Email received from Amz - I cant sell textbooks any longer?

Selling on Amazon
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Of course they are looking out for my account and are “here to help.”

Of course in the email they do not tell me which of my skus are going to be removed.

Here is the email - anyone else receive this gem of an email below??

Hello,

As part of our ongoing efforts to provide the best possible customer experience, we have implemented additional restrictions for Textbook products. Effective 2/26/2024, you will not be able to list the affected products, and your listings will be removed. This action does not impact your account health.

How do I reinstate my listings?

You are not approved to list Textbook products and we are currently not accepting applications.

Were your listings removed as a result of an error?

If you believe your products have been misclassified within a certain category or sub-category that requires approval, please contact Selling Partner Support with evidence, such as product pictures, to support this claim. Amazon will review your claim and make a final determination that will ensure the best shopping experience for our customers.

What happens if I do not take action?

If no action is taken, the affected listings will not be available for sale in the Amazon store.

Can I sell my remaining FBA inventory?

If you have remaining inventory of the affected products in Amazon fulfillment centers, you may continue selling your remaining inventory until 2/26/2024. After this date, you will need to create a removal order. For help in creating a removal order, see the following Seller Central help page:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com.br/gp/help/200280650

We’re here to help

For more information about products that require approval, search for Categories and Products Requiring Approval in Seller Central, or see:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com.br/gp/help/G200333160
Sincerely, Seller Performance Team https://www.amazon.com

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That’s not a very useful email…

Welcome to SAS!

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3

Welcome to SAS!

This was also reported in another thread that you might find useful here.

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Just got this email myself:

Hello,

As part of our ongoing efforts to provide the best possible customer experience, we have implemented additional restrictions for Textbook products. Effective 2/26/2024, you will not be able to list the affected products, and your listings will be removed. This action does not impact your account health.

How do I reinstate my listings?
You are not approved to list Textbook products and we are currently not accepting applications.

Were your listings removed as a result of an error?
If you believe your products have been misclassified within a certain category or sub-category that requires approval, please contact Selling Partner Support with evidence, such as product pictures, to support this claim. Amazon will review your claim and make a final determination that will ensure the best shopping experience for our customers.

What happens if I do not take action?
If no action is taken, the affected listings will not be available for sale in the Amazon store.

Can I sell my remaining FBA inventory?
If you have remaining inventory of the affected products in Amazon fulfillment centers, you may continue selling your remaining inventory until 2/26/2024. After this date, you will need to create a removal order. For help in creating a removal order, see the following Seller Central help page:
https://sellercentral.amazon.com.br/gp/help/200280650

We’re here to help
For more information about products that require approval, search for Categories and Products Requiring Approval in Seller Central, or see:
https://sellercentral.amazon.com.br/gp/help/G200333160
Sincerely, Seller Performance Team https://business.amazon.com/abredir

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I mean it couldn’t be less helpful if it tried. No link to affected listings (my inventory level hasn’t changed as of right now). No insight into what defines something as “textbook”… typical half-thought out top-down ■■■■■■■■.

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I received the same email. I don’t sell textbooks myself and avoid buying them.

I did a key word search of my inventory for “education” and “teaching” and I have a few listings with those words in the title. They are not textbooks themselves but the authors discuss those issues. The bots could identify them as textbooks though.

So far none of my listings have been removed (fingers crossed) but you never know what the bots will target.

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Interesting that the links point to the Brazil site. :person_facepalming:

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Hmm, do you have any ASINs that are likely flagged as “Textbook”?

Maybe we can check what the listing restrictions are for attempting to list those items to see if they’re actually gated.

I checked this one, I see no restrictions except for refurbished

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@thepatwo and @UserID, can you please confirm whether you have any books in FBA? And if yes, are any of those ASINs somehow (mis)identified as “textbooks”? :thinking:

I’m trying to figure out if the FBA blurb in the email is boilerplate text to all affected Sellers, just in case any happen to be FBA.

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I think that is boilerplate, because it says “If”

All notices I’ve received in the past say “If” not “You do have FBA inventory”

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I am 99.9% FBA. I might have some"textbooks" in Amazon FCs but my guess it is less than a dozen. However, not all “textbooks” are 1000 pages - as we all know here.

Happy days.

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I don’t have any active FBA but do have several phantom items in the blackhole of being disposed of from several years ago when we were fba. They will not get deleted out for some reason.

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Well, I got the email. Just checked my inventory, nothing showing Stranded or Suppressed, although since the email says “after this date” perhaps something will happen tomorrow.

For quite some time, I’ve been unable to list most books from Pearson or McGraw Hill, although once in a while one will be able to be listed.

But saying “textbooks” is a little hard to process. Does that include the books I have that are aimed at home-schooling? Does it affect ALL publishers?
And I recall seeing one time that the version of Plato’s ‘Republic’ was tagged as being a “textbook”; will books like that be affected as well?

Guess as with everything Amazon, we just have to wait and see what happens. But the part that really makes me mad is the FBA part; if last week you told me I could sell a book, and this week you say I can’t, I understand that; but I shouldn’t be the one paying for the removal order. At least ship them back at no charge to the seller.

I imagine that some sellers could get hit with huge removal costs due to this.

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Saw this on the NSFE this morning:

Books_In_Demand

In reply to: Books_Nooks_and_Cran’s post

13 hours ago

For what it’s worth, an Amazon Seller Central rep stated this:

Who is allowed to sell textbooks?

MeSent at 7:50 PM

Is it just for Brazil? Or does it affect US marketplace as well?

H S7:51 PM

no it is affected to only brazil

And when I pressed them for more information on it just being Brazil, they have so far just spat out random help pages to me that have nothing to do with that very important question. I’ll let you know if they say anything else potentially material.

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My normal inventory number remains active this morning, so no real change as of yet.

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I have received numerous emails in the past saying that X is restricted and FBA inventory needs to be removed, or Y won’t be sellable any longer that weren’t actually true.

Since there’s no action being requested of you here, I would ignore this email until something actually happens.

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Did Amazon add Brazil to your marketplace list like others have stated recently?

If you do have Brazil as a marketplace, maybe that’s what this all boils down to. Hopefully…

Another sledge hammer approach / message from Amazon.

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Just don’t open any cases with brazil support, they might delete your account. I would just ignore anything that’s BR specific for now

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Nope, just the US marketplace.

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FWIW Brazil has had restrictions on book imports for many years.

There was a point when all used books could not be sent to Brazil.

It would not be far fetched for this to be relevant to Brazil only.

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