As a Handmade seller, our category is flooded with Ali-Express mass manufactured non handmade product. Fashion Jewelry is also being taken over with these dishonest sellers. The field is not level in any category. 
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NSFE OP full text
Jim_Amazon has repliedâŚand received an apt reply himself:
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AFAIC, the most-telling of recent NSFE discussions on the subversion of the federally-regulated Fine Jewelry Category is this one, created Groundhog Day `24 (020224) by another long-time 3P Seller with a similar time in grade as has the OP of the 073124 discussion (link, NSFE) that youâve referencedNote 1, titled âFraud in the jewelry space continuedâ because it wasnât the first time that particular OP has made credible cases on this score:
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions/t/f4553806-f74b-4d5f-9f3e-071d9880b071
Itâs of course a bit of a slog to read each and every response due to the execrable ânestedâ format of the Screeching Harpyâs Abomination NSFE, but @SEAmodâs floundering responses - which were apparently eventually entirely cut off by the high muckety-mucks - leave me yet again in no doubt that Amazon believes it can absorb any eventual fine with relative ease, provided that it can pad its coffers sufficiently before illegal practice draws regulatory scrutiny which rises to the point of litigation.
Par for the course.
Dammit.
Note 1
I remember them both saluting @Styleâs various Fine Jewelry/Fashion Jewelry tutorials on this subject, back in the âAge of Jiveâ of the ASF (âAmazon Seller Forumsâ) - i.e., when the Jive Platform supported those fora, two iterations back, between Q1 of 2012 & Q1 of 2018âŚ
.
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Handmade has issues which are probably insurmountable.
It has an appeal to the sellers it was created to house.
It has an appeal to a niche group of buyers who are loyal to the concepts and the artists and artisans who create the products. And they will pay more for the items which meet the criteria.
It also has an appeal to sellers of commodity products who see an opportunity to get some extra margin for their product.
It has an appeal to sellers who want to fraudulently represent the materials in their products as precious metals and stones
It requires an Amazon staff to administer it to have specialized skills not learned in business school, and frequently learned in places which look down on being in business.
Its target sellers are no easier to herd than cats. and often start off with no business skills.
At its best it is a breeding place for appropriation of the creative genius of others. Often due to ignorance. Sometimes due to obliviousness. Of obviously due to immorality and greed,
One need only to look to Etsy to see the limits of a business strategy too vested in handmade.
Why would one expect a souless company like Amazon to be able to run handmade?
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Fine jewelry seems like a terrible category to sell on Amazon. Even without the problem mentioned here, the buyer fraud rate in this category must be massive. The only category I can think of that would be worse than this in that aspect is expensive electronics.
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On 4Aug24, the OP of that Groundhog Day `24 NSFE discussion linked above posed a question to SEAmod, re: the Fine Jewelry debacle, in another discussion whereâs sheâs trying to help:
This was Susanâs disappointing reply:
It doesnât please me to see that my initial assessment appears to be correct - but it doesnât surprise me, eitherâŚ
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Gotta appreciate her honesty.
Gotta loathe Amazonâs response.
And people wonder why even though I sell on Amazon, Iâm so opposed to buying on it.
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Did she mean to write they have a dedicated category manager or does Amazon seriously not have a single person responsible for the category?
At one point, Amazon had 5000 people working on stupid Alexa but couldnât spare a dime for Jewelry? Huh?
After my AWD adventure yesterday, and reading this, they also must not have anyone at FBA / AWD that is in charge of or managing the conditions of the facilities when it comes to temp / humidity even though they sell perishable goods out of them.
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Amazon has category managers for categories they care about. Amazon used to have a category manager for every category.
Since Amazon never admits to any business error, the first sign that it has effectively abandoned a category is they no longer have a category manager.
Category managers set strategy and have a wide variety of powers. In the past that as inclueded deciding the criteria for the Buy Box and even manually intervening in who has the Buy Bos. They propose higher or lower fee levels.
