If you’ve ever received a notice about an Amazon Seller account suspension, you know that it can be very upsetting – and the financial impact can be devastating.
You’re asked to write a Plan of Action – an appeal – and you wait for the response. Some appeals are easier than others to craft, and your account is quickly restored. Others are more challenging, or your account remains pending or you’re even denied access to your account! The nightmare is when you receive a response that your account is permanently closed.
What can you do to prevent it?
In previous posts, we’ve talked about some of the keys to keeping your account healthy, especially monitoring your performance health, and keeping your Order defect rate lower than 1%. In this post, we’re going to draw a clear picture of the consequences of suspensions and the “do’s and don’ts” to protect your seller account, and what to include in your suspension appeal.
Let’s talk about the different types of Amazon Seller Account Suspension notices:
- Suspension/Your account has been deactivated: Your account is “on hold” and the next step is for you to submit a Plan of Action for account reinstatement.
- Denied: Even though your POA was denied, you’re still able to update and resubmit an appeal
- Banned: This is your dreaded nightmare. You don’t have access to your account. Or have no place to submit an appeal.
Where does your suspension fall?
Poor Customer Service?
Amazon’s goal is to be a competitive marketplace with the focus on customer satisfaction. If Amazon detects a downward trend in customer satisfaction – you may get warned – but you will be suspended.
Violated Amazon’s Policies?
Amazon is THE LAW. Violations will be penalized. Violations include selling restricted products, Intellectual Property violations, image violations, etc.
Do you know why you were suspended?
- Order Defect Rates
- Product Returns
- Late Dispatch or Shipping Rates
- Negative Feedback
- Poor customer reviews
- Packaging Quality
- Cancellation rates
- Listing Violations
- Product Condition
- Authenticity
- Intellectual property violations
Best practices?
- Customer Service Personnel – to answer all customer messages, inquiries and monitoring feedback
- Performance Health – check your dashboard – daily – to catch minor violations before they become MAJOR violations
- Stay alert – Amazon’s landscape changes frequently, keep abreast of policy changes
Account suspended? Time to appeal!
Despite your best efforts, you’ve been suspended. Now it’s time to get to the ROOT CAUSE of the suspension and identify which policy (or policies) you may have violated. Can’t uncover the cause? Open a help ticket to clarify.
Appeals – best practices
- Take responsibility
- Thoroughly investigate order numbers and ASINS to identify what really happened
- Be professional
- Be detailed, but be concise
- Include the Root Cause(s), Immediate Corrective Actions & Future preventative measures
What NOT to do:
- Don’t waste time and effort on appealing to the investigator’s emotions
- Ignore the notice
- Copy and paste an appeal you found online!
Think you were unfairly suspended? Need help with a Plan of Action? The experts at Axelligence www.axelligence.com can help you write a professionally customized Plan of Action to get your account reinstated as soon as possible.