【老魏聊电商】关于账号受限的诱因，看看你有没有？
5161平时有空时，我会去浏览一下美国的媒体和论坛，看一看美国卖家所谈及的亚马逊运营，换一个视角也许就是一番不一样的收获。下面这篇就是美国CNBC上发的一篇关于美国卖家控诉亚马逊冻结账号的新闻稿，而正好的，这篇稿子里有蛮多问题都可以在我们中国卖家运营中找到影子，所以，我想以中英文对照的方式，将文章分享给大家，中间加上我个人的一些看法，希望能够给各位正在运营亚马逊店铺的卖家朋友们提个醒。
On July 9, Amazon put out a press release saying that Prime Day, the giant upcoming shopping extravaganza, "has proven to be a huge growth opportunity for many small and medium-sized businesses."
7月9日亚马逊的Prime Day盛况空前，“算得上是为很多中小卖家提供了巨大的发展机会”。
That same day, an online seller named Diana Schappert got an email from an Amazon employee who goes by Paul. It came with a very different message.
但就在同一天，也有许多卖家收到了亚马逊的账号冻结邮件，就像Diana Schappert这一家。他们在Prime Day启动当日，收到了一封来自亚马逊员工Pual的通知，而这封通知的内容也非常与众不同。
"Jeff Bezos received your email and I am responding on his behalf," wrote Paul, who didn't include a last name but said that he's part of the Seller Performance team. "I have thoroughly reviewed your account and the information you have provided and determined that you may not sell on Amazon.com."
●老魏备注：我想很多发邮件到jeff@amazon.com邮箱进行控诉的卖家相信都收到过类似的邮件吧！我想说的是，无论你收到的回复如何，至少可以印证一件事--这个以Jeff冠名的邮箱真实存在而且如果你的问题反馈得恰到好处，确实可以得到亚马逊的回应。
那么，我们可以在什么情况下去联系这个邮箱呢？第一、当你觉得受到无端的误判而导致了自己账号受限或者利益受损严重时；第二、当你看到平台上有违规行为时，比如超低价大批量跟卖，比如VC账号的频繁作恶行为等，即便这些事情并没有和你直接相关，也可以大胆向Jeff的邮箱投诉。
为什么要如此多管闲事呢？这里分享一段话：
当他们来抓犹太人时，我保持沉默，因为我不是犹太人；当他们来抓贸易工会主义者时，我保持沉默，因为我不是贸易工会主义者；当他们来抓天主教徒时，我保持沉默，因为我是新教徒；当他们来抓我时，已无人替我说话了。
For Schappert, who is one of millions of third-party sellers on Amazon, the email is potentially a fatal blow in a costly saga that's lasted the better part of the year. It has left her family business — Cheapskates Liquidators — in tatters.
作为无数亚马逊上第三方卖家群体中的一员，这封邮件对于Schappert一家来说，算得上是致命打击了。这封邮件几乎毫无余地的给他们经营的店铺Cheapskates Liquidators宣判了死刑。
Since mid-March, Cheapskates has been suspended from Amazon for a few vague complaints related to the sale of inauthentic items, all of which Schappert and her husband, George, say can be easily explained. Amazon has refused to readmit them, despite multiple appeals. The July 9 email came after the couple escalated their complaints all the way to the CEO. CNBC has viewed extensive documentation, which seems to back up the Schapperts' tale.
从3月中旬开始，Cheapskates就因为一些与产品真伪相关的含糊投诉而被亚马逊冻结了账号。而根据Schappert先生的说法，导致投诉的原因都是可以解释的。但是亚马逊却一而再再而三的拒绝了他们的申诉。在他们不断升级自己的申诉对象，最终选择向CEO寻求帮助，终于收到了7月9日的这封邮件。
●老魏备注：Cheapskates的遭遇其实很多中国卖家都经历过，焦虑、彷徨、愤怒等情绪会叠加而出，但凡事有果必有因，而在后面的内容里，我们也许就可以找到这个“因”。
During the 36 hours of Prime Day, stretching across Monday and Tuesday, Coresight Research expects Amazon to reel in $3.4 billion, as consumers flock to deals on electronics, clothes, furniture and snacks (though that estimate was made prior to a glitch at the start of Prime Day on Monday). Third-party sellers account for more than half of all items sold on the site, and many of them are small family businesses like Cheapskates. Amazon said last week that on Prime Day 2017, thousands of smaller businesses generated more than $50,000 in sales, allowing them to "grow their businesses, create new jobs, and invest in their communities."
在Prime Day进行的36个小时中，亚马逊上的销售额可能达到了34亿美元，消费者的主要购买目标多为电子产品，服装，家具和零食。而第三方卖家们为这个销售额贡献了超过一半的销售量。亚马逊声称在2018年的Prime Day期间，销售额超过五万美金的第三方卖家比比皆是，这也为他们提供了“拓展业务，创造就业，投资新社群”的机会。
But for some small sellers, working with Amazon has become a complicated mess of infringement claims, confusing suspensions, fees and one-way correspondence.
