Amazon has recently modified its policies and guidelines due to the recent pandemic. It is essential to know about Amazon’s policies and guidelines to keep up with the recent changes.

Having an Amazon account means adhering to certain conditions, and these guidelines apply to everyone that owns or works with an Amazon account. 

1. Introduction

Customers and sellers on Amazon both benefit from a safe selling program. These restrictive seller activities and actions were established to maintain a safe selling program for buyers and a fair one for sellers of both products and services. 

Violating Amazon’s rules will result in: 

Debarment of the item or your account. 

Cancellation of the listing or revocation of your selling privileges if you don’t follow the policy. 

Holding your payment if they cancel your account. Amazon will not pay sellers until they are sure that customers have received the items they ordered.

If Amazon determines that a seller account has been used to commit fraud or other illegal activity, money and shipments may be withheld or forfeited. 

2. General Guidelines

All items and services are equally susceptible to the illegal seller’s actions and conduct. Certain products may be subject to specific rules. Some of these rules include: 

• Sending buyers away from Amazon.
  • Bypassing or redirecting Amazon customers to another website or sales procedure is not permitted. Special offers, marketing messages, and “call to action” phrases that lead Amazon customers to leave the site are strictly prohibited. URLs, hyperlinks, and web addresses may not be used in vendor email messages or listing descriptions.
• Don’t use business names that trick Amazon customers, are trademarked, or have a URL.
  • A business name should be descriptive, unique, and not misleading. It should not be a trademark or an infringement of any intellectual property rights. In addition, you cannot select a business name with an email suffix, such as .com, .net, .biz, .net, etc.
• Do not misuse customer numbers.
  • Amazon provides Professional sellers who process their own orders with customer numbers to comply with the carrier label requirements. You must comply with Amazon’s personal information policy if you are provided with this information.
• Don’t cheat or do restricted activities for good reviews.
  • Any effort to influence reviews, ratings, feedback, and critiques is not permitted.
• Don’t try to cheat sales rank or boast about it on your website.
  • The best way to measure the popularity of a product is through the Best Seller Rank feature. It is not permitted to alter a product’s sales rank. You may not solicit or knowingly accept fraudulent orders, such as making them on your behalf. You may not give customers a reward for purchasing your items or offer them claim codes to increase your product’s sales rank. Furthermore, you may not claim that your product is the top seller on the product’s detail page, which includes its title, bullet points, and description.
• Don’t abuse the A-to-z guarantee.
  • Sellers must always abide by Amazon’s A-to-z Guarantee terms and conditions. If a buyer is unhappy with a purchase or service, the seller can arrange for a refund, return, or exchange as needed. Amazon has the power to request a refund from the seller if they provide a refund to a buyer under their guarantee guidelines.
• Be careful not to abuse the search engine.
  • Amazon’s search and browse functions are intended to deliver relevant, accurate results. Therefore, any attempts to change or disrupt the search and browse experiences will not be permitted. The following actions are prohibited:
    • Artificially simulating customer traffic (through internet bots, paying for clicks from organic search results, etc.)
    • Catalogs that are misleading or irrelevant information (title, bullet points, descriptions, keywords, variations, and so on.)
    • Adding the product’s identifiers (brand names or ASINs, names of products, and so on), even if they’re yours, to obscure keywords.

Additional Guidelines for Sellers

Additional guidelines include: 

• Do not increase prices after the transaction has been completed.
  • Post-transaction price manipulation and excessive shipping costs are both prohibited. Sellers may not make excessive order fulfillment or shipping fees after a transaction.
• Don’t duplicate listings to deceive buyers.
  • When displaying the product you are selling on an existing detail page, make sure the product you are offering matches the product purchased in every way and includes (but not just) the following characteristics: edition, manufacturer binding, version, format, or compatibility with players. ISBN numbers and UPC numbers cannot be used to match items to specific pages. Alternative ISBNs or UPC numbers, EAN numbers, and other external identification numbers cannot be used either.

Additional Guidelines for Service Providers

Services providers should be mindful of: 

• Don’t upsell additional products during the service.
  • On the day the service was ordered, the service provider must perform the service as described on the detail page. Before or during an Amazon Service Agreement, the service provider may not request additional parts, products, or service requests. If the purchaser requests parts, services, or items not within the specified scope of work, the service provider may provide them and charge the customer directly.
• Don’t let unapproved technicians work in your place.
  • For in-home services, if you send a non-approved technician to fulfill a service order, your selling privileges may be removed.

What happens if you violate the amazon seller’s terms of service?

Amazon has established these guidelines to ensure both customer and seller protection. Amazon, as well as the seller, must adhere to these policies and guidelines. If you are discovered to violate the ToS (Terms of Service), and you are found to be in violation, one or more of the following may happen:

• Amazon may block your business as well as your products
• Amazon will hold your payment
• Amazon could decide to shut you down from selling on Amazon.
• Removing reviews from a particular product (which didn’t meet the ToS)
• Legal action against the seller, or more

If you need a reliable partner on your Amazon journey to success, get in touch with the Bellavix Team.

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