It’s a nightmare scenario that has befallen many – too many – Amazon sellers and brand owners: the dreaded account shutdown email and subsequent appeals process. Titled simply “Your Amazon.com Selling Account”, no matter the perceived transgression, this cryptic email offers little of use in terms of what happened and how to reconcile the issue. It’s the seller’s responsibility to figure it out, and that can be tougher than it looks. To make matters worse, an incorrect appeal can result in permanent account loss, even if there was in fact no offense committed. In this four part series we explore some of the most difficult account suspensions to come back from, ones that even we thought might be hopeless, and share what we did for our clients in each of these situations to get them back online.
The Back Story
A small brick and mortar retailer from the midwest came to us from a colleague in the Amazon consulting space who found themselves in over their head. That was the right thing to do, because for Amazon reinstatements it’s almost always best to bring in an expert even if it seems fairly straightforward.
It did seem straightforward to the seller, and that’s why they tried appealing to Amazon several times before soliciting professional help. This is a common mistake; because most brands don’t know what Amazon is really asking for, they compound the issue with irrelevant information.
Their Amazon account had been suspended for listing ammunition for sale, which is on the Restricted Products list. Drugs and drug paraphernalia, alcohol, tobacco, firearms, hazardous chemicals, and explosives are examples of other Restricted Products.
As you might expect this is a serious offense, and the best thing they did by far was ask for help. But by the time we were called in, Amazon had stonewalled them with denial after denial, and they really had no hope of getting their account back.
So, how did we get them back online in just two contacts to Amazon? We did the seemingly impossible by acting on these 5 key pieces of account reinstatement wisdom.
1. Never, Ever Introduce Doubt
When submitting an appeal to Amazon, don’t ever give them a reason to think they did the right thing. Instead, you’re aiming for the reader to understand immediately, with zero doubt, that the suspension was done in error and should be reversed.
Never put anything in your appeal that is unverified or unprovable, and don’t send superfluous information. Do your homework, have a plan, and be prepared. If you aren’t 100% sure of what you are doing, get help.
Misstep After Misstep
First, the client responded to Amazon’s takedown message with indifference, then with inaccurate information, and finally by blaming an employee.
The initial statement to Amazon was that there had never been any inventory attached to the ASIN, so they never sold it, and since it had been removed, there should be no issue. This is simply the wrong thing to say. It takes no responsibility for the situation, and offers zero assurance that it won’t happen again.
At another point they indicated the ASIN had been taken down in December. But it had been listed on Amazon through a third party app, in December, and perhaps they had removed it from their app in December, but it remained active on Amazon well after that. So, to the person reviewing their case, it seemed they had lied.
An employee was blamed for the mistake, and one appeal stated they were removed from their position at the company. Again, this doesn’t get to the root cause of the problem, nor does it alleviate Amazon’s concerns in any meaningful way.
Even though all of these things were true on some level, this counterproductive approach had earned our client the silent treatment. It took our team more than two hours on the phone with the business owners just to get a clear picture of what happened. From there, the challenge became relaying that information to the Amazon investigator in a way they could quickly understand and easily give a hearty “yes” to.
2. No Bad Investigators, Just Bad Amazon Appeals
It’s important to understand that Seller Performance representatives (or nearly any other hourly worker on Amazon) can’t take too much time on any particular case.
Assessment of their job performance comes down to a score, and they need everyone’s help getting a good score. That’s why you have to make it quick and easy for them to say yes. If you make it too complicated, you’ll be ignored, because they have to move on.
The trick is to give them everything they need, and nothing they don’t.
- Don’t just attach PDFs. Cut and paste the actual words into your submission. This way they can cut and paste what’s relevant into their case notes.
- Don’t make them click outside of your appeal document, unless it’s to a large shared file that has supporting evidence. Keep everything right on their screen by including screen grabs or referencing exact pages to make their job easy.
- Don’t include any information that is not relevant, it will just get in the way.
- Don’t be disrespectful of their time or yours.
How The Amazon Organization Is Set Up
Two important things should be at the forefront of your mind when appealing to Seller Performance teams: time and ease.
The agent can’t take too much time on your case. The issue should be easily remedied once Amazon receives sufficient proof of why it won’t happen again. It’s not that they don’t care about you. It’s that they have to care about other things, like doing a good job and getting a good score. If they don’t hit a specific number of cases, they will get put on a performance improvement plan and be managed out.
It’s up to you to make it easy for them to reinstate. Don’t make them do extra work, dig for information, or click here and there, to get your point across. If you are sending a follow up to an appeal you previously sent, you must include everything you already sent… don’t think “I included that in the last message.” Their system doesn’t make it easy to reference what you already sent, so they won’t dig for it.
Do Your Best
In addition, you’re unlikely to get the same rep you got last time. And if you do, it’s even less likely they’ll remember your situation. All their system has is notes left by the previous agent. You can’t assume they know anything about the last contact you sent, so in each appeal you must address how this one is different from your last. Otherwise, whoever reviews it will just rely on the annotations that were provided by the last agent and ignore anything else.