但对于一些中小卖家来说，与亚马逊的合作被侵权投诉，各种令人费解的冻结，还有诸多费用和单边负责一样的方式搞得乌七八糟。
A number of Facebook groups for Amazon sellers are loaded with complaints from people who were suspended for reasons that aren't entirely clear and have struggled to get anyone at Amazon to help. Merchants have filled up Amazon seller forums looking for advice about getting reinstated when they think they've been unfairly suspended or have had their products blocked.
在Facebook上有许多亚马逊卖家的讨论组中都充斥着人们对于原因不明的账号冻结的抱怨，以及对得到帮助的渴望。卖家论坛也挤满了账号出现问题的卖家，他们上传自己的申诉信，希望得到同行们的帮助。
●老魏备注：当你的账号受限时，那并不是个例。很多卖家使用Facebook只是为了找所谓的测评资源，其实，除了测评群组之外，更多的卖家交流群组也是我们应该关注的对象。你总觉得自己一个人做亚马逊很孤独，没有信息来源，如果真的是这种感觉，不妨多关注关注以Amazon Seller为关键词的Facebook Group。
In a statement to CNBC, Amazon said the Schapperts were suspended for selling counterfeits, among other infractions:
亚马逊在对CNBC的询问进行回复时，声称Schappert是因为销售伪造品以及违背了其他政策而受到了冻结。
"The seller in question was found violating multiple Amazon policies, including our anti-counterfeiting policy. They were given multiple opportunities to address the situation but showed a repeated pattern of behavior that was not in our customers’ best interest, so we took actions to protect our customers and stop their illegal activity."
“我们发现该卖家同时违背了多项亚马逊政策，包括我们的反假货政策。亚马逊多次给予他们改正的机会，然而他们的账号屡次出现同样的问题。这对于我们维护消费者权益十分不利。因此我们选择为维护消费者而永久关闭他们的账号以强制他们停止这样的非法行为。”
But the Schapperts say Amazon never gave them this explanation, and the couple's recent correspondence with Amazon, which they shared with CNBC, offers little detail.
但是Schappert一家则表示亚马逊从来没有给过他们这样的解释，他们与亚马逊最近的交互信件中也没有相关的信息。
●老魏备注：虽然亚马逊的理念是成为“世界上最以用户为中心的企业”，但必须说，这句话只是针对于消费者的，对于供应商和合作伙伴，贝索斯是恶魔，毫不夸张。所以，在遭遇申诉的情况时，不妨多联系几次，提高得到亚马逊客服回复的几率。
但是，任何情况下的申诉，都建议不要依赖于模板，任何模板都是愚蠢的，每次申诉要确保语言真诚，逻辑清晰，有理有据，如果话都说不清，申诉不出来也是必然。
Now, they're faced with two bad choices. The first option is to keep their $200,000 of inventory in Amazon's fulfillment centers and continue to try and get reinstated while racking up fees from Amazon for storage, which amounted to $367.37 in June, when they couldn't even sell anything.
现在摆在他们面前的有两个选择，尽管没有一个选择是他们所期望的。第一个选择是让他们20万美元的库存继续放在亚马逊的配送中心里，继续尝试申诉，与此同时在毫无销量的情况下支付各种仓储费用。
Or, the Schapperts can pay 50 cents an item — several thousand dollars in total — to have it all shipped back so they can try to sell it elsewhere. If they don't decide soon, Amazon could destroy their inventory, according to emails they've received from the company.
或者，他们得按50美分一件的价格将他们的库存运送到别的地方，然后尝试通过其他渠道销售掉。而如果他们不能尽快决定，亚马逊会销毁他们的全部库存。
"We thought this was what we were going to be doing for the rest of our lives," said George Schappert, 41, in an interview. "It was a real wake-up call to be kicked off like this."
现年41岁的George Schappert
The problems stem from Amazon's efforts to address a counterfeit crisis, which has plagued the site since the company opened the doors a few years ago to manufacturers and sellers from all over the world. Infringement complaints are now a common occurrence, and can be triggered by as little as a single review from a buyer, or even false reports from competitors.
这一系列对卖家不友好的行为都源自亚马逊对于整顿假冒伪劣产品的努力。自从亚马逊正式面向全世界的卖家开放后，侵权投诉，伪造品投诉等等都变得越来越常见，同时也越来越容易被触发。不仅是消费者的投诉，竞争对手的伪报也会导致被投诉卖家的账号出现问题。
Amazon told CNBC: "Amazon has large teams dedicated to helping sellers—many of them small businesses—be successful reaching and delighting customers. We expect all sellers to comply with the law and our policies, and we take steps to protect customers if they do not. We are committed to providing a great shopping experience and work closely with customers and sellers to resolve any concerns they may have."
