Amazon is like a plantation owner for small and medium sized businesses. When you sell anything on Amazon, you have no way to build a brand as Amazon not only takes ownership of your customer, but they also forbid you from directly advertising to them. It can all be taken away in an instant and by withholding your money for 90 days+ (which is what happens when they take your account away), it can bankrupt a small business because they don't have the funds to pay staff or run their company.
I had an Amazon seller account and they banned me 12 years ago over one disgruntled customer that I believe was just a competitor (I had 100% feedback from hundreds of customers before this) trying to shut me down.
I've been banned for life. I not only can't sign up with a new seller account, but if my name is associated with any other seller account, it gets banned for life as well. I've tried to contact support over the years and it just goes into a black hole and I get automated responses with no help or no response at all.
This needs to be part of a broader conversation: Do we really want to give big companies like Amazon this much control over what we can do online?
I had an Amazon seller account and they banned me 12 years ago over one disgruntled customer that I believe was just a competitor (I had 100% feedback from hundreds of customers before this) trying to shut me down.
I've been banned for life. I not only can't sign up with a new seller account, but if my name is associated with any other seller account, it gets banned for life as well. I've tried to contact support over the years and it just goes into a black hole and I get automated responses with no help or no response at all.
This needs to be part of a broader conversation: Do we really want to give big companies like Amazon this much control over what we can do online?