-line support to Amazon executives via high-level escalations.

Is dropshipping hurting your Amazon business?

October 15, 2020 Leave a Comment

Dropshipping is not your friend

By: Sam Newlands

As the fantastic Amazon seller that you are who has found the best suppliers, it’s time to figure out how you’re going to handle your inventory. Will products be sent to you for inspection before sending them to fulfillment centers or shipping to customers (Hint: yes, always)? Have you decided if you will fulfill orders on your own, or send your inventory over to Amazon Fulfillment Centers and let them handle it for you? How are you going to get your merchandise from Point A (the supplier) to Point B (you) to Point C (the customer)?

If your answer is dropshipping, try again.

What is dropshipping?

Glad you asked! Dropshipping is allowing a third-party to fulfill orders to customers on your behalf. But is dropshipping hurting your Amazon business? Let me explain. You, the seller, never see the product. You have no idea what it looks like, if it’s in good condition, if it’s used, or broken. Overall, you have no idea what you just sent to your customer, and Amazon is not a fan of this method. They even have a policy on it, which you can read here. You will see within the Amazon policy that dropshipping is acceptable in specific circumstances.

The easiest way to explain how dropshipping is acceptable: Think of a large warehouse store that might have an Amazon account; a customer orders something from that store through Amazon, and the order is fulfilled through a warehouse location that might be geographically closer to the customer. They are the seller of record, and there wouldn’t be 3rd party information attached to the package.

How dropshipping is not acceptable

You, the seller, do not have inventory, but you have items listed within your inventory, making both Amazon and your potential customers believe you actually have product. When a customer orders something, you log into the website where you saw this item, order it for the customer, and add their address as the delivery address. The purchase is not sent to you, which causes a break in good faith your customers have with you to send them quality items. Amazon is 100% all about the buyer experience. They expect sellers to be responsible and accountable for all merchandise from the moment it is added to inventory, ordered by the customer, all the way to the customer receiving it (and often beyond the receipt date).

It is essential to keep in mind that adding inventory to your seller account when you don’t have it can lead to an onslaught of other risks that you may not have thought about: Does that item have intellectual property protections? Is it branded or trademarked? Do you have permission from the rights owner to sell it? Always do your research into the products you want to list. Ensure you have the proper authorization to sell those items (just because you can list it on Amazon doesn’t mean you have the permission to sell it!). Amazon also regularly performs authenticity checks on ASINs within your inventory, which means they’ll request invoices, even if you haven’t sold anything. If you don’t have an invoice, how can you prove the item is authentic?

Let’s review

Is dropshipping hurting your Amazon business? Yes. Dropshipping is 99% of the time frowned upon and can give you many more headaches than ease of mind. It is always better to have your items sent to you to inspect your products’ quality and condition. This also gives you extra assurances that your supplier is legit, and if you want to continue working with them.

Do you have any questions or concerns about dropshipping or anything Amazon related? Give Riverbend a call at 877-289-1017.

Sam applies her impressive tenacity to get Amazon seller accounts and ASINs reinstated. She enjoys research and looking beyond the surface layer to help sellers solve their issues. While working at Amazon, Sam was involved with the AWS and SES teams looking for fraudulent account activity and unauthorized account take over.

Amazon tweaks Seller Central page to reduce contact with sellers

June 22, 2020 Leave a Comment

Nope, they don’t want to hear from you

By: Lesley Hensell

Have you seen it? Amazon tweaked Seller Central home page. For long-time sellers, the recent redesign to Seller Central seems nonsensical at best. Widgets can’t be moved. A huge amount of whitespace fills the middle. Key metrics like the account’s balance are below the fold and require a scroll. But perhaps most confounding is the absence of two key widgets that have graced the home page for as long as I can remember. The case log has disappeared, as has the store’s feedback rating.

Why, oh why, would Amazon do such a thing? The reason is simple. Seller Support doesn’t want to hear from you. Contacts cost money. Of course, Amazon could analyze contacts from sellers and figure out where they could reduce the numbers by actually solving problems. But that would take work! So instead, they simply hid two of the visual prompts that encourage sellers to reach out.

That’s right, Amazon tweaked Seller Central page to reduce contact with sellers. So, what’s a seller to do? You just have to:

Click deeper
Make sure you still keep cases and feedback top-of-mind, even though you don’t have the visual queue to do so

For your case log, do this:

On the home page, at the top-right, click on “help”
Toward the right-top of the Help page is a small link for “case log”; if you don’t have open cases, this link may not be visible and you must scroll to the bottom of the page to click “case log”

To check your feedback, do this:

Under the “Performance” menu, choose “feedback”
This will give you the Feedback Manager screen, where you can dispute negative and neutral feedback

If having Amazon tweak Seller Central home page has you frustrated, or you need more help navigating the changes Amazon has made? Let Riverbend do the work for you! Let’s talk 877-289-1017 or visit our website.

Lesley is co-founder and co-owner of Riverbend Consulting, where she oversees the firm’s client services team. She leverages two decades as a small business consultant to advise clients on profitability and operational performance. Lesley has been an Amazon seller for almost a decade.

Amazon might not catch you, but blackmailers sure could

By: Lesley Hensell

But is it really corporate espionage?

What can realistically happen to you if you buy Amazon data?

Scenarios that have played out for many Amazon sellers.

Restricted Products – Should You Appeal? In one word – Yes!

By: Cathy Ceely

What Restricted Products enforcement may be successfully appealed?

How do I appeal Restricted Products enforcement?

How do I prevent Restricted Products enforcement?

No, Amazon is NOT targeting sellers

By: Lauren Barbera

Bad press leads to an overreaction or rushes the technical end of Policy and Enforcement Teams

Enforcement “Bots” and other policies are rarely reviewed for possible abuse by bad actors

Bad apples spoil the barrel

Technical Timelines often have coinciding launches

Dropshipping is not your friend

By: Sam Newlands

What is dropshipping?

How dropshipping is not acceptable

Let’s review

Nope, they don’t want to hear from you

By: Lesley Hensell

That’s right, Amazon tweaked Seller Central page to reduce contact with sellers. So, what’s a seller to do? You just have to:

For your case log, do this:

To check your feedback, do this:

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