In the event you can’t avoid suspension on Amazon and your account gets suspended, take a deep breath before you start to panic too much. While it is a big deal if your account gets suspended, you do have options at your disposal to appeal account suspension on Amazon.
An obvious first step is to figure out why you were suspended in the first place. You’ll likely get a very rudimentary reason as to why Amazon chose to suspend you. Because of this, it’s important to do your own investigating to figure out what may have led to your account suspension. There are two main reasons why Amazon suspends seller accounts: failure to follow the Seller Policies that were agreed to when you opened your Amazon Seller account, or your Seller Performance fell below the minimum acceptable standards in one or more areas.
If you don’t remember what the Seller Policies entail from when you opened your Amazon Seller account, you can refresh your memory here. Selling a restricted product, opening multiple seller accounts, violating the price parity, or driving traffic away from Amazon are the main reasons why accounts get suspended for violating the Seller Policies. Make sure you are well-versed in what the Seller Policies do and do not allow so you don’t accidentally break the rules.
Amazon puts a lot of stock in seller performance metrics. The main goal for Amazon is to make money, so to that end they only want sellers on their platform who are helping them make money. Part of making money is keeping customers happy; if customers are happy, they’ll likely return and spend more money. Hence why Amazon demands that sellers meet certain performance standards in order to keep selling their products. Sellers must meet the following standards:
If a seller is not meeting these standards, their account may be suspended. You have to understand the root cause of the problem that’s affecting your performance metrics in order to fix it. If your account suspension notification says your account was suspended because of high order defect rate, you’ll have to analyze your customer metrics to understand why the order defect rate is high. It could be negative feedback, A-to-Z claims, or chargebacks from credit cards. The important thing is to look at the metrics and discover the root of the problem.
Once you’ve done all of this, you’ll need to put together a plan of action in order to appeal account suspension on Amazon. This will be provided to Amazon during the appeal process to show that you know where the problem lies and how you plan to address it. A successful plan of action will include specific data that demonstrates you have pinpointed the problem. You should avoid broad, nonspecific or vague language like ‘sometimes’ or ‘few.’ Use concrete data and timeframes to show you’ve done proper research and have definite plan to do better moving forward. This plan of action will be used by Amazon to determine whether or not to lift your suspension, so make sure it is well thought out. Explain how you plan to change your systems, tools, processes, etc. in order to prevent the problem from happening again.
After compiling your plan of action, you need to start the appeal process with Amazon. Here’s a step-by-step rundown of how to appeal account suspension on Amazon. You’ll send the plan of action to Amazon and wait for their response. Typically, Amazon will respond via email within 48 hours.
If you ever have to appeal account suspension on Amazon, you can always look to the Seller Central forums for help from fellow sellers. One seller thinks that they’re suspension would likely not have been lifted if they had not asked for sellers to review their plan of action within the Seller Central forums. You are sure to find other sellers who have also had to appeal account suspension on Amazon and have learned things from their experiences. Be open to suggestions and constructive criticism from other sellers and they’ll be happy to help.
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