You might think I am obsesses about Amazon given how much I write about them. Consider though what a big part of everyone’s lives they have become in the last decade. If you buy stuff, it is far more likely than not you buy at least some stuff from Amazon. My household has done a lot of shopping on Amazon and I can trace my first purchase back to 1997.
Buying on Amazon is not without its challenges, and we all know that the reviews are almost always gamed and can not be trusted. (I religiously use Fakespot for new purchase.)
But as a seller, I get a unique perspective on just how self-centered Amazon is, and how poorly they treat their sellers. Part of the problem is that they extend far too generous terms in order to get people to compulsively buy from them. Much of the brunt of this falls to sellers. For example, too-generous return policy means buyers often just order things without bothering to read any of the listings, thinking they will just return it if it doesn’t work. The downside of this is that sellers items get delisted if the % of returns are too high. Sometimes this just means you have a product that people think will work in ways that it won’t and no amount of information in the list that people don’t read will change this.
Well this week two more things happened that made me think of the ridiculousness of Amazon. The first is this removal I received yesterday. A removal is a return that is considered not-resellable that the seller has opted to have sent back rather than destroyed.
Bakelite is a brittle material, so, packing like that (yes there was zero padding) isn’t the greatest. Is this how they ship my products?
Secondly, Amazon has been really screwing up this required verification for the INFORM Act. They first sent me such a request a month ago.
So I dutifully did as they asked. Two weeks later, I got the same email. This time, I went to the seller verification page and saw this:
Unfortunately that tells me nothing about what I need to provide additionally. So I opened a case to ask what I needed to do. Mind you, just opening a case with Amazon is a chore because they make you go through this process where they try to get you to accept some help information instead of contacting them, and it is hard to get to the point where you can open a case. Eventually I got this response to my request.
Hello,
We have received your inquiry, but we cannot provide support on this matter.
Why is this happening?
Your account has been deactivated because you have yet to complete your registration. If that is the case, you will continue to have limited access to your selling account until you complete all pending tasks.
Say what? They can’t help at all and instead deactivated my account. I’ve been a seller in good standing for 14 years now.
I angrily responded and eventually got them to help.
Hello,
We reviewed the documents that you provided and were able to complete your verification process. You can now sign in to Seller Central and start selling on Amazon.
We’re here to help
If you have any further questions, you can contact Selling Partner Support:
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/cu/contact-us
The Seller Identity Verification team
Thank you for selling with Amazon,
Well thank goodness. But here we are two weeks later and I get another seller verification email. I’m not sure why they need to again verify my.
I am debating with myself on whether Amazon in this regard is just inept, malicious, or just don’t care about seller.
