General

For Chinese sellers to block, Amazon has made a new move. This time, the target has changed from large sellers to small and medium sellers, and the punishment method has also changed from title deduction to deduction.

A number of small and medium-sized sellers told the editor that since August 11, they have found that their store accounts have been deducted, ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. However, Amazon has not yet given a clear response to the reason for the deduction and the appeal channel.

This storm of deductions is regarded by some sellers as the aftermath of the "store closures." In fact, since May this year, Amazon has used the "Code of Conduct for Sellers" and other format clauses to ban many Chinese sellers on the platform. The main reasons are "improper use of the review function", "requesting false reviews from consumers", and "passing gifts". Card manipulation comments" and so on.

In the past three months, this wave of store closures has spread more and more. From top sellers to small and medium sellers, several top listed companies have also suffered heavy losses. According to the statistics of the Shenzhen Cross-Border E-Commerce Association, more than 50,000 Chinese sellers have been closed on Amazon's platform, causing industry losses of more than 100 billion yuan.

If the reason for the store closures is that some cross-border e-commerce sellers are suspected of violating regulations and manipulating comments, there is no traceable reason for the deductions this time.

Unknown reason for collective deduction

The cause of the deduction storm was that two weeks ago, a seller discovered that the balance of his store account information suddenly became negative. At the same time, many sellers also posted that they encountered the same situation. Among them, deductions range from hundreds of thousands of dollars to more than one million dollars.

But before the deduction, none of these sellers received any notice about the deduction.

In order to cope with this difficulty, the sellers who were deducted have spontaneously formed a group chat. In their exchanges, the problem finally pointed to a product-hot air comb. Hot-air comb is a product that has been popular overseas in recent years. It can meet various styling and care needs such as straight hair, curly hair, fluffy, blow-drying, and massage care.

According to one of the sellers’ review of the editor, the entire event timeline can be pushed back to May. The sellers first received an official Amazon email requesting them to upload compliance documents in accordance with the regulations and provide hot air comb products. UL certification and other information, otherwise the corresponding products will be removed from the shelves.

According to the email guidelines, the sellers have uploaded relevant certification and appeal information. But a week later, all appeals were rejected, including a series of appeals after that. The seller said, “Amazon's reply to us later is that this product is restricted and may need to be recalled.” But at the time, the sellers had no idea about being recalled.

One of the sellers’ appeal was rejected

By June, the day before Amazon membership, all sellers’ hot air comb products have been removed from the shelves, the product links have been deleted, and the inventory has been frozen. After the product was taken off the shelves, the sellers' complaints were not clearly answered. In addition, many sellers responded, “All Amazon replies are machine customer service, and there is no human customer service."

Beginning on August 11, sellers discovered that their accounts were collectively deducted. One of the sellers, Kerry, was directly deducted 410,000 US dollars, which is equivalent to 380,000 US dollars after the 30,000 US dollars in cash in the previous store was deducted. Although she opened a case to Amazon's official inquiry, but failed to get a clear reply. Then Amazon sent her a deduction email, which showed that the deduction was due to inventory. The deduction details will be given within 5 working days, but as of press time, Carrey has not received the deduction details.

Around August 13, the sellers in the group received another Amazon performance reminder. This email gave the reason for the deduction-the deduction was due to the recall of a Canadian trampoline sold by the sellers. However, the sellers who were charged have never sold this trampoline.

"No one knows what this product is. This is the only response from Amazon. Of course, misjudgment cannot be ruled out, although this possibility is minimal." Kerry said.

This sudden deduction is an unpredictable loss for small and medium sellers. Kerry told the editor that after the store funds were deducted, the cash flow was severely affected. Not only is it unable to pay the supplier's final payment, but also unable to support the current operating costs. Coupled with the storage and transportation costs previously spent on Christmas inventory, the store has lost nearly 2.5 million yuan. If you count the $410,000 in the account that needs to be paid, the total loss will exceed 5 million.

Another seller, Sang Xia, was deducted $230,000. She told the editor that if other products in the store continue to be sold, the sales amount will be directly offset by the deduction. Therefore, her shop is basically at a standstill.

For small and medium sellers like Sangxia, this deduction is undoubtedly difficult to pay. For this reason, they can only transfer inventory to save themselves. "Move the transferable inventory from the FBA warehouse to the overseas warehouse, transfer the products to other platforms for sale, and close the current store." However, since submitting the warehouse transfer application, no sellers have successfully moved the inventory out of the FBA warehouse.

