No Amazon seller wants to get suspended but, if it does happen, here’s how the Monitor & Protect claims process works in practice.

For Amazon sellers, having their account suspended has become an occupational hazard. But this doesn’t mean that it’s any less damaging when it happens. Sellers have to contend with the fact that they have little or no funds coming in, while expenses like staff costs and rent still have to be paid.

Monitor & Protect is a comprehensive Amazon seller protection service from Thompson & Holt. It includes account health notifications and listing hijack alerts, to help sellers avoid suspension in the first place. If suspension does occur, Monitor & Protect includes an appeals service, and most sellers are reinstated quickly.

But if sellers are out of action for more than five days, there’s cover to fall back on of up to £50,000 (around $70,000), underwritten by insurance market Lloyd’s of London. Here’s how it all works, including a real example of the claims process in action.

This is an updated version of a post originally published in April 2018.

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Ensure the quality is up to scratch when working with factories in China, with this product inspection primer for ecommerce businesses.

This post is by Blair Quane, Director of Remote Control CEO.

Most consumer goods are now made in China, from plastic toys for dollar stores to the latest iPhones for Apple. Chinese factories make products for brands and retailers of every type.

When you are having products made in China for your own business, how do you know if you are getting iPhone quality or dollar store quality? How can you make sure standards are consistent across different production runs? How do you know that the goods are being handled and packaged properly?

Unfortunately, you can’t really know these things unless you are standing in the factory all day, looking over their shoulder. What you can do is arrange an independent inspection to check that the products are being made to your specification, then take action if the quality is not what it should be.

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Amazon’s Transparency codes have huge potential for stopping the sale of counterfeits, but legitimate sellers are being caught in the crossfire.

This post is by Travis J. Stockman, a Juris Doctor graduate and paralegal with Rosenbaum Famularo, P.C., the law firm behind AmazonSellersLawyer.com.

Amazon’s Transparency codes system was recently implemented to address the problems with counterfeit products on Amazon’s platform. It helps brand owners reduce counterfeits while providing consumers with the ability to verify the authenticity of the products they purchase.

While the implementation of this program is likely to improve Amazon’s anti-counterfeiting procedures, it has been causing a lot of trouble for Amazon sellers who sell authentic products.

Even if a seller has no customer complaints or reported issues regarding the authenticity of their products, they may still find themselves receiving suspension notifications due to the roll-out of the new Transparency program.

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