Aint this some Stuff (want to say something else) - Testing Verification Supplements

Selling on Amazon
1

All I can say is wow and what a racket… Holy moly…!!!

So… It had been a couple years since we launched a new item on Amazon. Since then they actually followed through and implemented some safeguards to try and weed out the fraud / amateurs. - Great…

Set up a new ASIN a couple weeks ago and got a policy violation for GMP verification. Used to be that you just sent in an invoice, certificate of analysis, and GMP Certificate directly to Amazon. Not anymore.

They have farmed this out to a bunch of labs. And there’s a process.

Long story short - all they want to verify is the GMP status of our manufacturer, which is sort of us. I chose NSF because we are certified GMP by NSF… Seemed to be seamless. NSF is charging us $500 to verify their own certificate to our manufacturer. It’s not an in depth process. As soon as I paid, they sent a form via email to the quality director that took all of 10 seconds to fill out. The below is NSF’s response to my inquiry on what exactly we were paying $500 for… They confirmed nothing.

Hi Stephen,

Thank you for contacting NSF! I double checked your ASIN XXXXXXXXX and the corresponding Test Request Number: TRXXXXXXXXXXXXX in Amazon’s Compliance Central and it is showing that they are requiring GMP Verification from a 3rd party such as NSF.

The process of GMP Verification doesn’t involve samples or testing. Once you pay, we would be reaching out to your manufacturer using the information you provided when you submitted the documentation for your quote to confirm that they produce the product you purchase from them. We would also do an internal verification of the NSF Certificate. This process is usually completed within 30 calendar days from the payment date, and an evaluation report would be sent to you and to Amazon upon completion.

I have included the price break down below.

NSF’s GMP-Only Evaluation pricing is structured as follows:

  • $450 per manufacturer
  • $50 per ASIN

Please note that these fees apply per submission. If multiple ASINs (produced by the same manufacturer) are submitted together, the $450 manufacturer fee will be charged only once. However, if additional ASINs are submitted at a later date - even from a manufacturer that has previously been verified - the $450 manufacturer fee will apply again, along with the $50 per ASIN charge. The fees outlined here are provided as a general estimate of the costs associated with this service. To receive confirmed pricing, please submit your test request(s) through your Amazon Seller Central account.

Bulk pricing is available for submissions of 75 or more ASINs submitted at the same time; bulk pricing and the related terms and conditions are available upon request.

If you are both the manufacturer and the Amazon seller, please reach out to your NSF Project Manager for guidance through this process.

Is there anything else I may help you with?

Sincerely,

Christy Kenyon

NSF Customer Success Team

2

tl;dr
We want your money and have leverage to get your money, so.. we did.

3

Very concise and precise analysis of this situation.

There’s an option to test if you don’t have testing. That must be $40,000 per ASIN

4

Cost depends on the complexity of the formula, but it definitely is a “we have you by the short hairs” situation.

5

Fascinating breakdown. (I’m on the end of things that never gets to see these numbers, just the panicked “fix it!”) A bit whacky that they want the $450 just to look at it multiple times, especially since you can’t control when Amazon decides to flag your listings for reviews, so you don’t control the batching.

That last part, however, might mean you can shake them by the shoulders and say “we are the manufacturer, you are our GMP certifier, could you please get your head out of your rear end and provide the facts to Amazon for us at a reasonable rate?”

6

They are separate entities with different owners. I am biz partners with the owner of the manufacturer. So while we are sort of 1 in the same, we’re not. And obviously my partner wants to protect his $400M business over this piddly crap in comparison.

7

Ah. Right, I recall you mentioning the manufacturing entity and the sales entity scenario before. Unfortunately it sounds like you’re gonna have to eat that $450+75x fee for each batch, then.

8

Huh? Since when is Amazon requiring a batch by batch review?

It’s once per ASIN and we’ve never had our other ASIN’s checked. Have you?

Actually, that’s not entirely true. A few of them were done the old way - through Amazon.

9

Sorry, by “batch” I mean “batch of FNSKUs they choose to flag for review”, not production lot.

