An entrepreneur’s journey is rarely boring, and the risks can be thrilling, and frightening. If your business is an eCommerce venture, then an Amazon Seller Account is at the forefront of your adventure.
What draws sellers to Amazon, yet at the same time causes nightmares and blood pressure spikes? It’s Amazon’s Terms of Service. Violations – intentional or not – can cause your Amazon business to come to a screeching halt, tanking your profits overnight.
At AIA Assets we pride ourselves on an extensive knowledge base to help our clients comply with these terms of service. Let’s begin by detailing common performance errors sellers face. Some violations bear more weight on a seller’s health than others. Amazon sellers fall into two categories – Merchant (Seller) fulfilled (FBM) and Amazon fulfilled (FB). Amazon’s primary goal is to make customers happy. Sellers who repeatedly fail to reach these goals receive warnings which may lead to account suspensions if not repaired.
There are other issues that both Amazon FBA and FBM businesses face – policy compliance. When you visit your Amazon Seller account at seller central, you’ll see the following compliance list on the performance health dashboard:
- Intellectual property
- Authenticity
- Condition
- Food and product safety issues
- Listing violations
- Restricted category violations
- Customer product reviews
Crucial to sellers’ success is the ability to maintain and sustain account health and quickly address any violations. While some violations are more challenging to repair than others, there are some best business practices that keep your account healthy and viable. Maintaining account health, ensuring high-quality goods are reaching your consumers, and offering superior customer service is the key to Amazon’s success. These actions take stamina and effort.
Why is Selling On Amazon Challenging?
With potentially high profits dangling, selling on Amazon is only for those with strong constitutions. It’s a full-time investment of financial and emotional resources. It’s not uncommon for sellers to feel that selling on Amazon can take a personal and professional toll. We have clients who are so exhausted with the experience, that they are ready to throw in the towel. But the team at AIA advises our clients that instead of walking away and closing their Amazon Seller account, they can sell and transfer their Amazon Seller Account.
Ready to leave Amazon? Should You Delete / Close your Seller Account?
Don’t walk away from your Amazon account! Your Amazon seller account may be valuable and beneficial to other Amazon sellers. At AIA Assets, we can evaluate your account for resale. Your account has the potential to be profitable.
Can You Sell an Amazon Seller Account?
Let’s clear up some confusion. Amazon’s Terms of Service generally state that Seller Accounts are not transferrable. However, there are circumstances where this is allowed. At AIA, our experience comes from helping our customers with performance, compliance, and regulatory challenges while selling on Amazon. Done properly, legally, and with full transparency, Amazon Seller accounts can be purchased and transferred.
Why Does Amazon Not Want You to Sell an Account?
The rationale is simple. Amazon’s focus is CUSTOMERS – not sellers. When a seller builds a reputation based on trust and performance, the customer relies on those metrics when choosing from whom to purchase.
Amazon is ruthless in its enforcement of sellers who consistently violate Amazon’s terms of service – preventing them from opening multiple accounts and repeating the cycle.
Bad actors use fraudulent tactics to leap ahead of the competition in unethical and potentially illegal ways. Preventing seller accounts from begin transferred may stop black hat tactics. By blocking sellers who have multiple accounts, marketplace fraud may be prevented. It stands to reason that Amazon wants to control its sellers and only top-performing sellers will succeed in their marketplace. So, can a pre-made / existing seller account be purchased and still not violate Amazon’s policies? We’ll get to that in a moment because it’s important to understand why there’s value in an existing account.
Why Would Someone Want to Purchase an Amazon Seller Account?
There are some qualitative advantages to purchasing an existing seller account – rather than opening one from scratch. Consider an Amazon Seller Account as digital real estate, comparable to an empty store on a city block. The busier the block, the more traffic the store will receive. An established store, on a busy corner, will receive more foot traffic, regardless of what’s on the shelves. An Amazon seller account is similar. The criteria for its value are based on the following:
- Maturity. A “mature” or aged seller account carries benefits – disbursement may be more frequent (think daily); there may be no reserve!!
- Category Ungating. New account owners may face challenges when trying to enter specific product categories or desirable brands, established accounts may already be ungated in those categories.
- Feedback. Although product reviews travel with each ASIN, store FEEDBACK is account specific. Well-developed accounts will have substantial feedback offering credibility to the store, and increasing the likelihood of closing a purchase.
Confused? It’s time to revisit the question – If existing seller accounts are valuable, yet Amazon discourages transferring seller accounts, can a seller account be purchased? Yes. Let’s explain how it can be done WITHOUT violating Amazon’s TOS.
Let’s start with an indisputable fact. The bigger your business, the more profitable Amazon is. Amazon wants sellers to be successful on its platform. The more sellers, the more sales. At AIA Assets, we’ve facilitated the sale and transfer of 100’s of accounts to professional and reliable sellers. It’s not just about selling the account; it’s about doing it correctly. It’s about ensuring that the purchaser is a dependable, reliable, and trustworthy merchant who will maintain integrity on the platform.
Back to the comparison to real estate. Just as you would never purchase a property without seeing the layout, and examining the books, sales traffic, customer feedback, etc. The purchase of an Amazon seller account follows the same milestones. Our clients thoroughly check out the accounts, by printing sales reports, reviewing performance health, and selling applications. The sales process continues with an offer, a legally binding bill of sale, and, supporting sales contracts. But most importantly occurs with full transparency and disclosure to Amazon.
As part of the transfer process, our communication with Amazon begins with clear messaging (via email) notifying them that a sale and ownership transfer will take place. We are tenacious and patient, as it’s not unusual for Amazon to respond with “template-style” questions that are inane and irrelevant. By continuing to contact Amazon, the right customer service support member will eventually attend to the issue, and we receive our desired response – permission to transfer the account.
Now that we’ve alleviated your fears, we hope that we’ve made you excited about the ability to purchase an Amazon FBA seller account.
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