Seller Support: A Look Back
Any new Amazon Seller has heard fairy tales about THE helpful Seller Support! Anyone at Seller Support was able to help you fix or update things in your Amazon store — provided you reach the right team — raising cases and getting resolutions wasn’t always the time-consuming black hole it is today.
Overnight this fairy tale came to a close, and the helpful frontline staff was no longer able to help you even if they wanted to. Any changes in the backend of an Amazon store can now only be made by the “leadership team”. Quick and helpful actions and resolutions were replaced by canned responses and an endless loop of escalations.
Have you experienced the frustration of calling your bank for help, only to be answered by an unhelpful AI that gives templated responses, making it even harder to get the assistance you need? Well, Amazon is doing the same using those front-facing Seller Support agents to finetune their AI rather than actually help you.
Don’t get me wrong. With enough knowledge, resolving issues in Seller Central isn’t impossible, but it can be needlessly difficult. If you can tell them how to fix it, you’ll reach your goal.
Common Issues You’ll Come Across Selling on Amazon
Suspended Listings
One of the scariest performance notifications you’ll receive is your listing getting suspended. This costs money and is a constant threat hanging over your Seller journey.
The reality is that as an Amazon Seller, you’re bound to run into this issue at some point or another. There’s just no avoiding it.
Keep calm, and don’t panic! And let’s take a look at how we slay this dragon at Seller Candy.
First things first, raise a case to ask Seller Support what they believe is the reason behind your listing suspension -a long shot- I know but if it works out, you’ll save a lot of time.
After that follow these steps depending on your specific scenario:
- Product policy: Sanitize listing
- Authenticity: Annotate and upload invoices to the account health dashboard
- IP Violation: Reach out to the brand owner
- Product Safety issue: Prepare a Plan of Action to appeal.
- Hazmat: Check for hazardous ingredients and prepare SDS or SDS exemption sheet
If Amazon confirms that your listing is compliant and is still suspended, delete the ASIN for 24 hours to reset then re-upload. And if that still doesn’t work for some reason, the real-time investment comes into play — call, call, call!
Get on the phone and escalate your case to the “leadership team”, and don’t take no for an answer. Once you get through, make sure that you get the Support Manager to commit your call’s outcome in writing to your case logs.
Bad reviews:
There are two ways shoppers leave feedback:
- The Seller’s account which can only be seen on their profile
- Product reviews to be seen on the product details page
If you believe you’ve gotten an unfair bad review, here’s how to go about cleaning that stain.
Let’s start with Seller feedback:
- In your Seller Central account go to Performance – Feedback
- Find the unfair review and request its removal
- You can request removal if it’s a product review, shipping-related (FBA Sellers), or anything in violation of Amazon guidelines for reviews.
If Amazon refuses to remove the unfair review, DO NOT let them close your case. Follow up consistently and again get on the phone and don’t be afraid to escalate. If your case gets closed then you’ll just have to start all over again and it’ll just take longer to be removed.
Moving on to Product feedback:
If someone leaves you an unfair harmful review you can always request that Seller Support remove it when it violates their guidelines.
You can report abuse – from the product detail page, you can see this option next to the “Was this review helpful to you?” section.
- Write a clear reason as to why the review details are inappropriate (IMPORTANT: stick to Amazon’s guidelines no matter how frustrating you find that unfair review).
- Contact Seller Support: Amazon may, or may not, remove the reviews with real content violations.
This is a difficult process, and again as with anything with Seller Support involved, it’s time-consuming. But just like unfair Seller feedback, don’t let them close your case, and call, call, call until you can get the outcome you need.
Loss of buy box due to price tinkering
This is a fairly common issue if you’re tinkering with your pricing regularly. Amazon only allows small price adjustments within a given time frame, so make sure you adjust your product’s price gradually to avoid startling Amazon, as it often results in them taking your buy box away.
This issue usually resolves itself over time, but when it happens at a crucial time you may want to take some actions to speed up the resolution. Here’s how to go about it:
- Download the listing’s flat file (you may have to enable the ‘Category Listing’ report in the Amazon back-end).
- Edit the information in the flat file and revert the pricing back to what it was and hit save.
- To do this go to the ‘Inventory’ tab and select ‘Add Products via Upload’. Choose ‘Upload your Inventory File’ and select the file you saved.
This requires you to delete the listing for 24 hours -sounds scary I know- but it works in a pinch.
Bonus tips:
- Always troubleshoot before opening a case and save yourself some templated responses.
- Don’t always take Seller Support’s word. Most of the time they’re not sure how to resolve your problem. Try to be assertive and don’t let them lead you through their workflow.
- Don’t wait around for Seller Support to respond. Stay on top of it and keep following up.
- Stay calm and don’t lose your temper. After all, being nice can be the difference between a productive interaction and a frustrating one.
Final Thoughts
Resolving issues on Amazon has never been more difficult, no matter how you slice it. You either need a lot of knowledge on how to fix those pesky persistent Seller Support issues or you’ll need an enormous time investment and endless patience.
You’ll need to decide how valuable your time is, and how to best spend it. The good news is that there are a lot of options out there on how to outsource your Seller Central issues and get back your wasted time.
Consider using a VA to handle those time-consuming issues but keep in mind that you’ll need an expert and you’ll have to invest time and money in developing their skills and motivating them. But if you don’t want the hassle of managing a team, you can get access to a team of expert Ex-Amazon employees by using Seller Candy.
Learn How Seller Candy can take away Seller Support frustrations.
