I’ve warned you about selling on Amazon, and how important knowing the rules is. Nothing brings that point into sharp relief quite like getting a notice from Amazon that you are in violation of their policies. That’s exactly what happened to me recently. Failing to comply with Amazon’s policies can mean serious penalties up to and including losing your seller account, which is, quite frankly a terrifying prospect for anyone who makes their living selling used books online.
In this case, the violation had to do with my confirmation emails. I am in the practice of sending out an email whenever I ship a book, just to let the customer know that their books are on their way. It’s good customer service and doesn’t take much time once you develop a boilerplate message to send out. The issue was that in the signature of my email was the URL of my own website.
Now, these emails are only sent after the transaction is complete. I would never try and divert a customer from buying a book I had listed on Amazon to buy it from my own site instead. That is pretty much Amazon’s cardinal sin and if you get caught doing it, you can pretty much expect instant expulsion. The way I justified what I was doing was that the customer had already bought the book and Amazon had already got their cut. What was wrong with letting the customer know I also had an independent site after the sale was complete?
A lot.
You might think that what goes on between you and the customer is none of Amazon’s business. After all, their Participation Agreement makes Amazon’s role pretty clear:
“Amazon provides a platform for third-party sellers (”Sellers”) and buyers (”Buyers”) to negotiate and complete transactions. Amazon is not involved in the actual transaction between Sellers and Buyers and is not the agent of and has no authority for either for any purpose.”
You might think that but you’d be wrong. Here’s the thing, you’re entitled to interpret Amazon’s policies any way you want, but they have their own interpretation. Only one of the two interpretations counts. Guess which one? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not yours.
Amazon’s interpretation of their rules is that at no point during the process, before, during or after the sale, can you do anything that might be seen as diverting customers away from Amazon to somewhere else, such as your own site. I could have argued my point, tried to fight them on it.
But I didn’t.
Whether you’re right, wrong or indifferent, it does not pay to get cute with Amazon. If you are ever contacted by them regarding a violation, I highly recommend you do exactly what I did.
First of all, I stopped doing it. No more URLs in the emails.
Second, I spoke to someone at Amazon on the phone to confirm that I was now in compliance with their policies and standards. Amazon has a feature in their help section where you can request to have someone call you. It works like a charm.
Finally, after I got off the phone I sent an email to Amazon in which I referenced the phone call. I suggest you always call AND email, that way if there is discrepancy later on, you have some kind of record of the resolution of the issue.
Don’t try to take on Amazon. They will win. Play by the rules, and if they call you on something, fix it and then make absolutely sure they know you fixed it. Do that and everybody wins, and everybody gets to keep making money, including you.
Tags: amazon, policy violations, Selling Books
Thanks for letting us know about this. I also send the confirmation emails, but luckily, I’ve only signed them with my name. I do plan to possibly get a web site and, if it were not for your warning, I would have included my URL in my signature. Thanks for all the articles. They are much appreciated. May you prosper, Wayne
I was kicked off Amazon for similar issue. I refused to fight them. Took my inventory and listed it on Alibris and life goes on. Yes, I took a hit. But I don’t see playing by Amazon’s rules as a “win, win” situation. I am making Amazon rich and the only thing I was building was greater dependence on their dictatorial way of doing business.
For so long many people have opposed and fought “big government.” But now we have a system where two gigantic corporations – Amazon and Ebay – potentially have total control of the businesses and lives of those who choose to make their living dependent on those platforms.
That is not, in my humble opinion, a very healthy situation
Happy to find your site.
I have sold a few books on amazon but this year nothing is selling. I have 100% positive rating, describe every book in detail DETAIL and try to make the price competitive based on condition.
The new rules about charge only when ship and extra time-consuming online stuff is tedious and for a small seller not really worth it.
It is absolutely true they do not care, do not need you, and you do not work for yourself.
I bought a book that included a bookmark with the seller’s own website and bookstore. I could have reported it but didn’t, but did think it was sneaky. We all have to abide by the rules.
I have also noticed some sellers will put ‘may be subject to prior sale’ – doesn’t this mean they may not ship in 2 days as promised.
Abebooks, now owned by amazon, was a site we considered. My husband had a bookstore and we are now looking to sell online. (my amazon selling was minimal and just personal stuff – only sold 2 this year)
But abebooks now has strict rules about shipping times and threats if you don’t want to ship internationally.
It all makes you feel like a minimum-wage clerk in a giant corporation. I guess that’s what you are if you are not a mega-seller with staff, etc.
I forgot to mention one more thing. Irritated with the ‘mandatory’ new rules on amazon I put in a google line: amazon policies suck. I knew this language would bring up some nutty stuff but I did it anyway.
Lo and behold, one of the links was for a sexual device that amazon has listed, with a photo, etc. I was stunned. I am not a prude and believe in free speech, but found it creepy to have this be on a bookselling site and really didn’t like the idea to be part of all that.
We are considering going with biblio which has a classier feel but may not be as prolific in sales.
(…) even though unrelated to this blog, still http://www.sellbooksblog.com is one another must read source of information on this topic(…)