Amazon’s Prior Permission for Opening Multiple Accounts Now Causing Related Account Suspensions
As you know, Amazon prohibits Amazon sellers from being engaged in more than one account and it doesn’t matter whether you have a different business entity, you have different partnerships, Amazon doesn’t seem to care. There are a couple of permutations where Amazon will allow you to operate more than one account, but even those accounts create danger.
What we are seeing since the release of all your information on Amazon.com, is an explosion, an absolute explosion, of Amazon sellers getting suspended for related accounts.
Many of the suspensions are, I hate to use the word justified, but Amazon has caught you with more than one account and many of the suspensions are absolutely baseless because you are not involved in more than one account.
What is the constant is that it’s almost universally easier to get the oldest account reinstated first and then the second or the third account will sometimes come back online by itself. I don’t know why Amazon is suspending you for related accounts and then when we get one account back on, often the others will go right back online, but sometimes that happens and sometimes it doesn’t.
Another twist that we’re seeing are Amazon sellers who under Amazon’s old system a couple of years ago, were able to get Amazon’s permission to open up a second account, but they are also being suspended under Amazon’s related accounts, even though they had Amazon’s permission.
If you’re an Amazon seller and you are operating more than one account with Amazon’s permission, without Amazon’s permission, with brand differentiation between the accounts that you qualify for operating more than one account, I want you to know that no matter how you slice it, you are at risk. Even if you are 100% right, you are still going to lose sales at this vital point in time, right smack in the middle of Q4, whether or not you have Amazon’s permission to operate more than one account.
Be super careful. Don’t get caught. Don’t do anything that triggers Amazon’s algorithm. We know a small number of factors that Amazon uses to link your accounts and make sure you are avoiding these links, but also be aware there’s a lot of ways that Amazon links accounts that we don’t know about.
Number one, never use the same computers to go on the same account.
Number two, don’t use the same IP address.
Number three, don’t use the same Mac address.
Number four, make sure your email addresses for each account are entirely different. Don’t have them be similar in any way, shape, or form.
Number five, make sure the products that you are selling on the multiple accounts are different.
Number six, never submit the same flat file of inventory to Amazon for more than one account.
Number seven, the most successful people in companies that operate multiple accounts are located in China and they almost all, if not all of them, use what’s called VPNs, virtual private networks. They use them to get past the great firewall in China. You can use them to put each account in a different geographic location and I think if you’re going to open up more than one account, start doing this from the outset. That one account is always in California. One account is always in New York and I think this might be one of many tools that you can use to try to avoid getting caught.
Like I said, this is just a handful of issues that we know Amazon uses to link your accounts and you can avoid them. There are many other data points that Amazon refuses to reveal, even when we cross examine them at arbitration.
So for the balance of Q4, and for the future and in 2021, don’t get caught with related accounts, even if you have Amazon’s permission.
Contact us if you are currently suspended for related accounts on Amazon.