Selling Lego on Amazon.com

[newbie77]

12 minutes ago, nick625 said:

WTH! It looks like Amazon is trying to get rid of small sellers.

B-A is pretty big most likely combined of 2 X asherin.

[newbie77]

1 minute ago, Bold-Arrow said:

i  did today and reached out to the manufacturer. hopefully they are willing to remove the complaint 

yes i can sell, but the email says my account is under review. 

hmm ... so manufacturer sells on amazon and decided to complaint against you? is this what happened? 

usually they send emails asking you to remove the listing. did you get that? 

[Bold-Arrow]

Just now, newbie77 said:

hmm ... so manufacturer sells on amazon and decided to complaint against you? is this what happened? 

usually they send emails asking you to remove the listing. did you get that? 

nope, no email. i haven't sold since nov of 2015, so timing makes no sense. 

[newbie77]

8 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

nope, no email. i haven't sold since nov of 2015, so timing makes no sense. 

wow ! nuts!!! 

[Migration]

Delete your old listings folks...

[Phil B]

7 hours ago, Migration said:

Delete your old listings folks...

Do you need to wait until the 6 month return period is over before doing this, or what happens if an item gets returned for which you no longer have a listing?

[Bold-Arrow]

56 minutes ago, Phil B said:

Do you need to wait until the 6 month return period is over before doing this, or what happens if an item gets returned for which you no longer have a listing?

6 months ? 

[Phil B]

6 months ? 

Hyperbole, driven by recent comments from folks saying they got late return requests.

[cladner]

1 hour ago, Phil B said:

Do you need to wait until the 6 month return period is over before doing this, or what happens if an item gets returned for which you no longer have a listing?

the hounds of hell come a knockin' on your door and you must sacrifice your youngest child born on the 8th day of the 8th month.  bridge to cross when you come to it.  i'm happy i finally got back to 100% health now that i made it through the  1 year anniversary of my one and only seller ding from angry grandpa who's grandkids laughed at him when he opened up the 18th minifigure disney pack and it wasn't the one that he predicted to the kids ( 2 ursula's and no maleficient) who proceeded to laugh profusely at said angry incorrect grandpa who judging by my limited interaction has never been wrong or at least told they were wrong and laughed at in his entire life.  sometimes there is a deeper mission in selling which might be unknown to the seller and the buyer.  i think in mis-smooshing that ursula's trident, i might have done some greater good.  however, now i take the responsibility of sealed minifigure identification more serious with a 5 step quality assurance process to make sure no boomer is ever laughed at by the grandkids without intending that to happen as a part of the buying experience.

Edited May 18, 2017 by cladner

[asharerin]

16 hours ago, Bold-Arrow said:

so amazon placed my account under review due to a trade mark infringement complaint over an item that i have neither sold nor stocked over 18 months ago. lovely. 

Hang in there mate you will get through the review.

 

16 hours ago, Sharkeye said:

This is unbelievable.... The emotional distress of selling on Amazon is almost too much

Make sure you have backup plans for your reselling business. Relying soley on Amazon as a business partner is not a sound strategy. 3P on that platform is not forever.

5 hours ago, Phil B said:

Hyperbole, driven by recent comments from folks saying they got late return requests.

Amazon is like Costco - lifetime satisfaction guarantee. We received a return last week for a baby carrier we sold March 2016 FBA. Other sellers have had returns approved by Amazon for 2 years or longer. But that is precisely why Amazon gets the traffic ti does and why Prime members are willing to pay sky high prices.

If you receive a return to FBA for an item you have deleted it will be listed in unfulfillable inventory. From there you can create the listing again and the FNSKU "should" be the same as the old deleted listing. If not you can simply recall it and send it back in or pay to have it destroyed.

[Kenxxx]

If you recall, I had 2 A-to-Z scammer FBM claims back in early January - buyers claimed "Not as Described" with notes that items, in fact, were never received. Money out of my pocket, and dings on my metrics.  Well, just a couple days ago, my seller performance metrics have finally returned to "golden" - 0.0% ODR. So there ya go... that's how long it takes... one A-to-Z claim and you can expect it to hang over you like a shadow for about 4 months.

That makes me think about next Xmas season... if you're a small seller and get a scammer ding you in late July, your approval to ship FBM during the holiday season could be toast. 

Edited May 19, 2017 by Kenxxx

[landphieran]

I just got with the following via a message on Amazon from Amazon customer Office Of Compliance.