Sang Xia calculated an account. If the inventory is successfully removed, all the expenses will add up to a loss of more than 600,000 yuan. If the account cannot be removed, the loss will reach more than 1 million yuan. However, whether it is to remove inventory or close the store, it must be less than the amount of deduction that needs to be repaid, which also makes many sellers hesitate to close the store.

Charged or sued for Amazon

For the reason for this deduction, the sellers calculated based on their own deduction amount. The amount deducted this time was just the sum of the amount of the hot air comb sold before.

In this regard, the sellers questioned: "The hot air comb has been sold for more than two years. If there is a problem, it cannot be sold for that long. Now suddenly all the previous sales have to be refunded. This logically does not make sense." The seller told the editor.

According to her, the true return rate of hot air combs in her store was around 6% to 7%, but no safety issues were encountered. This year, some factories reported that some sellers had installed leakage protection devices for hot air combs. Then they opened a case and asked Amazon customer service, and the response was that there were no relevant requirements.

But from Amazon's point of view, the deduction storm is not groundless.

According to Reuters on July 15, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) stated that it has sued Amazon for the recall of hundreds of thousands of dangerous products sold. These dangerous products include: about 24,000 carbon monoxide detectors with alarm failures, 400,000 hair dryers lacking protection devices to prevent leakage and electric shock, and a large number of children's pajamas that do not meet flammability standards.

The sellers deducted this time are most likely involved in "400,000 hair dryers lacking protection devices to prevent leakage and electric shock." From this point of view, Amazon’s deduction can be traced.

After being sued, Amazon also responded. On August 10, Amazon issued a notice stating that it would expand A-to-z protection from insurance, update sellers’ insurance requirements, and launch an insurance accelerator. According to the new insurance regulations, a single monthly sales of US$10,000 in the U.S. site requires the purchase of product liability insurance, and Amazon is designated as an additional insured. Some sellers have received emails simultaneously, and the new rules will take effect on September 1.

There has been a long-standing abuse between the platform and the seller

According to Wang Xin, executive chairman of the Shenzhen Cross-Border E-Commerce Association, the deductions cannot be completely ruled out of the "store closure tide." "This may also be Amazon's strategy. After the top sellers are closed, they will start to investigate small and medium-sized sellers. Small sellers may be found out and punished for their previous business errors."

But the deduction did not affect other products in the store. In Wang Xin's view, this may also be a change for Amazon.

Through this incident, we can also get a glimpse of the serious problems between the Amazon platform and the seller:

One is that the information is not transparent. According to Wang Xin, Amazon's back-end rules change quickly, but there are few notices of changes in the rules. In addition, a number of small and medium-sized sellers interviewed by the editor found that no sellers would carefully read the platform rules when they entered the platform, and most of them relied on peers and investment managers to inform the key points. "Or after a problem, inquire customer service via email, and then understand the rules based on the reply."

"Amazon updates the rules, mostly by themselves constantly updating data and patching in the background." In this regard, Wang Xin suggested, "Be sure to be familiar with the platform rules, especially when opening an account, to print out all the information and save the data. "

The second is that there is no effective communication channel. The communication between sellers and the platform depends entirely on emails, but the reply emails received by sellers are not manual customer service, so the communication between the two parties is relatively inefficient and it is difficult to solve actual problems.

Wang Xin believes that the deduction incident has also sounded a wake-up call for cross-border e-commerce sellers. "Don't put eggs in one basket."

In this regard, the seller Sang Xia added to the editor, “Cross-border e-commerce will definitely continue to do it, but it can’t just be a platform, and it must consider independent stations.”

At the same time, Sang Xia also said that the deduction also made the team aware of the need to keep abreast of changes in the rules. In addition to improving the quality of our own products, we must also pay attention to certification and testing aspects such as appearance and patents. "Operate more compliantly to respond to platform testing and audits."

As for the truth of this deduction, the bullet may fly for a while before Amazon officially responds.

Many sellers firmly believe that this is an action taken by Amazon against Chinese sellers, and some sellers believe that this is a forced action by Amazon after being sued. At present, some sellers have told me that their accounts have been suspended due to failure to pay off the deductions.