Amazon Account Block – how to avoid any blockage by Amazon.
Amazon Account Block – how to avoid any blockage by Amazon.
Imagine you are in a garden full of juicy and sweet fruits. Everything is fine, you have got all you need, you are happy and full. You are fully satisfied, but suddenly the garden owner cuts you off, and you have nothing left. You try to get in once again, but it is almost impossible, even if you try very hard. How to avoid any blockage by Amazon?
It is a short and metaphoric tale about being a seller on Amazon. Thanks to Amazon, you can be one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the whole world who is earning a lot of money in almost every country on Earth. It sounds like a dream but can become a reality for each of you.
But even if the Amazon sales are going well, we still need to keep in mind that this is not our “garden”. We accept all the rules of this garden and the way it works. One of the crucial issues is a blockade imposed by the American corporation. In this article, I will provide you with a list of the most common reasons that can ruin your sales and eventually can cause a blockage of your account.
Generally speaking, your account can be blocked if you violate the terms and conditions of Amazon. We will analyze the issue a bit further so that you know what actions you should avoid.
Let’s start with dividing block types into groups:
- Account performance
- Products
- Breaking the terms of cooperation
- External report
- Minor blocks
Each blockade should be treated equally seriously, as even the slightest breach can affect your reputation, which may lead to a block of the account.
1.Account performance
There is a dedicated tab for Account Health in Seller Central. A few factors influence the overall score:
- Customer Service Performance – the quality of your customer service
- Policy Compliance – this one concerns all the law infringements
- Delivery Performance – reflects the quality of the delivery
Amazon is proud to say that customers are the most important for their business model, and it is true. On the other hand, their requirements for sellers are very strict, and if you want to sell on Amazon, you must meet these requirements.
Amazon wants its sellers to fulfil orders in the best way possible. The outcome is that sellers need to keep the Order Defect Rate below 1%. This rate is the ratio of the number of unsuccessful orders to the number of all orders.
In the case of the Policy Compliance Rate, you should have it at the level of 0, which means you did not infringe any patent of other sellers.
Regarding Delivery Performance, you should focus on the VTR rate. It reflects the rate of on-time orders confirmation and the rate of valid tracking numbers provided by sellers. You should always keep this metric above 95%, but preferably you should aim at the level as close to 100% as possible.
2. Products
These concern the Policy Compliance metric. You can enter this tab to see which products may be subject to blockage due to infringement of patents of other sellers. Apart from patents issues, your products can be blocked because:
- High Negative Customers Experience rate is too high – this happens when a lot of customers report issues with your products. In this case, Amazon can block your products due to the low value that you provide to its customers;
- Potential Block of Products – you probably violate the rules. You have to analyze what you have done wrong by yourself. It may be a wrong title, your products may violate the standards, or descriptions are not optimized;
- Your products can also infringe the intellectual rights of other sellers.
Each type is crucial, so you should not take anything for granted (read more about Account Health here). If you don’t react to each notification, your products can lose their reputation, ranking, and eventually sales. It is much harder to get them back on track than promote them at first.
3. Breaking the terms of cooperation
- There are tons of reasons in this group. Therefore, I will name just a few most popular:
- You did not provide a valid business owner ID or some other kind of business document
- You did not successfully add your credit or debit card to your account
- Someone reported an unfair action (yeah, good luck in analyzing this one)
- You have skipped too many phone calls from Amazon, or you have not responded to Important notifications
4. External report
These blocks are particularly tough because some 3rd parties can report a violation. Especially when we receive just the basic information about our violation, so we have to figure it all out by ourselves. Here are two main reasons for such blocks:
- The tax office claims that there is something wrong with your taxes, and Amazon blocks your account immediately. The only way of reactivation is for the Tax Office to assure Amazon that you solved this case. It sounds quite serious, but the truth is that you can be blocked even when Tax Office makes an audit of your company;
- You violated the intellectual rights of other sellers, or you lost a pre-court action. If your product is likely to infringe patent law, it may very often be that the rights owner’s lawyer will sue you and block both your products and, consequently, the account. In fact, even if you have a document proving your side of the story is the right one, your account will not be reactivated unless the 3rd party states that the case is resolved.
5. Minor blocks
Minor blocks are, for instance, a notification from Amazon that our account is under review because they received negative feedback regarding our account, and they need to check it. In the meantime, our sales privileges will be limited. Sometimes it can be a so-called “soft block” when Amazon gives us a second chance. Our account is reinstated, and we have to confirm that we will change our behaviour.
Our account can be partially blocked if we violate the regulations on one marketplace, e.g. our ORD rate in Spain went above 1%, so this is the only blocked marketplace.
As you can see, the amount of reasons for blockades is very high. The ones listed above are the most common, and many sellers struggle with them. Keep in mind that Amazon can also block your funds. It can affect your cash flow, and, in extreme situations, your last payment can be cancelled.
Fortunately, almost all of these cases can be resolved by providing a proper appeal. In the appeal, you should include valid argumentation. The letter must be written very professionally and concretely. Amazon doesn’t like to read poems. Have you ever experienced any of the above issues? We will take care of it. Check our law cases service.
Contact us, and our specialist will help you reinstate your account.
