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I think people would be surprised what is on the internal seller forums. There is really like a huge amount of issues that Amazon fails to help with. Literally

I think people would be surprised what is on the internal seller forums. There is really like a huge amount of issues that Amazon fails to help with. Literally everything from onboarding to protecting sellers from refund scams. I suspect big sellers must have dedicated account managers

DetroitThrow 8mo ago
>I suspect big sellers must have dedicated account managers They do. Large 'first party' vendors have a completely different system, basically. Even large third party vendors have a more direct line to support.
iLoveOncall 8mo ago
Even pretty small ones do. My wife has worked at Amazon as an account manager both for 1P and 3P sellers, some of those don't even make $100K a year on Amazon but still have an internal contact.
- busterarm 8mo ago
  Depends on the category. My brother runs an Amazon store that nets more than that but his category is one of the strictest on the site and he gets no support.
  - iLoveOncall 8mo ago
    I mean those programs aren't free for 3rd party sellers, so if he doesn't pay I'm not surprised, but it likely doesn't have much to do with the category.
    - busterarm 8mo ago
      He would pay. They don't have anything to offer him.
- TMWNN 8mo ago
  What I've heard about having the "Premium" (pay) version of Amazon account manager: It's just another layer of the same of the usual awful seller support. Since the "manager" can't actually do anything, having one is worse than not having one.
kshri24 8mo ago
> I suspect big sellers must have dedicated account managers No clue how it is elsewhere but in Amazon India, the largest seller is Amazon itself which sells under a different name. That's their model. They were under scrutiny by the Indian Government [1] [2] [3] last time I checked. Keeps registering subsidiaries under different names. So you are basically competing with Amazon itself, which also acts as a seller in their own store. [1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/business/amazoncoms-retail-practices-in-india-come-under-scrutiny-wsj-idUSKBN0H01WH/ https://www.reuters.com/article/business/amazoncoms-retail-p... [2]: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/13/tech/amazon-flipkart-india-antitrust-investigation https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/13/tech/amazon-flipkart-india-an... [3]: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-india-operation/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-i...
modeless 8mo ago
When you look at a forum like that you have to realize that the actual scammers also post convincing complaints (omitting incriminating details). They likely outnumber the legitimate cases. It's all part of gaming the system.
- JasonADrury 8mo ago
  This seems pretty unlikely. Running scams on Amazon requires quite a bit more effort than on Ebay, so the scams tend to be more professional. Professional scammers are not likely to waste their time complaining on forums.
Closi 8mo ago
I used to work for a large Amazon Seller (>$100m per year revenue) who got automatically deactivated with no warning and it took them a week to get re-activated. We are talking a very minor infraction - It was something like one of their marketing copywriters putting 'refills can be purchased on our website' on one of their thousands of listings, and Amazon delisting their entire account on the basis that this was moving customers off their platform. No warning - permenant ban that took over a week to remove - c$2m revenue loss (I've changed the details here significantly to avoid disclosing the company - this was not the exact scenario so please treat with a pinch of salt) They had an account manager, but Amazon is so automated and huge that even at that scale it was a nightmare to resolve. It seemed like account managers couldn't automatically reactivate accounts or anything, they can just fill in forms internally but it seemed like they were getting automated responses back, or it was going to faceless teams etc.
- huflungdung 8mo ago
  [dead]
- Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago
  > We are talking a very minor infraction - It was something like one of their marketing copywriters putting 'refills can be purchased on our website' on one of their thousands of listings, and Amazon delisting their entire account on the basis that this was moving customers off their platform. No warning - permenant ban that took over a week to remove - c$2m revenue loss (I've changed the details here significantly to avoid disclosing the company) Holy cow. What is so wrong with writing refills can be purchased on our website. Amazon right now feels to me like a large landlord seeking rent kicking people for no reason because they didn't like that some person spilled some water. Probably gonna share this story online more. I mean I didn't expect the situation to be this extremely bad.
  - Closi 8mo ago
    > What is so wrong with writing refills can be purchased on our website. > Probably gonna share this story online more. I mean I didn't expect the situation to be this extremely bad. Yes it's bad, although I want to emphasise that I have changed the details significantly here - it was something like this, but this was not the infraction because I don't want the company to be identifiable by anyone. I’m also not sure if my example is an actual policy violation - but it was in a similar vein. To be honest, the surprising thing wasn’t the ban on a policy violation (because they had violated a policy), it was how automated the internals of Amazon were and how slow it was to overturn.
binarysolo 8mo ago
Most executive seller (8+ fig) have a kindasorta dedicated account manager... I think they're part of SASCore (Seller Account Support) that is kinda okay for internal escalations, but it is highly variable in quality based on whether you get a person that's good or downright terrible. Supposedly anyone can get them these days by paying $1-2k/month? We've got ours since 2018 and when we balked on the price they just waived the fees -- to be fair I basically talk to him 1-2x a year only for important things and do some panel stuff for Amazon to kinda pay my dues.
- TMWNN 8mo ago
  >We've got ours since 2018 and when we balked on the price they just waived the fees You must be in the seven figures revenuewise or higher. I am not, and can't imagine getting the fee waved. That said, what I've heard about having an Amazon account manager: It's just another layer of the same of the usual awful seller support. Since the "manager" can't actually do anything, having one is worse than not having one.
  - binarysolo 8mo ago
    Yeah, low 8s on Amazon. They already take ~50% of our revenue for all expenses, the SASCore person is a drop in the bucket for them. We also do B&M and website sales which have way less hassle or much lower expenses, but get nowhere near the traffic of Amazon, so that's why we deal with 'em...
    - TMWNN 8mo ago
      >They already take 50%+ of our revenue for all expenses As mentioned my revenue is far smaller, so I need larger margins. My total marketplace fees plus shipping spend in 2025 was 26% of revenue. My net margin was 28%, but the metric I focus on is margin on COGS; that was 60% in 2025 and 54% lifetime. Hearing your account and that of another seller with close to seven figures revenue makes me think I should aim for smaller margins. Not as small as yours, but maybe 10% smaller. >We also do B&M and website sales which have way less hassle or much lower expenses, but get nowhere near the traffic of Amazon, so that's why we deal with 'em... My Walmart revenue equaled Amazon's in 2025. I've thought about opening my own website. On the one hand my multichannel software already supports such, so it would be from that perspective just another marketplace. On the other hand, besides the additional cost and hassle, I keep coming back to how difficult it is to match the Amazons and Walmarts of the world in terms of customer reach.

