Amazon Seller Disbursement Hold

RFW

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Interesting they hiked the FBA fees, I guess the days of incentive pricing are long gone. 

It wasn't across the board. They had a small&light FBA service, which is pretty much what it says, smaller and/or lighter items were shipped for a lower fee, things like memory cards or even wallets. Essentially anything that could be sent as a letter/large letter up to 250g. So I had fees that went from 65p to £1.40 within a couple of months. That was last summer when I'd already placed all my Christmas stock orders.

Unless they do it to themselves I can't see anything affecting their hold on online retail any time soon but I can see shoots of things they're getting wrong that won't help in the long term. I know a business is in it to make money but they do their best to skim as much as possible off sellers. It's almost impossible to launch a new product and get organic sales, you need to pay for their advertising.
In the US they've recently introduced a low stock tariff, where sellers are penalised if their stock levels run low, they also get excess stock fees if they're too high.
My MP tells me that government business departments are looking into their methods. Whether government is brave enough to tackle them remains to be seen.

RFW

soolin said:

I echo what @the_lunatic_is_in_my_head says, well done RFW for actually taking an active stance with this. It's the same for any site, they just expect sellers to put up with whatever changes, new rules, difficulties they have without recourse to any real assistance.

My own Amazon story is well known to the regulars on here. I sold on there successfully for years, then a good few years back they went through a new verification system. I have no issue at all with verification , I'd already done it with them a few times but this time the computer just kept saying no to me. The issue was that I am a sole trader so I trade in my own name , ie Soolin Smith so all my bank details, passport etc are obviously in my real name. My user name for selling purposes was different, lets say 'pink fluffy bunnies' and they asked me to prove that was me. They asked for official paperwork showing that was my name, I questioned that and they told me not to worry it was a glitch, I then got restricted as I failed verification. I contacted them again and was again told I needed a bank statement or official document showing pink fluffy bunnies- and again failed verification. I then uploaded a copy of my tax return showing a note that I traded on Amazon as Pink fluffy bunnies- they accepted that- then restricted me 2 weeks later as failing verification. I spoke to them and they were pleasant and always reassured me that this was a glitch and not to worry- but after a couple of months I just stopped trying and gave up selling .

You wouldn't have liked any of this then, it's been much more intense than that. I saw one say they wanted proof of ownership or rental of the property he was at, they wouldn't accept anything relating to his parents saying that he lived with them. There are hundreds of little stories and there's still no clarity as to why they were doing it in the first place. I think I said at the start it's either them needing to hold on to cash for whatever reason or them showing UKG that they're not to be messed with, look at the impact they can have. Apparently HMRC were inundated with people asking for forms for verification at the time when they'd be busiest anyway.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

RFW said:

So I had fees that went from 65p to £1.40 within a couple of months. 

That's some jump on small and light, especially when you consider if you up the price by 75p you then have to add the Amazon fees and VAT on top. 

I guess a lot of people have a cult like sense when buying from Amazon as I find a lot of things that are sub £5 end up being much cheaper on eBay.

Years ago Dave Gorman did a show on how pound shops sell your 4 combs for £1 because they are matching the product to the price rather than just selling you what you need and that always reminds me of Amazon in way, when looking at certain things they seem to get bundled into a QTY of perhaps more than you want to make the price £15-£20 as I guess the fees eat too much if you sell a third or quarter at £5. 

RFW said:

In the US they've recently introduced a low stock tariff, where sellers are penalised if their stock levels run low, they also get excess stock fees if they're too high.

I remember long term storage fees and they seemed fair enough to me but low stock! that's umm, an idea I guess. 

RFW said:It's almost impossible to launch a new product and get organic sales, you need to pay for their advertising.

I think everything is heading that way, it's sort of a form of evolution, site gets popular, too much content so hey why not pay to be first, not sure what the next step will be once everyone is paying.

You can even pay to feature your content on sites such as Youtube, same deal too much content so why not pay to be seen. 

