Selling on Amazon is surely a great opportunity for product businesses but sometimes it can become frustrating – great chance to make money, but the competition is hard, and the performance standards are very demanding.
These reasons often keep vendors in a very fragile equilibrium, where just the smallest disbalance can get you a suspension email courtesy of Amazon. To make this worse, Amazon doesn’t even clearly explain the reason for your suspension, and pursuing this matter with them could get you permanently banned.
So, what should you do when you get suspended from Amazon and your profits are at stake? In most cases, you will try to deal with the issue yourself.
However, what should you actually write in your Amazon suspension appeal letter? The suspension email received from Amazon doesn’t give you a clear reason why you got suspended, so, how can you do it right?
In this article, we will walk you through the right steps on how to write Amazon appeal that will succeed and get your account reinstated.
How To Win Amazon Appeal
Step 1: Establish The Nature Of Your Suspension
Most Amazon experts can agree on the fact that Amazon has generally a good reason for being vague with the reasons for the suspension. This is because they want the vendor to take a close look at their account and identify exactly what went wrong so that they will make sure it won’t happen again in the future.
Therefore, the very first step you have to do when writing a great Amazon suspension appeal letter is to read it carefully and think deeply about why you got the letter from Amazon. Let us explain this better. Usually, vendors get two different types of suspensions:
a) Selling Privileges Suspensions
Amazon may decide to suspend you for not meeting the standards they’ve set. Your selling privileges get suspended generally in situations like when you have too many negative reviews, too many late deliveries, or recurrent intellectual property violations. In some cases, people can get also banned for not providing the proper documentation for their accounts.
You should always keep track of your account health to keep under control the violations you have under your name and do something to avoid repeating similar infractions. If you don’t do this, Amazon will send you a suspension letter straight to your email box. From that moment, you cannot sell on Amazon unless you convince them to reactivate your account.
b) Product Listing Suspensions
This is the case when Amazon suspends one of your products from being sold. This happens when you’re selling forbidden items or have violated some of Amazon’s restricted product policies. Here as well, if you don’t make adjustments to prevent these violations, they suspend your account altogether.
Step 2: Make Sure You Give A Precise Explanation Of What Went Wrong
Independently of the reason for your suspension, the following steps are very similar. You must tell Amazon, as clearly as possible, what you did wrong.
This means writing in your letter what went wrong and why it went wrong.
Amazon basically sets the rules for good customer satisfaction and experience, so they leave on you any responsibility for low performance resulting from internal business problems that you aren’t paying attention to.
The suspension email is sent to force you to analyse your business processes to acknowledge the problem and set up the steps for fixing it once the account gets reactivated. So, in your suspension appeal letter, you must tell them what led to your poor performance and how you are aiming to fix it.
Just bear in mind; you cannot ever say that Amazon has made a mistake or that you don’t agree with that decision.
It will show Amazon that you haven’t acknowledged the issue and won’t prevent it from happening again, leading you to most likely get permanently banned. So, think properly about what to say and how to say it.
Step 3: Write A Plan Of Action For Future Improvements
In the final part, you must then list all the actions you will do to make the same problem won’t happen again.
So, for example, if you were suspended because of a high Order Defect Rate, you should answer the following questions when writing your appeal letter:
What type of defects was the most common?
Why was the defect found?
What problems occurred during the quality assurance process that caused such a product to be sent forward?
What actions you will do to prevent each of these problems in the first place?
Really, try to go as deeply into the problem as possible, including details and using appropriate language. Show them that you truly recognise what the problem is. Then tell them that you are taking the appropriate measures to make sure it won’t occur again.
Once you’ve followed these steps, you’ll find that Amazon is more charitable than most vendors give it credit for. Their aim is just to have vendors who possess the business understanding to thrive in the marketplace and keep Amazon’s customers happy.
Step 4: Review Your Appeal Letter And Submit
Make sure that nothing gets left on the table while reviewing your letter. Read it carefully and read it again. You should think like this “If I don’t understand this, then how can I expect Amazon to do it?” If you feel uncertain of what you’ve written, then make the appropriate corrections before submitting the appeal.
Once you’re happy with it, send it over to Amazon and hope that it gets approved. If it doesn’t, you can always give it another shot.
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Important Things To Remember On How To Submit An Appeal On Amazon
As you can notice, the steps to writing a great Amazon suspension appeal letter are simple, but still, many vendors make crucial mistakes that get them banned permanently. The good news is that these mistakes are easy to avoid if you know what they are; so, it’s now time to go through them, so you get to know what you’re not supposed to do while writing your appeal letter.
1) Be Patient
Lots of Amazon vendors get anxious when getting suspended and rush the process or send so many letters that Amazon refuses to even listen to them. So, when if you are facing a suspension, take a deep breath and try to keep calm while taking your time to write a great appeal letter by following the above steps.
2) Look For Possible Supporting Evidence
While you analyse and find the reason why you got suspended, go through all potential pieces of evidence to support your judgment. Check your receipts, customer reviews, double-check if you sent all the right documents, and even review how your team has been handling order fulfillment.
This will bring evidence to Amazon that you fully acknowledge the problem and will make sure it won’t occur in the future.
3) Never Blame Amazon
If your Amazon seller account gets suspended, you have to keep in mind that Amazon is the judge, jury, and executor in this process. You must not tell the organization that they have made a mistake – and they rarely ever do.
So, instead of taking an aggressive approach by blaming them – take a humble stance and admit your mistakes.
4) Be Proactive With Your Correspondences
After you have submitted your appeal, Amazon may ask for supporting documentation and information. If you don’t reply promptly, they will most likely refuse to entertain future requests. So, be proactive with your correspondence and inform them if it will take you some time to fulfill their request.
5) Don’t Be Surprised If You First Appeal Gets Rejected
It’s often common for vendors to send a couple of appeals before Amazon reactivates their accounts. So, don’t worry if your first appeal is rejected and focus on what you missed in the first one.
Bear in mind that this doesn’t mean that you can keep sending Amazon repeated appeals because they will refuse to consider further correspondences related to your suspension.
So, if you’re on the second or third round of appeals, follow the above steps. The only reason Amazon rejects appeals is when they feel that either you haven’t acknowledged your mistakes or that you haven’t designed a proper plan to solve the issues. So, stick to it and try to improve your previous appeals until you get it right.
Conclusion
Writing an Amazon suspension appeal letter that will succeed is a delicate matter – but it’s not impossible to write one out.
As long as you show Amazon that you’re honest in your efforts to deliver the best service, and make the right adjustments to get there, you should be good to go. If you are honest with Amazon, they will look out for you.
Need more help on how to appeal Amazon seller account or on Amazon seller management for high revenue?
Serendipity Marketing is an end-to-end Amazon marketing agency that’s supporting businesses internationally to fully satisfy Amazon policies and get higher profits.
Our Amazon specialists have over 15 years of experience working on the platform and can help you boost your sales on Amazon while managing your account making sure you always fulfill the platform’s rules and don’t get suspended.
