Selling through Amazon FBA

[Bricklectic]

Came across a great write up: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/a-detailed-guide-about-a-to-z-claims/441411

of interest to me: 

”Items Not Received” A-Z claims

While in the past, sellers used to be able to win these claims or at least have them funded by Amazon with just tracking, Amazon has recently gotten a lot stricter and is in most cases of non-receipt complaints requesting sellers to provide a proof of delivery with the buyer’s signature.

So even if you respond properly, the claim might bounce back as requiring a response and end up being granted and Seller Funded.

The only guaranteed way how to win them is having a tracking link showing delivery + pdf file with the buyer’s signature. A tracking link showing delivery with a signature of the addressee will be often sufficient, unless the buyer appeals.

Hope that info isnt correct. 

edited to add: just realized that likely isnt referring to when shipping is bought through amazon.

Edited March 25, 2021 by Bricklectic

[Bricklectic]

So that was pretty quick. Just received an email 20 minutes after claim was opened.

"We have granted an A-to-z Guarantee claim of $614.84 on order 111-xxxxxxx-xxxxxxx. We have covered the cost of the refund and have not counted the claim against your Order Defect Rate."

My account couldnt have handled an order defect so Im pretty relieved. Thanks guys.

 

[Bold-Arrow]

19 minutes ago, Bricklectic said:

Came across a great write up: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/a-detailed-guide-about-a-to-z-claims/441411

of interest to me: 

”Items Not Received” A-Z claims

While in the past, sellers used to be able to win these claims or at least have them funded by Amazon with just tracking, Amazon has recently gotten a lot stricter and is in most cases of non-receipt complaints requesting sellers to provide a proof of delivery with the buyer’s signature.

So even if you respond properly, the claim might bounce back as requiring a response and end up being granted and Seller Funded.

The only guaranteed way how to win them is having a tracking link showing delivery + pdf file with the buyer’s signature. A tracking link showing delivery with a signature of the addressee will be often sufficient, unless the buyer appeals.

Hope that info isnt correct. 

edited to add: just realized that likely isnt referring to when shipping is bought through amazon.

this is pretty outdated and precedes the new policy 

[gmpirate]

So, how long does Amazon keep sending the "compliance requirements" emails?  They deleted the listing weeks ago and stranded one item.  I closed the listing on my end and requested it be sent back -- weeks ago.   Still, the emails keep coming . . .

[Mark Twain]

3 hours ago, gmpirate said:

So, how long does Amazon keep sending the "compliance requirements" emails?  They deleted the listing weeks ago and stranded one item.  I closed the listing on my end and requested it be sent back -- weeks ago.   Still, the emails keep coming . . .

I got my first set of notifications today. Has anyone tried clicking on the appeal > the requested document does not apply to me? 

[redcell]

29 minutes ago, Mark Twain said:

I got my first set of notifications today. Has anyone tried clicking on the appeal > the requested document does not apply to me? 

Yes, I've tried it with other products.  It essentially causes them to review to see if the item in question is a toy.  I've never gotten anywhere with it.

[Mark Twain]

Yes, I've tried it with other products.  It essentially causes them to review to see if the item in question is a toy.  I've never gotten anywhere with it.

So I take it the protocol remains unchanged: deactivate and delete listing and hide? I guess the only solution is to sell through as quickly as you can and keep most of your inventory delisted.

[Darth_Raichu]

I have learned to not getting stressed out about this.  About 40% of the time they requested documents on my listings with 0 inventory. 

If I can't sell on the river then I use the bay

[jbacunn]

If it's a listing with a lot of sellers someone usually will submit the documentation. If it's a listing with only a few sellers it's more likely it will get pulled.

[redcell]

6 hours ago, jbacunn said:

If it's a listing with a lot of sellers someone usually will submit the documentation. If it's a listing with only a few sellers it's more likely it will get pulled.

Is it an all or nothing thing in that the listing is pulled for all sellers or allowed to remain?  It's never made sense to me why each seller on a listing would have to provide the same documentation, but would make more sense if the documentation request could be satisfied by a single seller providing the requested documentation.  I've never been clear about that and never been able to get a straight answer from Amazon.

[jbacunn]

3 hours ago, redcell said:

Is it an all or nothing thing in that the listing is pulled for all sellers or allowed to remain?  It's never made sense to me why each seller on a listing would have to provide the same documentation, but would make more sense if the documentation request could be satisfied by a single seller providing the requested documentation.  I've never been clear about that and never been able to get a straight answer from Amazon.

