Sigh: Here We Go Again (Notification of Listings Removal)

Account Health
1

Some of you may remember, but last March we had nearly a dozen of our primary listings (all in the bamboo bedding category) removed over the Textile Products Identification Act.

It took 75 days, mostly due to delays with Amazon allowing our required edits to go through, before we were finally back compliant and online. A massive review was done and we were (finally) allowed back live.

The whole ordeal left me frustrated, to put it mildly.

  1. Instead of any warnings, we were removed, which made editing the listings, easy edits, impossible.
  2. To this day, over half a year, Amazon seems to not enforce compliance on other listings in the same category. When searching “bamboo bedding”, about 1/3rd to 1/2 of the top sellers have not been removed or suffered any enforcement, and they have zero compliance to the Textile Products Identification Act that we were nearly deleted permanently over. Not only is this clearly uneven enforcement, it is advantageous to just have “bamboo” without the viscose nonsense to avoid confusion with buyers.

Whatever, at least we are now compliant… until today. Once again, after going through a massive review to prove compliance back during March through May, our listings are getting removed once again.

Same issue as before. They pull one, and then they all fall like dominoes shortly after. This variant went first I believe because I attempted to fix the title last night (should not have California in the title).

The key point to this compliance is you have to say “Bamboo Viscose” or “Bamboo-derived Viscose” or “Viscose derived from Bamboo”. You can’t just say the term “bamboo” without some quick follow up that the material is actually viscose/rayon from bamboo, not just raw threads directly off a bamboo plant; as the threads needed processing to become yarn.

That’s it.

So my listing has been “removed”, it is now a penalty under my account health, and it asks me to submit an appeal. But, also, the listing is still live – go figure – so give a look for yourself:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WLQVQQW

The “Full” size is supposedly “Removed”. By the time you finish going through it, you’ll have “viscose” coming out your eye balls.

But, according to Amazon, this is not compliance. It’s insane.

2

Can you share a screenshot of what it says on the account health page? Where it says “action taken” and “account health rating impact”

Is it actually impacting your account health score? What does it ask for if you click to appeal? If it is impacting your account health score, is it still green?

Given that your listing is still active, if your score is still green, depending on what it says on the account health page I’d be inclined to not appeal and let sleeping dogs lie.

3

SAS should fix this and remove the Account Health penalty in a couple days.

That’s why you pay for that service. I know you will, but please keep us up to date as this progresses.

Good Luck
Steve

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4

Sorry for the delay. I have a new policy on life that when stuff like this happens I need to step away and work on household and other life projects so I don’t lose my mind in frustration.

Actually, @GGX , I submitted a response on why the violation is incorrect, sighting every instance of every time the term “bamboo” was stated and how the sentence played out.

I’m sending an email to SAS tonight to take a look.

Last time this went down, my SAS was worthless, so not sure if I should just delete the listing and re-add it. I definitely am fully blocked from editing it, either through the EDIT option or file upload. So that has already taken place, but the listing remains online, which is weird because it says Listing Removed.

5

And the result to my appeal:

Hello,

We received your submission for the following ASINs and we have determined that there are currently no restrictions on the listings. The following listings are active on the Amazon.com store:

ASIN: B07WLQVQQW

It’s still in my Account Health as a “Restricted Products Violation” and the listing is still hard-locked from allowing any edits. :woozy_face:

6

Have you heard back from your SAS manager today on this?

I’ve had 5 emails from my SAS manager today already dealing with our own issues.

It is possible that the violation will drop off in 24 hours if they cleared it. Doesn’t happen instantly.

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7

So I see - the title still includes “California Full” as the sheet size.

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Yep. That’s what I tried to fix and I think that’s what got it flagged first. It was the only child of the family that had an edit attempted, and it got Policy Violation instead of it going through.

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9

No, no response yet. But I waited until this morning so the email wouldn’t be buried if I sent it last night.

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10

That sucks. Wishing you luck.

The good news is the listing is active right? Getting that violation removed can wait. There are plenty of sellers that have lots of violations that continue to operate without issue.

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11

The fact you have this concern when you’re paying thousands a month for support is astounding.

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12

#truestory

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IN all fairness, I’m expecting a response from our guy by today; he’s at least same-day. Our last SAS agent, Megan, who they fired, I’d write her Monday morning and be shocked if she bothered to even acknowledge my email before the following weekend. Horrid.

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14

I agree with you 100%.

We’re on our second SAS manager. First was great, this one is even better.

I get a few emails daily from mine. She just sent me over a 12 page file for all historical averages of reservation fees for buying extra capacity at FBA if we need it.

Looks pretty reasonable if needed.

Here’s a summary of averages if anyone needs space and is considering bidding on it. It’s a bidding system of course but what I was provided are actual use case examples where it was granted.

Standard Size - $2.20 per foot.
Oversize - $.75 per foot.
Extra Large - $1.70 per foot
Apparel - $3.50
Footwear - $1.80

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15

Just got more follow up from my SAS manager. We’re having all sorts of issues getting stuff picked up / printing BOL’s. I’m sure it’s not isolated to us and FBA is all backed up but we need to make sure.

I started this with her at 3AM this AM EST. Already had lots of communication and a quick call earlier. Stayed up extra late hoping a new Amazon day (3am EST) would bring BOL’s for today as we were supposed to get a pickup that didn’t happen…

This is the type of service you should be receiving. Immediate and actionable with urgency and results.

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Well, I’ll let you know whenever my guy decides to respond… so there. lol

They finally gave me a PPC Manager, who wrote to me once to confirm my interest, I wrote back saying I’m greatly interested, and he never responded. I wrote back again asking when we can start and radio silence.

Thinking that one is fate, as I’m just doing the PPC on my own right now and not sure of the benefits of paying more to get some management.

One question: Do you always reach out direct to SAS to start cases, or do you first open a case with seller support, allow that to hit DOA, and then have SAS take a look? That’s the steps my SAS rep requires me to take. Think it buys him some time to take a look.

17

If I’m paying someone thousands a month for SUPPORT, that sounds like someone who I go to first for any support issues. If it needs to be submitted to another department, that sounds like THEIR job to do that. Otherwise wtf are you paying for?

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18

The first step we take is to reach out immediately with everything.

Either of our SAS managers would tell us what to do. Often, cases need to be opened and if you need to escalate to SAS Issue Assistance, then you need to have a case.

You’re supposed to wait for the case to fail before you escalate but we escalate immediately unless it’s some non-consequential thing. Those we wait for some sort of positive / negative resolution first from standard Seller Support.

Also, when opening seller support tickets, we always copy our SAS manager on them so they can be aware, connected to the case and know who got assigned the case. When they have that info, they can directly reach out to the individual that has the case at that moment to try and move it along.

Forget this… Internal Amazon PPC managers have 1 best interest in mind - that’s Amazon and $ for Amazon.

We took a chance on an agency because I sucked at managing our PPC and it paid off nicely. Not cheap - $3K a month. It pays for itself many times over. Got friendly with the guy and did a side gig for Walmart much much cheaper… Shhhhhh :no_mouth:

It’s one thing after another with your account. This is insanity. It’s gotta get better.

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19

Got a response! I guessed this very thing…

Hey Ryan,

I would reach out to the call me now button in account health, If that doesn’t work the next stop would be IA, if this is a deal that is running tomorrow and will impact its sales, I would make sure to mark it as business critical in the subject line.

So he just tells me to do it myself. He’s like a father from the '80s.

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You would think but there are processes in place that have to be started by the seller sadly.

Get your point but things don’t always work the way we want them to in Silo-World with AI that needs 1+1 to = 2.