Erinna

So you’ve tapped into the amazing online selling experience Amazon has to offer, and you’re killing it, right? Your Amazon sales are up, reviews are pouring in, inventory is moving quickly and most importantly you are making great money. All of a sudden you check your email:

“Hello from Amazon.

We are writing to let you know we have removed your selling privileges, canceled your listings, and placed a temporary hold on any funds in your Marketplace Payment accounts. Any new selling accounts you open will be closed.”

You find yourself reading the details of the email over again, racking your brain for what you could have possibly done wrong as a seller on Amazon.

Amazon’s terms and conditions outline hundreds of rules and regulations on what and how you can sell products on Amazon. By selling your items on Amazon you are agreeing to comply with all of these rules at risk of getting your sellers account suspended if you do not.

Unfortunately, in too many situations, sellers will find it hard to determine exactly what they did that suspended their Amazon account.

There are 3 top reasons why Amazon will suspend seller accounts.

Negative Feedback.

Amazon sees maintaining the trust of their millions of buyers as a top priority. To ensure that sellers on Amazon are cultivating a satisfactory experience, high-performance targets were established. If the selling experience you are providing yields too much negative feedback, your performance metrics will not meet the necessary standards and your account will be at risk of suspension.

Fake or Incentivized Reviews

One great tactic to get your products to rank above your competitors on Amazon is to get more reviews. Getting your buyers to leave reviews on your product can be really tricky and may entice you to buy fake reviews, or incentivize buyers to leave them. This is a sure-fire way to get your Amazon seller account suspended.

Selling Restricted Products

Products offered for sale on Amazon must comply with all laws and Amazon regulations. There is a long list of these restricted items that Amazon warns you to read through before selling your product. Such items include adult-only content, alcohol, counterfeit currency, animals, used clothing, firearms and much more.

Many sellers think they are in the clear when blurring the lines of selling restricted products if their product listing goes live. This may be deceiving. If Amazon catches onto the restricted product at a later date, they will not hesitate to suspend the associated seller’s account.

Do these reasons for suspension not apply to you? Read Why Is My Amazon Account Suspended for more information on what could have happened to your account.

There is good news here though. A suspension does not automatically mean that your account will be banned forever. There are some steps you can follow to get your account up and selling again.

1. Read the notice you received from Amazon about your suspension.
2. Although the notice will most likely be frustratingly vague, you may be able to decipher what occurred that violated Amazons selling policies and agreements.
3. Fix/ remove any prevailing issues that could have prompted the account suspension.
4. Respond to the appeal with an outlined recovery plan with tangible steps as to how you will fix the violation (if you have not already) as well as how you will proactively prevent this from happening in the future.
5. Wait for Amazon to respond to your appeal.

This last step can be the most frustrating step to getting your Amazon account unsuspended. For every minute that your account is suspended, you are losing money. It may take weeks or even months to get your account reinstated.

Have you ever heard of the saying “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket”?

Amazon is an eCommerce king and can make your company a lot of money. But we must remember at the end of the day, as sellers, Amazon does not owe us anything. The whole platform is theirs and we have to play by their rules.

This is exactly why relying solely on Amazon for your income and putting all of your eggs in the metaphorical Amazon basket is extremely risky.

So what is your next move?

Now that you are in the process of getting your Amazon account reinstated you should take the next steps to get your products on your own eCommerce website. This will give you the opportunity to build your own brand and give you complete ownership of your products’ success.

Diversifying your revenue streams by supplementing your Amazon sales with an eCommerce website is extremely beneficial for a multitude of reasons.

Your ROI Will Be Higher

Regardless of if you are an Individual Seller or Pro Merchant on Amazon, you should be very familiar with the flat fees and sale percentage fees that you must cough up when working within the Amazon marketplace.

Amazon requires one of these types of fees, depending on how you set up your Amazon seller account in return for listing your products on their site.

With your own eCommerce website, you can forget the fees!