I don't know either. I only know I've been flagged on some listings and by the documentation deadline the flag was removed and the listing was still active and I've had some where the flag was not removed and the listing was removed. So the only conclusion I can draw is that one of the sellers submitted the necessary documentation for those listings that remained active and the flag was removed for everyone but I really don't know for sure what happened. 

[Mark Twain]

Make that five more compliance requests. Neat. 

[redcell]

I'm up to 78

[Mark Twain]

Just now, redcell said:

I'm up to 78

Christ. What's your plan at this point? Most of the sellers on the Amazon forums are just deleting and moving on, but this doesn't tenable long-term. 

[redcell]

1 minute ago, Mark Twain said:

Christ. What's your plan at this point? Most of the sellers on the Amazon forums are just deleting and moving on, but this doesn't tenable long-term. 

At this point, I'm going to wait and see how it plays out.  I've been expecting this day to come since I received my first CPC request in 2018.

[cobrakai]

Compliance requests seemed to be focused on the second tier toy brands for me (Bandai, NECA, etc.), older items, or listings made without the correct UPC.  A lot of those items are listed as 14+, but Amazon still wants the documents and denies any appeals without documents. For most of these, the distributors seem to have safety documents, but no CPC document for some reason. Any non-exclusive Hasbro or Mattel item that was listed with the correct UPC has been a non issue or resolved. I had one listing get removed for a week when no one fixed it, and now it's back up and still asking for documents with the same original deadline date.  Such a mess and it has now started to impact my buying.

[SpaceFan9]

I took a quick look at this yesterday, and it appears to be the annual CPC review.  Last year, the process was pretty easy to get items cleared.  

I'm up to 65 requests.  Not a competition that I want to win.

Edited March 26, 2021 by SpaceFan9

[Bricklectic]

I just got my first 3 compliance requests. Weird thing is email just hit but on website says it was from a few days ago. Also when I deleted one listing with compliance (had no inventory anyways) I instantly got a new compliance on a different listing. Weird. Fun never ends with amazon. 

[redcell]

Just now, SpaceFan9 said:

I took a quick look at this yesterday, and it appears to be the annual CPC review.  Last year, the process was pretty easy process to get items cleared.  

I'm up to 65 requests.  Not a competition that I want to win.

The process is a bigger PIA this year because they won't let you proceed without the CPC and testing reports.

[river41]

1 hour ago, redcell said:

The process is a bigger PIA this year because they won't let you proceed without the CPC and testing reports.

amazon is taking a lot of heat from congress and the senate for unsafe and counterfeit products being sold on their site. This is probably their reaction. Unfortunately there is not a lot of common sense involved with their response particularly considering the implementation comes from bots. In theory if amazon sold the product they have the documents and there should not be these requests on these products but unfortunately that is not the case.

Their priority is to protect their reputation and get the senate off their case they could not care if in the process they damage and hurt some 3p sellers.

In the collectible sports category they just implemented that every item sold needs to be authenticated by a small list of third party firms. With that one decision they basically destroyed numerous sellers business overnight

 

amazon seems to be trending that you will either need a chain from the manufacturer to you or sell your own branded products with the appropriate documentation 

 

[Darth_Raichu]

3 hours ago, cobrakai said:

Compliance requests seemed to be focused on the second tier toy brands for me (Bandai, NECA, etc.), older items, or listings made without the correct UPC.  A lot of those items are listed as 14+, but Amazon still wants the documents and denies any appeals without documents. For most of these, the distributors seem to have safety documents, but no CPC document for some reason. Any non-exclusive Hasbro or Mattel item that was listed with the correct UPC has been a non issue or resolved. I had one listing get removed for a week when no one fixed it, and now it's back up and still asking for documents with the same original deadline date.  Such a mess and it has now started to impact my buying.

Yep.  Amzn wanted CPC document for items clearly marked 13+ and there is no such thing.  They would not listen even when I provided picture of the item with 13+ mark on it.  This was how I know the whole thing was BS.

[marcandre]

I got one for Hedwig. Flip window is closed on that so no biggie. It's going to be a headache on stuff with low seller counts. 

[gmpirate]

just received an email with 5 requests.  All long since retired and sold out years ago except for one Easter Set.

[brickolodon]

What a day - got 157 requests. Week ago was be able to clear previous ones to just one.

[chrisynd]

"Product Compliance Requests

Requests: 392"

Just today.

Sigh.

What a pain...

EDIT:

Looks like I'm getting a live count. 18 minutes later and we're up to...

"Requests: 403"

Even if I could hypothetically provide them, can you imagine the amount of time required to request from the manufacturer and obtain the individual documents for all these listings and then manage the flow through to Amazon CS? That'd be ...a job.

Edited March 26, 2021 by chrisynd