The first thing I did, which I guess anybody in my shoes would do, was to head off to Google and do some research. I read many articles on how to appeal.
I have put together the following tips on how to appeal your Amazon account suspension with the highest chances of success:
- The need of taking full responsibility.
- The importance of being brief and straight to the point.
- Offering an action plan on the steps you plan to take in solving the problem.
- Avoiding the statement of your personal losses in the issue.
- The importance of acknowledging the negative effect that your problems had on Amazon’s customers.
After carefully putting together a killer appeal, I submitted it on Amazon’s seller central. With the appeal, I also hoped for a few things like:
- I hoped to get a little more information on my exact violation, so that I could promptly fix it.
- Make it clear that I accept full responsibility for the violation.
- Make it clear that I accept full responsibility for any harm to Amazon’s customers.
- Reiterate that I in fact fully own all my products through my company.
- Make it clear that I am building a long-term business establishment on Amazon.
After sending off the appeal, there were still a few things that I wish I could have handled better. For instance, I think it was too long, so I should have made it shorter. I should have also refrained from adding everything I thought could be needed. The truth being that I didn’t know exactly what I had to appeal against.
Following is my correspondence with Amazon’s Seller Performance
Seller-performance’s response to the appeal:
In responding to my appeal, they made three requests:
- Action plan.
- Contact information of my suppliers.
- Copies of my business invoices or receipts.
I thought this to be a nice development. You know, they probably just want to confirm that I was the legal owner of my brand or maybe to confirm something else, like the authenticity of my products. Maybe there has been quite some authenticity complaints against me, or that I have simply arrived on the next level and they needed to do some checks before I could continue growing my business.
So I completely complied with their demands and sent them everything they requested.
[wpcb id=”2″]
Seller-performance’s response:
Hello,
we appreciate your correspondence regarding your blocked account. After a thorough review, we have decided against reinstating your seller account with us.
You were warned before about listing generic or unbranded products in pages for specific brands. Sellers are required to deliver the exact products that were listed in our catalog, and not to deviate from it.
My heart sank and my stomach felt really bad and miserable. My appeal has been denied. This was really bad news and I was very confused because I believe I have done everything they asked for and still my appeal got denied. In their first email was something about “product authenticity” and now they seem to be implying that my actual products are different from the product descriptions on the website.
My response:
At this moment, I was in total chaos. I did not know what to do and still do not know what the exact problem is. All I knew was that I could not continue the back and forth correspondence with Seller performance. Thinking of my frozen funds and how important it is to maintain seller privileges on Amazon, I decided that my one true option will be to delete all my listings on the site, and then to never sell those particular problematic products again. So I composed another action plan and sent it out to Seller performance.
Seller-performance’s response:
We thank you for the information you provided us with. However, in reviewing your account, we have indications that you have listed items that either do not match your actual products, or that are not in accordance with our seller guidelines.
This probably means that they are giving me an opportunity to continue with the appeal. They probably like my action plan, so maybe I should back it up with some action. So I start executing my action plan and send them an update.
Seller performance’s email response was exactly the same as before.
So I decide to continue with the action plan. I was doing everything I could to satisfy them. After I had done 9 steps out of the total 10 steps, I sent them another update.
Seller performance’s email response was exactly the same as the previous ones.
At this point I felt I have reached my breaking point. It has been over a month now since my seller account got suspended and I could take no more. So I simply delete everything, all the product listings, everything. And then send them another update.
The Response:
Seller-performance responds this time with a different message. They tell me that my account is under review. After a few days, I got notified that my funds have been unfrozen and my seller account with all privileges has been reinstated.
I was happy and angry because this was a bitter-sweet moment. Yes, I was happy to be able to sell on Amazon again, but I was frustrated at the amount of products that I lost because of this ordeal.
How It All Turned Out
Currently, I am doing well again on Amazon. Although my earnings are still far from what they used to be, I am well on the way to getting back to those pre-account-ban levels. One good thing for me was that I had other products under development back then and most of them were almost ready for launch.
Although the new products I was developing then helped me in springing back up, they also tied down my money because for some, I had already placed a first bulk order while others were in their final stages.
For this reason, I had to liquidate the old inventory through many other online and off-line channels. I also had to do other stuff to be able to timely pay off a Kabbage loan while still waiting for the money.
So, that’s it. That’s my Amazon seller suspension and reinstatement story.
Lesson learned? Diversification of Income
Diversification of income is very important for any business person or investor, and it should be done as early as possible into your career.
Else, you will be playing in someone else’s play ground, in this case Amazon’s. They can bend the rules or do whatever they like, and there isn’t much you could do about it.
Peace of mind is a lovely emotion to have and feel. In business, it’s only diversification that can offer you peace of mind. I hope you enjoyed reading my story.
If you also have a suspension story of yours, feel free to share it in the comments.
Resources: