We have a major issue. Our Inventory and Fulfillment software had a MAJOR crash overnight Wednesday (we suspect they were hacked… they aren’t saying much yet other than they hired an external security company). Anyway - all that said, we had to put our Amazon, ebay and WM accounts on vacation yesterday, change PWs etc. However, we have tons of orders that we need to get cancelled out (we have no way to process them or even find them). Do you happen to know the best way to get a seller support agent on the phone so we can explain the issue (we do use a verified software vendor so AMZ probably already knows about the issue) and get help cancelling the orders without metrics hits or account deactivation? We did this once years ago during a hurricane, but I know things have changed. Thx for any ideas. Otherwise, I will just click the “call me now” button on seller help and hope I get someone with a brain and correct info.
What do you mean by you can’t find the orders? They should be available if you log into seller central.
I would go on taskrabbit or something and get a few people over and start manually getting shipping labels and fulfilling the orders thru seller central. A hurricane is a valid excuse for a fulfillment delay. Your software vendor being negligent with their security is not.
I cannot find the location. We have 40,000 books on shelves and the locations of the books are within the software system. The location is not listed in Amazon… so yes I see the orders, but no way to physically locate the book.
We use an Amazon authorized vendor as well… this is a huge thing that will be impacting MANY large scale companies on Amazon.
Gotcha, that’s a tough one then. You can try to call a few SS reps (and use the hangup and redial method to try to draw one who’s not totally inept), but I don’t think this is an acceptable excuse to cancel the orders w/o a metrics hit.
I would check what any agreements w/ the software vendor say about this. If service isn’t restored sometime today and you get damaged by this you might have a claim against the software company.
We aren’t sure the software will even come back - believe me, we are already looking at likely legal action. It’s a MASSIVE breach and will shut down a lot of stores. Thx for the help - will see if we can find someone to assist.
There is almost no way this won’t get you suspended, and yes I read about it affecting other sellers.
After putting my account on vaca. I would print out the invoices and start the search. Better to have late shipments than cancellations.
ETA1 - Cancellations will be harder to appeal, and then there is always the possibility that the software could come back up.
Hind sight and all, I would build location into my SelleSku’s in the future.
ETA2 - do NOT print labelsuntil you find the item.
This this this!
I would put store on vacation mode, and start hunting for books and ship as you find. Sorry this happened.
Thanks all. SO - because I am a super Type-A organizer… I create active listing reports regularly. I had one done within about 24 hours before the break and I CAN FIND MY ORDERS! Ugh. YAY! But yes - we are better off with late than cancel -which is why we were dragging our feet yesterday. Anywho: Will see what becomes of this craziness, but we may be outta here lol.
Unfortunately, this is the risk that everyone who engages in cloud computing faces.
There are other risks when you provide your own data processing environment but few users of the cloud appear to be prepared for the disruptions which are inevitable, in time.
God speed.
While true, TYPICALLY having stuff on the cloud is safer than managing it yourself.
The number of people who properly have routine off-site backups are few and far between. You would either need to make multiple trips per week (preferably daily) or ship something like a usb stick to an off-site location multiple times / week or daily.
Best of both worlds would be local storage, cloud BACKUP, where the backups are regularly maintained (overnights work well for this in many contexts).
Depending on how high your order cancellation rate gets, this is entirely possible.
The good news, however, is that this should be a rather straightforward suspension to get reinstated.
I hope you get enough orders shipped that you make it through.
Hire a handful of students to go hunt down those books. It’s Christmas soon, many will happily make another 50 bucks or so…better than the suspension nightmare and loss of sales coming with it. Put it on a few good facebook groups and some will show up.
And demand that the software company reimburse you for the expense (as well as any other expense incurred from this)
Agreed - I strongly suspect that there’s precious-little chance that the Third Party Service Provider which is culpable for painting our friend DBB into an unwelcome corner doesn’t have an annually-renewed Data Breach/Cyber Liability Policy in place.
And be prepared to engage an attorney in making that demand. Too many software providers are getting off for credit monitoring and other relatively inexpensive gestures.
I am waiting for the class action attorneys to take on United Healthcare for the breach of their medical software subsidiary.
I am unaware of the vendor we speak of. Is it ok to name the vendor?
Castell v. Change Healthcare Inc. et al is only one of the multiple suits that are in play - in multiple jurisdictions tied to both State and Federal District levels over the ALPHV/Black Cat data breach.
Some of our own MSP clients are party to, or subject to find themselves party to, this or that of the ongoing litigations, so I can’t really expound further - but I can say this:
Optum Rx HAS demonstrably been short-shifting proper packaging for my elderly mother’s refrigerated medication in recent months…
There appears to be no money in the retail pharmacy business. As evidence I point to Walgreens, Rite Aid and CVS. No analysis can show profits based on insurance payments for Tier 1 and Tier 2 generics which make up the majority of prescriptions in the US. While all of the attention gets shifted to the high prices of proprietary drugs and the evils of big pharma, the bulk of the prescriptions are forced to be handled in ways that include measures to reduce costs at the expense of patient safety.
Most of the public is ignorant until one morning when they discover their local Walgreens has closed.