Sean Chow

8-Figure eCom Operator

[Eugene Khayman @EugeneKhayman]

https://t.co/IxemSJaxqO

[Sean Chow @seaniechow]

@ivankeababies @dharmeshmehta @amznsellerhelp @AmazonHelp ridiculous how this can happen. Hope it gets resolved soon.

[Ivan KeaBabies @ivankeababies]

The craziest real life story you will ever read as an Amazon seller happening to us right now. Amazon Seller Central Hacked and no clear resolution after 7 days! @dharmeshmehta @amznsellerhelp @AmazonHelp
https://t.co/Rkgpd9G3s2

[Koka @kokus]

The following is a condensed version of our latest Amazon UK saga. I don't mean to be complain, but if you have the time and courage to read this to the end, you will see that @AmazonUK really put us into a corner. @amazon @AmazonHelp - I actually do feel extreme gratitude towards @JeffBezos for creating this opportunity for many Amazon sellers, but seriously... Ok, read on... (keep in mind that this is our THIRD experience of this kind with Amazon UK.

I will condense it to the least amount of words. We have been selling in the UK since 2018, I believe. Have a UK business, UK bank account, UK warehouse, UK accountant, UK director. We were invited to sell in the UK based on Amazon's request. We have collected and remitted UK VAT since then. We are the poster child of a proper Amazon UK seller.

Back on September 12th 2024 we received a verification email from the Amazon UK team telling us that they determined we were not a UK established company and our global disbursements got frozen.

Since then we provided every document that was requested:

UK Council Tax Bill
UK Utility Bill
UK Director Passport
UK Bank Account Statements
Employee Pay Slips
Corporate documentation
Invoices issued to UK entity
Confirmation from HMRC that we are business in good standing with no taxes owed
Confirmation from HMRC that we are a UK established company for UK Tax purposes
Some other docs like proof that the address matches corporate records

The issue is that someone either is not doing their job or does not want to take on a responsibility to make a decision. We were not asked to provide a list of documents all at once. We are asked for document A. We supply it. Pause 1-2 weeks. Request for document B.  Pause. Request for document C. Pause. Request for document D. And so on.

Then after 3 months of not getting our disbursements (globally) they said the documents you supplied 3 months ago are no longer valid since they were now 3 months old. Ironic, right? We need documents a, b, c, d etc again, but dated with current dates. Naturally, it takes time to re-obtain the documents. Pause. Request for another document.

Fast forward to November. At this point the UK government says to Amazon via a letter that we are an established UK entity which one would think is sufficient for Amazon UK to determine the same. It was not.

On October 30th, we were told to get a letter from our UK bank (Santander) that we are an established UK entity. We obtained this letter and submitted it on November 4th.

On November 5th we were asked for the same letter, but "signed OR wet stamped". Our bank account manager had informed us that they have not used a traditional wet stamp for years. He signed the letter and we submitted the same on November 6th.

On November 7th our submission was not approved and we were asked for the same letter, but now "SIGNED AND STAMPED".  Despite our banker being super helpful with this up to this point, he simply said that nobody uses wet stamps in their corporate office and it was impossible for us to get this. Whoever is asking for this on Amazon end is either unaware of this or was deliberately trying to put us into a corner.

Our UK director and accountant were unable to help with this. Amazon has not paid us for over 3 months. Our expenses are piling up. We need to pay for staff, warehousing, suppliers, customers, freight, advertising etc. Our unpaid Amazon USA seller account balance is over $380k. Not every business can survive operating and not getting paid for over 3 months.

Having no other choice, my business partner Yuriy Rubin got on the plane and flew from Vancouver to London. Being a true hero and a champ, he located a branch of Santander Bank in the UK that still used a wet stamp. He connected our bank account manager with the branch manager and they arranged for the letter to be wet stamped AND signed there and then. Again, let's take this moment to appreciate this: A person flying 12 hours across the Atlantic to walk into a bank to smudge ink on a piece of paper to get paid money owed to his business.

Bonus points: Yuriy made a video of himself at the branch during this process.

Yuriy submitted this letter earlier today. It was denied.