Greetings, It has come to our attention that you are currently selling the following item(s) on Amazon: XXXXXXXX JDI Investments LLC via [link removed] is the sole authorized seller of these products via the Amazon marketplace. As such we request that you remove the listings from Amazon within 48 hours. If you feel you have received this notice in error or you have documentation stating that you are an authorized reseller of these products, please contact Jacinda Lohman, the legal representative for Asmodee. Her contact information can be found in the attached PDF. We understand that you might have purchased these products without understanding the selling restrictions. Please contact us and let us know where you purchased your product so that others are not similarly impacted. Thank you for your timely attention to this matter. Office of Compliance Board Game Retail

I'm obviously going to remove the listing, but i find this odd as I purchased the item from Asmodee themselves? I find it insane they can block me from selling an item that is rightfully mine. This is scary though as one day you could purchase some large orders from anywhere and just get retroactively blocked from selling it based on the platform.

[ichiroll]

1 minute ago, landphieran said:

I just got with the following via a message on Amazon from Amazon customer Office Of Compliance.

Greetings, It has come to our attention that you are currently selling the following item(s) on Amazon: XXXXXXXX JDI Investments LLC via [link removed] is the sole authorized seller of these products via the Amazon marketplace. As such we request that you remove the listings from Amazon within 48 hours. If you feel you have received this notice in error or you have documentation stating that you are an authorized reseller of these products, please contact Jacinda Lohman, the legal representative for Asmodee. Her contact information can be found in the attached PDF. We understand that you might have purchased these products without understanding the selling restrictions. Please contact us and let us know where you purchased your product so that others are not similarly impacted. Thank you for your timely attention to this matter. Office of Compliance Board Game Retail

I'm obviously going to remove the listing, but i find this odd as I purchased the item from Asmodee themselves? I find it insane they can block me from selling an item that is rightfully mine. This is scary though as one day you could purchase some large orders from anywhere and just get retroactively blocked from selling it based on the platform.

This is part of their newest iteration of "Brand Registry."

If you own the trademark/brand and are approved onto the registry, you could clamp down on other resellers.  If you are an authorized reseller of the brand and purchased it wholesale, all you have to do is contact them and clear this up.  If you are purchasing things cheap through retail and trying to resell as an un-official reseller, you may be SOL if they decide they don't want you doing that.

Rightfully yours or not doesn't matter.  Amazon is not a "true" marketplace like eBay.  eBay puts the burden of policing the use of your brand on the brand itself.  Amazon has received so much pressure that it's putting in a system to allow "brands" to police.

In this case, Amazon isn't blocking you but the brand.  If you bought it through wholesale channel, then contact the brand and clear up the misunderstanding.  If your main distribution channel is Amazon, get terms in writing so that you are allowed to sell on Amazon and that they have to give you advanced notice in writing if they are going to change that policy.

[newbie77]

6 minutes ago, ichiroll said:

This is part of their newest iteration of "Brand Registry."

If you own the trademark/brand and are approved onto the registry, you could clamp down on other resellers.  If you are an authorized reseller of the brand and purchased it wholesale, all you have to do is contact them and clear this up.  If you are purchasing things cheap through retail and trying to resell as an un-official reseller, you may be SOL if they decide they don't want you doing that.

Rightfully yours or not doesn't matter.  Amazon is not a "true" marketplace like eBay.  eBay puts the burden of policing the use of your brand on the brand itself.  Amazon has received so much pressure that it's putting in a system to allow "brands" to police.

In this case, Amazon isn't blocking you but the brand.  If you bought it through wholesale channel, then contact the brand and clear up the misunderstanding.  If your main distribution channel is Amazon, get terms in writing so that you are allowed to sell on Amazon and that they have to give you advanced notice in writing if they are going to change that policy.

if you want to wait for email from amazon. eventually you will get that as well. 

the brand owner/authorized person will do a test buy. and after that you will get a nasty email from amazon.

before getting to that level; contact them and offer to sell the inventory back to them

[landphieran]

10 minutes ago, ichiroll said:

This is part of their newest iteration of "Brand Registry."

If you own the trademark/brand and are approved onto the registry, you could clamp down on other resellers.  If you are an authorized reseller of the brand and purchased it wholesale, all you have to do is contact them and clear this up.  If you are purchasing things cheap through retail and trying to resell as an un-official reseller, you may be SOL if they decide they don't want you doing that.

Rightfully yours or not doesn't matter.  Amazon is not a "true" marketplace like eBay.  eBay puts the burden of policing the use of your brand on the brand itself.  Amazon has received so much pressure that it's putting in a system to allow "brands" to police.

In this case, Amazon isn't blocking you but the brand.  If you bought it through wholesale channel, then contact the brand and clear up the misunderstanding.  If your main distribution channel is Amazon, get terms in writing so that you are allowed to sell on Amazon and that they have to give you advanced notice in writing if they are going to change that policy.

Thank you for this. I appreciate the insight. 

I purchased these items directly from the manufacturer in a "retail manner", so I do not have the authorized documents I need nor can i get them unfortunately as Asmodee has a "NO Third-party marketplace policy". They are moving to sell exclusively to B&M.

