Our product is NOT a pesticide. But Amazon recently decided to label it that, without changing the product search tree (category).
But because they misclassified it as a “pesticide”, they also created an expiration date. We noticed when they wanted to call a few units “unfulfillable”, due to “expiration”, which shows up in our inventory summary. Our product does not “expire”.
They have not fixed it yet, but the concern here is that classification as a “pesticide” would imply the need for an EPA registration number, which we do not have. Somehow, this does not seem to matter to Amazon. One would think that they would refuse to sell an “unregistered” pesticide, so there are two problems here to fix.
As the sole seller, manufacturer, and registered Trademark owner (“brand owner” in their terms), it is surprising to discover that Amazon considers our product spec uploads to be “contributions”, over which they sit in judgment, and presume to usurp the ultimate decision-making authority over such basic issues as what the product is.
In their defense, if used as a blunt instrument, one actually could kill a bug with our product, but one could say the same of an anvil. I refuse to get hot and bothered, as it has not affected sales, but it is “interesting” that that are going though listings and doing such “edits”.
This was classified as a pesticide. The reason ended up being because the plastic was UV resistant. This is important in lightbars because otherwise the end up brittle and break from UV breaking it down. I tried explaining that the only danger this posed to bugs was at 55 MPH on top of a responding vehicle and it fell on deaf ears.
Now I have an “Unknown Exception” in the AWD screen for the same ASIN. I was asked to provide an expiration date for the product as a part of the AWD dataset, which clearly triggered off the new appearance of “yes this product has an expiration date” in the product details for the ASIN.
I am not sure what to do about this, I am asked to simply “wait” -
We have contacted our internal team for information regarding your issue.
We will contact you as soon as we have an update or if we require further information. We encourage you to wait for our response and assure you that our teams are working on your request.
We appreciate your understanding and cooperation throughout this process.
So, they EVENTUALLY fixed both the incorrect product type and switched the flag to “no expiration date”, but this explains why automated removals were happening for small numbers of perfectly salable units.
Now, the question is - do I insist on reimbursement for the removal fees and shipping fees for the items removed in error, or do I shrug and move on with life, and eat those fees?
Faced with such a situation, and despite Amazon’s well-known recalcitrance in doing the right thing in such matters where it IS the responsible party which caused the financial outlay needlessly, I’d be inclined to open a new case insisting on reimbursement for the foul-up.
Our Accounting/Bookkeeping Department’s bean-counters are quite adept in writing off losses (no matter how the rules change over time, there’s a reason why they’re worth their salt), but if such a case eventually meets nothing but a road-block (given that I tend to be more patient than some of us - I’m in it for the long-run, and apparently more-persistent [link, 032326 SAS post] than some of us), I’d not then hesitate to consult our Legal Department about sending a carefully-couched Demand Letter to Amazon’s OGC (“Office of the General Counsel”).
As I’ve mentioned more than a few times over the years, once the folks in that particular of Amazon’s Ivory Towers recognize that one means business, and signs off once on doing what this or that law requires, future problems resulting from Amazon doing the wrong thing seem to carry weight in the decision-making process, resulting in the base-path to home plate tending to be less-restricted than might otherwise obtain.
