Selling Lego on Amazon.com

[jbacunn]

I got nuked too for Lego and Funko. They are coming for the small timers and the FBM sellers. I’ve been selling Lego on Amazon for almost 11 years. Never had any major issues. Perfect feedback. They don’t care. I’ve been selling more on Bricklink lately which is an infinitely better experience as a seller and I’ve been buying way less the past couple of years anyway so I’ll be ok. It’s just a damn shame this is the way they are treating people who have busted their rear ends being good sellers and making them a lot of money over the years.

[scatttcat]

Same email. I have 45 pending orders currently, any idea what happens to those? The email kind of states they cannot be sold and I must create a removal order... but I am wondering if that is inventory not attached to a sale.

Man this sucks, talk about a gut punch

[gmpirate]

Ouch!  Like they couldn’t just wait two weeks.   Think it’s their AI making changes behind the scenes 😛

I guess what would be really bad is if you guys were big sellers with a big inventory.

[gmpirate]

It would be really helpful if Amazon would state the sales threshold they are looking so so people could plan accordingly.  But of course they could just change their mind . . .

[tk79]

1 minute ago, gmpirate said:

It would be really helpful if Amazon would state the sales threshold they are looking so so people could plan accordingly.  But of course they could just change their mind . . .

yeah, this makes me actually want to scale back and get out more so than increase my volume. no idea what numbers they are looking for

sorry for those of you dealing with this, such an amazon way to handle it in the middle of q4

[brickvoyeur]

5 hours ago, gmpirate said:

It would be really helpful if Amazon would state the sales threshold they are looking so so people could plan accordingly.  But of course they could just change their mind . . .

Oof, this wasn't enough to stop me from getting the email.  Glad I slowed down my buying after the pandemic rush brought too much interest to reselling. But I didn't think this was going to be nail for the coffin, I honestly expected Amazon to remove their essentially non-existent gate for a completely non-existent gate. 

Sellers have noticed, and I'm seeing prices dropping as people try to unload what they can before this takes effect and listings get removed. eBay's gonna be brutal if too many people are forced to change their primary sales venue. 

@emazers knows the path forward... if you are brave enough to take it. 

 

Edited December 5 by brickvoyeur

[legorunner]

Oh boy, received the email of death as well. Merry Christmas from Amazon! 

6 hours ago, scatttcat said:

I have 45 pending orders currently, any idea what happens to those? T

For what it's worth, I had an order shipped a couple of hours ago that was pending, so presumably they are still going to ship these. I was also able to add one of my items to cart still from my wife's account, so at least for now perhaps we can get a few more sales in...if you can get the buy box while prices collapse. 

^^^ Amazon also decided to troll me when I logged into my account this morning. 

Well if anyone who survived the culling is interested in a bulk purchase, DM me and perhaps we can work something out. I'm not in fire sale mode, but wouldn't mind offloading the bulk of my inventory. 

[skinsfan0521]

Would any of you be interested in sharing sales volume? I know that one of you said 45 orders in 60 days, someone else had 126 orders in 3 days, but no mention of sales $ anywhere or volume ($ and orders) throughout the year, not just during q4. I'm thinking that may play a part too? 

Either way, that really sucks for anyone getting this email!! So far, I've been spared, but this definitely makes me nervous to continue to buy new inventory. It seems that the email going around starting a few months ago was different and this one specifically calls out volume as a criteria (without giving any details of course). 

[brickvoyeur]

  

48 minutes ago, skinsfan0521 said:

Would any of you be interested in sharing sales volume? I know that one of you said 45 orders in 60 days, someone else had 126 orders in 3 days, but no mention of sales $ anywhere or volume ($ and orders) throughout the year, not just during q4. I'm thinking that may play a part too? 

Either way, that really sucks for anyone getting this email!! So far, I've been spared, but this definitely makes me nervous to continue to buy new inventory. It seems that the email going around starting a few months ago was different and this one specifically calls out volume as a criteria (without giving any details of course). 

Averaged about 30 units per day over the year, skewed obviously by the Q4 rush. But still, consistent sales. 

 Listings went inactive

Hitting the "Fix listing issue" button receives:

 

[exciter1]

3 minutes ago, brickvoyeur said:

  

Averaged about 30 units per day over the year, skewed obviously by the Q4 rush. But still, consistent sales. 

 Listings went inactive

Hitting the "Fix listing issue" button receives:

 

Have any of you received the letter who were previously approved to sell LEGO and Funko, or grandfathered sellers?

[carini26]

1 minute ago, brickvoyeur said:

  

Averaged about 30 units per day over the year, skewed obviously by the Q4 rush. But still, consistent sales. 

 Listings went inactive

Hitting the "Fix listing issue" button receives:

 

Seriously? That math works out to be 10,000+ per year. What’s your fulfillment mix between FBM and FBA?

 

Really sorry to those folks waking up to this. Know there are 3PS out there who will sell excess inventory on your behalf.

[brickvoyeur]

21 minutes ago, carini26 said:

Seriously? That math works out to be 10,000+ per year. What’s your fulfillment mix between FBM and FBA?

 

Really sorry to those folks waking up to this. Know there are 3PS out there who will sell excess inventory on your behalf.

At this point I slowed considerably on FBA, so it's about 70/30. 

I look forward to not getting all of my stuff back, even though "If you would like to have this inventory removed to you, Amazon will cover the cost of the inventory removal". 

100% feedback, and perfect account health this year. Some old negatives from years ago, but 98% lifetime rating. 

Seriously glad I cut my buying back. When did I start chiming in about all the Brickcucks and facebook groups? Early 2023. Nobody will be as boned as they are, most of the products since their numbers started growing simply haven't had the chance to appreciate. 