Good thing i don't have many of them :/ - Maybe i'll just sell them off quick

Edited May 19, 2017 by landphieran

[DadsAFOL]

Good thing i don't have many of them :/ - Maybe i'll just sell them off quick

Well you've got at least 48 hours. Fire sale time.

[Robb]

I just got with the following via a message on Amazon from Amazon customer Office Of Compliance.

Greetings, It has come to our attention that you are currently selling the following item(s) on Amazon: XXXXXXXX JDI Investments LLC via [link removed] is the sole authorized seller of these products via the Amazon marketplace. As such we request that you remove the listings from Amazon within 48 hours. If you feel you have received this notice in error or you have documentation stating that you are an authorized reseller of these products, please contact Jacinda Lohman, the legal representative for Asmodee. Her contact information can be found in the attached PDF. We understand that you might have purchased these products without understanding the selling restrictions. Please contact us and let us know where you purchased your product so that others are not similarly impacted. Thank you for your timely attention to this matter. Office of Compliance Board Game Retail
I'm obviously going to remove the listing, but i find this odd as I purchased the item from Asmodee themselves? I find it insane they can block me from selling an item that is rightfully mine. This is scary though as one day you could purchase some large orders from anywhere and just get retroactively blocked from selling it based on the platform.

Amazon needs to stop this ish, they are on a bad path.

Why don't they just label "this seller is not authorized by the manufacturer to sell this item. Manufacture warranties and obligations do not apply to this sale."

Something like the international electronics warning.

[ravenb99]

4 minutes ago, Robb said:

Amazon needs to stop this ish, they are on a bad path.

Why don't they just label "this seller is not authorized by the manufacturer to sell this item. Manufacture warranties and obligations do not apply to this sale."

Something like the international electronics warning.

Same reason all platforms do it. They want to get as many sales / fees in before the manufacturer steps in.  Every site knows the companies that don't like unauthorized vendor sales.  They just choose to let them by until said vendor steps in. 

[Robb]

Same reason all platforms do it. They want to get as many sales / fees in before the manufacturer steps in.  Every site knows the companies that don't like unauthorized vendor sales.  They just choose to let them by until said vendor steps in. 

Why do the manufacturers and vendor concerns matter more?

It seems to me like keeping the wheels of free commerce well greased will make Amazon more money in the long run.

Are they afraid of laws and regulations?

Are they afraid of a manufacture strike?

When you say others like Amazon who are you talking about? No company has been like this before not to this scale. If they wanted to attempt to own internet commerce they could make a run at it. I think that owning the secondary market for everything is a huge part of doing that. They already own the primary market 5 fold over the nearest competitor, Walmart. Ubiquitous secondary market is the path to complete control. The manufactures will come back (if they ever really leave) once Amazon is the only game in town, and they are pretty much already there.

They need to start telling manufactures to kick rocks. These are secondary market sales!

[ravenb99]

7 minutes ago, Robb said:

Why do the manufacturers and vendor concerns matter more?

It seems to me like keeping the wheels of free commerce well greased will make Amazon more money in the long run.

Are they afraid of laws and regulations?

Are they afraid of a manufacture strike?

When you say others like Amazon who are you talking about? No company has been like this before not to this scale. If they wanted to attempt to own internet commerce they could make a run at it. I think that owning the secondary market for everything is a huge part of doing that. They already own the primary market 5 fold over the nearest competitor, Walmart. Ubiquitous secondary market is the path to complete control. The manufactures will come back (if they ever really leave) once Amazon is the only game in town, and they are pretty much already there.

They need to start telling manufactures to kick rocks. These are secondary market sales!

The manufacturers do not want there brand name diluted if they can prevent it.  Always comes back to warranty.   They do not want to honor warranty from 3rd party sellers selling there items, especially if less than msrp and not direct from an authorized retailer.  If a buyer buys a new item from a 3P seller and has an issue they still want to be covered under the manufacturer warranty.  When they go to try for warranty they are denied as they have no receipt from an authorized retailer.  This makes the customer upset and hurts there brand name.  To prevent this some but not all companies do these type of restrictions or go after unauthorized sellers. 

All platforms to some extent have restrictions / Vero type issues.  Amazon eBay Walmart etsy overstock.  Pretty much any site has gone through it.  

Stores or e-commerce will very rarely tell a company to kick rocks.  Costco has gone to battle a few times.  They stopped carrying coke back in 2009 over a pricing dispute.  It was very short lived. Was fun to see as they pulled all the products. Salvaged it out which was nice for me.  Then was back on shelves a few days later when both quickly resolved.

A lot of companies are losing sales to 3p merchants.  One reason why some designer brands have pulled out of retailers that discount heavily which in turn hurts that brick and mortar store as well.   That merchandise winds up on e-commerce sites hurting the manufacturer sales.  

Basically one big cycle and the main source wants to monetize as much as they can. 

