I used my savings, borrowed money from my parents, did all the paperwork and prepared documents to launch a store on Amazon. Did product market research and found a product that I can sell. I did brand registry on Amazon. Listed products under that Brand name and used A+ listing. After a week, first order came. It made me happy. I prepared that order, wrote a thankyou letter for my first valuable customer and shipped it. Then after 5 days, next order came, I repeated the whole process, prepared the order, wrote a thankyou letter and shipped them. Then, next order came after 3 days, then after 1 day. Now the time had come, where I started to receive more than one order per day. Sometimes I used to get 1, sometimes 2 and sometimes even 3. I used to follow the same process- preparing the orders, writing a thankyou letters and then shipping them. 25-30 days had passed like this. I was very happy with the progress as previous selling records was breaking after every 2 to 2 days. I started to think that finally gear cogs have starting to move. But it was not the time to sit and celebrate. So I started to do more product market research to launch more products. Simultaneously I also started to learn about FBA, how to works and related fee and charges. It looked great so I registered with my nearest FBA warehouse to get Prime badge on my chosen products. I packed some of my Inventory in boxes to send them for FBA 3 month trial.
For the first time, I had reached 4 orders per day and the good part was that it wasn't even the weekend. Butterflies were flying in my stomach as I waited excitedly for the upcoming weekend anticipating another record break by the margin of at least 2 additional sales.
But then, Sunday came - and passed. To my surprise, not even a single order I received that day. It made me sad, but it was ok - 'no worries, it happens sometime', I told myself. However, on Monday, I discovered that an unauthorized seller has mapped their multiple products with my listing, under my brand, and selling them at 30% cheaper price than mine. I was shocked, that how can they sell my product at such low price, when even I was working with razor thin margin and also how did they even managed to map their product with mine without any authorization letter or Invoice. Because I was not selling my products anywhere except on Amazon. So I knew that they are selling fake generic products and using my listing and branding. It was affecting my business very badly. My daily orders had reduced to zero. But again I told myself, 'No worries, it is part of the process, sometimes people try to take advantage of others'.
I put FBA and product market research on hold and did test buy of all mapped ASINs with my other account. So that I can inspect those mapped product and file a violation complaint. Upon receiving the orders, I unpacked and inspected them under the camera. I found that this seller was selling generic product made with cheapest quality raw material. It didn't even had branded label on it. Product was totally different from the Bullet Points that I had mentioned on the website, A+ content, description and even Title. They looked different from photographs that I had uses in my listing. I was baffled, why Amazon is even allowing them to sell on their website as they are doing multiple policy violations. Basically, they are scamming our customers, that too using my Branding.
More than a week had passed already since their mapping. So I filed the complaint using "Report a Violation" tool as soon as I can. Explained everything in that report, attached all the necessary documents and sent it. I had faith that Amazon will take action and remove the mapper from my listing. But that didn't happened. Instead they rejected my complaint immediately after filing it, without any clear explanation, and give me the link of seller support. So I raised my complain over there, explained everything again. After reading my problem they forwarded my case to a specialist and told me to wait for their response. After half a day I received a mail with another link of another Report a Violation form. I filled that, and explain my problem again along with necessary links. But you know what, it got rejected again and they gave me another link of seller support. I again contacted them, again explained my problem, they they again forwarded my case to a specialist. Guess what? next day I got another mail form their specialist with another link. I have been doing this again and again for last 5 to 6 days as if stuck in a loop. And still there hasn't been any progress. It has been already more than 15 days since the mapping.
I wonder what went wrong, What did I do to receive this kind of treatment from Amazon. Maybe I celebrated my early success way too soon. And now, these days I'm having more headaches instead of orders. Why amazon is not helping me out. It feels like they are delaying or avoiding my case on purpose. It is very heartbreaking. Don't know how long I can keep this up...
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