Amazon sales venue looks to be locked based on the application error, and lots of sellers having to flood eBay, Mercari, and other places to unload product. Prices on Amazon for those who remain look to jump (Santa's Sleigh literally was at 300+ sellers at one point, competition across the board literally being taken off the table), like back in the day when I was grandfathered in... those were the days. All other venues are going to crash hard with the influx of people needing to dump stuff there. 

 

Edit: You can watch this in real time. Just find a previously overloaded listing and hit the refresh button from time to time. Watch the seller numbers dropping

Edited December 5 by brickvoyeur

[redcell]

Cue the reseller masterminds on social media doing a hard pivot to preaching the importance of diversification in 3…2…1…

I feel bad for the folks who were/are just getting into reselling and, based on all of the advice peddled by the content creators, are sitting on Amazon quantities of inventory without access to the platform.  Competition will be rough on other platforms.

[tk79]

49 minutes ago, brickvoyeur said:

  Averaged about 30 units per day over the year, skewed obviously by the Q4 rush. But still, consistent sales.

That's a much higher number than I was expecting. 😨  Will be interesting/scary to see if this is being rolled out across a number of days or happened to everyone on their list all at once.

[legorunner]

1 hour ago, skinsfan0521 said:

Would any of you be interested in sharing sales volume?

Sufficient to say mine was well below @brickvoyeur - I was probably the definition of a small timer. It's crazy to me that 10k didn't make the cut. I was grandfathered in back when the first gate went up in what, 2016? 

I know that it is futile to look for rational behavior from AMZ, but this doesn't really make much sense to me. The platform is such a trash heap of junk / knockoffs / fakes these days across all categories, and one of their main goals seems to be just to keep prices as low as possible (removing buy box, listing deactivation for price errors). Purging reliable "small time" (still floored that 10k counts) sellers who help keep prices low through competition just doesn't make sense. I guess the fees for inventory placement weren't enough to justify shifting inventory around? If this was framed as brand protection it would make more sense. 

I too thankfully cut back this year, most of my buying was in the past month, so now I'll be deciding how much I want to try and return. Oof... 

Well, good luck to those of you still standing! 

[Mark Twain]

The logic escapes me here. If product is in the warehouse it should be easiest to sell via fulfillment, just like any other item. Removal at their cost has to be enormous, but I doubt it is anywhere near what we've had to pay for shipping and placement fees. 

[brickvoyeur]

10 minutes ago, Mark Twain said:

The logic escapes me here. If product is in the warehouse it should be easiest to sell via fulfillment, just like any other item. Removal at their cost has to be enormous, but I doubt it is anywhere near what we've had to pay for shipping and placement fees. 

It's what makes me think this was pushed by the brand. I can't think of any reason why they would blacklist FBA inventory on their own. It would make more sense to slow roll this. Stop you from sending in more inventory first, then roll forward. 

Getting stuff to them is already a logistical nightmare... I look forward to the nightmare that is getting stuff back from warehouses from coast to coast. 

[tk79]

2 minutes ago, brickvoyeur said:

It's what makes me think this was pushed by the brand.

happyfrog said they got the same for Funko and Mattel though, feels like that's a push from amz and their standard illogical actions with all different brands coming through at the same time

[Mark Twain]

2 minutes ago, brickvoyeur said:

It's what makes me think this was pushed by the brand. I can't think of any reason why they would blacklist FBA inventory on their own. It would make more sense to slow roll this. Stop you from sending in more inventory first, then roll forward. 

Getting stuff to them is already a logistical nightmare... I look forward to the nightmare that is getting stuff back from warehouses from coast to coast. 

But people are posting about Funko and Mattell, too. This makes me think its a generalized list of the top selling brands they threw a gate up. I don't even know if it is worth processing a removal order. It's not like they're going to prioritize it during the holiday season. They're just as likely to drop the gates after 1/15 or keep them up. So arbitrary. What sucks the most is the lack of warning. They used to give FBM folks months to get metrics up to sell during the holidays. I don't even think this message gave me 8 hours notice. 

[smittypop2]

I didn't get any notices and have been grandfathered in since about 2010 or maybe a few years earlier. My volume is way, way, way down from my peak years and my Lego volume is down to almost nothing. i do sell a decent amount of Funko and Mattel stuff, but not anywhere near what some of you do. Anyways, I feel bad for anyone who got axed. Did anyone see any other brands in this?? 

[Bold-Arrow]

Wonder if it is really solely volume based regardless of what the notice says. like have anyone applied to be approved to sell Lego, got approved then now it is revoked? I had to do Star Wars, Disney, Frozen and even Harry Potter over the years and so far so good. 

[NIevo]

I really don't understand how it was selected.   I only sell FBM so wonder if that is a safer bet as I didn't get the notification.   There has to be another metric as I'm not a big seller.

[tk79]

11 minutes ago, NIevo said:

I really don't understand how it was selected.   I only sell FBM so wonder if that is a safer bet as I didn't get the notification.   There has to be another metric as I'm not a big seller.

this is why i'm concerned it's getting rolled out in groups.

[skinsfan0521]

From the sounds of it, I'm at a similar volume as scattcat and brickvoyeur and haven't received any letters... yet. I'm essentially 100% FBA and got ungated with invoices about 5-6 years ago, so was not grandfathered in prior to the gates being put up many years ago. But, my volume is pretty consistent throughout the year and especially this year. It certainly bumps up a bit in Q4, but not too much. I try to have consistent sales and cash flow throughout the year rather than focusing primarily on Q4. Based on the language in the last email that people got about consistent volume, maybe that's what's saving me so far.

[Bobflip]

Do we know if this was Amazon's or TLC's idea? I guess teamhappyfrog's post about getting the same message for Mattel indicates it's Amazon going after particular brands, so presumably other platforms won't be affected, fingers crossed!