Amazon

As the world's most prolific online retailer, Amazon reaches billions worldwide. There may be times when you have felt…that making money on Amazon is not as easy as it might appear. Success lies in two things: putting in the work, and knowing how to take advantage of the opportunities Amazon offers.

There are right and wrong ways to do things as a seller. If you are brand-new to the marketplace, we urge you to seriously consider Amazon consulting services. Platform experts are available to guide you through the initial stages – and even thereafter – to make sure you are optimizing every opportunity you are given.

Three common Amazon seller mistakes and missed opportunities:

Mistake #1: Not Optimizing Product Listings

Many new sellers put up new product listings without a plan for optimizing them. When we say 'optimizing' we are talking about creating product listings that will effectively compete with competitor listings. This is a significant factor when you consider how many sellers are selling similar products on Amazon.

Failing to optimize means greatly reducing the chance that buyers will find your listings.

How do you avoid this mistake? Learn to optimize your listings.

Mistake #2: Not Maintaining Enough Inventory

Amazon is known to penalize sellers who run out of inventory. For new sellers, knowing how much inventory to cover can be difficult. There is some trial and error involved. Once inventory levels are established, sellers should always have enough inventory to meet demand plus a little extra. Inventory management software can be really beneficial to help you monitor stock levels.

Mistake #3: Overreacting to Account Suspension

It is not unusual for new sellers to face a temporary account suspension due to mistakenly violating the rules. One of the worst things a new seller can do is overreact to a suspension. Overreacting only leads to more trouble. The best way to handle this sort of thing is to work with an Amazon reinstatement specialist like Ecomsellertools. We can help you get your account up and running again without making an enemy of Amazon.

Have you made any of these mistakes as a seller? If so, and you need help recovering, let us know.

Amazon Prime Day is the biggest day on Amazon's calendar by far. Prime Day is the Summer event for over 200 million Amazon Prime subscribers around the world, including these 25 Amazon Prime member countries:  Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, the UK, the US, and for the first time in Poland, and Sweden. Prime Day deals events were also held in India, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

This exclusive two-day annual shopping deal event is only available to Prime members and Prime Day deals are not available any other time of the year. Amazon Prime membership subscribers receive offer savings, free two-day shipping, streaming, Kindle services, and Prime Video in more than 200 countries and territories.

And, the big news is not just Prime Day itself. Amazon sales increase notably in the weeks leading up to the big day. Early deals and offers for new members start as early as June. Amazon Prime Day is a great reason to make sure you do things right as a seller on the platform. The last thing you want is an account or listing suspension in the weeks leading up to Prime Day, be it this year or any other. Suspension is never good, but it can be disastrous for your business at this time of year and during any holidays.

Optimize for Year-Round Success

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) sellers enjoy Prime Day every year with record-breaking unit sales. Suspension risks are just one of the things to worry about in the lead up to Prime Day. There are other considerations including marketing strategy, auditing listings, listing optimization, accurate product descriptions, shipping options, and in-stock availability to take into account prior to the event.

When the big day comes, you want customers to be able to find your products quickly and easily. You want your products to show up first on the list. You also want your customers to have a great experience on Prime Day so that they'll come back to you the rest of the year.

The fact is that Prime Day isn't intended just to give Amazon a windfall. Prime Day is designed to draw in Amazon buyers to your store in hopes of convincing them to sign up for Prime and stick with it. How does that help you? By increasing customer loyalty, engaging repeat buyers, increasing sales, product ranking and accumulating reviews, and drawing more awareness to your product and product pages.

Prime Members Stick Around

Amazon Prime is billed as a monthly subscription service. The big benefit to you as a seller is that Prime members stick around. They are not one-off customers who buy from Amazon today and then disappear. They are shoppers who make the site their primary source for online retail. Those are the customers you want.

Since its introduction in 2015, Prime members have increasingly enjoyed the benefits of top deals from big brands, and independent small and medium-sized businesses. Amazon membership enrollment doubled its Prime subscriber base even with a significant Prime membership increase last year. Membership has surpassed 158 million subscribers in 2023. 

