Ecommerce News Roundup: May Recap

Missed the latest Amazon news in the industry? Here’s a recap on what happened in May.

 

Temporary changes to refund and reimbursement policies for seller-fulfilled orders

Amazon has some temporary changes to their refund process and Seller Fulfilled Prime refund reimbursement policies for all seller-fulfilled orders (Prime and non-Prime):

From May 1, 2020, to May 31, 2020 (the “extension period”), Amazon is temporarily increasing the time sellers have to process returned items and refund customers to 14 calendar days for returns delivered to sellers during this period. The required return processing time will revert to two calendar days after May 31, 2020.

For Amazon prepaid return label returns (Prime and non-Prime):

During the extension period, the seller reimbursement filing window will be temporarily increased to 90 calendar days. You can submit SAFE-T claims for refunds issued in the prior 90 days during this period. The filing window for SAFE-T claims will revert to 60 days after May 31, 2020.

You may also file a SAFE-T claim for refunds that you issued during the extension period. These claims will be processed in the same manner as standard SAFE-T claims in which Amazon Customer Service issues a refund to a customer.

During the SAFE-T claim investigation process, Amazon investigators typically allow you up to a week to provide any required additional information before closing a claim. During this extension period, your claims will be kept open to give you additional time to submit any additional information. Your claim status will remain in “Awaiting Seller Response” status until we receive your response to the questions. After May 31, 2020, the time to provide additional information for claims will revert to one week, after which the claim will be closed.

In line with the extension of the customer return window, during the extension period you will need to wait 30 days to file a “Lost in transit” claim for any refund issued by Amazon during the extension period.

These changes are temporary and subject to the timelines mentioned above. Amazon’s standard SAFE-T claim process will resume policy starting on May 31, 2020.

For more information, visit the following Help pages:

Manage seller-fulfilled returns

Seller Fulfilled Prime Refund Reimbursement Policy

 

COVID-19: Waiver of May 15 US long-term storage fee

Amazon continues to have delays in removal operations to ensure they have capacity to receive, restock, and ship sellers’ products to customers. For this reason, they are waiving the May 15 long-term storage fees. Sellers can continue to create removal orders, but there will be delays in completing the requests. Similarly, auto-removals will be delayed.

 

Amazon warns of account security issues

1. If you receive a One Time Password sent to your Two-Step Verification enabled device and you are not actively logging in to Amazon.

Reset your password immediately and review your account for any other unauthorized changes. If you cannot access your account anymore, you can recover Your Account here.

Before you begin account recovery, follow the steps below:

• Try to sign in with a registered backup method or from a trusted device.
• If successful, review your primary phone number.
• And check the authenticator app’s enabled on your account.

To learn more, you can get help in Seller Central for “About Two-Step Verification”.

2. If you experience any sign-in issues, try the following steps:

• Verify that you are using the correct email and password combination.
• Ensure that there are no extra spaces in your password. This can happen when you copy and paste your password.
• If you are prompted to enter a Two-Step Verification code, verify that you entered the most recent code you received; older codes will not work. For more information, see Two-Step Verification FAQ.
• Clear your browser cookies and cache or try logging in with a different browser or device.
• Use our Password assistance page to verify whether the email address you are using is the one registered in our system.
• Log on to Seller Central using your new email and password combination.
• If these steps do not resolve the sign-in issue, please contact Seller Support using this form and describe the issue in detail.

3. “Phishing” or “spoof” emails steal your confidential information such as your user name, password, or One Time Password via an email or other direct communication, you can identify phishing emails by the following characteristics:

• Look for the sender. There may be “Amazon” as a sender in the mail, but if you click on the sender, you can view the details and will see the complete email address.
• Phishing e-mails often contain spelling or grammar errors. This is a clear sign of fraud.
• Do not click directly on any link in the email but enter the URL in your browser. Check closely the URL of the page. Often, bogus websites contain small spelling mistakes which may not stand out in the URL (for instance “amazon”).
• Amazon will never send emails asking you to confirm your data and enter passwords.
• Look for your own e-mail address. Amazon sends all messages to you exclusively to the e-mail address stored in your seller’s account.

Whenever in doubt, go directly to the Seller Central website in your web browser to confirm their legitimacy of the message and send any suspicious emails you receive to stop-spoofing@amazon.com. For information on how to report a phishing or spoofed e-mail, see Report a Phishing or Spoofed E-mail.

 

New Amazon custom listing features

The Amazon Custom listing experience has new features allowing you to offer customizable and make-on-demand products in your store.

You can find the features on the Manage Inventory page in Seller Central. There are tool tips that guide you through the experience. These features allow you to:

• Charge an additional fee for select customization options.
• Customize up to five surfaces on one product. Within each surface you can add up to 10 text and image customizations and up to 100 options customizations.
• Upload up to 20 custom fonts or select from more than 100 preloaded fonts.
• Assign different colors to each text field.
• Control the types of characters customers can enter, including emojis, letters and numbers, and capital letters.
• Specify the number of text lines within a customization field, allowing customers to wrap or stack text within a single field.
• Permit customers to upload one or more image files to any location on the product.
• Preview the customer experience before the listing is live.

The new features are available for registered Amazon Custom sellers. If you have a Professional selling account and would like to use the new features, you can register here.

 

Pause on Account Suspensions for Order Performance Extended to May 31 

In May, Amazon announced an additional two week extension of pause on account suspensions for order performance issues, through May 31.

Beginning June 1, Amazon will restart tracking and enforcing selling accounts with high cancellation rate, late shipment rate, or order defect rate per our established order performance standards. Any order performance defects showing in your Account Health page from prior to June 1 will not be used to evaluate your account health. To help keep your account from incurring order defects and to help create a more reliable experience for customers, you can do the following:

1. Closely monitor your inventory levels and make sure your listings accurately reflect available inventory.
2. Ensure your default ship settings match your current fulfillment capabilities.
3. Monitor customer inquiries received via Buyer-Seller Messaging and respond quickly – at most and within 48 hours.

 

Introducing the Multi-Channel Fulfillment fee calculator 

If you use Amazon’s Multi-Channel Fulfillment program, you can now quickly preview per-unit Multi-Channel Fulfillment fees with our new fee calculator. To download the calculator template, go to Multi-Channel Fulfillment and click the Fee Calculator tab. For more information, visit Fulfillment fees for Multi-Channel Fulfillment orders.

 

Announcing the enhanced, expanded FBA New Selection program

Amazon’s FBA New Selection program offered free monthly storage and removals for new-to-FBA ASINs to make it easier for you to sell new products through FBA. In addition, participants who are new to FBA can qualify to get a $100 discount on Amazon Partnered Carrier shipping. Based on positive seller feedback, Amazon has enhanced and expanded the FBA New Selection program. 

For the program benefits and details, you can visit this page to learn more information.

 

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Christina Chen

June 2, 2020

Pauline's passions lie in eCommerce and supporting individuals in their online selling endeavors. Currently, as a frequent contributor to the BQool Blog, she channels her passions into creating informative contents that break down the complex challenges Amazon sellers face on a daily basis.