When I stopped listing on Amazon, there were no category managers for any of the Fine Arts and Collectibles categories. They later found a new category manager for the Sports Collectibles Category who decided on its shift to 3P graded collectibles.
Amazon has categories which were clearly mistakes. You need an in to determine which they are and even whether there is a category manager.
I am not surprised that jewelry does not have a category manager.
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HonestlyâŚstuff like this is where Amazon normally goes the nuclear way and just starts suing the sellers (and turning it over to the feds) and dealing with it that way. Itâs highly illegal and I bet they deal with stuff like this differently.
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One of the powers which category managers appeared to have in the past was to stop IP bots from crawling their category requesting proof of authenticity. Was a definite issue in the Collectibles categories where you are asked for it for vintage sales brochures and other non-products.
This was a major loss since IP bots have driven away many Collectibles sellers.
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Lake, while Iâm sure many of us share your skepticism, it wasnât this bad for a long time. For several years, from launch till about 2022, many of us enjoyed happy little businesses, side-gigs, full-time, a lot of variety, but, in many cases, far better than Etsy ever performed (and many of us had also been there for most of the decade before coming over here.
There were always the obvious intruders, and customers willing to pay $9 for a pair of âsilver earringsâ⌠but now, the legit handmade seem outnumbered in most cases.
Things were good, now they arenât, but they were pretty good for a number of us for quite a while.
IMO a significant factor is amazonâs decision to waive the $40 monthly fee for handmade. It invited even more fakers because why not⌠Iâd rather pay it if it meant removing even half of the junk. OrâŚi would have if I had my sales from 2022 or before back.
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Yeah, that sounds like a really dumb decision. I donât know who made this decision and said âwe want to do business with people who canât afford the $40 fee.â Thatâs literally the bottom of the barrel people. Both crappy fakers and crappy actual handmade sellers.
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To be fair, especially for the first couple of years, waiving the fee made sense. Many very good handmade artisans could not find footing here, especially higher price points, OOAK, and original art. The stuff youâd see at quality juried art shows had a harder time than others. Good artists and sellers, Wong venue.
And of course zero visibility from AZ. But 9 years in with no changes itâs sink or swim, but thereâs a lot more junk in the water.
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I would counter with this though:
Any good artisan can easily afford to gamble a few monthsâ seller fees to try out a new venue. If it doesnât work out then it doesnât work out. Itâs no different than spending money to go to a show and having disappointing sales.
I would argue that for a GOOD artisan, the time spent to set up the account and listings is worth more than the monthly seller fee. Only the trash sellers whoâs time is worthless would balk at paying the fee.
Waiving the fee is only good to increase selection at the expense of quality. And as we all know, Amazon cares about having more selection than having good quality.
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Handmade was initially intended to be a juried venue. The intent was to duplicate the Fine Arts category which launched with quality galleries selling art. That category was a failure, and is now ignored by Amazon.
It became obvious early in the launch process that the Handmade group could never meet their metrics for the service if they had any standards about who could sell.
Things never get better or easier at Amazon. I do not know what the metrics that the handmade team are measured by are, but I feel confident they preclude having a higher quality of offerings.
An MBA with a spreadsheet is not likely to succeed at running a creative, artistic enterprise.
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Not exactly. As someone who applied very early on months before launch, I would never say it was like applying to a gallery or a juried show. Just, a bit more than âlist your stuff come right upâ - we had to describe our process, show our items, etc. Guarantee any approval process took less than 5 minutes per seller.
And then they started asking us for videos making items - under threat of shop closure! - but would still give us a green light within minutes after sending them in.
Again, the category, for those that sell in it, wasnât a failure for a long time. It was never gangbusters, but it was a way to make a decent number of sales if you worked at it and learned the ins and outs, for quite a few years. There are a number of us here that were quite happy with our sales numbers until the last year or so.
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My inside source at the time said that was the intention and it flew out the window when they made the first overture to Etsy sellers. The lack of positive reaction was frightening to the young ambitious Amazonians who had the task.
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For those of us not in Amazon Handmade, this is an important point to remember, from the Sellers actually living it.
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