Utilizing Amazon Consulting Services

So how can you get in on the long term benefits Prime Day offers? By taking advantage of Amazon consulting services designed to ensure your account and product pages are optimized for maximum exposure. Consulting services can also help you avoid suspensions. And if a suspension does come your way, your consultant can help you rectify the situation quickly.

If you're not sure about the value of paying for Amazon consulting services, check out the following statistics from Prime Day 2023:

• The single largest sales day in Amazon history
• Prime members purchased more than 375 million items worldwide
• The largest deal selection of products from independent small-sized businesses
• Total estimated savings exceeded $2.5 billion over millions of deals

In its nine years, Prime Day has helped catapult Amazon to a dominating top position in online retail. We see selection as a partial driver to this from its ever increasing number of independent third-party selling partners.

Start Getting Ready for Next Year

As an Amazon seller, you cannot afford to miss out on the annual Prime Day event. It is too late for you to prepare for Prime Day 2023, but it is never too early to start working on next year. We are here to help.

Our Amazon consulting services include listing optimization, ASIN reinstatement, Amazon account suspension service, and a variety of additional ecommerce solutions. Amazon is a fantastic platform on which to sell your products. But you need to do it right. Rather than guessing and hoping for the best, let us help you with expert consulting services. Amazon is what we do.

When Amazon launched its Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) program back in 2015, it opened the door for greater exposure and higher sales among third-party Amazon sellers who could match the company's shipping service standards and handle their own fulfillment from their own warehouses, offering one-day and two-day shipping service for its Prime customers.

Why It's Important to You

SFP enrollment should be important to third-party Amazon seller who fulfills orders from their own storage facilities and not just FBA. Why? Because Amazon Prime members pay a monthly subscription fee for the service. They look specifically for Prime-eligible deals from Prime sellers whenever they shop. Your FBM listings can qualify for Prime when you are enrolled in SFP.

If you are a seller enrolled in the SFP program, your eligible items are advertised with the Prime badge. Prime buyers have a preference for products with the Amazon Prime badge. It’s the indicator of your commitment to fulfill orders at Prime speed, at no additional cost them. When customers search for your products on Amazon, yours come up as being Prime-eligible. When a Prime member has the choice between a Prime-eligible and standard product, guess which one they are going to choose?

Benefits of the SFP program for Amazon sellers:

• Buy Box eligibility

• No FBA or storage fees

• Increased discoverability for your brand and products

• Access to Amazon’s over 158 million Prime members

• More control over brands, listings, inventory, and customer information

You Have To Play by the Rules

We want to caution all third-party sellers that SFP is like anything else on Amazon. You must play by the rules, or your account could face suspension.

The quality of service SFP sellers reflects directly on Amazon's Prime service. Since Prime is their bread and butter, Amazon does not want the name tarnished. In order to qualify and earn the Prime badge, potential enrollees must meet specific selling criteria during the trial period to show that they are able to meet Amazon performance standards:

• Seller must agree to Amazon Returns Policy
• Have a cancellation order rate of less than 0.5%
• Deliver orders with Amazon SFP supported carriers
• Have a valid tracking rate of 99% or higher
• On time fulfillment and delivery of orders over 93.5% using Amazon Buy Shipping Services

• Meet high shipping standards and targets for one-day and two-day delivery promises
• Offer Premium shipping options including weekend delivery and pick up on Saturday or Sunday

• Offer nationwide delivery coverage for standard-size products
• Allow Amazon to deal with customer service inquiries

If we had to pick one thing from the list as being the most important, it would be meeting shipping standards. The most attractive aspect of Prime is its fast and free shipping. If sellers cannot consistently maintain Amazon’s performance metrics for on time deliveries, they will not remain SFP sellers for long. Keeping up with and maintaining SFP metrics is not for the faint of heart. You must have a solid warehousing, fulfillment and shipping operation.

Amazon Will Be Paying Attention

In the past, SFP "was not providing the same high quality experience that customers expect from Prime." In other words, the program was suspended because sellers were unable to fill orders and ship them quickly enough. They didn't have the logistics in place to ship quickly and cost-effectively.

