That’s great feedback. It is challenging to search / vet-out a competent PPC firm.
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Since I’ve joined SAS my sales have dropped by about 60%. Of course, since having SAS for 5 months, they’ve had my most popular listings removed for various reasons for about 2 of those 5 months (the first was a fake complaint that they randomly decided was, of course, fake).
I never had these issues beforehand.
It would have been money better spent to get a PPC specialist 3rd party, since I don’t see that benefit anyway.
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Okay. So should I not be upset I’m on day 35 of all my primary listings removed? Trying to figure out how heated I should be. The worst issue I ever had with Seller Support resulted in these same listings to be removed for about 6 weeks, with the resolution being that they discovered it was their fault in the first place – i got an apology letter – with my head spinning off like a top trying to figure out what I did wrong.
I hired SAS to never have this sort of time period happen again, but I’m on fast approach to 6 weeks. That is forever for products you spent six figures on doing PPC to see all that rank just gone.
The one odd coincidence that makes this incident far worse is that, in preparation for being out of country doing some R&D for a few weeks, so we sent ALL of a number of our popular product variations to Amazon to go heavy on MCF orders from our other eCommerce channels. Figured a great solution not to have to shut down the eCommerce channels while away.
We now have dozens of orders we can’t fulfill, and angry customers waiting since March for their shipment (the ones who didn’t want full refund right away), but it’s all locked under review at Amazon. We have never given Amazon all our inventory before, so the timing of this was horrible.
Since April 2020. Pretty invested into ranking improvement, horrid ACOS, all for ranking push since own brand.
So my SAS Core got back to me…
She hasn’t been able to communicate with me because… the Amazon Email exchange has my domain blocked for sending emails to.
Sounds about right. That makes communication rough.
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Is this the email addy connected to your account? If it is, I find that excuse hard to believe.
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Of course your should be upset. More than 2 business days would be unacceptable to me. I find it hard to believe that my SAS manager would let this happen but I haven’t been in your exact situation so it’s hard to know.
At the end of the day you still need to run through the standard process - Seller Support case or appeal. When that fails, then you send the template to the SAS escalation team and CC your SAS manager. Then they go to work. I’ve had issues resolved in 36-48 hours and others have taken longer.
Am I wrong or did you have an offending word in your listings? Did Amazon just deploy a new bot for that word?
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I actually had my eCommerce domain email as main point of contact for my SAS, which was different thatn my Seller Central email. I think they started blocking my domain when I reached out to three different reps in this same week asking for any update. offended their email forwarder, so it blocked that email.
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Actually the opposite. The FTC declares that when selling bamboo textiles you need to have Viscose stated to clarify that the bamboo has been processed into the yarn.
I didn’t have Viscose, except when describing the product. Title and bullets and a couple other sentences were lacking also.
So they “restricted” the listings due to FTC rule. I had a feeling it was coming because I got an odd amazon message asking the difference between “bamboo” and “bamboo viscose”. I responded it was the same and sent an article about it. Listings pulled 48 hours later, and I have a feeling I know what brand reported the pages.
So the complaint is fair (it took a long time for SAS to admit this was the complaint after Brand Registry told me what was up).
I updated all the listings with new titles, new description and new bullets and changed the material. Then we hit the usual problem, Amazon refusing to let the updates go through.
SAS explained that they don’t understand why the updates couldn’t go through, and I told them this is always the case when listings are locked. So we just sat on our hands waiting for them to figure out how to allow my updates to get reviewed and re-instated. This is always the issue I hit when changes are requested.
Now, here is the weirdest part: They never used my changes. they just removed the attributes and put in some filler words to put into compliance. So they must not have figured out how to get my changes to go through.
You think this would be listing administration 101.
So now they got 7 of my listings to Missing SKU, 4 Deleted Listing, and 1 still Restricted ASIN.
They said all I’d have to do is hit the Relist option and I’m back in business. They just opens a 404 page. So another request for help…
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I should be clear that all the largest volume sellers do NOT follow the FTC rule I got removed for, nor do they even bother to mention the required “viscose” term once on their pages.
I reported them, explaining they were breaking FTC rules, and filed an official complaint with the FTC, and Amazon said they don’t heavily enforce that. Weird, since I’m on day 36 of that very enforcement.