When you pay to send traffic to your products on your own eCommerce site, all of the money generated in sales goes to your company, thus giving you a better ROI.

Get More Data About the Customers Finding You

Amazon takes maintaining the privacy of its buyers very seriously. For this reason, as a seller on Amazon, you will receive very little information about your customers.

This may not seem like a big deal when you are moving a lot of inventory on Amazon, but not being able to understand your target demographic is a huge missed opportunity.

Knowing exactly who your customers are and how they interact with your products, allows you to shape your sales tactics to better fit that demographic, ultimately increasing your sales conversions.

Audience Demographics

Having your own eCommerce website will provide you with in-depth insights into the demographic (age and gender), geography (language and location) as well as the technology your buyers are using when visiting your website.

You can monitor the number of visitors who come to your site, the number of page views, average page duration, bounce rate and so much more.

Audience Acquisition

Track where your customers are coming from with your own eCommerce website.

Identify if customers are coming from social media sites, referral sites, organic searches, email and more.

Being able to see where your clients are coming from allows you to understand what marketing and advertising tactics are and are not working. This allows you to identify which tactics will drive the most traffic to your products so you can stop wasting money guessing.

Audience Behavior

Having your own eCommerce website allows for you to watch the behavior of your shoppers.

Having the ability to see how your shoppers interact on your product pages gives you the ability to shape your content to convert more sales.

Capture Your Customers’ Emails

Have you ever heard of marketers referring to email marketing as one of the most effective marketing tools?

When you sell your products on the Amazon marketplace all buyers are technically Amazon’s customers. Therefore, you do not get buyers’ email addresses, ultimately limiting your ability to use email marketing.

Owning your own eCommerce website allows for you to creatively capture clients\’ emails which is beneficial for a multitude of reasons.

• Email marketing helps create lasting relationships and brand loyalty
• Emails keep your brand consistently on the top of your clients’ minds
• Emails can be extremely personalized and targeted to your clients, opening more doors for converting sales
• Email marketing is inexpensive. You can target clients who already show interest in your product without paying Amazon for every product click through their advertising platform

Have Complete Control Over All Advertising Methods

Although Amazon Sponsored Products can be very effective in making sales in the Amazon marketplace, using this as your only product advertisement is a huge missed opportunity.

When you own your own eCommerce website you can leverage all types of advertising. From email marketing to Google PPCs, influencer marketing and more, you can experiment with all types of advertising to better convert sales.

Have Peace of Mind Knowing That Your Website Won’t Be Suspended

One of the biggest benefits of having an eCommerce site is knowing that you have full and complete control over it.

The rules and regulations are what you create, and you don’t have to worry about making an honest mistake and losing out on all of your income.

Amazon is, by all means, an amazing platform to use when selling your product. With millions of Amazon users online every day, with credit card information stored and free shipping available, Amazon truly is the king of eCommerce.

Although supplementing your Amazon sales efforts with an eCommerce website of your own is the smartest and most efficient way of utilizing and generating money from the online market.

Do you need help creating an eCommerce website or need tips to convert more sales? Contact us with your questions, we are happy to help!

With over $100 billion in expected annual sales and over 244 million customers, it is not new news that Amazon is the E-commerce king. It has built-in trust, buyers\’ payment information is already saved and Amazon Prime members get free 2-day shipping. Amazon can’t be beaten when it comes to an eCommerce platform to sell on.

With millions of transactions occurring daily, an increasing number of Amazon accounts are being hit with Amazon seller account suspension.

Now you may be thinking, I’m not doing anything wrong; my product is good quality and my company is honest. Every day hundreds of honest third-party sellers get suspended, denied or even banned from Amazon.

So what does this mean?

If your Amazon Seller account is suspended, you still have the chance to appeal. This means you can take action with Amazon to get your seller account reinstated.

If you are denied, this means that your appeal for suspension was rejected. This does not mean that you are completely out of luck. You can attempt to change your course of action and submit your revised plan to Amazon.