If you need help making sure that you meet Amazon's strict requirements for SFP, contact us as we can offer SFP specialized consulting.

Here at Ecomsellertools, we help third-party Amazon sellers with ASIN reinstatement, product listing optimization services, seller account reinstatement. As Amazon reinstatement specialists and consultants, we are here to help you succeed.

Panicking in the midst of an Amazon account suspension is normal. We see it all the time as Amazon seller consultants. Clients come to us looking for help with seller account reinstatement, terrified of being driven out of business in a few days if they don't get help.

If your Amazon account has been suspended, here is the best piece of advice we can give you.

Don't panic!

Step back and take a breath.

An account suspension is definitely something to be concerned about, but it's not the end of the world.

Panicking will not help solve the problem.

In fact, it could make matters worse.

To illustrate the point, here are four things you should NOT do following an Amazon account suspension.

1. Immediately Open a New Account

Panic and fear has led many Amazon sellers to deal with their account suspension by immediately opening a new account with a different email and bank account information. 

If you have no valid or legitimate business reasons to own or operate a second seller account, or you are not required by an Amazon program (like Amazon Renewed) to have a separate account, you will most likely be in violation of Amazon’s Multiple Accounts selling policy.  Not complying with Amazon selling policies and the Seller Code of Conduct usually results in Amazon taking action against your related seller accounts. You’ll be looking at forfeiture of payments, cancellation of listings or complete account deactivation.

Spinning up a second account may work in the short term, but Amazon's automated systems are very good at linking multiple accounts by the same user. Their system will ultimately figure out what you've done.

What happens then? Your secondary account will be suspended. Getting it reinstated, while possible, will be next to impossible. Worse yet, you will be making it exceedingly more difficult to get your original Amazon seller account reinstated.

2. Immediately File an Appeal

Filing an appeal is a normal part of our Amazon reinstatement services. However, we believe it is not wise to rush into things. An appeal doesn't have to be filed within the first 30 minutes of discovering your account has been suspended. It is better to take a little bit of time to investigate, gather the necessary proof, and submit an appeal that is likely to be accepted.

The truth is that Amazon suspends thousands of accounts every day. Furthermore, it is rare for an account to be reinstated on the very first appeal – except for very minor infractions. So it's better to come up with a properly written plan of action prior to that first appeal in order to increase your chances of getting reinstated the first time.

3. Communicate in a Threatening or Abusive Manner

There is always the temptation to take an aggressive stance under the assumption that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Where Amazon is concerned, being aggressive isn't helpful. You should avoid the temptation to communicate with any Selling Partner support team member in a threatening or abusive manner. You will not get anywhere by using language or tactics designed to intimidate.

Amazon Seller Performance is the only department within Amazon that can help you with account reinstatement. Seller Performance specialists are not looking to unnecessarily punish sellers. They are looking for sellers to take responsibility for their accounts and their actions while selling on the platform. Show them you are responsible by communicating in a professional and polite manner. Treat Seller Performance specialists with respect and they will treat you in kind.

4. Expect an Immediate Response

In the 'good old days' of Amazon's early years, sellers could expect responses within 12 to 24 hours. Those days are long gone. With thousands of accounts suspended daily, Amazon's support volume has increased exponentially. It can take a week or longer for your appeal to result in meaningful action. And remember this - Amazon will probably not send confirmation that your appeal was received. All of this is to say that you should wait at least a week or two before following up.

Our Amazon account reinstatement services are designed to help sellers like you. If your account has been suspended, don't panic. Take your time and go through the appeal process in an orderly fashion. We are here to help if you need assistance.

Everything there is to know about Amazon suspending listings for being priced “too high.”

It all starts with an email from Amazon…

  The email reads: ““We have detected potential pricing errors in your Amazon.com product listings. We have deactivated the listings mentioned at the bottom of this message to prevent any negative customer experience.” Then you go to Seller Central, and find your listing has in fact been deactivated.  You just got hit with a dreaded “high pricing error.” Amazon considers your price too high, “unfair,” and is forcing you to lower your price.   

