Amazon account suspension: what to fix

An Amazon account suspension is the account losing the right to sell. A listing suppression is one ASIN going dark. A gated category is permission you do not have yet. Sellers call all three a suspension, and then they send the wrong appeal. The notification in Seller Central names which one it is. Read that page before you write anything.

AEG’s job, when we run a marketplace for a partner, is to keep the account boring. Marketplace Brand Management includes the weekly health check. This essay is what the check is looking at, and what to do when the notification has already arrived. It is not a reinstatement guarantee. Amazon does not publish one, and neither do we.

What the dashboard is measuring

Performance, then Account Health. Amazon’s own policy documents describe three contractual metrics.

Order defect rate. Negative feedback, an A-to-z claim that is not denied, or a chargeback, as a share of orders, over a 60-day window. An order with two defects counts once. Amazon’s published target is under 1 percent. Above that, selling privileges can be restricted or removed.

Pre-fulfillment cancellation rate. Orders the seller cancels, over a 7-day window. Customer-cancelled orders are not the numerator. Amazon’s published target is under 2.5 percent. This metric is about seller-fulfilled orders.

Late shipment rate. Shipment confirmed after the expected ship date, measured over 10 days and over 30 days. Amazon’s documents often call the same idea a late dispatch rate. The published target is under 4 percent. Seller-fulfilled orders only. Fulfillment by Amazon does not put your late-shipment rate on the line, because Amazon is shipping.

Confirm the targets printed on your own Account Health page. Those are the ones Amazon will use on your account. The documents we cite below are Amazon’s. If your page shows a different target, the page wins.

Policy Compliance is the other half of the same screen: authenticity complaints, intellectual property, listing policy, product safety. A perfect order-defect rate does not offset a counterfeit complaint. Product-safety requests now live in this area as well. The document path is the compliance essay.

Prevention is operational, not rhetorical

Most suspensions we would rather not see are a promise the brand could not keep.

Do not confirm shipment until the carrier has the parcel. A confirmation is a clock. Starting it early to “make the metric” creates the late shipment you were avoiding, plus a tracking defect.
Do not list a ship time you miss on a normal week. Lengthen the handling time. A slower honest promise beats a fast one you break. Featured-offer selection uses delivery certainty. The link between the promise and the offer is in the Featured Offer essay.
Cancel before the customer has to. A pre-fulfillment cancel is ugly and visible. A stockout you advertised through is worse. The forecast that prevents it is the inventory essay.
Do not review your own products, pay for reviews, or ask for a rewrite in exchange for a refund. That is a policy violation, not a marketing test. The line is in the reviews essay.
Answer the buyer messages. A silent inbox becomes an A-to-z claim, and the claim becomes the defect rate.
Keep the safety file where the person who reads Account Health can reach it. A suppression you discover on a Friday because a certificate sat in another country is a process failure.

If you fulfill through FBA, your remaining risks are the product, the listing, the invoices, and the intellectual property. FBA is not immunity. Inauthentic complaints are about the unit, not the carrier.

When the notification arrives

Stop editing the account at random. Download the notification. It states the reason, the ASINs or orders involved, and the button Amazon wants you to use. Then sort it.

Listing or offer removed, account still open. Fix that ASIN. If it is a document, send the document. If it is a claim you cannot support, delete the claim. Do not file an account-level appeal for a single suppressed page.

Category or brand approval missing. That is an application, not an appeal. The path is gated categories.

Account deactivated. This is the appeal. Amazon’s account-health guidance says a deactivated seller may submit a plan of action that addresses the problems behind the enforcement. Write it against the notification, in this order.

The root cause, in plain language, tied to the orders or ASINs named. “We take compliance seriously” is not a cause.
What you have already done to the affected orders, inventory, and listings.
What will stop the same failure on the next hundred orders. A named owner, a changed handling time, a document checklist. Not a promise to “monitor more closely.”

Attach what the form asks for. Invoices, if the issue is authenticity, should be from a supplier Amazon’s policy will accept, for the products named, with quantities that make sense. A template you bought, with the previous brand’s ASINs still in it, will be refused, and it should be.

One appeal. If you must send a second, it should add a fact, not a new story. Contradicting yourself is how a reviewable case becomes a pattern.

Do not open a new seller account to route around a deactivation. Amazon treats that as a related account. You will have two dead accounts instead of one appeal.

What an appeal cannot repair

If the product is prohibited, the appeal is the wrong tool. If the trademark owner is someone else and you are selling their goods without authority, the appeal needs their authorization or it needs you to stop. If the account was opened on documents that were not true, do not send a more fluent version of the same documents.

A reinstated account that goes back to the same handling time, the same review tactic, or the same missing certificate will be deactivated again. The plan of action is a change to the operation. If you cannot name the change, you are not ready to submit.

We will not quote a success rate, a number of days, or a phrase that “always” gets an account back. Anyone selling that phrase is selling a template.

Questions

Our order defect rate is under 1 percent and the account was still deactivated.

Then the reason is probably not the defect rate. Read the policy section of the notification. Authenticity, intellectual property, and product safety deactivate accounts that ship on time. Answer that section.

Should we keep selling on a second marketplace while we appeal?

If the US company is allowed to, yes. An Amazon deactivation is not a Walmart deactivation. Do not move the same prohibited product, and do not open the second marketplace with the same bad invoices. The channel is a separate decision: Walmart Marketplace vs Amazon.

Can an agency send the appeal for us?

Yes, if the agency has access and the facts. The owner still has to know what the plan says. An appeal that the brand cannot perform next month is a story. Keep the owner’s login either way. Losing the only user on a deactivated account is an unforced error.

Sources

Monitor your account health. Amazon’s description of order defect rate under 1 percent, cancellation rate under 2.5 percent, late dispatch rate under 4 percent, and the plan-of-action appeal.
Order performance programme policy. The same order-defect and late-dispatch targets, and what counts as a defect.
Featured Offer (formerly Buy Box). Why order experience and Account Health sit next to the offer, not off to the side.
Amazon community guidelines. The review rules that become policy violations when a brand ignores them.

Book a strategy call

If the account is deactivated, or the metrics are close enough that you would rather not find out, send a brief or Book a strategy call.