Amazon Policy and Compliance

There is no worse feeling than logging into your Amazon account or pulling up a product listing page, to see you have a product listing removed from the site or your account has a policy violation against it. As a seller on the Amazon Store, it is important to understand and follow the rules outlined by Amazon’s selling policies to keep a healthy and active selling account and product listings. Amazon provides metrics through the Account Health portal to help sellers adhere to and take action on customer service, policy, and shipping issues. Though it may seem frustrating at times, these policies are in place to help both sellers and Amazon customers.

Amazon Program Policies

Amazon program policies are in place because Amazon is the marketplace facilitator a has a high responsibility to ensure that sellers play fair and Amazon customers are protected. By signing up to sell on Amazon you agree to the terms outlined in the seller agreement and to adhere to all applicable Amazon policies, and all applicable laws and regulations. It is vital that you understand all of the policies before selling on Amazon to ensure you are in compliance. Amazon outlines these policies in the “Help” section which consists of General Policies, Intellectual Property Policies, Product and Listing Requirements, Shipping, Tax, and other Optional Programs. Failing to follow these policies can result in a policy violation, listing removal, and account deactivation. We will summarize a few of these program policies, but it is important that you read, understand, and comply with all Amazon selling policies as well as your Amazon Services Business Solutions Agreement.

Amazon Seller Code of Conduct

The Amazon seller code of conduct is a set of policies that dictate how you must act on the Amazon store. You must:

  • Provide accurate information to Amazon and our customers at all times - You must provide accurate information to Amazon and our customers, and update the information if it changes. For example, this means that you must use a business name that accurately identifies your business and list your products in the correct category.

  • Act fairly and not misuse Amazon’s features or services

  • Not attempt to damage or abuse another seller, their listings or ratings

  • Not attempt to influence customers’ ratings, feedback, and reviews

  • Not send unsolicited or inappropriate communications

  • Not contact customers except through Buyer-Seller Messaging

  • Not attempt to circumvent the Amazon sales process

  • Not operate more than one selling account on Amazon without a legitimate business need

  • Not engage in conduct that violates price fixing laws

Communication Guidelines

The communication guidelines outline the guidelines for how you can interact with Amazon customers. It would be impossible to list every single message that you are not allowed to say to Amazon customers, but the goal here is to protect buyers from fraud and abuse, and to protect you from unscrupulous actions from your competitors. Communication with buyers can occur through direct communication, order status updates, Buyer-Seller messages, and indirect communication. Failing to follow the communication guidelines can lead to limiting proactive permitted messages or suspension of selling privileges on the Amazon Store.

Customer Product Reviews Policies

The Customer Product Reviews policies page tells you the actions you can take as it relates to reviews. Reviews are an important part of the Amazon shopping experience, and it is vital that you act in an honest and fair way for a true and authentic reflection of the customer experience. Product reviews help future customers understand more about the product, and they can help sellers understand the product and how it can be improved. Another place to learn more about product review best practices is by visiting the FTC business guidance resources. The Amazon Community Guidelines also outline how reviewers can use the Amazon platform. Violations of Customer Reviews policies include, but are not limited to, these actions:

  • A seller posts a review of their own product or their competitor's product.

  • A seller offers a third party a financial reward, discount, free products, or other compensation in exchange for a review on their product or their competitor’s product. This includes using services that sell customer reviews, websites, or social media groups.

  • A seller offers to provide a refund or reimbursement after the buyer writes a review (including reimbursement via a non-Amazon payment method), and asks the buyer to change or remove the review, before or after the refund or reimbursement. This could be done via buyer-seller messaging on Amazon or directly contacting customers or using 3rd party services, websites, or social media groups.

  • A seller uses a third-party service that offers free or discounted products tied to a review (for example, a review club that requires customers to register their Amazon public profile so that sellers can monitor their reviews).

  • A family member or employee of the seller posts a review of the seller's product or a competitor's product.

  • A seller asks a reviewer to change or remove their review. They might also offer a refund or other compensation to a reviewer in exchange for doing so.

  • A seller diverts negative reviews to be sent to them or to a different feedback mechanism while positive reviews are sent to Amazon.