DetroitThrow 8mo ago

>I suspect big sellers must have dedicated account managers They do. Large 'first party' vendors have a completely different system, basically. Even large third party vendors have a more direct line to support.

iLoveOncall 8mo ago

Even pretty small ones do. My wife has worked at Amazon as an account manager both for 1P and 3P sellers, some of those don't even make $100K a year on Amazon but still have an internal contact.

busterarm 8mo ago
Depends on the category. My brother runs an Amazon store that nets more than that but his category is one of the strictest on the site and he gets no support.
- iLoveOncall 8mo ago
  I mean those programs aren't free for 3rd party sellers, so if he doesn't pay I'm not surprised, but it likely doesn't have much to do with the category.
  - busterarm 8mo ago
    He would pay. They don't have anything to offer him.
TMWNN 8mo ago
What I've heard about having the "Premium" (pay) version of Amazon account manager: It's just another layer of the same of the usual awful seller support. Since the "manager" can't actually do anything, having one is worse than not having one.

kshri24 8mo ago

> I suspect big sellers must have dedicated account managers No clue how it is elsewhere but in Amazon India, the largest seller is Amazon itself which sells under a different name. That's their model. They were under scrutiny by the Indian Government [1] [2] [3] last time I checked. Keeps registering subsidiaries under different names. So you are basically competing with Amazon itself, which also acts as a seller in their own store. [1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/business/amazoncoms-retail-practices-in-india-come-under-scrutiny-wsj-idUSKBN0H01WH/ https://www.reuters.com/article/business/amazoncoms-retail-p... [2]: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/13/tech/amazon-flipkart-india-antitrust-investigation https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/13/tech/amazon-flipkart-india-an... [3]: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-india-operation/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-i...

modeless 8mo ago

When you look at a forum like that you have to realize that the actual scammers also post convincing complaints (omitting incriminating details). They likely outnumber the legitimate cases. It's all part of gaming the system.

