Amazon Sellers’ News 10/22/19: Design Patent Suspensions, IP Complaints & Expired Products Shipped from Amazon
If you are selling an expandable pet bowl, this is one of the designs being flagged on Amazon right now.
So, we did see that this product was in commerce for one year before the filing date. So if you are getting hit and you do sell expandable pet bowls, this is something that you will be able to fight.
We are seeing an influx of suspensions for intellectual property complaints.
This means that Amazon is suspending accounts, sending a performance notification with one to two IP complaints started against the account. Amazon is requesting information for these two IP complaints, and then we are assuming that the account will be reinstated once resolved. Right now, this is actually not the case. Sellers being suspended for one to two IP complaints. They are being resolved, and then Amazon continues to keep the account suspended until the remaining IP complaints are resolved on their account. So if you are receiving these notifications and you have more than one to two IP complaints, we would definitely suggest that you address all of the IP complaints that are lingering on your account, and not just the one to two that Amazon is notifying you about.
Expired products shipped from Amazon.
There was an article that was just released from CNBC. What they are claiming is that Amazon is selling a bunch of expired products, especially in the baby or food categories. So if you are selling these products, it is essential that you check the date of your products. If you are an FBA seller and you feel as if your inventory has just been sitting there, it is essential that you check these products before you are sending them out to customers. If you are flagged for an expired product, especially now that this article has gone out, there might be a greater chance of it being harder for Amazon to respond to appeals. Just make sure that you check your inventory. Make sure that these products are actually not expired when sending them out to Amazon customers.
Amazon India tips
One thing I learned from Amazon staff in India was bots vs. people. Seller support is certain people, lots of people, thousands of people. Thousands of people in India reading your plans of action, but they seem like bots because they follow very, very specific game plans if they have to mark their boxes. So, they seem like bots but they’re real people.