Yuriy went to a local law office and certified the same letter as a true copy of the orginal with another stamp and submitted it today again. Knowing what I know, I suspect it will be denied. We will be asked to provide another document - it could be a birth certificate of my grandfather or a DNA test for my cat. I am genuinely curious to find out.

At this point this looks like a script for a movie akin to Dante's Inferno, but with a 2024 twist.

Jokes aside, I am certain that Amazon is full of great, professional, reasonable people who do not want these stories to represent what Amazon stands for. We just want this nightmare to end to allocate our time and money towards something more productive, like developing new products, serving Amazon's customers etc. This has been a real drag.

If you know someone at Amazon who can put an end to this saga, I would be eternally grateful.

[Kristina N @Kikilahlah]

URGENT: Amazon issued an unwanted DISPOSAL order of 4250 units ($30k) of stranded inventory - Order ID: 3JKeNjLvdX. Seller support says they can’t cancel it. We need the stock sent to our warehouse, not DISPOSED of! Please cancel the removal order! @amznsellerhelp @dharmeshmehta

[Michael Patrón @michaelpatron0]

@andrewrsorkin @SquawkCNBC @ajassy Yea, ask him why he raised fees on sellers hundreds of millions of dollars but can't even take 5 min to address the issue. Why is he putting thousands of small businesses under? Don't allow him to BS his way out of this either...complete fleece of sellers without remorse.

[Michael Patrón @michaelpatron0]

Yes, I will keep tweeting about Amazon's low inventory fee and placement fee that will decimate businesses but soon we will also include the next new fee for returns - just like the previous 2, it is not ready to be rolled out and the math is complicated to hide the insane...

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

Amazon just dropped a secret price increase by pushing logistics costs and work to its small business sellers

Here's why it's a disaster for everyone involved (Consumers, Sellers, Amazon):

1. It's going to raise prices on the Amazon platform.

Last week we shipped our inventory to Amazon for $0.17/unit. This week, between their "placement fee" and the additional shipping charges from shipping to multiple and faraway fulfillment centers, we are seeing costs of around $1.00/unit. Since Amazon takes 15% of any price increase we do, we'll need to increase our prices by at least $1 per unit (if not more), increasing our prices on average around 6%. We cannot afford to eat this cost. We're not Amazon. Our sales and profits are down in a very tough market. At $0.83 additional costs per unit and around 400,000 units sold, we will have to absorb around $300,000 of extra costs per year.

2. It's not "Climate Pledge Friendly".

Amazon prides itself in what it does to reduce its burden on the environment; they even named an arena in seattle "Climate Pledge Arena" because of their work on this issue. By having sellers ship to 5 faraway fulfillment centers instead of shipping to one nearby fulfillment center, by relying on sellers' weak, mostly non-robotic, un-scaled operations, they are increasing CO2 emissions and logistics costs. Last week we had one Amazon pick-up, by making 5 shipments the lowest cost, we will have 5 trucks come to our warehouse, each belching emissions into the air. It's not efficient or good for the environment.

3. It greatly increases the amount of labor needed to do the same job.

Amazon is quoting lower prices for "small parcel" (think UPS and FedEx) than it is for palletized shipments. When you're shipping 150 boxes, it just doesn't make sense to pay people to load each box one by one, instead of using pallets, but by charging less for this, that is what Amazon is encouraging us to do. The increased workload from this, multiple pickups (because UPS can't pickup 150 large boxes with a single pickup), and the additional labelling and tracking costs adds further costs to sellers and doesn't even make Amazon's operations more efficient.

4. It's a massive increase in complexity.

Last week we created a shipment in Texas and were given a warehouse in Texas to deliver to. This week, we created a shipment and were given the following options to optimize for:

A. Small parcel or pallets or mixed small parcels and pallets
B. Ship to 1, 3, or 5 warehouses
C. Ship from the inbound region of east, west, or central

Each of these options could be combined and was given a different placement fee and shipping cost.

We have to keep our costs low so we tried to check them all.

The problem is that, there are 2*5*3 = 30 different combinations of how to do this, each with their own price and each with totally different workflows. How many pallets do we need? How many picklists? How many labels. It's all different.

