Hello Amazon Forum,

EMAIL I RECEIVED:

Hello NotoCoEnterpriseLLC,

Your Amazon.com seller account has been placed under temporary review in accordance with our Drop Shipping policy. While under review, your seller-fulfilled offers will be deactivated and your listings will be removed. The review period should not exceed 30 days, but we will inform you if additional time is required. While your account is under review, funds will remain in your account, but you will not be able to receive any disbursements during the review period in accordance with section 2 of the Amazon Business Solutions Agreement:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/G1791

You may still accept Amazon-fulfilled orders. To learn how to change your seller-fulfilled offers to Fulfilled by Amazon, go to "Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)":

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/53921

Once we confirm fulfillment of orders are in compliance with our Drop Shipping policy, your funds will be disbursed according to their usual schedule. If you have outstanding unshipped or open orders during this time, please continue fulfilling these.

Why did this happen?

We have taken this measure because we found that you have violated our Drop Shipping policy:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/G201808410

Drop shipping, or allowing a third party to fulfill orders to customers on your behalf, is not acceptable unless it is clear to the buyer that you are the seller of record. When a customer sees packaging and invoices or receipts identifying a seller that is neither you nor Amazon, they may be confused about how their order is being fulfilled and who they should contact with any problems or questions.

Repeated violations of the Drop Shipping policy will result in a restriction of your abilities to list seller-fulfilled offers on Amazon.com. Additional violations of the Business Solutions Agreement and Seller Policies may result in greater restrictions on your ability to sell goods in the Amazon store.

If you have questions about this review or the information requested above, refer to the Amazon policy for selling account reviews for seller-fulfilled orders:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/G200320980

Have your seller-fulfilled offers been deactivated in error?

If you believe there has been an error, submit an explanation by clicking the “Submit appeal” button on the banner at the top of your Account Health page:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/performance/dashboard?ref=ah_em_ap

Your explanation should include evidence or examples that demonstrate your account complies with our Drop Shipping policy. This may include:

-- Evidence of inventory to support your sales. This should include invoices or receipts from your supplier. When sending this documentation, note the following:

1. The documents must reflect your sales volume over the last 365 days.

2. You must include the business details for your supplier, including the business name, business phone number, business address, and website. We may contact your supplier to verify the documents. We will maintain the confidentiality of your supplier’s information.

3. You can remove the pricing information from the documents, but the rest of the document must be visible.

4. You can only send .pdf, .jpg, .png, or .gif files. These documents must be authentic and unaltered.

5. Evidence that you are an authorized retailer or supplier for your listings.

6. If you have employed a third-party drop-shipping service, provide evidence of this agreement and authorization for access to your account.

7. If you are facing logistics issues that are impacting proper fulfillment of your orders, provide reasons and supporting evidence associated with these for consideration during your review.

What happens if I do not send the requested information on the Account Health page?

We will continue to review your account over the next 30 days. If we can confirm that you have not violated the Drop Shipping policy, the review period will end and we will automatically release funds for disbursement. If we do not find sufficient evidence confirming your fulfillment methods during this period, further action may be taken and your entire Amazon account may be permanently deactivated. You will receive an email following the review period to let you know what action has been taken. If you believe you have additional evidence to support reactivation before this time, submit an appeal.

We’re here to help.

Refer to our Seller University video “Drop Shipping Overview” to better understand the Drop Shipping policy:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/learn/courses?moduleId=d5e09b42-0cf6-4a5b-b505-b759ae6de78e

If you have questions about this policy, contact us:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/cu/contact-us

You can view your account performance (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/performance/dashboard?ref=ah_em_ap) or select Account Health on the home screen of the Amazon Seller app on your iOS or Android device. The Account Health page shows how well your account is performing against the performance metrics and policies required to sell on Amazon.

Amazon.com

Sincerely,

Seller Performance Team

Amazon.com

http://business.amazon.com/abredir

MY SITUATION:

I have been selling on Amazon for about 12 months, and I had only recently taken selling on Amazon seriously since the beginning of 2023. Things have really started to take off since then but I received this email from Amazon on 5/31/23. I would really appreciate any advice in regards to this because this is the first violation I’ve received from Amazon and I’m lost in regards to taking the first steps in resolving this.

For the most part, I have been sourcing locally (buying from private parties), as well as participating in retail arbitrage. I have not participated in dropshipping, by definition of drop-shipping, using the retail store and shipping it directly to the customer.

In regards to how I am shipping it, I am using labels bought from Amazon for half of my orders. My shipping from address is my Home Address with my Business Name, but the registered business address on my account is a 1postal virtual mailbox. I followed a tutorial in regards to how to open an LLC, and I was told to use a virtual mailbox as my registered business address. I am unsure whether this may play a part in regards to why I may have received this email.

FRIEND SITUATION:

I do have another person that's selling on the same Amazon Seller Account User (He’s never created his own Amazon Seller Account), and he’s from a different state. (I’m from CA, my friend is from PA) He doesn’t participate in dropshipping as well. What he does is Retail Arbitrage. However, when he creates shipping labels to ship to the customer, the Ship From Address is his personal address at PA with his personal name. (this is where for the most part, I believe this is why we were flagged, however, I can’t be certain). As for why I’m doing this, there are goods in PA and are only exclusively available to PA, and if I had known whether this was even allowed on Amazon, I would have obviously not done it.

I’ve gone through some seller forums and have learned a couple things in regards to my friend's situation and what I should’ve done beforehand.

1. Instead of having my friend using my Amazon Seller Account User, I should’ve made him as a 2nd User, had I known you were able to do that

2. When creating shipping labels, he needs to be using my Business Name, rather than his own name

ALL OTHER QUESTIONS:

1. Am I required to use my Shipping From Address under my business address which is a virtual mailbox?

2. Is my friend even allowed to sell under my Amazon Seller Account? Is what he is doing considered dropshipping?

3. How should I deal with the email I was given? I scrolled through seller forums and some of the answers were, if I am unable to provide ALL THE EVIDENCE for each customer order, then the best course of action is just to wait for Amazon to finish their investigation.

4. Any feedback would also be nice in regards to how I should operate properly for the future in regards to selling on Amazon

EVIDENCE SITUATION:

2.

QUESTION: You must include the business details for your supplier, including the business name, business phone number, business address, and website. We may contact your supplier to verify the documents. We will maintain the confidentiality of your supplier’s information.

ANSWER: I am only able to get this information for items I have sourced through retail arbitrage, around 30% of my sales are retail arbitrage, the rest of my sales are bought from private parties.

5.

QUESTION: Evidence that you are an authorized retailer or supplier for your listings.

ANSWER: I am unable to provide this information since a majority of the listings I have been selling on Amazon have been auto-approved for.

6

QUESTION: If you have employed a third-party drop-shipping service, provide evidence of this agreement and authorization for access to your account.

ANSWER: I can only provide this information if my friend and what he was doing was considered dropshipping. However, I am unsure whether what he was doing is even considered dropshipping.

7.

QUESTION: If you are facing logistics issues that are impacting proper fulfillment of your orders, provide reasons and supporting evidence associated with these for consideration during your review.

ANSWER: Right now, I am in the midst of creating a POA because my order defect rate is 3.33% and my customer feedback has not been horrible. There are a couple of factors to this, such as the storms in California, as well as moving warehouses, and not hiring a VA.