There are three main reasons why your Amazon account might be suspended:
Not meeting Amazon performance standards
Violation of Amazon’s selling policies
Sales Restricted Products
Amazon Account Suspended? What Should You Do?
The first step is to determine why your selling privileges are being removed.
When you receive a suspension notice, it should detail the reasons why your selling privileges have been revoked.
You should then evaluate your sales practices:
Review your sales approach
Check your account health
Check that you are not violating any Amazon policies
Determine how to resolve the issue.
Develop an action plan
The key consideration is that when a dispute or AZ claim arises, Amazon will generally side with the buyer. You need to construct an action plan that addresses the problem from Amazon’s customer-centric perspective.
We've included some examples below to help you react.
Example 1 – Not meeting Amazon performance standards
Your contact response time, pre-fulfillment cancellation rate, and on-time dispatch rate are below Amazon’s minimum standards.
Your action plan needs to outline the following:
You will have a staff member on weekends to deal with customer enquiries, and your contact response time will be measured to ensure you answer enquiries on time.
You will adopt an inventory control system to reduce your pre-fulfillment cancellation rate, which causes your order defect rate to be too high
You will clear daily orders at the end of the day and prioritize all expedited orders to ensure on-time shipment.
Example 2 – Amazon states that you violated their selling policies
For example, if this is due to inappropriately soliciting feedback or malicious communication with your customers, your action plan might be:
Reviewed all customer communications and identified instances of inappropriate communication
Identify customer service representatives who were reprimanded for their behavior
All employees are now being trained on how to communicate with customers.
Example 3 – Selling Restricted Products
A customer complained that the product was counterfeit and demanded a refund. You ask the buyer to return the product. Then, customers complain, and you get your Amazon account suspended for selling fraudulent or counterfeit goods.
Therefore, your action plan should cover:
Change suppliers. After this incident, you have lost confidence in your current supplier, and you are switching to a well-known, reputable distributor of your merchandise.
State in your action plan that you are working with suppliers to review how counterfeit products enter their supply chains
Inspect all goods upon receipt to ensure they are authentic
Check all product descriptions to ensure they meet the standards accepted by buyers
Step 4 – Submit your appeal and plan of action to Amazon
This can be done in Seller Central under > Performance Notifications.
Find the notification you received regarding the removal of selling privileges and click the Appeal button
Make sure to follow up with a phone call.
If you have your Amazon account suspended, you can appeal the first decision. Before filing an appeal, check forums and get insight from experienced sellers.