Why do high pricing errors happen?

Amazon’s claim is that they regulate high prices as a way to protect customers. Their official line is that putting a cap on how high you can price an item prevents a customer from being “misled” or having a “negative customer experience.”  Amazon goes deeper on this in their “fair pricing policy”: “Pricing practices that harm customer trust include, but are not limited to:

• Setting a reference price on a product or service that misleads customers;
• Setting a price on a product or service that is significantly higher than recent prices offered on or off Amazon;
• Selling multiple units of a product for more per unit than that of a single unit of the same product;
• Setting a shipping fee on a product that is excessive. Amazon considers current public carrier rates, reasonable handling charges, as well as buyer perception when determining whether a shipping price violated our fair pricing policy.”

This leaves a lot of questions, so let’s explore deeper…  

How does Amazon define what price is too high?

There’s two answers to this: 

1. A price that’s above the max price you have set for that SKU inside Seller Central.
2. A price that violates their (secretive) “fair pricing policy.”

First, a high pricing error gets triggered if you set a price that goes outside the “minimum” and “maximum” price values sellers can set for each item inside Seller Central.  High pricing errors wouldn’t be so challenging if all sellers had to do was keep their price within these parameters. That would be too easy. But there’s another way pricing errors get triggered, that is much harder to navigate… Which brings us to the second “high pricing error” trigger: Amazon has a secret price for most items (not all), that their algorithms have determined is the maximum “fair” price. If you price above this (again, secret) price, Amazon deactivates your listing. Even this would be simple to navigate if Amazon simply published what it considers a “fair” price next to every item you have listed in Seller Central. But Amazon doesn’t reveal what it considers the fair market price for anything. Sellers are left to guess.  And if you guess wrong? You get a high pricing error, and your listing is deactivated.

How specifically does Amazon determine what price is “fair”?

Specifically, Amazon says: “Amazon regularly monitors the prices of items on our stores, including shipping costs, and compares them with other prices available to our customers.” I’ve seen screenshots of chats with Amazon support where they explicitly state that eBay is one of the sites they monitor.  What we can glean is that Amazon monitors all the major platforms open to third party sellers, and makes a determination based on what patterns it gathers.  This is the reason you don’t often see high pricing errors for slow-selling (aka “long tail”) inventory. Amazon doesn’t have enough data to determine a “fair” price. 

How do you avoid high pricing errors?

To recap the above, you can reduce the risk in two ways:

1. Set min/max prices for every SKU in your inventory, and keep your prices in that range.
2. Cross your fingers.

Personally, I’m not going to advise setting conservative prices just to avoid high pricing errors. It’s not conclusive that they have any true negative impact on your account. And in some categories where value on rarer items is extremely subjective (like books), it’s just not realistic to avoid high pricing errors 100% of the time. 

Will high pricing errors get you in trouble with Amazon?

Technically speaking, they show up as a “policy violation” on your Account Health page.  But when you click over to review, they are labeled by Amazon as “Account Health Rating Impact: No impact.” So is this a case of “no harm, no foul”? It appears that way, but we can’t be totally certain.  Amazon does claim that sellers may have their accounts shut down if they repeatedly trigger a high pricing error.  Here is a quote from Amazon’s “Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy”: “If we see pricing practices on a store offer that harms customer trust, Amazon can remove the Featured Offer, remove the offer, suspend the ship option, or in serious or repeated cases suspend or terminate selling privileges.” Personally, I’ve never heard of a seller having their account shut down over this. But it can’t be ruled out that it has happened. 

Are there other potential negative consequences of high pricing errors?

Amazon can act in mysterious ways. Their lack of transparency around their algorithms means we can’t know for sure that frequent high pricing errors don’t quietly impact things such as a seller’s ability to win the Buy Box.  Ever see a competing seller win the Buy Box with a worse feedback score than you, a higher price, and an offer in worse condition? It happens And we can’t begin to theorize about all the data points Amazon’s algorithm uses to make its decisions. We can’t rule out that seemingly harmless metrics like frequency of high pricing errors could contribute. 

