Amazon Seller Account Suspended? Don’t fret Out! Learn How To Get It Back

Although you can become a prime seller on Amazon by following the right doings yet, your one small mistake can lead you to Amazon account suspension. When your seller account on Amazon got suspended, your brand reputation and income both are at major risk. If something similar happened to you, you must be wondering why your Amazon account got suspended? and How can you get your seller account back? Well, don’t fret out! In this complete blog, we will take you through everything you should know regarding when and why your Amazon seller account is suspended.

So, stick by this guide and learn what happens when your account gets suspended on Amazon, the reasons behind the suspension, and how you can recover it.

Table Of Contents

• What does Amazon mean when it suspends your seller account?
• What causes an Amazon account suspension?
• How to Reactivate an Amazon Suspended Account?
  • Things Not To Do With Suspended Amazon Seller Account
  • Things Not Do With Suspended Amazon Seller Account
• How to prepare an effective POA to reactivate an Amazon suspended account?
• How to prevent your Amazon seller account from suspension?
• Conclusion

Let us take you through a detailed version of all the aforementioned topics one by one. Stay tuned!

What does Amazon mean when it suspends your seller account?

With 9.7 million sellers worldwide, Amazon suspends and deactivates a plethora of seller central accounts every day. Did you wake up one fine day thinking of receiving numerous orders on the Amazon store but are left with a suspended Amazon seller account instead?

Well, that’s natural to happen very often when a giant eCommerce marketplace like Amazon is managed by several savage rules and regulations that are difficult to keep up with for sellers. For some obvious and silly reasons, your Amazon seller account can get suspended, banned, or denied. These terms may sound similar but have different meanings. Let’s see what chances are left with sellers when the following happens with their accounts:

1. Amazon seller account got suspended:

The seller still has a chance to appeal to reactivate an Amazon suspended account.

2. Amazon seller account has been denied:

The seller must have appealed for account reactivation but it is rejected by Amazon authorities. Now, the seller needs to submit a revised plan.

3. Amazon seller account got banned:

After the Amazon seller account got suspended, the seller’s appeals have also been denied multiple times. Amazon will no longer consider the requests, appeals, or emails sent by the seller.

Whatever be the case, don’t rush and think of giving up already. There is always a way out. No Amazon seller would want to receive emails of suspension of seller accounts every day. To reactivate Amazon’s suspended account permanently, you will have to perform a root cause analysis. The reason behind your suspended Amazon seller account could be:

• You have not abided by the Amazon rules and regulations, you have violated its policies.
• You are selling a product on Amazon that has been restricted as per their selling policies.
• You are not providing good customer services and just diving in to increase sales.

Every Amazon seller whose account has been suspended will receive a message with a possible reason. For example:

“We have removed your Amazon selling privileges because the customers are complaining that the condition of the item received from you does not match the description mentioned in your product catalog.”

While other Amazon seller account holders may receive a different message as per the reasons behind their Amazon account suspension.

What causes an Amazon account suspension?

As every one of you must be wondering what causes a suspended Amazon seller account, we have done in-depth research to get you the most significant reasons behind this issue. Find the top 10 factors on which Amazon decided to ban your selling account.

1. Selling restricted items

When you decide to sell on Amazon, you will have to agree with all the applicable rules and regulations with Amazon selling policies. If you are selling a product that is prohibited as per Amazon policies, Amazon will remove your product listing, and cancel the order of your product. In the worst cases, you will see that Amazon suspended your account.

2. Duplicate Amazon seller accounts

Are you among those Amazon sellers who have registered twice or thrice with different usernames and organization details then? Well, Amazon does not allow sellers, vendors, or retailers to create more than one account. Even if any one of the sellers could create multiple accounts, they cannot successfully operate them. This may lead you to receive an email that says “Amazon seller account is suspended due to duplicate or multiple accounts.”

3. Sold an old item as new

The reason for your suspended Amazon seller account is also when you are mislabelling used items and selling them as new. Sellers can sell used items on Amazon, but their product listings have to be done accordingly. If a customer buys an old product of yours considering it new as per your product listing, he or she might file a complaint against you. In such a case, Amazon will suspend your account and you will have to submit an appeal.