  • A seller creates a variation relationship between products with the aim of manipulating reviews and boosting a product’s star rating via review aggregation.

  • A seller inserts a request for a positive Amazon review or an incentive in exchange for a review into product packaging or shipping box.

  • A seller uses a customer account to write or change a review on his or his competitor’s product.

Amazon has a zero-tolerance policy towards any customer review violations. A good quality product will get positive reviews organically. If you are not receiving positive reviews, then listen to your customers and come out with a product that addresses the issues they are telling you about.

Category and Product Listing Compliance

Amazon has a set of policies to help regulate the marketplace to ensure that all products comply with laws and regulations. Amazon has created these policies to help you ensure you are compliant, but ultimately it is your responsibility to sell legal products. The sale of illegal, unsafe, or restricted products, including those available only by prescription, is strictly prohibited. You must review Restricted Products Help pages and consult legal counsel if necessary to ensure their products comply with applicable laws. If a product is found to violate the law or Amazon's policies, corrective actions may be taken, including suspension or termination of selling privileges, destruction of inventory without reimbursement, and legal action. Amazon works to prevent illegal and unsafe products from reaching the marketplace and encourages reporting of policy violations or illegal activity. Since Amazon is the “Everything Store” there are many individual policies around selling products, so it is important to review the Restricted Products and Product Compliance pages for your applicable products and categories. We will highlight a few here:

Amazon Pesticide Marking Attribute

The Amazon Pesticide Marking Policy aims to make the Amazon Store compliant with Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) pesticide and pesticide device classification and regulation. The EPA/FIFRA’s classifications of Pesticide and Pesticide Devices cover a wide array of product types. Even if your product is not technically classified or registered as a Pesticide or Pesticide Device product, making pesticidal claims in your listing content, merchandising, and marketing can result in the product being classified as a pesticide or pesticide device by Amazon.

FBA Meltable Products Policy

The FBA Meltable Products Policy is designed to ensure that selling a heat-sensitive product arrives intact and unmelted. “Meltable” refers to “heat-sensitive products that are eaten or swallowed, including chocolate, yogurt, gummies, and probiotics.” FBA meltable products must be able to withstand a minimum temperature of 50⁰ F and a maximum temperature of 155⁰ F throughout the product’s shelf life. Products that require refrigeration, air conditioning or freezing, are considered perishable products. Perishable products are not suited for Fulfillment by Amazon and are prohibited year-round in the program. This is an important policy to consider if you sell a product that does not do well in extreme temperatures.

FCC Radio Frequency Attribute Policy

Amazon’s FCC Radio Frequency Compliance Attribute Device Listings Policy ensures that If an electronic device can emit radio frequency energy, the proper attribute is submitted on the product detail. This regulation is because these devices could interfere with authorized radio communications and “must be authorized under the appropriate FCC procedure before they can be marketed, imported, or used in the United States”.

Amazon Children’s Product Certificate (CPC)

Amazon Children’s Product Certificate (CPC) covers the requirements of Amazon sellers to have products intended primarily for children 12 years and younger to be tested for safety and acquire a certificate (CPC). Ensuring the proper certification for children’s products will keep your listings active and compliant.

Amazon Plant and Seed Products Restricted Category Policy

The Amazon Plant and Seed Products Restricted Category Policy outlines the requirements sellers must follow in order to sell plants, plant products, or seed related products on the US Amazon marketplace including shipping requirements and example permitted items.

Amazon Lighting Restricted Product Policy

The US Department of Energy has standards for light bulbs around a certain level of efficiency. Amazon enforces these laws with the Lighting Products Policy on Amazon. Ensure your products are set up correctly with the proper product details and are compliant with laws around selling light products.

Amazon Account Health

To help Amazon sellers better understand how well they are adhering to Amazon policies, Amazon provides the Account Health dashboard. The Amazon Account Health dashboard includes performance targets to help keep you accountable with metrics around Customer Service Performance, Policy Compliance, and Shipping Performance. It is important to continually review the Amazon Account Health to ensure customers are having positive shopping experiences and there are no issues with your product listings and selling account.