JasonADrury 8mo ago
This seems pretty unlikely. Running scams on Amazon requires quite a bit more effort than on Ebay, so the scams tend to be more professional. Professional scammers are not likely to waste their time complaining on forums.

Closi 8mo ago

I used to work for a large Amazon Seller (>$100m per year revenue) who got automatically deactivated with no warning and it took them a week to get re-activated. We are talking a very minor infraction - It was something like one of their marketing copywriters putting 'refills can be purchased on our website' on one of their thousands of listings, and Amazon delisting their entire account on the basis that this was moving customers off their platform. No warning - permenant ban that took over a week to remove - c$2m revenue loss (I've changed the details here significantly to avoid disclosing the company - this was not the exact scenario so please treat with a pinch of salt) They had an account manager, but Amazon is so automated and huge that even at that scale it was a nightmare to resolve. It seemed like account managers couldn't automatically reactivate accounts or anything, they can just fill in forms internally but it seemed like they were getting automated responses back, or it was going to faceless teams etc.

huflungdung 8mo ago
[dead]
Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago
> We are talking a very minor infraction - It was something like one of their marketing copywriters putting 'refills can be purchased on our website' on one of their thousands of listings, and Amazon delisting their entire account on the basis that this was moving customers off their platform. No warning - permenant ban that took over a week to remove - c$2m revenue loss (I've changed the details here significantly to avoid disclosing the company) Holy cow. What is so wrong with writing refills can be purchased on our website. Amazon right now feels to me like a large landlord seeking rent kicking people for no reason because they didn't like that some person spilled some water. Probably gonna share this story online more. I mean I didn't expect the situation to be this extremely bad.
- Closi 8mo ago
  > What is so wrong with writing refills can be purchased on our website. > Probably gonna share this story online more. I mean I didn't expect the situation to be this extremely bad. Yes it's bad, although I want to emphasise that I have changed the details significantly here - it was something like this, but this was not the infraction because I don't want the company to be identifiable by anyone. I’m also not sure if my example is an actual policy violation - but it was in a similar vein. To be honest, the surprising thing wasn’t the ban on a policy violation (because they had violated a policy), it was how automated the internals of Amazon were and how slow it was to overturn.

binarysolo 8mo ago

Most executive seller (8+ fig) have a kindasorta dedicated account manager... I think they're part of SASCore (Seller Account Support) that is kinda okay for internal escalations, but it is highly variable in quality based on whether you get a person that's good or downright terrible. Supposedly anyone can get them these days by paying $1-2k/month? We've got ours since 2018 and when we balked on the price they just waived the fees -- to be fair I basically talk to him 1-2x a year only for important things and do some panel stuff for Amazon to kinda pay my dues.

TMWNN 8mo ago
>We've got ours since 2018 and when we balked on the price they just waived the fees You must be in the seven figures revenuewise or higher. I am not, and can't imagine getting the fee waved. That said, what I've heard about having an Amazon account manager: It's just another layer of the same of the usual awful seller support. Since the "manager" can't actually do anything, having one is worse than not having one.
- binarysolo 8mo ago
  Yeah, low 8s on Amazon. They already take ~50% of our revenue for all expenses, the SASCore person is a drop in the bucket for them. We also do B&M and website sales which have way less hassle or much lower expenses, but get nowhere near the traffic of Amazon, so that's why we deal with 'em...
  - TMWNN 8mo ago
    >They already take 50%+ of our revenue for all expenses As mentioned my revenue is far smaller, so I need larger margins. My total marketplace fees plus shipping spend in 2025 was 26% of revenue. My net margin was 28%, but the metric I focus on is margin on COGS; that was 60% in 2025 and 54% lifetime. Hearing your account and that of another seller with close to seven figures revenue makes me think I should aim for smaller margins. Not as small as yours, but maybe 10% smaller. >We also do B&M and website sales which have way less hassle or much lower expenses, but get nowhere near the traffic of Amazon, so that's why we deal with 'em... My Walmart revenue equaled Amazon's in 2025. I've thought about opening my own website. On the one hand my multichannel software already supports such, so it would be from that perspective just another marketplace. On the other hand, besides the additional cost and hassle, I keep coming back to how difficult it is to match the Amazons and Walmarts of the world in terms of customer reach.