4. Excessive negative feedback

You may receive an email regarding your Amazon seller account suspension due to much negative feedback. The customers must have been leaving negative feedback on your Amazon store claiming that they are not receiving the same item, refund, customer service, or for any other concern. Amazon sellers should immediately work on removing or improving negative feedback as they can cause your Amazon account to deactivate or suspend.

5. Late shipment rate

If your late shipment rate has exceeded more than 4% then, your Amazon seller account can get suspended. Amazon does not suspend you immediately after you reach a late shipment rate. A seller’s late shipment rate is below 4% is allowed but after that, your account fails to maintain performance and reflects a poor image. If this is the case with you, then Amazon must have decided to remove all the selling privileges and suspended the Amazon seller account. Hence, you are bound to open a new account or submit an appeal.

6. Selling counterfeit items

Amazon authorities suspend the seller account when customers file complaints regarding selling counterfeit items against the sellers several times. Filing complaints against sellers for selling counterfeit items is like complaining against the trademark. In most cases, such complaints are baseless as sellers do not really sell counterfeit products. But, Amazon considers those complaints as real and takes action against the seller. If you want to reactivate Amazon suspended account, you will have to assure Amazon authorities that you will not send any such items in the future. And, remove the products from your online store.

7. Rights owner complaints

You can see your Amazon seller account suspended when rights owner complaints have been filed against you. It claims that the products you are selling are violating their intellectual property rights. As per Amazon selling rules and regulations, intellectual property rights are made to protect the seller’s trademarks, copyrights, and patents, trade dress. If you are selling any products that are owned, designed, or manufactured by some other seller without giving them credits, the original seller can file rights owner complaints.

8. Wrong/ not as advertised item sold

Customers have the right to file a complaint against you if you have delivered a wrong item or an item that you have not advertised while they were shopping on Amazon. In such a case, sellers must accept the return of the product and refund the money to the customer. But, if the seller creates hassle while picking it up and returns less than it’s worth, the customer may file multiple complaints against them. Hence, Amazon seller account suspension is the result.

9. Your account is found ‘Inauthentic’

While creating an Amazon seller central account, you should know what Amazon means when it says ‘Inauthentic Account’. Later on, as per the set rules and regulations, if Amazon finds your account inauthentic, it can ban or suspend your account immediately.

Note:

What is inauthentic in Amazon’s language?
Inauthenticity is not considered fake. But, if a seller is selling products that are a part of a gray market or something that cannot get legally are inauthentic products.

10. Opened a new account after being suspended

When your Amazon account is suspended or banned, you will have to immediately submit an appeal to reinstate your Amazon suspended account. Accounts get suspended for genuine mistakes that sellers can make unknowingly, opening a new account right after the suspension and not planning action is another mistake. And, this time, Amazon might just suspend you for another time.

So, these were some of the most common reasons why your Amazon seller account was suspended. Irrespective of the reasons, you must always reply to the suspension notification immediately and respectfully. In case you are not sure of how to get your Amazon suspended account reinstated, read the next section of this article.

How to Reactivate an Amazon Suspended Account?

If you have ended up with a suspended Amazon seller account and are feeling lost because you don’t know how to get it fixed, this section of the blog will help you. We are assuming that now you know what are the possible reasons behind your suspended seller account. Now, it will be easier for you to follow what to do and what to not.

At times, we complicate the situation even more by doing what we just should not have done. That is why let’s talk about what to do and what to not in order to reinstate Amazon suspended account in time.

Things Not To Do With Suspended Amazon Seller Account

• You should not be connecting with seller support and seeking support or advice on how to appeal.
• You also should not be emailing the Amazon seller supporters compulsively with a composed plan of action.
• Don’t be rude to the seller’s support or threaten them with legal action if they did not reactivate Amazon’s suspended account even after submitting an appeal.
• Don’t send multiple applications after sending an appeal for the first time.
• Don’t compose an application without considering the reasons mentioned in the Amazon notification of your account suspension.
• Last but not least, don’t rush in submitting an appeal.