How to fix high pricing errors

When you get an email that you have inventory that’s been deactivated, head over to Seller Central and lower your price. Note that Amazon is going to try and tell you what price it thinks you should set, but that is not the true maximum price. You’ll only learn that from some trial and error. The way I do it: I inch my price down slowly, a dollar or two (or five) at a time, until Amazon accepts my price. This process is tedious, because Amazon won't tell you right away if it “accepts” your price. You’ll simply get another email a few minutes later telling you that your item has been deactivated, again. Repeat until the price “takes.” Like I said, it’s tedious.  Another trick that seems to have an impact is to slightly tweak your min/max prices with every price update. I don’t know why this helps, but it seems to. 

First line of defense: Your automated repricer

If you’re like most sellers, you’re using some automated repricing tool (or Amazon’s built-in repricer). Ensuring your repricer respects the min/max prices is the simplest way to prevent many (but not all) high pricing errors.  Your repricer should offer a simple way for you to honor the min/max prices for all your SKUs.  An example from NeuroPrice (the repricing tool I founded in 2023), where you can do this with one click: Takeaways

1. High pricing errors are an “account health” issue.
2. High pricing errors probably won’t get you in trouble with Amazon (but it can’t be ruled out).
3. There’s no way to immunize yourself against the possibility of a high pricing error, but there are some basic preventive measures. 
4. Make sure your repricing tool is respecting min/max price boundaries (and if it doesn’t, switch repricers immediately). 

-Peter Valley Peter Valley is a 15+ year Amazon seller, the founder of NeuroPrice, and creator of the website FBA Mastery.com

There are lots of ways for sellers to get themselves in trouble with Amazon. Selling on Amazon is governed by a strict set of rules designed to protect the online retailer's brand and reputation. Suffice it to say that Amazon is incredibly careful to enforce its rules. That leads us to the subject of this post: Amazon ASINs.

The Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) is like digital DNA to Amazon, a 10-digit alphanumeric internal catalogue identifier. It is a number associated with a particular product or product variation on Amazon. It is the foundation of everything that happens on their site. Bear in mind that billions of products are sold on Amazon. ASINs are necessary to identify, catalog, and track products successfully in Amazon warehouses.

If you are brand-new to Amazon selling, it is no understatement to say that you need to be very familiar with the ASIN. The ASIN is what makes the Amazon world go round. Don't even think about selling until you are familiar with it. If you are not, you could find yourself in need of Amazon ASIN reinstatement assistance very early on in your e-commerce career for inadvertently violating Amazon's policies and getting yourself temporarily suspended or permanently banned from the platform.

A Unique Identification Number

If you are in need of assistance with Amazon ASIN reinstatement, contact us right away. We can help.

In the meantime, understand that the ASIN is a unique ID number created by one of two entities.

When it comes to published books, they should already have an assigned ISBN. That number acts as the ASIN on Amazon. Creating a listing for a book doesn't require a new number. The seller just uses the ISBN.

For all other products, Amazon creates a new ASIN for the very first listing. Once created, a product's ASIN never changes. It remains the same no matter how many sellers choose to carry that particular product. By the way, the immutable nature of ASINs is that which makes it possible for Amazon to compare listings from multiple sellers who all carry the exact same product. Understanding what an ASIN is and how to use them is key to selling on this marketplace.

Parent and Child Variation ASINs

Amazon engineers get the fact that certain types of products offer multiple variations. For example, you could have a particular T-shirt that comes in five different colors and 10 different sizes. Every size and color represents a variation. In order to account for such detail, Amazon creates both parent and child ASINs.

In addition, Amazon has extremely strict rules for creating parent and child variations to prevent sellers from gaming the system. If you are ever caught doing creating listings incorrectly, your account will likely face suspension. Then you'll need the help of an Amazon ASIN reinstatement specialist.

One ASIN per Product

Amazon does not want multiple ASINs created for a single product. Therefore, they do not allow duplicates. Before listing anything on Amazon, you must first search for the product in the search box. If you find the same exact product you want to sell already on the site, you must use the assigned existing ASIN for your own listing. You are only allowed to create a new, unique ASIN if the product you want to sell is new and not currently listed on the Amazon catalog. Don’t be fooled by searching only by UPC. Some listings aren’t created with the UPC or are created with an incorrect one. Searching only by UPC to find the item is not sufficient.