Unless these big players are broken up spreading out customers I don't see much changing in that regard. 

RFW said:

My MP tells me that government business departments are looking into their methods. Whether government is brave enough to tackle them remains to be seen.

I'm sure these companies spend lots of money to persuade that from happening, maybe if they squeezed a bit more tax out of Amazon and spent it on putting High Streets as a place to go with independent shops selling interesting things or is that an idyllic dream of a dead past?  

RFW

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

RFW said:

My MP tells me that government business departments are looking into their methods. Whether government is brave enough to tackle them remains to be seen.

I'm sure these companies spend lots of money to persuade that from happening, maybe if they squeezed a bit more tax out of Amazon and spent it on putting High Streets as a place to go with independent shops selling interesting things or is that an idyllic dream of a dead past?  

I think that's what this is. Amazon telling the government that if they put the squeeze on them they can make it difficult for customers, staff and sellers and they're big enough to get to a point where they can make countries stop functioning.

Thanks for your other comments. I could probably draw up a bigger list. I missed out Amazon approaching a supplier behind my back. I was selling a product that was doing quite well, Amazon came in, made a deal with my supplier and undercut me. The daft part about that is it all fizzled out, so now no one sells the product. It was a range of products within one group some were really fast sellers and others were steady but you need to carry the full range, Amazon only want the fast sellers, so they pressure the supplier, the supplier ends up with a load of dead stock of less popular items and everyone loses. I had the sales rep on the phone asking why I hadn't reordered lately, I got a deathly silence when I told him.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

RFW said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

RFW said:

My MP tells me that government business departments are looking into their methods. Whether government is brave enough to tackle them remains to be seen.

I'm sure these companies spend lots of money to persuade that from happening, maybe if they squeezed a bit more tax out of Amazon and spent it on putting High Streets as a place to go with independent shops selling interesting things or is that an idyllic dream of a dead past?  

I think that's what this is. Amazon telling the government that if they put the squeeze on them they can make it difficult for customers, staff and sellers and they're big enough to get to a point where they can make countries stop functioning.

Thanks for your other comments. I could probably draw up a bigger list. I missed out Amazon approaching a supplier behind my back. I was selling a product that was doing quite well, Amazon came in, made a deal with my supplier and undercut me. The daft part about that is it all fizzled out, so now no one sells the product. It was a range of products within one group some were really fast sellers and others were steady but you need to carry the full range, Amazon only want the fast sellers, so they pressure the supplier, the supplier ends up with a load of dead stock of less popular items and everyone loses. I had the sales rep on the phone asking why I hadn't reordered lately, I got a deathly silence when I told him.

I've seen that one crop up on the Amazon forums a number of times over the years, with FBA being so common and given the commission Amazon take you'd think they'd be better off letting the seller sell and take the brunt of customer damaged items, etc than undercut them whilst holding stock. I know they want cheap prices but that does contradict the seller fees being at the higher end... 

Over the years I was told by suppliers Amazon paid on consignment (meaning they paid for stock once they sold it), would push for lower pricing if another retailer was cheaper than them, which was why they were so quick to price match, and when sitting on stock they haven't paid for that they could return to be difficult they presumably got the price they wanted, and they could return pretty much anything, one sales rep said on occasions the stock coming back would pass the lorry going in the opposite direction on the motorway with exact same stock going out to the same retailer, crazy how much influence these big retailers have and these suppliers I was dealing with were global brands rather than small businesses who have to buckle to get somewhere. 

I saw you mentioned on another thread about selling on Etsy, have you had any luck there, I'm guessing the volumes are unlikely to match Amazon but perhaps prices are higher on Etsy? Seems to be less Chinese sellers flooding the search results on Etsy (for now at least). 

RFW

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

I saw you mentioned on another thread about selling on Etsy, have you had any luck there, I'm guessing the volumes are unlikely to match Amazon but perhaps prices are higher on Etsy? Seems to be less Chinese sellers flooding the search results on Etsy (for now at least). 

