Selling on Amazon -Top 5 Horrors! (FBA)

Selling on Amazon is a dream gig isn't it? You sit at home, place ads for products and sit back as the money rolls in. Travel anywhere in the world living in luxury riding in limousines with just your laptop. The gurus tell you how easy it is but the reality may not be quite as rosy.

There are countless stories of sellers, some of them major sellers with employees and hundreds of thousands in inventory who had their stores just shut down with little to no explanation from Amazon. Take this case where an Amazon seller for 14 years, Dr. Beckley and his wife's bookshop was suddenly shut down despite selling since 2003. Many people have legitimate issues such as being smeared by their competition to make it look like they did something wrong when they in fact didn't. There are literally hundreds of complaints at consumeraffairs.com similar to this one "can't even get into account. More than 5 hours on phone with various agents but all told me Seller Support IS NO MORE. Have to deal w/ it by email or by notes they pass on. Can't send the item to the buyer; can't see his address so I could address & go to Post Office. He doesn't know I can't do anything. Amazon will not respond to my emails. No phone nos anymore like they once had. Too big to fail" A prevailing theme is there seems to be little to no no recourse for sellers who get shut down - and you can be shutdown for a myriad of reasons
#4 - Unethical practices There are many dirty tricks other sellers or buyers can use that can have you suspended or hurt your business including things like stealing your entire inventory list for their own store. Unethical competition can pull dirty tricks like buying negative feedback for your account which hurts your business and can have your account suspended. Other tricks include your competitions relatives buying all your inventory before the holidays - leaving you with no product while they are free to sell all their inventory. After the holidays they return all your products for a full refund. Unethical sellers in the past have also purchased the competitors products, lit them on fire, posted the review on Amazon an complained about how dangerous your exploding products are. There are also many schemes that buyers can engage in that result in free products for them and headaches for you. Check out Amazons own forums for hundreds of complaints from sellers who find it agonizing to work with Amazon and are tiring of how sellers are treated. Like this one :
Reviews for Amazon Seller central on sitejabber reflect one of the worst ratings we've ever seen with 157 1 star to only five - 5 stars. reviews like "Amazon once the best, now the worst....for sellers.” and "I sell $5M per year and still can't get seller support” fraud - total disaster - worst customer service, endless nightmare, horrible, thieves, there are hundreds of small to large vendors who are seemingly just fed up with Amazon.
Larger companies are also tiring of Amazon and starting to look for other options due to the one sided nature of the business arrangement. We found an interesting comment from Edgewater Research partner Eamon Kelly stating “I don’t think Amazon understands how close they are to blowing themselves up.”
And #5 You don't really have any control. So first off Amazon has bots that scour the web and report back on pricing. If your price is considered too high, they just wont show your listings. If you don't pay Amazon for premium placement or become a partner you will be buried under thousands of other sellers. Amazon will do whatever it can so buyers can't find you. If a company that makes the products you represent decides one day to be exclusive sellers, your listings will be pulled within hours, regardless if you have hundreds of thousands in inventory.
Gurus are busy telling would be sellers how easy it is to sell on Amazon. So much so the FTC has issued warnings on their website and taken at least one of these companies to court. Amazing Wealth Systems suggested anyone regardless of experience could make $5,000 to $10,000 in the next 30 days selling on amazon. sounds legit. remember low barrier of entry means tiny or nonexistent window of opportunity. Now there are legitimate ways to make money online, but there are no easy ways. Rather than focusing on quick riches focus on improving yourself, providing value, filling a niche - not looking for the easiest ways to stuff your pockets.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/smallbusiness/article-5249935/Why-did-Amazon-close-book-selling-account.html
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/amazon.html
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2018/03/get-rich-scheme-sold-wannabe-amazon-sellers
https://www.recode.net/2018/11/29/18023132/amazon-brand-policy-changes-marketplace-control-one-vendor
https://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/sellercentral.amazon.com

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