Where can you find ASINs?

You will see the ASIN in the Product Information section of any listing. For example, let's say you wanted to sell the third generation Google Chromecast Media Streamer in black. You could simply run an Amazon search for it and click on the first listing that matches your product. Then scroll down to the Product Information section and look for the number. This particular product's ASIN is B07M9BKHNZ. You can also see the ASIN in the address bar.

What else to look out for or avoid…

Avoid this at ALL costs!

MAKE SURE you check the BRAND name of the product on Amazon before you list your item. One of the latest scams / hacks is an insidious strategy many unscrupulous sellers seem to be using.

They list a product in Amazon’s catalog.

It shows up when you search by UPC.

However, even though it looks exactly like the product you have in hand, it’s not the same.

What’s different?

You don’t have “authorization” to list against the product you’ve found because it is listed under a different brand.

Often, it is the seller’s own brand.

You’ll get slapped with a (false) IP complaint before you can turn around.

MAKE SURE the brand name on the listing is EXACTLY the same as the brand name listed on the product.

We know that even a short suspension is bad. That’s why we offer an Amazon account suspension service designed to help e-commerce sellers get back online as quickly as possible. Being suspended from Amazon can do a lot of harm in a short amount of time especially when it is a seller's only sales outlet.

A few months back, we published a post explaining why Amazon suspends thousands of accounts every year. It is a good read, especially if you want to better understand how you can avoid suspension. Sometimes, there are unforeseen issues you can’t avoid, and you need help right now if your account has already been suspended.

You Are Losing Sales

Revenue and profit are often the first things that come to mind at this point. That is understandable. But there is something else you should know: a crucial factor in Amazon's on-site search results is product sales. The more frequently a particular item sells, the higher it appears on Amazon search engine result pages (SERPs).

Painfully obvious, getting suspended from Amazon means you are losing sales. An Amazon reinstatement specialist can help you turn things around. The longer you wait to get started (or the more times you mess it up on your own), the more sales are potentially going to competitors.

Every sale you are not getting is impacting how well your products perform. Likewise, every lost sale that goes to a competitor helps that competitor's search performance.

You Are Losing Profits Too

Although this next point seems like something Capt. Obvious would say, it still bears mentioning here: lost sales translate to lost profits. If you are like most e-commerce sellers, your margins are pretty tight. You need to keep them under control in order to effectively compete on Amazon. That being the case, you really cannot afford to let your profits suffer by delaying to seek help for an account suspension.

Your Reputation Is Being Damaged

Quick seller account reinstatement is a big deal to us because we know that reputations are damaged the longer accounts are suspended. Amazon doesn't suspend accounts indiscriminately. There are usually valid reasons for them doing it, even when they seem unclear to you. None of those reasons bode well for your reputation as a seller.

Account suspension damages your seller reputation from the very moment it starts. Every day your account remains suspended is another day your reputation could be further damaged.

Lower sales can impact on your SERP performance and so can a poor seller reputation. Amazon wants to point customers to those sellers they believe will best take care of those who buy from them. If your seller reputation has taken a hit, Amazon is less likely to point customers in your direction.

Reinstatement Can Be a Drawn-Out Process

Finally, even the shortest suspension can turn into a big deal thanks to how complicated reinstatement can be. There are the rare cases when a simple message to Amazon gets an account reinstated right away. But those open and shut cases are in the minority. More often than not, the Amazon account reinstatement process is drawn-out and requires plenty of back-and-forth.

A short suspension can turn into a much longer ordeal if you don't get on it right away. From our perspective, getting reinstated should become an Amazon seller's full-time focus. Unless there are more critical things pressing, sellers should put all their time and energy into resolving things with Amazon.

Of course, enlisting the help of an Amazon reinstatement specialist – like Ecommsellertools – is an even better way to go. We know what it takes to resolve suspensions quickly.