If you make it easy for them to say “no”, they will do that. If you don’t help them help you, they won’t. They can’t, they don’t have time!
For sellers, the Amazon appeals process can feel like a monolith, with loads of potential to fall through the cracks, but it’s not intended to be that way. The assumption is that Seller Performance agents are doing their best job… and performance metrics will eventually point to any bad apples.
But Amazon is also assuming that you are doing your best job, because your presence on Amazon matters to your business and your brand. It assumes that you are doing all you can to stay in good standing with them, including hiring an expert if you find yourself stuck.
3. Amazon Won’t Chase After You
It’s important that brands understand: if you really care about your success on Amazon’s Marketplace, you must do what it takes to succeed there… have a plan, advocate for yourself, escalate, hire experts, etc.
Amazon is a well-optimized money-making machine. It wants professional, well-run businesses who are also there to make money. Brands that can’t or don’t step it up and figure it out for themselves, will be left behind.
For our client, it was clear they had used up all their chances and Seller Performance was no longer listening. They had approached the problem as an Amazon one. A restricted product had not ultimately been sold on their account, which was true, so it didn’t didn’t seem to them that the problem was theirs. But the issue always lies with the seller. That’s why you must…
4. Knock Them Out With The First Punch
You’ve got to prove, quickly and clearly, what is incorrect or untrue about the statement in the Amazon suspension email. And if it is true (which does happen), what steps you took to remedy the issue plus proof as to why and how it won’t happen again.
Where Restricted Products are concerned, they’re such a major no-no because federal regulations are often involved. If Amazon gets caught by a governing agency with products that are supposed to be restricted from sale on their site, it’s Amazon that is penalized, not the seller.
So if you get a Restricted Products takedown notice, Amazon wants to know how this happened and precisely why it’s never going to happen again. Your actions have literally put Amazon at risk, and they won’t allow that to continue. In the same way you can’t put the Seller Performance agent’s job at risk by being unclear or disingenuous, you can’t put Amazon in that position either.
5. Don’t Get Emotional – It’s Not Personal
Throughout the Amazon appeals process t’s important to keep a level head. There is a reason the suspension email was triggered, and there is an appeals process to make it go away. If the appeal is denied, it’s because questions were not answered to their satisfaction, rightly or wrongly. It’s not personal, even if the answer is no.
In the case of our client, there really was no offense intended and that was easily proveable. Their third party software did upload a restricted product, but it’s true there was no inventory added. They never did sell any ammunition against that ASIN, but they do have ammunition in their inventory because, as a family owned outdoors outfitter that specializes in hunting and fishing gear and apparel, it’s totally reasonable that they would. It’s perfectly legal to sell in their brick and mortar stores, and they do. It was an honest mistake and they do have a long and successful history of selling on Amazon.
But they had sent so many wrong appeals that we knew we needed to escalate the case on their behalf. We used our inside contacts to make a successful appeal happen, because we knew that if the right information got in front of the right person, they’d see instantly what the Seller Performance agents do not have time to see because it wasn’t made easy or fast for them to see it.
So we prepared one last appeal, breaking it all down in the simplest way possible, and sent that off to Seller Performance, knowing that it would again be denied. The intention here was only to put the right answers at the top of the pile, so when we escalated to management, this would be the first thing they saw. Then, we used our connections to write an email directly to someone at Amazon who would be in a position to make a decision and act on it.
It worked. They were back online and selling within the week.
Obviously this was fantastic news, and the best-case scenario. But their situation was dire, and we really were not sure our strategy would work. We definitely did not give them any reason to get their hopes up.
They had made an honest mistake. Until that point, they had been a strong seller. They really did deserve a second chance, and their first appeal should have been enough. But it wasn’t, and with every further attempt, they made it worse. Had we not been able to intervene on their behalf, a perfectly good seller would have been sidelined, all because they didn’t know what they didn’t know… that Amazon cares about different things than they do.
Targeted Expertise To Get The Job Done
In the end, this client’s journey is a perfect example of why navigating the Amazon appeals process requires expertise and precision.
What was likely an insurmountable issue for just about anyone was ultimately resolved thanks to an intricate understanding of how Amazon is organized, and a carefully crafted strategy that included a personal appeal to colleagues.
This was a special circumstance, and most Amazon agencies would not have been able to help them, not because they are no good but because they don’t have the connections we needed to make that happen.
The lesson is clear: when it comes to dealing with Amazon suspensions, knowing what to say, what not to say, and sometimes, who to say it to… can be the difference between success and failure.
If you have received a suspension notice and think you may be in over your head, stop everything and find an Amazon expert to help you.
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At Troveres we help brands articulate their story in unique and beautiful ways that utilize strategic, data-informed steps that drive engagement and increase conversion rates. Our content strategy was developed by former Amazonian of eight years Rachel Johnson Greer, who was part of Amazon’s private label team for more than two years, developing and maintaining brands with hundreds of products across dozens of product lines. Click here to download Rachel’s guide to Content Marketing That Converts for free.