I've only just started and it's a slight tangent for me so I don't expect it to be big yet. Amazon do have a hold on marketplaces, especially for brand owners. It's either use Amazon or put a lot of time, effort and money into your own website, which I'm currently doing.

Despite being treated like something trodden in I can't see me being able to ditch Amazon any time soon although that is my long term goal now.

Spoonie_Turtle

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

RFW said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

RFW said:

My MP tells me that government business departments are looking into their methods. Whether government is brave enough to tackle them remains to be seen.

I'm sure these companies spend lots of money to persuade that from happening, maybe if they squeezed a bit more tax out of Amazon and spent it on putting High Streets as a place to go with independent shops selling interesting things or is that an idyllic dream of a dead past?  

I think that's what this is. Amazon telling the government that if they put the squeeze on them they can make it difficult for customers, staff and sellers and they're big enough to get to a point where they can make countries stop functioning.

Thanks for your other comments. I could probably draw up a bigger list. I missed out Amazon approaching a supplier behind my back. I was selling a product that was doing quite well, Amazon came in, made a deal with my supplier and undercut me. The daft part about that is it all fizzled out, so now no one sells the product. It was a range of products within one group some were really fast sellers and others were steady but you need to carry the full range, Amazon only want the fast sellers, so they pressure the supplier, the supplier ends up with a load of dead stock of less popular items and everyone loses. I had the sales rep on the phone asking why I hadn't reordered lately, I got a deathly silence when I told him.

Seems to be less Chinese sellers flooding the search results on Etsy (for now at least). 

Depends on the items.  There are some types of thing where the search results look like AliExpress with a small sprinkling of actual handmade items in between. 
I think what somehow annoys me even more is the ton of resellers selling mass-produced Chinese stuff - yeah they're putting effort into the photos but the stuff is still not handmade or vintage.  Turning it into eBay (I don't have a problem with eBay, I have a problem with people breaking the rules of the platform).  But Etsy only cares about the money.

soolin

Spoonie_Turtle said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

RFW said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

RFW said:

My MP tells me that government business departments are looking into their methods. Whether government is brave enough to tackle them remains to be seen.

I'm sure these companies spend lots of money to persuade that from happening, maybe if they squeezed a bit more tax out of Amazon and spent it on putting High Streets as a place to go with independent shops selling interesting things or is that an idyllic dream of a dead past?  

I think that's what this is. Amazon telling the government that if they put the squeeze on them they can make it difficult for customers, staff and sellers and they're big enough to get to a point where they can make countries stop functioning.

Thanks for your other comments. I could probably draw up a bigger list. I missed out Amazon approaching a supplier behind my back. I was selling a product that was doing quite well, Amazon came in, made a deal with my supplier and undercut me. The daft part about that is it all fizzled out, so now no one sells the product. It was a range of products within one group some were really fast sellers and others were steady but you need to carry the full range, Amazon only want the fast sellers, so they pressure the supplier, the supplier ends up with a load of dead stock of less popular items and everyone loses. I had the sales rep on the phone asking why I hadn't reordered lately, I got a deathly silence when I told him.

Seems to be less Chinese sellers flooding the search results on Etsy (for now at least). 

Depends on the items.  There are some types of thing where the search results look like AliExpress with a small sprinkling of actual handmade items in between. 
I think what somehow annoys me even more is the ton of resellers selling mass-produced Chinese stuff - yeah they're putting effort into the photos but the stuff is still not handmade or vintage.  Turning it into eBay (I don't have a problem with eBay, I have a problem with people breaking the rules of the platform).  But Etsy only cares about the money.

I do tend to agree with you, as I often do. I sell vintage and antique items on Etsy as per their rules, I am up against hundreds of people in the same category selling brand new ‘vintage’ widgets all brand new but vintage apparently as they are copies of items. I did complain about some items but I didn’t even get a response from Etsy. 

I’m up against Chinese sellers on eBay but they are allowed to sell brand new items so tend to avoid adding words like ‘vintage’ in the title to get round the rules which is fairer.