The worst case scenario is that your Amazon Seller account gets banned. This means that your multiple appeals were rejected, and Amazon will no longer work with you to get your account reinstated.

There are three main reasons why Amazon will suspend a seller account:

• Poor Seller Performance
• Seller Policy Violation
• Selling Restricted Products

Poor Seller Performance

Amazon sees maintaining the trust of their millions of buyers as a top priority. Because of this, Amazon has established performance targets for sellers to enforce their high standards. These targets are based on order defect rate, pre-fulfillment cancel rate, and late shipment rate.

Order defect rate (ODR) is the percentage of your orders that have received negative feedback, an A-to-Z Guarantee claim, or a service credit card chargeback.

Pre-fulfillment cancel rate is the number of orders canceled by a seller prior to shipment confirmation divided by the total number of orders.

Late shipment rate is calculated with the number of orders with shipments that are not confirmed by the expected shipping date.

Failure to meet any of these three targets could result in suspension, denial or banning of your seller account. Read more information on Amazon’s seller performance metrics.

Seller Policy Violation

As a seller on Amazon, you have agreed to the policies and agreements that Amazon establishes. Ideally, you have read through and understand all of them. Where it gets tricky is that as Amazon grows and changes, so does its policies.

Because of these constant policy updates, it is extremely important for you to regularly revisit them. You should always be auditing your product information to make sure it complies with Amazon’s most recent policies.

**PRO TIP**

If you are utilizing Amazon FBA, regularly check out their news and updates section for new policy changes, fee adjustments and more.

Selling Restricted Products

Some categories on Amazon are restricted and some require pre-approval, in addition, product types that fall under an allowed category can also be restricted.

These restrictions are in place to ensure that all products align with Amazon’s ideals and high quality for product information and inventory.

Before selling on Amazon, you should be aware of these Amazon product restrictions. Just because you see another vendor selling an item or because you don’t see any reason why an item should be restricted does not mean you are able to sell it on Amazon.

Amazon’s policies are not always obvious or logical, and even trickier, they are always changing.

One day you could be selling hundreds of approved supplements, and the next an ingredient in one of your supplements could be newly restricted resulting in a suspension or ban of your seller account.

This is why is it imperative to regularly check Amazon notifications and work with them to rectify any issues immediately as well as proactively monitor any changes in these restrictions and regulations.

Categories that you will want to be especially diligent with checking are medical devices, jewelry, and health supplements, as these tend to be monitored more regularly by Amazon.

So how do I know if my Amazon account has been suspended?

You can check this through your Performance Notifications within Seller Central. Here, you will have a notification telling you that your selling privileges have been removed and a reason as to why.

Through this section, you can also appeal your suspension. When doing so, make sure you have a recovery plan with tangible steps outlined as to how you are going to fix the violation as well as how you will proactively prevent this from happening in the future.

**PRO TIP**

As well as appealing your suspension, you can email Amazon Seller Support. Do this with caution and be brief, polite and apologetic.

In this email, you should formally outline your plan of action and request for your account to be reinstated assuring them that you will never repeat this violation. This is not a guaranteed solution to get your account reinstated, but many sellers have had success taking this approach.

At the end of the day, we have to remember, as sellers, that Amazon does not owe us anything, and that we have to abide by their rules to utilize and benefit from their eCommerce site.

Have you ever heard of the saying “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket”? Although Amazon has amazing selling potential and opportunity, relying solely on Amazon for your business can be extremely risky.

Working with their guidelines and having the potential for your account being suspended at any moment is a very real concern. Working with Amazon to reinstate your account can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to months and all too often this means a complete stop in stream of income for sellers.

This is why along with utilizing Amazon, having your own eCommerce website to fall back on is important.

Get help setting up an eCommerce website for your business and increase your website’s sales with conversion rate optimization by contacting Jib Sheet Partners.

