Attention! Amazon may start a new round of account verification

Yesterday, the first spring promotion of Amazon US in 2024 officially came to an end. Judging from the feedback from sellers, the traffic provided by this promotion seems to be lower than expected.

Survey data shows that approximately 11% of sellers achieved an increase in orders during this spring promotion, while 59% of sellers were left behind because their products had no traffic and they suspected that the platform did not notify buyers, and another 30% of sellers did not even participate in this promotion.

It can be seen that although Amazon has stated that the scale and influence of the Spring Promotion are constantly expanding, from the current perspective, its traffic is still not as good as other traditional sales peak seasons. Therefore, only a few sellers have seen a surge in orders during this promotion. More sellers not only "get nothing", but also have to deal with various unexpected events that occur on the platform during the promotion.

As previously reported, Amazon not only conducted a large-scale sweep at the same time as the spring sale began, many seller accounts were deactivated for being judged to have "engaged in unfair behavior or abused Amazon features," but also launched a large-scale sweep of the vacuum cleaner category.

Now the links on the BS list of vacuum cleaners have been restored to normal display, but Amazon sellers still have no idea why their accounts were deactivated. Recently, another seller revealed that a large number of links in the Amazon Nebulizers category were also removed.

According to the whistleblower, on the afternoon of March 23, a large number of products on the BS list of the "Nebulizers" category on Amazon's US site were shown as unsaleable, and less than half of the top 50 products were still on sale.

Because of the "category sweep" that also occurred during the spring promotion and the particularity of the category to which nebulizers belong (medical devices), this incident also caused heated discussions in the industry.

Some sellers speculated that this may be because Amazon has updated the relevant policy requirements for medical device products and is preparing to start with the nebulizer category and remove related products that do not meet the requirements one by one.

It is understood that nebulizers belong to the category of medical devices. To sell products in this category on Amazon, one not only needs to obtain a business license and relevant certifications, such as FDA certification (US market), CE certification (European market), etc., but also needs to be vigilant about policy changes on the platform at all times to ensure that relevant products comply with local laws and regulations and platform requirements.

But at the same time, many sellers believe that medical devices are a relatively sensitive category, and it has always been difficult to operate products related to it , while the nebulizer market has huge profits. In the past, there have often been incidents in which sellers' products were removed from the shelves or even blocked because their peers added banned words.

A seller said frankly that he had also made such products in the past few years. As long as he had a certificate and put the products on the shelves, he could get orders and the profits were considerable. However, policies changed too quickly and links were often removed. The same situation occurred when testing on other platforms. There were too many unstable factors, so he stopped doing it.

From this point of view, the large number of nebulizer products that are unsalable seems to be closely related to their medical device attributes. However, it is worth mentioning that as of press time, there seems to be no news of relevant policy updates in the industry, so the reliability of the above speculation remains to be examined.

It is observed that the links on the BS list of the "Nebulizers" category on Amazon US have returned to normal display, but some products that were previously shown as unavailable are no longer on the list. Sellers of related products are reminded to pay more attention to the security of product links and stores, and do a good job of various investigations to avoid links being removed from the shelves due to various external factors.

In addition to the above-mentioned account scanning storm and category sweeps, it is also learned that Amazon's account verification wave this year seems to have kicked off a few days ago.

It is learned that recently, according to industry sources, a large number of seller accounts have once again received Amazon's yellow warning, indicating that the accounts are at risk of being deactivated.

Amazon stated on its account status page that in order to comply with the Consumer Notification Act, Amazon needs to collect and verify relevant information about sellers' accounts , including identity, phone number, bank account, office address, and tax number . If sellers have not completed all verification items when the act takes effect, their accounts may be deactivated regardless of whether they have registered for the account status protection plan.

As soon as the news came out, many sellers couldn’t help but think of last year’s Amazon account verification wave.

It is understood that in May 2023, Amazon US published an announcement related to the Consumer Notification Act, reminding sellers who meet the relevant conditions to complete account verification as soon as possible and comply with the new regulations. After that, Amazon sellers were caught up in account verification storms one after another, and they did not stop until the Consumer Notification Act officially came into effect in June of the same year.

It is worth mentioning that according to the specific rules of the Consumer Notification Act, for sellers on third-party e-commerce platforms operating in the United States, if the total product sales volume reaches (or exceeds) 200 units for 12 consecutive months in the past 24 months, and the total transaction amount exceeds US$5,000 , the platform needs to conduct an annual information verification to ensure the accuracy of corporate information.

In other words, after the new law comes into effect, additional review requirements will be imposed on Amazon's existing account verification process, and sellers who meet the requirements must undergo verification once a year to ensure the authenticity of their account identity information.

Therefore, after yellow warnings appeared on multiple seller account pages a few days ago, some sellers said that this is the beginning of Amazon's account verification wave this year.

Given that Amazon mentioned in its response that sellers who receive this reminder must take relevant actions within the specified time, otherwise their funds will be deducted or their sales accounts will be deactivated, we would like to remind relevant eligible sellers to pay more attention to background messages in the near future to avoid affecting their operations.

Of course, based on last year’s experience, although the Amazon account verification trend has released a signal of “platform account risk control upgrade”, it will not ultimately lead to account suspension or fines. It is just that if the verification is not timely, the account will be suspended, and it will be restored once the verification is completed. Therefore, sellers do not need to worry too much, just prepare the information and verify it in time to ensure the normal operation of the account.

Finally, regarding the account verification turmoil caused by the Consumer Notification Act, please read "Amazon Verification Wave Continues! Are a Large Number of Seller Accounts at Risk of Deactivation?" I hope it will be helpful to those who are currently facing account verification.

Have you received any verification messages recently? Welcome to discuss in the comments section~