Despite all the precautionary efforts Amazon Sellers put into their storage and shipment procedures, occasionally a product gets damaged. Often, the cause of the damage is out of the suspended Amazon Seller’s hands. When using FBA, a suspended Amazon Seller’s ability to protect their products is even more limited.
Suspended Amazon Sellers need to know how to get their accounts reinstated after a damaged product results in an Amazon Seller Suspension.
Writing a Successful First Draft Plan of Action for Damaged Goods Suspension:
A recent client of ours had difficulty reinstating his account following a complaint received for one of his products that arrived damaged. This complaint can be in forms of “not as described,” “used sold as new,” an A to Z Claim or other complaints.
We have found that accepting responsibility in a specific manner when combined with a detailed Plan of Action on how you will better protect your products results in reinstated Amazon accounts. Accepting responsibility and improvement are in line with Amazon’s fourteen Leadership Principals.
NOTE – We do not advocate suspended sellers admitting to things they did not do. But, sellers can always identify ways to improve. If your account was suspended for products being damaged during shipping, you need to identify how you can improve your packaging. Suspended Amazon Sellers need to persuade Amazon that future consumers will not receive damaged products.
When a suspended Amazon Seller drafts her Plan of Action, the seller should limit the corrective measures to those your Amazon based company can actually implement. For example, the packaging on a damaged product suspension should match the product.
More importantly, a suspended Amazon Seller must take the measures listed in their Plan of Action prior to submitting the plan of action to Amazon’s Seller Performance team if possible. We have seen successful Plans of Action where the seller indicates steps she will take in the future but, these are usually only successful when it makes sense that the changes in the business will take time to implement. We have also seen successful Plans of Action that described a method of improvement when the seller is larger or has many ASINs.
Some of the steps we suggested to our suspended Amazon Sellers include:
- We had our suspended Amazon Seller offer the complaining customer a full refund;
- Our suspended Amazon Seller inspected their entire inventory for other damaged products;
- Our suspended Amazon Seller increased their precautionary measures when storing and shipping products;
- We had our suspended Amazon Seller make sure that when our client was inspecting his inventory, all damaged products were discarded;
- We tailored our client’s Plan of Action to identify various forms of product damage and address the specific damage that was suffered on the package at issue;
- Our suspended Amazon Seller hired staff to double check and inspect all products prior to their shipment.
All of the steps taken to make the suspended Amazon Seller a better Amazon Seller were discussed in the Plan of Action we drafted for our client to submit.
Takeaway for Amazon Sellers:
In your Plan of Action, be sure to let Amazon know that you offered a full refund to all Amazon customers who have received a damaged product. Next, when taking precautionary measure, be sure to implement new storage and shipment procedures that go above and beyond the measures you have previously taken. If the cause of the complaint was entirely your selected shipment service’s fault, it may be advisable to use a different shipment source. Lastly, always perform the corrective and preventative measures listed in your plan of action prior to submitting the Plan of Action.
If an Amazon Seller is unable to successfully appeal a safety complaint, the Amazon Seller should contact a law firm focused on Amazon Sellers and seller account suspensions to assist them.