Now, let’s introduce you to the step-by-step solution of what to do to reactivate an Amazon suspended account.

Things To Do With Suspended Amazon Seller Account

Amazon has the authority to suspend a seller account temporarily or permanently due to a variety of reasons. When you lose your Amazon account, here is what you can do about it without losing patience.

Step 1: Create a list of active solutions

Whether the reasons mentioned in your Amazon account suspension notification are baseless but, you still have to take them seriously. Create a list of the solutions to the problems mentioned in the email.

By stating these solutions you can reactivate Amazon suspended account. As the Amazon authorities will get convinced that the complexities mentioned in the email will be fixed by you using these effective strategies.

Step 2: Create a list of best practices

Your Amazon account suspension can happen based on two things: performance and complaints. If any complaint has been filed against you by the buyers, brand owners, or customers then it is a complaint-based suspension. And, if Amazon removes your selling privileges due to your inauthentic behavior, it is performance-based suspension.

Whatever be the reason for your suspension, you will have to prove to Amazon that you will not only correct the actions that caused suspensions but also will prevent similar complaints in the future.

Step 3: Write a POA (Plan of Action)

Amazon owns its platform and has set a strict policy for sellers that you ought to follow irrespective of your own logic behind it. Unfortunately, now that Amazon suspended your seller account, you have to play by the company’s rules.

Step 4: Submit the POA and wait until Amazon responds

After submitting the completed Letter of Appeal (LOA), do not annoy the Amazon authorities by sending them multiple emails. They might not even read them.

How to prepare an effective POA to reactivate an Amazon suspended account?

As per Amazon, you must have done something inauthentic or illegitimate and that is why your seller account has been suspended. So, your POA must depict that you recognized that inauthentic behavior or mistake, have rectified it, and will not repeat the same in the future.
But, there are certain rules set by Amazon, you must remember before writing a POA or LOA only then can you reinstate Amazon suspended account within a short period.

• The Plan of Action or Letter of Appeal should consist of all the pivotal details that caused your account suspension.
• You get a time of 2 weeks and 2 days to submit your plan of action to reinstate your suspended Amazon seller account.
• Write POA wisely and to the point as Amazon will check it thoroughly and may not even give you a second opportunity to submit another POA.
• POA does not guarantee your reactivation of the suspended account.

To make sure that Amazon reads through your POA and finds it convincing enough to approve it, follow the enlisted tips.

• Identify the reasons behind your account suspension and rectify them immediately. Also, mention the process of how you resolved it.
• In case, the reason behind Amazon’s suspended seller account is minor, don’t complain about it or highlight the flaws.
• Don’t get vulnerable about the consequences you are facing after the suspension of the account. Amazon will continue to ban you irrespective of how poor or rich you are.
• Use bullet points and not paragraphs while communicating how you resolved the mistakes and dealt with the complicated situation.
• If your account is banned on a customer complaint basis, don’t put the blame on the customers. In the eCommerce industry, the customer is GOD. Blaming them will simply waste a chance to reinstate Amazon’s suspended account.

Here is a sample template of POA for your better understanding. Make sure you reframe the letter as per the key elements of your Amazon account suspension notification.

After submitting your response to Amazon, you must be desperately waiting for the response. Amazon takes a minimum of 48 hours and a maximum of 2 months to respond to your appeal. In case you are not receiving any email, don’t rush to send another appeal. Here is the timeline of your Amazon seller account suspension.

In case, Amazon denied your POA. You will get another chance to submit an improvised version of the Plan of Action to resolve the issues that triggered your account suspension.

How to Prevent Your Amazon Seller Account From Suspension?

Selling on Amazon is not easy, especially when you are selling commonly used products. In 2019, Forbes released an article on how Amazon sellers are using black hat tactics to take out their competitors. As per the same article, experts are trying to detect the sellers behind the baseless unauthentic reviews. It is said that 90% of inauthentic reviews are generated from computers. Sellers can also investigate if inauthentic reviews have been generated against them using machine learning technology and further block their reviews.