You sure it’s Amazon??? We just recently lost all control over our #1 listing that sells 100K units a year. After Amazon fixed it, after a 2 week SAS escalation wait, they admitted to me yesterday that it was essentially hijacked. Sounds like you may be the victim of a 2-pronged attack.
- Reported Listings
- Hijack to prevent updates / reinstatement
Amazon is a terrible place to do business but you know that now. The volume / traffic is irresistible but it comes with this bull ish…
I’m pitching that to my SAS Manager. This is deep, so let’s hope for a response by Memorial Day (have to laugh to keep from crying)
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This perfectly sums up my SAS Core experience (so far):
Last Thursday my SAS Rep reached out to me asking if a button existed in Seller Central. It did! The “Relist” option. the only problem was the it opened 404 error pages.
So I wrote back my rep, on Thursday noon-ish, explaining that it didn’t work, but my Account Health showed all the infractions cleared, though still restricted, and I asked what that meant.
I, of course, didn’t hear back. So Friday comes along and I ask again if there is any update with the listings since Account Health no longer shows them. Didn’t hear anything by afternoon, so did an Account Health call (where they confirm they no longer see the usual infractions).
Then I finally get an email today, 5-6 days later, where my SAS Core rep tells me that the listings have been removed from the Account Health page…
Jeezus…
here is the update from SAS/Seller Support today:
I hope you are doing great!
I am writing to give you an update on this issue , we are working with several internal teams to solve this problem as soon as possible, this because the changes are not yet reflected at the system level, so the reinstatement cannot be done.
We understand that this is a complex case, but we work on your case proactively every day to ensure reinstatement as soon as possible.Thank you for your patience and we’re sorry for any inconvenience this is causing.
If you have more questions please do not hesitate to contact me and I will gladly help you
Have an amazing day
Important to note: To reply to me about this case, it is necessary to do so from this link:
Thank you for allowing us to assist you,
Best regards,
Erick Q.
Amazon Seller Services
Is this just gaslighting at this point? Amazon’s best, most knowledgable support team explains they don’t know how to properly update a listing?
Think your hijack theory is in play and they just don’t want to admit it?
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Or they’re not aware. Every hijack situation has to be elaborated ad nauseum until catalog gets it and that too it becomes a 3-4 step/tiered process.
Dunno if someone is currently on the listings or if those listings have been merged to other listings etc.
Which is why it’s beyond me Witaf they do besides expediting cases to internal teams.
Obviously this is a niche to niche, brand to brand, business to business, rep to rep experience - I cannot, in good conscience recommend to anyone - very nebulous like the ASV’s weekly audits - HTF does it, in certain, fact, make a shred of difference if you look at a backend report vs a front end report - I have no answers.
Sucks.
Let us know how things transpire.
Best. T_T
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They won’t admit it. The only reason why I got it out of them is because I wouldn’t let it go and I kept reopening the escalation case on the advice of my SAS manager.
I’ve had Erick Q as an escalation case manager before. He’s been responsive.
Good Luck. This will get resolved but you will never get those lost sales back which is the disturbing part of selling on Amazon. Amazon won’t admit fault and you’ll never get the identity of the hijacker (if that’s the case) to sue and it wouldn’t matter anyway because chances are they are in China or another country out of reach of our legal system.
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It’s not just Amazon sales. I’m refunding people delay from my other channels, as I made the mistake of giving Amazon all my top seller inventory on the point I was going to be out of town and planned on using their MCF.
Our business is entirely shut down, dealing with screaming clients, for 37 days and counting.
The part that gets me is they claim to be “proactive”, which is nonsense. I’ve worked at a datacenter, I do coding and mysql databases, there is nothing that complicated in regards to database data that requires longer than an hour (I’m factoring in the walk to the console) to completely fix, sync or update.
Amazon spends so much time in secrecy that it creates a level of incompetency that can’t be matched.
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Ok, but which specific teams?
And why are there multiple teams dealing with a basic catalog issue?
And what is the timeline for resolution???
^^^ my questions in reply
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That’s the big question:
- They say I need to put listings in compliance, so I update them.
- They say they aren’t seeing the updates and the wait begins.
- They later say the updates are stuck and they instead start makign their own edits. Their own edits are horrid, but I can change them back whenever the listings come back.
- They can make their own edits save and appear, but they can’t get the listings active again.