Even worse, each location has its own delivery speed so how can we forecast when our inventory will arrive so we stay in stock?

What's the bottom line?

Amazon needs to get its inventory distributed around the country, but if they're going to push this work to sellers, then lower your fees so sellers don't have to increase their prices.

If Amazon wants to charge more for this, don't introduce a secret fee that is impossible to explain to people who don't live and die supply chain. Just keep it real and increase the storage fees or the fulfillment fees.

[Anh Doan C.P. @Anh_dcp]

🚨Urgent Action Needed @amznsellerhelp 🚨
Our business is facing a critical challenge due to a false patent infringement claim by a competitor. It is a strategic attack from them. Our listings have been unjustly suspended on Amazon. Case ID 14444343571
@dharmeshmehta @AmazonHelp

[Jess Castle @JessCastle19]

A competitor on Amazon takes our ASINS down using a false IP infringement claim. Amazon won’t even allow us to defend ourselves by giving us a chance in the APEX Program.
Case ID- 14051195311
@dharmeshmehta @amazonHelp @amznsellerhelp
#workwithusamazon

[filip Gustavsson @filipGustavss12]

Review glitch or attack? Rating crashes on Prime Day. Our top ASIN, earning $1M/month 4.3 rating, 30K reviews dropped to 2.0! No 1-star reviews, now at 3.1 post-merge. Amazon’s response? Basic FAQs. True 1-star rate is under 6%, not 29% @dharmeshmehta
@amazonHelp @amznsellerhelp

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@Shopify @MrBeast Whatever you guys want. @MrBeast could have his way with me. I would eat @Feastables until I went to the hospital.

A better question might be, what would I not do?

It's a short list.

https://t.co/DWopqQXQMh

[Ryan Simmons @rysimm]

Amazon changed my product category of 6 yrs from Industrial & Scientific to Office Products increasing my referral fees by 3%. Amazon is already taking ~80% total from me in fees. This will put my small business out of business. Please help! @amznsellerhelp @AmazonHelp @amazon

[Kevin Chen @KFC_KevinChen]

@amznsellerhelp @dharmeshmehta

A competitor merged a toy’s reviews onto a new product to get 4.5k reviews overnight, right before Prime Day. It’s not FDA-cleared and shouldn’t even be live. This is ridiculous that Amazon allows this to happen to sellers

https://t.co/2rwKJbhkzw

[Jacobo Hernandez @JacoboH800]

📢 Attention @amazon! For 2 periods, payments owed to us have not been disbursed. No account disputes or violations exist. We urgently seek investigation With payroll looming, the delay is putting our team's livelihood at risk. 😰 @amznsellerhelp @dharmeshmehta @JeffBezos

[Sean Chow @seaniechow]

Brand Registry trademark pending for over 6 weeks, even though it is publicly available information that our trademark is LIVE. Brand registry support giving auto-answers to wait, without looking at our case at all.
@dharmeshmehta @amznsellerhelp @AmazonHelp
Case ID 13376058811

[Jonathan Billings @surfimporting]

@amznsellerhelp I have a few products that Amazon has restricted from selling California even after I've sent a signed letter from the California regulatory authority stating that my products are *not* regulated by them. The canned reply I got back made it clear that whoever

[Wassim Shoucair @WassimShoucair]

@amznsellerhelp @dharmeshmehta Our bestselling ASIN has been removed for almost a month now! Cid: 12991212221. We have submitted all requested certifications but SS still hasn't reinstated our ASIN and keep telling us they are working on our case!

[Sean Chow @seaniechow]

@MehranKamari @dharmeshmehta @amznsellerhelp Being able to get away with this kind of nonsense is damaging to Amazon's brand and reputation. This should be an open and shut case, but frustratingly the system is not build for common sense (hoping that can change in the future).

[Mehran @MehranKamari]

@dharmeshmehta @amznsellerhelp This "health" supplement listing has merged 1000's of reviews from a FRUIT LOOPS cereal product, This is SCARY! How can Amazon customers trust the platform if this is blatantly happening? Please Do something:

https://t.co/yd82KAqgzW