10

I wonder how much of that fee goes for errors and omissions liability insurance.

Every time Amazon or another vendor farms out a safety function. some insurer gets a piece of the action.

11

There are no less than 4 disclaimers you have to agree to, absolving Amazon of any wrong doing before you can complete the process.

Believe me, they are covered. It’s literally insane.

12

Another country heard from (emphasis mine):

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions/t/e9174c2a-3aeb-489f-bf8e-cb5e07d3a801?postId=05ae9b91-1120-4c59-ba29-01af4fe1ccf0

Leaving aside the fact that the OP of that NSFE discussion mentioned in his/her initial post that Eurofins’ “Pass” TRF submission was made 012726 (and is thus valid until 012727), and the simple fact that that date was MORE than 6 months ago, Kai’s script seems to imply that Amazon might be considering changing the rules again (or mayhaps, even, already has).

I’m all for Compliance, but I’ve considered the TIC (“Third-party testing, inspection, and certification services”) requirement to be a bit of hoodoo since Amazon first rolled it out - it makes little sense to me, for example, that over on the Toys & Games side, a single submission by ANY seller for a given ASIN would offer blanket coverage for EVERY seller who makes an Offer-Listing upon it, as Michelle_Amazon has repeatedly stated (such as in her 091125 NSFE post here [link]).

I suspect that our friend Hobbes’ take on NSF equally applies to Amazon:

13

The ink had barely dried on my above reply when the 082426 News Headline (link, SAS post) “Save time with bulk TRF submission” on the topic of TIC was published.

14

Wow. Interesting. Wonder what triggered all of this. And I am sure there’s another $500 spend coming the OPs way.

I do wonder, however, if this seller is now facing a GMP review and the first bang was for actual testing, which the seller didn’t seem to even have originally.

There are 2 potential layers to this. Furthermore, we don’t know what category they are selling in. If it’s sports, weight, or sexual health, they may have first had to have a banned substance test.

There could be more to this than meets the eye - even going as far as a potential customer review or feedback that triggered a bot.

15

And joint health, these days! Even just having glucosamine, chondroitin sulfate, methylsulfonylmethane, and a few others in the formulation can get you flagged for that.

Great news: it’s too early for me to be doing math, and I’m still in July. I was about to say that “well, at time of posting it was within 6 months…” except - see points one and two.
The “within 6 months” rule has, inexplicably, been Amazon’s yardstick most of the time, despite it being purportedly an annual testing program. I guess they decided they had to draw the line in the sand somewhere?
EDIT: Great news: it is apparently also too early for me to be doing reading. Amazon asked for another TRF 6 months later, despite the previous one claiming to be good for a year? holy crap do I not want to deal with this. Can the goalposts stop moving?

16

So it’s a joint product this time and last?

17

No clue, I was just mentioning that the original 3 categories now includes bodybuilding (can fit under sports) and joint health (prove it doesn’t have NSAIDS in it) for substance testing.

18

Oh, my bad. I thought you were dealing with this (per the quote below). Was just asking what sub-cat you were being flagged in. Maybe you’re quoting a thread on the NSFE. I don’t look at that crap anymore. haha

19

Yeah, this is based on the thread from the NSFE; they had TIC testing from January (quoted good for a year) that they’re now getting triggered for again in August. I haven’t seen a six month tail bite personally yet.

I’ve seen flags for weight loss, bodybuilding, and joint health.

20

We’re now seeing contradictory information about non-GMO claims, yay!

From Amazon’s page:
Product listing attributes and product images must not:

image
image884×176 39.1 KB

Our helpful forum mods come bearing contradictions!

image
image781×561 62.7 KB

See point 2: if you claim non-GMO but don’t have the high-risk ingredients (alfalfa, apple, canola, corn, cotton, eggplant, papaya, pineapple, potato, salmon, soybean, squash, sugar beet, and sugarcane), you can only prove it through paying for third party cert of some sort - either non-GMO cert or organic cert.

A thread to follow if you’re making non-GMO claims for certain.