This is happening to every other Amazon seller these days. In fact, seller’s product listings are also getting hacked and replaced with images and listings of counterfeit items. As a result, Amazon finds you the culprit and you receive an Amazon seller account suspension notification. To prevent an account suspension at your best, we have composed this section with top tips. Go through this one by one and bookmark the content for future use.

1. Optimize your product listing

One of the most common reasons why Amazon suspends sellers’ accounts can be duplicate product listings. If you have more than product pages for one product by mistake, Amazon will detect it as duplicate and suspend your account. Hence, product listing optimization is an important process to perform. Make sure the following factors do not merge while creating more than one product page.

• Product brand
• Product’s unique details such as ISBN and UPC
• Color, size, and features of the products

There are possibilities that you have done product listing properly but black hat sellers vandalize your product listing and customers will see the wrong details. To prevent yourself from Amazon account suspension due to black hay sellers’ interruption, we have a hack. Availing Amazon product management services will help you in making sure that your product listings are correct. Experts will check the listing every few weeks to rectify them when required.

Experts will take complete control of your Amazon store and perform monitoring and auditing your product listing on a regular basis. As a result, you will see there is no mistake in the product descriptions, titles, images, and product pages.

2. Provide out-of-box customer services

Your Amazon account suspension can also be based on customer complaints. So, it’s very much clear that every seller on Amazon will have to be customer-obsessed. As an online retailer, you will come across many types of customers, loyal, angry, impressed, annoyed, and many. But, you will have to treat them equally and provide the best customer service ever.

Some of the best practices of providing customer services to potential and existing buyers are:

• Solving queries on time
• Solving negative feedback
• Managing shipment of your orders
• Easy return of your orders
• Easy and quicker refund policy
• Providing clear product details

Not only this, Amazon has set some performance targets that every seller has to achieve to become a customer-oriented seller. Those are:

• Your order defect rate has to be less than 1%
• Your late shipment rate has to be less than 4%
• Your pre-fulfillment order cancellation rate has to be less than 2.5%

Taking care of each of the aforementioned factors can save you from Amazon account suspension. But, it is indeed a very daunting task but also very important because a little bit of negligence can lead you to suspension of your Amazon seller account. That is why hiring Amazon Virtual Assistants (VAs) can save you from future account suspension and upscale your eCommerce business. VAs will even personally apologize to the customers for every small mistake and show gratitude for buying your products. They will make sure that your reputation in the market is always high.

3. Sell only legitimate products

Amazon has its own rules and regulations, no matter how user-friendly or trendy a product you are selling, it should be the right product as per Amazon selling policies. And in case, the product does not fall in the right category, nobody can save your account from suspension.

Amazon has complete instructions and guidelines on which products sellers can sell and how, and which products are considered counterfeit. If you want to prevent yourself from getting suspended or banned, you must go through and remember every guideline. Don’t have this much sufficient time? Well, avail yourself of Amazon store development services. Experts will develop your online store on Amazon from the scratch and make sure every product you are selling is not counterfeit.

4. Personalize your Amazon store

Even if you are following the Amazon rules by book, you may still receive an email regarding your Amazon account suspension. As you know your account can also get banned because of the other sellers on Amazon. You can protect your brand by personalizing your Amazon store. The more uniqueness will be brought by you the lesser chance your competitors will get to put blame on you for piracy or duplicacy. Some of the best practices for keeping black hat sellers at bay are mentioned below.

• Accurate data entry for Amazon store products listings.
• Hiring product photo editors for uploading personalized and well-edited product images.
• Paste your brand logo on the products while packaging.
• Spread brand awareness using effective Amazon marketing strategies.

This is how you can prevent your Amazon account from getting suspended. When Amazon bans your account, you will necessarily get multiple opportunities to submit appeals for your account reactivation. So, better prevent your account by performing the best practices and upscale your business peacefully.

Conclusion

After going through this much detailed guide, we hope all your doubts regarding your suspended Amazon seller account. The tips and tricks mentioned in this article will surely help you get back your Amazon account in no time and soon you will flourish in the eCommerce market. In case you still have any questions or are looking for detailed information on any particular section, write to us at info@data4ecom.com and hear from our representatives in a very short time.