What to do if your Amazon account is suspended?

With 2 billion monthly visitors to its site, Amazon strictly regulates sellers to maintain the high quality of its marketplace. Most sellers have no problem following these policies as they are eager to access Amazon’s 2 billion site visitors who purchase products each month.

That said, Amazon’s rules are pretty strict. Even the best salespeople have had their accounts suspended.

Fortunately, the suspension is not the end of the world. Sellers can have their privileges restored by appealing.

For a successful call, sellers need to show Amazon that they clearly understand why they were suspended and have a plan to resolve the issue and improve their sales practices.

Why have my sales privileges been removed?

You won’t resolve your issue if you can’t identify it, so the first step to re-establishing your privileges is to understand why you were suspended fully. Amazon will let you know the reason for your suspension in its notification email. Still, you’ll want to know in detail how Amazon defines those reasons to make a knowledgeable appeal.

Poor performance

Sellers on Amazon can be suspended if they do not meet Amazon’s performance goals, which are measured with three metrics:

Defective Order Rate (ODR): This metric shows the percentage of a seller’s orders that received negative feedback (one and two stars), an A-to-Z warranty claim (a buyer reporting a problem with their order), or a credit card chargeback service (when a buyer disputes your order as a credit card purchase).

Amazon recommends that sellers maintain an ODR below 1% to avoid suspension.

Pre-Fulfillment Cancellation Rate: This metric shows the number of seller-initiated order cancellations before shipment confirmation divided by the total number of orders during that interest period. High pre-fulfillment cancellation rates are often the result of poor inventory management.

Amazon recommends that sellers keep a pre-execution cancellation rate below 2.5% to avoid suspension.

Late Shipment Rate: This metric shows the number of orders confirmed to ship after the ship date divided by the total number of orders during that interest period. A high number of late shipment rates often leads to customer dissatisfaction, as shipments that are not confirmed by their ship date cannot be tracked.

Amazon recommends that sellers maintain a late delivery rate of less than 4%.

Amazon Selling Policy Violations

Amazon believes in maintaining a safe and enjoyable experience for buyers with clear rules. The company will therefore suspend sellers if they violate any of their five community rules:

Honor your commitment to buy or sell.

Maintain current account information.

Do not open a new sales account if your sales privileges have been removed.

Leave thoughtful comments about your trading partners.

Do not distort yourself.

Amazon maintains these general guidelines to encompass many situations that sellers might encounter. However, some of these rules are pretty obvious, such as not spoofing your identity or selling counterfeit products, and should be easy for most sellers to follow.

Amazon Restricted Product Rules Violations

Rather than a set of product rules, Amazon has specific product restrictions for each product category.