Recently, there are rumors that VE will be officially shut down in January, and then a group of people appeared to buy VE accounts. They all want to make a fortune when Amazon takes back the VE privileges. VE accounts have helped many sellers get rich. They use this account to quickly follow sales and change prices, which violates Amazon's rules and brings a very bad experience to users. Everyone is well aware of the closure this time. Make as much money as you can. Even if this one is closed, there are still others. Therefore, Amazon always has loopholes for you to exploit. It depends on whether you have the strength to exploit them.
In fact, Amazon only had two accounts at the beginning: Seller Central and Vendor Central. Vendor Central was considered a heavyweight account by Amazon until 2015, when Amazon provided a more flexible third option, “Amazon Vendor Express,” in order to narrow the gap between VC and 3P sellers.
The Vendor Express account allows sellers to sell their products to Amazon instead of directly to consumers, and no invitation is required to apply for the account.
In addition to showing your products to hundreds of millions of customers around the world, VE accounts have other advantages:
• Free to join: Unlike 3P accounts, VE accounts have no monthly fees or commissions on products;
• Bulk orders: After the trial period, Amazon will usually purchase large orders as long as the product's sales ability can be proven;
• Sold by Amazon: Products of the VE account will be associated with the Amazon brand name, Sold by Amazon;
• Amazon is responsible for shipping services: Once you become a supplier, Amazon is responsible for the logistics of the product, free 2-day shipping service for Prime members, and free shipping for some non-member customers;
• Amazon is responsible for customer service: Amazon is responsible for customer service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week;
• Allow access to AMS: The VE account has greater permissions to access Amazon Marketing Service. AMS allows users to access more powerful data reports, optimize content, and create advertisements.
What exactly caused the trouble?
But as of today, Amazon has decided to stop the program. Everyone is also speculating what the real reason for stopping the plan is?
Sellers previously told CNBC that the program was flooded with all kinds of counterfeit products in its early days. We later asked some VE sellers about their views on account suspension. The sellers said that they had received the news that their accounts would be closed two months ago. Many people only used VE permissions but did not actually ship the goods, which was an important factor leading to Amazon closing their accounts. Of course, some sellers also speculated that this was because many VE accounts were used to conduct operations that violated the rules.
We speculate that there are some problems with the VE account itself that caused Amazon to shut down the VE account:
Although Amazon claims that VE accounts are free to join, they will require donated products for market sampling and consumer demand testing before the initial purchase order. Amazon will also ask the seller to submit a sales price, but Amazon already has a predetermined price. Since sales are in bulk and prices are lower, sellers may not see reliable profits.
Amazon has a 60-day payment period to pay suppliers for profits generated through sales through VE accounts, which creates certain problems for sellers’ capital turnover.
Another notable difference between VE and VC accounts is that while both have access to AMS, VE accounts do not have regular access to A+ Content, a premium feature that optimizes more advanced vendor product pages on Amazon. Although Amazon offers a promotion that allows new VE sellers to use A+ Content, it is limited to 5 products and only for new products to Amazon.
The biggest issue that sellers are currently concerned about is: once the account is closed, will the AMS permissions be restricted at the same time? Some professionals predict that AMS access rights should remain open, but Amazon has not confirmed this. As for what to do after the VE account is suspended, Amazon recommends that sellers using the VE program convert to third-party sellers.
Of course, when transforming from a supplier to a 3P seller, sellers still need to consider a number of factors for evaluation. After all, the market competition among third-party sellers is greater, and many other factors must be considered.
