A large number of sales data are abnormal, and the sellers’ money was “stolen” by Amazon

Recently , Amazon has once again been pushed to the forefront of public opinion.

A large number of sellers have reported that after the settlement cycle, the sales data displayed is much less than the actual sales!

There were even sellers whose sales plummeted by 90,000 units!

What is even more surprising to the seller is that there is a problem with the store settlement amount, and the money disappeared inexplicably!

Everyone is complaining: Amazon is crazy about money, is it starting to steal money? !

A large number of sellers have complained that recent transaction data showed abnormalities, some settlements were also affected, and one merchant even saw a sudden drop in sales of 90,000 pieces!

According to the seller, under normal circumstances, they would sell about 150,000 items within two weeks, but the order data during the system settlement period was only about 60,000 items, which is about 90,000 items less!

Although there may be deferred transactions, this does not explain the sudden drop in order data. What is even more confusing is that the sales are also displayed incorrectly. He showed three times less order data than the actual amount during the settlement period from October 22 to November 5, 2024. Within three days after the settlement on November 5, sales had reached $35,000, but the amount shown for the settlement period product fees was three times less, only $11,000!

A similar situation has only happened to one person, and many sellers have this problem:

" The settlement amount does not match the actual sales at all. Every settlement is several thousand dollars less. "

"Our sales figures for the settlement period are far lower than actual sales, and we may even lose two-thirds of our sales data."

"My account started last month, and I lost nearly two weeks of order profits. My gross profit collapsed last month."

"After the 2nd, the downloaded table of the date range report will contain zero data, so the gross profit cannot be calculated and the gross profit will be delayed."

Some sellers even lamented: "Either there is a bug in the system, or Amazon directly deducted our money!"

This abnormal phenomenon has caused many sellers to worry that it will affect their orders, and that overdue payments cannot be returned to their accounts normally, which will affect subsequent normal operations.

What’s worse is that the sellers tried to contact the platform’s customer service but did not get any reliable explanation. Some sellers even said that they could not communicate with customer service at all.

At present, Amazon has not directly responded to the concerns and questions of sellers, but gave an explanation: "The deferred transaction report has been recently updated, and what it shows now is different from the past."

Experienced sellers analyzed that Amazon used to postpone sellers’ transaction payments, but now postpones the actual transaction on the books until the 7-day period ends, which may cause the sales on the current seller dashboard to not match the sales on the settlement slip.

Starting from October this year, Amazon quietly updated a new deferred payment policy.

In short, the seller's funds will be released 7 days after the delivery date. After November 1, the platform report will show the delivery date reserve amount, but these amounts are still affected by the delivery date and will not be displayed immediately.

Until then, they may still appear in your payments dashboard and reports.

For example, if an item is sold on January 1 and delivered on January 6, the seller will have to wait until January 14 to receive the payment.

According to Amazon, this is done to improve the buyer experience, such as avoiding direct payment for orders that have not been shipped, or making it easier for buyers to return goods.

But for sellers, the problem is: the sales volume and settlement amount displayed by the system began to mismatch, and some sales dropped by two-thirds. A large amount of data "disappeared" out of thin air, which is really unacceptable.

What’s even more troubling is that this phenomenon of “delayed” payments also has a chain reaction on the seller’s cash flow. Because many cross-border sellers now pay their bills on a monthly basis, once there is a problem with the return of funds, subsequent operations and inventory will be affected.

Of course, regarding the "missing" sales data, some sellers believe that it is a "sequelae" that may occur every time the platform updates its policies or upgrades its system.

Some sellers also believe that this is Amazon's money-grabbing behavior. In order to improve its own cash flow, it reserves sellers' funds to earn interest. Regarding this view, an industry insider analyzed it this way: If Amazon's platform has a monthly sales volume of 25 billion US dollars , even if the payment is delayed for one week, the interest generated will be very considerable !

Some sellers also believe that Amazon may be trying to plug a loophole . Previously, sellers could withdraw money after buyers paid, and some unscrupulous sellers took advantage of the loophole by not shipping or issuing false order numbers. Now, Amazon is adding arrival verification by delaying payments.

Whatever the situation, under the new deferred transaction policy, if the sales data shows abnormalities or there are system problems, there is no need to worry too much about common problems, but timely adjustments must be made to cope with the impact.