Customer Service Performance

The customer service performance metrics are an indication of your ability to provide a high level of customer service to Amazon customers. The main metric to track is the Order Defect Rate (ODR), which measures the percentage of orders that have received negative feedback, an A-to-Z Guarantee claim, or a credit card chargeback. Other metrics for customer service performance include the amount of time it takes for you to respond to a customer message (the expectation is to provide a response in under 24 hours). Maintaining a high level of customer service is critical for sellers to be successful on Amazon.

Policy Compliance

The Product Policy Compliance section reflects your performance for adhering to Amazon’s policies. If you have a policy violation, there will be an indication on this section where you can drill down to see the specifics. Amazon will provide the reason, date, ASIN that was impacted, action that was taken, Account Health Rating impact, and steps to resolve the issue such as openings an appeal.

Amazon Policy Compliance Performance Dashboard

Manage Your Compliance

The Manage Your Compliance Tool allows you to view and upload requested compliance and testing documentation to ensure you are offering safe and compliant products when selling on Amazon. The compliance reference section lets you proactively research the Amazon help and policy articles for different categories of products, as well as connect with 3rd party testing facilities. You should review this page as an educational and research section before offering your product for sale to ensure you are compliant with Amazon’s policies.

Shipping Performance

Shipping performance shows your ability to meet the shipping and delivery expectations of Amazon customers when using the merchant fulfilled shipping method. If you elect to use Fulfillment by Amazon these metrics will not appear as in that case Amazon is responsible for these metrics. Maintaining a high shipping performance can open up premium shipping eligibility. Shipping performance metrics include:

  • Late Shipment Rate - which measures the percentage of orders that were shipped after the expected ship date

  • Valid Tracking Rate - measures the percentage of orders that have valid tracking numbers

  • Pre-fulfilled Cancel Rate - which measures the percentage of orders that have been canceled by the seller after the order was placed.

  • On-Time Delivery Rate - which measures the percentage of orders that were delivered by the estimated delivery date or before.

Account Health Assurance

The Amazon Account Health Assurance (AHA) is a benefit to Amazon sellers that have consistently proven to maintain a high Amazon Account Health Rating. When Account health Assurance is achieved, Amazon will not deactivate your selling account as long as you coordinate with Amazon within 72 hours of Amazon contacting you to resolve any issues. In order to be eligible for Account Health Assurance, you must maintain a score of 250 or more for at least 6 months, with no more that 10 days below 250, and have a valid emergency contact number on file. Once your account performance qualifies for AHA, you will receive an email stating that you are enrolled and will ask you to provide an emergency contact number if you have not already done so. Your Account Health Rating is based on the number of orders you successfully fulfill in the last 180 days and the policy violations you resolve. The policies included in the Account Health rating include:

If you have policy violations you will lose points. It is important to maintain a high Account Health Rating by having a high sell through rate without policy violations to qualify for the Account Health Assurance, which will help prevent your account from incurring an unexpected suspension.

Amazon Account Health Assurance

Reinstate Amazon Product Listings

The goal is to never violate any policies or have any customer issues while selling on Amazon. However, sometimes issues do arise and action needs to be taken to fix problems. There are several ways you can see if your Amazon product listing is down. The most glaring is if you try to navigate to your product listing page and you see a dog picture with the text, “Amazon Page Not Found”. You may also receive an email with an Amazon notification of restricted product removal with an accompanying Account Health notification. With the scale of Amazon and the use of technology, sometimes your account may receive a policy violation that you do not fully agree with. This is where Amazon provides you the opportunity to write an appeal to request reinstatement, where you need to Identify the root cause or problem that led to an account deactivation or product listing removal, explain the actions you have taken to resolve the issue, and provide a solution so the issue will not happen again moving forward.

Goat Consulting Amazon Policy

A strategic goal at Goat Consulting is helping our clients mitigate risk on the Amazon store. That starts with understanding and following the rules outlined by Amazon’s selling policies to keep a healthy selling account and active product listings. Doing so will help create a more trusted marketplace, which will attract more customers. If you have a question about how to mitigate risk, understanding an Amazon policy, or solving a problem, we encourage you to contact us for support.