You’ve had a genius idea of a product to sell on Amazon, contacted suppliers, negotiated a great deal and have your first shipment coming your way. You are ready to start selling on Amazon. But what’s the best way to do so?

Are you looking to handle your fulfillment in house or have you looked into Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)? FBA is a fantastic way to cut down on extra time and money processing your orders giving you more time to focus on what matters the most to you and your entrepreneurial endeavors.  So how does Amazon FBA work?

Let’s start with the basics. What is Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)?

If you choose to use FBA, instead of storing all of your products in house (or paying for a service to do so) you will send your products directly to Amazon’s warehouses. Amazon will unpack and store your inventory for you. Your products will then show live on Amazon.com and will be featured as a “Prime Eligible” purchase.

When a consumer purchases your product, Amazon warehouse workers will find and ship your product to your customer (with two-day shipping) and take care of all customer service related inquiries and returns.

This sounds too good to be true right? Well, Amazon does charge a fee for this service. Check out Amazon’s fulfillment pricing and how it works.

So what are the benefits of using FBA over doing the work yourself without the Amazon fee?

1. Prime Eligibility and Two-Day Shipping

When a seller decides to use FBA their products then becomes Prime Eligible.

Amazon Prime is a paid membership program that gives customers access to music, streaming video, e-books, free two-day shipping and more.

There are around 54 million Amazon Prime members in the United States alone who make purchasing decisions more frequently than traditional Amazon shoppers. Choosing FBA and being Prime eligible means providing free two-day shipping of your product to this many buyer-mentality consumers. This is huge!

“In a 2014 survey, 71% of FBA respondents reported that their unit sales increased on Amazon.com more than 20% since joining FBA”, according to Amazon.

This statistic does not come to much surprise when you think of the mindset of a buyer on Amazon.

What is one of the biggest downfalls of buying items online? You lack the instant gratification of walking out with your purchase right then and there.

Although two-day shipping is not exactly instant gratification, it most definitely beats waiting a week or more for your purchase to arrive. And when you pair that with free shipping, it\’s no wonder why consumers are looking for products that are specifically classified as Prime to make a purchasing decision.

2. 24/7 Customer Service

Are you a customer service specialist ready to take questions from your consumers at all hours of the day and night? Well, you don’t have to be.

When you use FBA, Amazon handles all customer inquiries, refunds and returns for your orders. And even better, they are available to your customers 24/7.

This service is provided at no additional charge to you and can save you countless hours that could be better spent growing your business.

3. Trust

From its start as an online bookstore over 20 years ago, growing to its over 480 million listed products and over 244 million customers, Amazon has created a strong reputation for itself.

With this reputation comes trust from its users. If something goes wrong, people know that Amazon will work diligently to rectify it.

Because of this, there is a strong consensus that customers are more likely to buy a product when it has the Amazon Prime check of approval because to a consumer this means there is less risk associated with the purchase.

4. Improve Your Product Rankings Under Important Keywords

As you most likely know, Amazon has its own type of algorithm when ranking certain product listings over others. This product search algorithm is called A9. The official statement for A9 explains what goes into product ranking factors.

There are many factors that go into ranking your product over your competitor’s products. One of the largest factors is sales.

The more sales you make, the better and more relevant Amazon sees your product, therefore ranking it higher for important keywords. For more information on how to get your products to rank over your competitors’ on Amazon check out 5 Winning Strategies To Use For Amazon SEO.

Although it does not appear that using FBA for your products alone will rank them higher under the A9 algorithm, it does seem that conversion rates and sales tend to increase with products sold with FBA. This, in turn, shows Amazon that your product is relevant and important to rank well for your keywords, showing your listing to more searchers.

Notice that many high ranking products on Amazon are FBA, like these top-ranking Bluetooth mouses.

In conclusion, FBA is an amazing resource available for use in the Amazon marketplace. In addition to raising your conversion rates, sales and keyword rankings, it can also cut out the time you would spend packing, shipping, driving to the post office and providing customer service.

After all, time really is money.