[Analysis] Mass suspension of Chinese sellers

Consequences

Hey Reader,

You’ve probably heard about the recent mass suspension of Chinese Amazon seller accounts because of review manipulation.

You might have wondered, the use of fake reviews has been around for years—so why is the mass suspension happening just now? Also, why is Amazon targeting mostly Chinese accounts?

Here’s what we found.

BNPL on AMZ

You may have many buyers who purchased your products on a whim. Guess what? You’ll be seeing more of them this time because Amazon has partnered with fintech company Affirm to offer its customers a Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) option. 

Amazon has been providing monthly installments for selected products to customers who qualify. But this is the first time that it had partnered with another company to allow BNPL on the platform.

Affirm promises that there will be no hidden or late fees, and people can see the price upfront upon checkout. Amazon customers will be able to use their services for purchases worth $50 or more.

Here’s how it works: Every time a customer chooses Affirm as the payment method, the system will run a real-time credit decision process. So for each new order, the customer is assessed as to how much loan he or she is eligible for.

Affirm has also partnered with sites like Walmart and Peloton and is now being tested by selected Amazon customers.

Inventory Restock Limits, Continued

Earlier in the year, we’ve reported about the massive reductions in restock limits that gave FBA sellers a headache.

It’s already September, and sellers are still reporting major cuts on top of the original unannounced reductions. Some are thinking about going into FBM, but we all know FBA is still better when it comes to sales because your products will immediately be eligible for Prime. The other alternative would be aiming for Seller Fulfilled Prime.

What measures have you taken to deal with the blows of these reductions?

Amazon, Now Hiring

Even though it’s already the second-largest private employer in the United States, the new Amazon CEO just announced a mass hiring for corporate and tech roles.

They’re looking for around 55,000 employees, and 40,000 of the positions will be in the United States. Out of that number, 12,500 will be in Seattle, where the hiring is focused. The rest will be distributed among countries like Japan and India, where Amazon is facing worthy competitors.

Andy Jassy wants more manpower for retail, Project Kuiper, and AWS, which he was heading before taking over Uncle Jeff’s position.

In an interview, he mentioned that he still thinks Amazon is still small despite how powerful it has become. Maybe this is him trying to change that?

Setting the Foundations

Over the years, we’ve grown multiple million-dollar brands, and we could not have done it without our reliable employees.

They’ve been instrumental in the growth of our FBA businesses, but did you know that most of them didn’t have any background on Amazon when they started working?

To address this, we built an onboarding plan for our new hires. Here's the newest addition to our training track: our latest course, From 0 to 100: Amazon for Absolute Beginners.

This course has 20+ HD lessons that are tailored for beginners as well as detailed walk-throughs to help new members of your team navigate the complicated world of FBA.

There are also 3 live webinars included in the course. And if you sign up now, you’ll just be in time for the second webinar, which will be later today at 10 AM (PST).

This course can be a permanent part of your training track because you’ll have lifetime access to it.

Get the course to join the webinar.