[Robb]

The manufacturers do not want there brand name diluted if they can prevent it.  Always comes back to warranty.   They do not want to honor warranty from 3rd party sellers selling there items, especially if less than msrp and not direct from an authorized retailer.  If a buyer buys a new item from a 3P seller and has an issue they still want to be covered under the manufacturer warranty.  When they go to try for warranty they are denied as they have no receipt from an authorized retailer.  This makes the customer upset and hurts there brand name.  To prevent this some but not all companies do these type of restrictions or go after unauthorized sellers. 
All platforms to some extent have restrictions / Vero type issues.  Amazon eBay Walmart etsy overstock.  Pretty much any site has gone through it.  
Stores or e-commerce will very rarely tell a company to kick rocks.  Costco has gone to battle a few times.  They stopped carrying coke back in 2009 over a pricing dispute.  It was very short lived. Was fun to see as they pulled all the products. Salvaged it out which was nice for me.  Then was back on shelves a few days later when both quickly resolved.
A lot of companies are losing sales to 3p merchants.  One reason why some designer brands have pulled out of retailers that discount heavily which in turn hurts that brick and mortar store as well.   That merchandise winds up on e-commerce sites hurting the manufacturer sales.  
Basically one big cycle and the main source wants to monetize as much as they can. 

Just put non-warranty sales in a clearly labeled non-warranty area!

Amazon is avoiding this for some odd reason.

The main listing could say very little about the third party offerings. Just near the price "additional non-manufacture approved listing starting at $$$"

They should take away the buy box from us and just have our lowest price near the buy box.

On check out they could add a warning page! These items, XXX, are not covered by the manufactures warranty. Amazons full return policies still apply.

I get what you are saying. I'm just saying Amazon is starting to drop the ball on a real market shift/take over.

[ichiroll]

17 hours ago, landphieran said:

Thank you for this. I appreciate the insight. 

I purchased these items directly from the manufacturer in a "retail manner", so I do not have the authorized documents I need nor can i get them unfortunately as Asmodee has a "NO Third-party marketplace policy". They are moving to sell exclusively to B&M.

Good thing i don't have many of them :/ - Maybe i'll just sell them off quick

yup, I'd sell them off quick or shift over to eBay.

[ichiroll]

17 hours ago, newbie77 said:

if you want to wait for email from amazon. eventually you will get that as well. 

the brand owner/authorized person will do a test buy. and after that you will get a nasty email from amazon.

before getting to that level; contact them and offer to sell the inventory back to them

do they still require a test buy?

My understanding was that Amazon requires a test buy only if the brand owner suspects the item being sold is counterfeit or misrepresenting the brand.

[ichiroll]

 

8 hours ago, ravenb99 said:

The manufacturers do not want there brand name diluted if they can prevent it.  Always comes back to warranty.   They do not want to honor warranty from 3rd party sellers selling there items, especially if less than msrp and not direct from an authorized retailer.  If a buyer buys a new item from a 3P seller and has an issue they still want to be covered under the manufacturer warranty.  When they go to try for warranty they are denied as they have no receipt from an authorized retailer.  This makes the customer upset and hurts there brand name.  To prevent this some but not all companies do these type of restrictions or go after unauthorized sellers. 

All platforms to some extent have restrictions / Vero type issues.  Amazon eBay Walmart etsy overstock.  Pretty much any site has gone through it.  

Stores or e-commerce will very rarely tell a company to kick rocks.  Costco has gone to battle a few times.  They stopped carrying coke back in 2009 over a pricing dispute.  It was very short lived. Was fun to see as they pulled all the products. Salvaged it out which was nice for me.  Then was back on shelves a few days later when both quickly resolved.

A lot of companies are losing sales to 3p merchants.  One reason why some designer brands have pulled out of retailers that discount heavily which in turn hurts that brick and mortar store as well.   That merchandise winds up on e-commerce sites hurting the manufacturer sales.  

Basically one big cycle and the main source wants to monetize as much as they can. 

 

I believe this to be one of the biggest reasons.  Price undercutting.

Amazon is such a fierce place of competition that prices are always being undercut.  Brands need to protect their "authorized" distribution channels.  They can't have 3P merchants that bought the goods on clearance somewhere, re-list on Amazon for less than what authorized companies are selling for.  Many brands have strict regulations against listing on Amazon, and if you are going to list, can only list at MSRP.  

What protects our BP group is that we are in a commodity that appreciates over time (hopefully most of the time), so we are not undercutting any of the TLG main channels of distribution.  We are just adding to the demand of the product, which I'm sure they are happy to have.

 

[exciter1]

Again with FBM, buyer cancelled order after I created a shipping label, but luckily I hadn't shipped yet.  I requested a refund for the shipping label, which could take months.  Today, I receive a defect for no valid label/delivery for this order, while the refund is still clearly pending on the label. Amazon, your system is working flawlessly.