[AMZ] Changes to dietary supplements policy

The problem is three-fold (at the very least):

  1. Amazon is trepid about receiving yet another hefty fine under the auspices of 15 U.S.C. § 2301 et seq., as it has several times in the past.

  2. Amazon is unwilling to properly vet offshore-domiciled 3P Sellers for compliance with the U.S. Code, largely because:

  3. All that truly matters, in the estimation of the inhabitants of Seattle’s Halls of Power, is the corporate bottom line.

I guess one issue is someone offering a money back guarantee, then when Amazon goes to honor it on their behalf, the seller has already been paid and abandoned the account and left Amazon holding the bag.

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Plus, it falls under their “nothing Seller-specific” on PDPs.

It’s definitely not the worst thing I’ve seen in bullets, though. :unamused_face:

I do believe you can put that in your Store profile.

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I like how Amazon scheduled the Webinar for these changes on the day of Supply Side East in NY - big industry event.

Shows how much they know / care about the industry and what the folks in it might be doing that day (Wed).

My partner is going. I’ll be on the webinar.

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It will prove interesting to learn whether or not Amazon is willing to provide the list of Third Service Provider TICs (“Testing, Inspection, and Certification”) entities that it has sanctioned to be able to submit TRFs (“Test Request Form”), short of the MYC (“Manage Your Compliance”) Dashboard throwing a flag which opens up access to the ‘Request lab service’ functionality.

Such a list does not appear to be available from the SHC’s (“Seller Help Content”) ‘main’ page on this subject, Dietary Supplements (link), nor - @ least, from what I can tell - by perusing various filters set for drilling down into the SPN (“Service Provider Network”) Dashboard.

I take what is probably Amazon’s point, here, in keeping proprietary information close to its vest - but Amazon’s track record in properly vetting Third Party Service Providers for the SPN is not as spotless as might be hoped…

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Not sure what to expect. I’ve never attended an Amazon webinar for anything. Hopes are not high at all that the time will be worth it.

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Go prepared … bring a pillow …
:smirk:

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Was thinking more about bringing my Jeff Bezos punching bag actually.

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And a very timely post on the NSFE from what appears to be a rookie that thinks all they have to do is register their brand on Amazon – :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

“Is there still a second step that I need to complete in order to be able to list my supplement? My launch date is coming up.”

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions/t/0461deaf-2413-4a2c-a678-47212bf72f49?postId=d6f3f03e-5417-462e-a611-3c4a2be9047c

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The inanity posted by ill-informed 3P Sellers, in every single iteration of the ASF
(“Amazon Seller Forums”), has never ceased to amaze me.

The demonstrable rise in such post’s frequency over in NSFE - right from the very first day of the ‘official’ launch on 2Jan`23 - IS, admittedly, astounding - but there’s a reason why the old hands like you spilt so much ink in warnings for the rest of us in the Amazon Seller Community, during the waning weeks of the OSFE, that such an occurrence was likely to prove well-nigh ineluctable, sooner or later.

Unsurprising I find it that sooner was Fate’s choice…

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They are going to be sorry they were born soon.

Looking forward to the webinar in 13.5 hours. Our Director of Quality will be on along with members of his team.

There were all sorts of rumors circling at Supply Side East today about what this is all about. The industry is talking…

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My guess is they have enough product selection now, so they don’t need more just launched brands so they’re tightening up the standards.

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You really do get all the mucky jobs, don’t you.

And a book. And many snacks.

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Chomp on a bottle of melatonin gummies.

I had an ex who would eat like 10 of them at a time “because they tasted good”

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Got a little more intel on this.

  • First order of business will be weight loss / sexual health / sports nutrition, and anything else that’s on the FDA’s radar.
  • Seems as everything is being run through NSF who has been consulting with Amazon for the last year.
  • Amazon has a new quality person for the industry on staff who is known to not have a clue about what he’s doing.
  • Seems they want to add pesticide and residual solvent tests to things that would never have the possibility of having those (non-botanicals / uncoated tablets)
  • Upper limits (in testing) are in scope
  • If the lab used, even if ISO 17025 certified, is not NSF certified, everything has to be reviewed by NSF.

If the rumors from the water cooler talk are true (will know for sure in an hour), NSF is going to be raking in the $.

Like I have said before, this goes above and beyond industry federal regulations. Pieces of this, if not the whole thing, will be challenged by brands like Now Foods and others just like the last time Amazon tried and failed to implement sweeping changes to the category.

Either way, we aren’t concerned although it will be more expense of course, especially if we need to do worthless pesticide / solvent testing on products with raw materials that have already been certified solvent / pesticide free. Neither of those 2 tests are cheap. It’s unknown at this point how many times a product may have to be certified:

  • Once
  • Once per year
  • Every batch??

Loopholes may exist for bad actors to continue to do their thing but it won’t be as easy.

Sounds like it’s going to be a slow and focused rollout. May be awhile before they get to us.

Anyone selling sport / weight / sexual health, better get prepared though if this doesn’t get struck down by industry pushback.

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Seems like this is just a sweetheart deal for NSF. The fact they’re not allowing any certified lab to be used seems problematic.

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Webinar has started…

Host is barely understandable - Indian accent.

Welcome to Amazon

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Yeah that’s first thing I noticed.

Hopefully this means they’re not actually taking this thing seriously and will just dump it. It’s not that forcing brands to comply with stuff isn’t a good thing, it’s the fact that Amazon tends to do these things poorly and there’ll be problems for everybody.

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I see Eurofins is on the list. We’ve worked with them. Good.

BTW - how unprofessional is this webinar? LOL

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They started late and seem disorganized too.

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