When selling goods on Amazon, the Seller account is everything.
There are rules to follow to ensure the account stays open and remains usable. Sometimes, you hear the sudden and unexpected news that the seller account has been suspended. It sends a shockwave through the system and it’s easy for anxiety to set in.
If this has happened to you recently, here is what we’d suggest you do to get your online business operational once again.
Take a Breath
While an Amazon suspension is truly alarming and represents a sudden interruption to your business operations, it’s usually not the end of the world.
Panicking or ignoring the problem by putting your head in the sand are not helpful responses. Both do nothing to resolve the matter or work towards a solution. Instead, take a breath and try to relax. This will allow you to make better decisions going forward and avoid staying in a ‘fight or flight’ mode.
Don’t Go Off Half-Cocked
It’s also unhelpful to approach Amazon on your own without becoming re-educated about the dos and don’ts as an Amazon seller. This will often make it clearer about what might have gone wrong, even when the initial contact from the retailer seemed overly cryptic.
A calm, measured review of the situation, assessing the cause, and how it might be remedied successfully is necessary here. This is far more beneficial than a rash, hasty response without all the facts, which could be seriously detrimental to re-establishing your seller account with the largest online retailer.
Review and Creating a Plan
Carefully reviewing a suspension of your seller status is required to understand the true cause of it. Only then can it be decided how to approach a possible Amazon appeal to get your account back.
With an Amazon suspension, it’s best that they are original and mindfully put together. Using a generic solution found on a seller’s forum is a bad plan because the team at Amazon is familiar with these already. Using a dispute specialist like Thompson and Holt that successfully recovers many Amazon Seller accounts every month, is best.
A specialist can create a custom plan and a tailored response based on unique circumstances. This significantly increases the likelihood of getting a successful outcome with an appeal.
Appeal Response Timeframes
Once an appeal has been submitted, it won’t be more than a couple of days – allowing for weekends and public holidays – before you receive an answer.
It’s important to be patient in this regard. Certainly, considering opening a second seller account in the meantime is a bad idea. This is not allowed unless it’s previously been agreed with Amazon and could ruffle enough feathers to reduce the chances of reinstating the approved status on your original account.
Err on the side of caution and follow a reasonable process – this has been shown to achieve positive outcomes.
By taking the right approach to an Amazon account suspension, it’s possible to come out the other side with the matter satisfactorily resolved.
