We have a crisis on our hands that has caused tens of thousands of people to be in danger of losing their jobs and business owners to fall into massive debt. No, this isn’t a charity appeal, and we’re not talking about a hurricane or a forest fire. This is a completely man-made disaster, and it only takes a second of your time for you to contribute towards saving people from this calamity.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION
As you may know, Amazon.com, the biggest online retailer in the world, does not own everything that is sold on their website. Rather, they operate a marketplace, where hundreds of thousands of small businesses sell their wares. In fact, 58% of sales on Amazon.com are sold by these merchants, amounting to tens of billions of items sold a year. I would even say that one of the best places to shop on Small Business Saturday is Amazon, as chances are you’re supporting one of the hundreds of thousands of small American businesses that rely on their Amazon stores to put food on the table.
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This marketplace is great for consumers. It provides them with an incredible variety and ensures the lowest prices on things due to the fact that everyone is competing on the same listings to sell the same items. The more competition there is in one place, the more there will be a price war to gain sales, which is wonderful for the consumers that gain from these lower prices.
Unfortunately, some of the manufacturers of these items are not so happy about the fact that the best place to get a good deal on an item is Amazon. They wish there was less competition, so items can be sold for more and their profits will be higher. Some of these companies are willing to engage in various shady and questionable actions to try to stop as many people as possible from selling their items, in order to try to raise the prices.
Some of these unscrupulous actions include falsely reporting the items being sold as being counterfeit, or as violating the company’s intellectual property. This results in the seller’s item that was reported as counterfeit being frozen and taken off of Amazon.com until the seller proves that it is legitimate. (The manufacturer does not have to provide any evidence whatsoever to their allegations that the items are counterfeit. On Amazon, the seller is guilty until proven innocent.)
However, where this turned into a crisis was when Amazon decided to take things a drastic and completely unnecessary step further. Instead of just suspending the sales of the item in question, Amazon often decides to suspend the seller’s entire store, and not allow them to sell anything. They do this even for sellers that have been around for years with a stellar record and perfect customer feedback, and that are selling hundreds or thousands of other items besides the one or two items that received unsubstantiated complaints. This callous disregard on Amazon’s part to the welfare and livelihood to the sellers and their employees currently has hundreds, if not thousands, of sellers suspended. These sellers, and all their employees, have no idea where their next paycheck is going to come from, how they are going to pay their rent, and how they are going to pay their bills for the hundreds of different SKUs they purchased that is now all frozen and unsellable due to receiving complaints about a couple of the SKUs. There is absolutely no reason why Amazon would decide to suspend these sellers entire accounts, even completely unaffected items because .01% of the items received complaints from the manufacturers that need to be followed up on.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION
You may be asking yourself, “What in the world do these guys want from me? I don’t work for Amazon, and I have nothing to do with this.” However, you can still help us. We have launched a petition on Change.org, asking Amazon to work with us, to do the reasonable and logical thing, and to only suspend the listing for the items under question and not the sellers entire store. We need your help to make a difference, though. Every vote on the petition makes a difference in showing Amazon that people care about this issue, and care for the welfare of USA small businesses.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION
By signing this petition, you are sending a message to Amazon to think through carefully this policy and how unfair it is to everyone. In fact even the brands have said they do not want the whole business shut down. Thank you so much for your time, your assistance, and your support. If you can post on social media, please use
Ed Rosenberg / ASGTG #SuspendTheAsinNotTheSeller
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10 Responses
Amazon wants to avoid being held liable for improper seller behavior. If someone gives false information about an item for sale (says it is counteit when it is genuine), the seller who is delisted can sue. Also note that nothing prevents a seller for opening their own account and website.
You obviously have NO CLUE how amazon works please do your research before sharing your words of wisdom
Anyone can ask ANY amazon seller that sells branded goods or watch some of ED ROSENBERG videos that explain the situation (link below)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIeLMqg7QTU&feature=youtu.be
all amazon sellers must be aware that they are using a hostile site! amazon looks for successful products and often begins selling these products on their own, sometimes even ousting the business owners which took the risks of spending money on R&D to find/create/market a product
Amazon itself cannot monitor and authenticate the validity of claims for products sold on its platform by third-party vendors. That is the responsibility of the reseller. If a seller is in doubt about authenticity, don’t offer it for resale. Under Amazon’s terms of service which you agree to in advance of being allowed on the platform, if you do sell counterfeit products and are caught, the burden is on you to refute the claim or otherwise provide mitigating circumstances. If you feel those terms are unfair, sell directly on your own website or use a competing resale platform.
I side with Amazon on this one, so I will not sign this petition.
Amazon clearly wants to work with honest sellers who are above board on all their products. If one product of a seller is fraudulent, or even suspected of being so, then yes, the seller’s account should be suspended until the matter is cleared up.
Amazon works on the trust of the consumers, such as myself. It is the strength of their business. If I don’t feel I can trust Amazon, I won’t shop there.
Did you watch the video? Yes of course amazon has to protect themselves as they are liable and dont want to loose sellers trust
on the other hand – its completely insane to suspend at 50 million revenue a year account for one customer complaint. keep in mind- the complaint can be a customer who wants a refund for a product they changed their mind about or a competitor
a company with 500 employees or more- can be suspended for one comment!!! that makes sense???
and suing such a large company is never easy or simple- they have unlimited litigation fees- which automatically makes it impossible for small sellers to compete.
Fully agreee with this
I’m a seller on amazon and experience this first hand, amazon ruin people’s buissness and lives and it must be stopped
Thank you Ed for all your good work
@akuperma
First of all if it were improper behaviour then your right but that is not the case they shut down huge seller accounts for one single stupid complaint that a customer or a company complains that it’s counterfeit without any proof….
And if you think it’s easy to sue amazon you probably never sold or dealt with amazon or such a kind of business! Impossible to win!
What do you mean by nothing prevents a seller from opening an account or website? They have an account and a website and still get shut down for no reason.. and btw a own website is maybe 5% of the sales you can make on Amazon…
The petition is an amazing thing and it’s a must do!!!
I have waited until you reach close to your goal before responding. I work for a manufacturer so I want to give another perspective.
Of course Amazon should not shut down a store because of a complaint about an ASIN. I agree all should sign the petition.
However, we need to all understand that there are some practices that contribute to the problem, and cause all this animosity on the manufacturers side.
Someone signs an agreement with a manufacturer to only sell to consumers, and then sells the product under a different company name.
People in China or India can’t afford to buy at US prices, so manufacturers sell items there at a loss to build the brand. Some sellers buy these items destined for export only, and intermingle them with Amazon stock. The customer then tries to get warranty service from the manufacturer directly, or blames the wrong seller.
Please keep in mind that there are also thousands of Jewish families who work for the majority of retailers who keep their word and do business ethically.
They all lose when the above practices (and others) are done.
Hatzlocha with your petition!
YWN, please moderate and add my comment (above) so this can be a fair discussion with multiple perspectives.