Amazon Continues Seller Suspensions without Warnings

After Amazon changed its agreement with sellers over the summer, merchants believed the marketplace would give them 30-days' notice before suspending their accounts, according to Business Insider. But sellers are still being suspended without notice, according to the publication.

In July, Amazon announced changes to the Business Solutions Agreement. It gave Amazon the right to terminate seller accounts with 30 day's notice. However, it said it could "suspend or terminate" sellers use of its services immediately under various circumstances. 

The change to the Business Solutions Agreement came after Amazon reached a deal with Germany's anti-trust authority, the Bundeskartellamt, to adjust its terms of service for third-party merchants. 

Business Insider went into detail in Tuesday's article about how sellers and consultants misunderstood the impact of the changes.

Marketplaces have said they need to be able to issue immediate seller suspensions for several reasons.

We wrote in April about the EU's proposal to regulate platforms and the provision that would require marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon to be more transparent when it came to removing goods or services from search results or "delisting" them.

We cited Etsy's Head of Global Advocacy and Policy Althea Erickson who had written that requiring platforms to provide sellers a long grace periods before suspending their accounts would undermine their ability to maintain the integrity of their marketplaces and would unfairly disadvantage sellers who played by the rules. She had no problem with the longer notice period for account terminations, however.

The concession marketplaces like Etsy are willing to make: giving sellers the reason for their suspensions at the time of the suspension taking effect.

Business Insider quoted Cynthia Stine, who called it heartbreaking when Amazon banned sellers for "very minor offenses made out of ignorance."

The publication also quoted Peter Kearns, a former business development manager at Amazon who now consults suspended Amazon sellers: "If they think a seller is creating a negative customer experience, they'd rather suspend and protect that customer experience rather than allow a potential bad apple."

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