The company associated with it had long since been liquidated.Įven getting clear answers about how to reinstate an account is difficult. One seller wrote on Reddit that Amazon suspended them because of they had forgotten to close an account they had not touched for five years. But the move demonstrates just how much power Amazon’s algorithms have over the livelihoods of its prized third-party sellers.Ī simple warning might have averted many of these suspensions. Amazon has been ramping up enforcement of its policies, especially its rules around price-gouging, since the start of the pandemic. It isn’t clear why Amazon decided to crack down on the multiple-accounts rule this weekend. “I have to tell them right now I don’t have work for them.”Īmazon hasn’t published formal numbers as to how many sellers were suspended this weekend, but Kika Angelic, who runs the e-commerce group Seller Union, estimated that at least 1,500 sellers were caught up in the dual accounts issue. “I have a team of people and they’re directly affected,” she said. She usually processes between 100 and 1,000 orders a day. With Halloween approaching, this was supposed to be one of her busiest weeks of the year.Īlthough she doesn’t rely on her Amazon account for full-time work, it’s a big part of her income. Patel mostly sells seasonal items - party decorations, costumes and other items pegged to Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving and other seasonal events. Her account was nearly perfect: “It’s my first suspension ever.” She’s been selling on Amazon for close to four years, and in that time, “I’ve never violated any of their terms or policies,” she said. Craig Gedey, whose firm Thompson and Holt advises suspended sellers, told Modern Retail, “it’s the busiest weekend we’ve had all year.” The mass suspensions represent a familiar pattern for Amazon, however - whenever the company tweaks its algorithm, often without warning, sellers find their livelihoods on ice overnight. Lawyers and other experts who specialize in seller suspensions said that this recent wave of suspensions was among Amazon’s biggest. (There are some approved ways to operate dual accounts, but you have to meet Amazon’s criteria.) Amazon did not respond to a request for comment. For example, if a seller had four different accounts, they might be willing to test the limits of Amazon’s other rules, knowing that if one account gets shut down or walloped with negative customer reviews, they can just move on to one of their others. It’s considered a way to disincentive abuse. Amazon has long had restrictions on multiple accounts, and sellers have received suspensions in small numbers from time to time for operating accounts simultaneously. The rules Amazon was enforcing, to be sure, did not come out of nowhere. Sellers flocked to Facebook groups, Twitter, and LinkedIn and Reddit threads to express their confusion and post desperate messages about what some called the “weekend of hell.” The company noted the problem might take up to 90 days to resolve. Over the weekend, thousands of sellers received a similar email: Amazon was freezing their businesses because, the company said, they were operating multiple Amazon accounts at the same time.
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