亚马逊对CNBC的解释如下“为了帮助卖家更好的销售，更好的服务消费者，亚马逊是准备着庞大的卖家服务团队的。我们希望所有的卖家都能遵守法律和我们平台规则的约束，如果卖家不能达到这些要求，那么我们也会采取对应措施来保护消费者的权益。我们一直都是致力于提供最好的购物体验。同时我们与消费者和卖家密切合作以解决他们遇到的问题。”
viThe company also explained a little about its methods, which rely heavily on automation: "When a business registers to sell products through Amazon’s Marketplace, Amazon’s systems scan information for signals that the business might be a bad actor, and Amazon blocks identified bad actors before they can offer any products for sale. Amazon’s systems also automatically and continuously scan numerous data points related to sellers, products, brands, and offers to detect actity that indicates products offered might be counterfeit."
而对于亚马逊所采用的具体操作方法，他们也有所解释，这一套方法在很大程度上是依赖于亚马逊的自动化识别能力的：“当一个店铺在亚马逊上注册，我们的系统会自动扫描他们提交的信息，确认他们的信息中是否有可能意味着他们无法遵守亚马逊政策的信号。亚马逊会在有这样潜在倾向的卖家进入平台之前就将他们拒之门外。亚马逊的系统还会自动并持续的扫描关于卖家，产品，品牌和订单的多种信息以及时发现有销售伪造品风险的经营活动。”
●老魏备注：上面一段话，值得每个卖家认真琢磨：为什么你的账号刚注册下来就被移除了销售权限？填写的资料，发布的产品等等，都可能导致被亚马逊判定为高风险账号而遭关闭。无论是注册第一个账号也好，还是要注册多个账号来进行多账号运营也罢，都一定要防备上述要素被系统判定为高风险账号。
In its zeal to control counterfeiting, Amazon has taken a heavy hand in removing sellers and forced them to respond with a detailed plan of action, or POA, accepting responsibility for what went wrong and promising to fix it. Dealing with these disruptions is just a cost of doing business on Amazon, even for legitimate sellers.
为了更好的处理假货问题，亚马逊对卖家们采取了从重的方式。一旦出现问题，就会被冻结账号，并要求被冻结账号的卖家提交一篇POA以承认对产生的错误负责并且保证改正。处理这样的突发事件是每个亚马逊卖家都必须经历的，即使是一向行动规范的卖家也是如此。
In the Schapperts' case, the ordeal has been much more dramatic.
The couple are longtime online sellers on eBay, but stepped up their Amazon business in 2015, after George became sick and was unable to continue his electrical work. Cheapskates built its online business by sourcing goods from local businesses, like a friend who makes yard signs, buying from distributors and snapping up clearance products at RadioShack and other retailers.
Like many Amazon sellers, Cheapskates has faced some infringement complaints in the past, according to documents the Schapperts shared with CNBC. Two of them included allegations they were selling counterfeits. One was from a rights owner in February 2017, claiming that Cheapskates was listing a counterfeit light bulb, which they deny. The other was a notification saying they were selling a counterfeit Bluetooth speaker; in fact, the Schapperts say, the product was authentic but they later learned that it wasn't authorized for sale online. Neither notification resulted in suspension, and they stopped selling both products.
The Schapperts were also briefly suspended in July 2017 for "poor seller performance," partly because of a buyer complaint that a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle camera was inauthentic. They were reinstated within two days after telling Amazon they had the receipts to prove the authenticity of the items.
Then things improved. For a while, the business was so good that Amazon almost doubled Cheapskates' storage capacity, allowed the storefront into the global sellers program and offered loans to the Schapperts with rates that kept getting lower.
"They make you feel like you're being rewarded," said George Schappert.
The business peaked at $60,000 in December after a solid holiday season. Soon thereafter, the Schapperts leased a 6,000-square-foot warehouse that costs them about $2,300 a month as they prepared to grow their operation, which George Schappert said was on pace to at least double its revenue this year.
Then, on March 15, Amazon sent the Schapperts an email saying that some of their listings had been removed because of "buyer complaints about the items ordered from you." Amazon provided six product codes and said four of them had complaints for "used sold as new," two were "not as advertised" and one was "damaged/defective."
The next day, March 16, the Schapperts got another note from Amazon saying they could no longer sell on the site because of complaints about "the authenticity of items listed at the end of this email." The three codes were entirely different from the six in the prior day's email and provided no explanation about what was wrong with the products — two types of cigarette rolling paper and some children's bedding. The Schapperts said that after scanning all of the user reviews about those three products, the only complaint related to authenticity came from a single buyer of rolling papers.
而在Schappert家的情况中，这种处理来的更剧烈。Schappert夫妻一直以来都在Ebay上从事网店运营，在2015年才进入亚马逊。他们的店铺Cheapskates主要通过从当地的一些作坊，批发商和零售超市进货，然后在亚马逊上销售的方式获得盈利。这样的经营方式自然也有过这样那样的问题。他们的店铺曾被投诉过卖假货，被投诉过侵权，也因为账号绩效不佳被警告过，但是最终他们都还能正常销售。而且在恢复销售后还越经营越顺利，他们的业务规模甚至得到了翻倍增长，甚至还拿到了利率更低的贷款。“这给我们的感觉就像是我们得到了亚马逊的认可和鼓励”。然而突然到了三月，亚马逊就给Schappert发来了账号冻结的邮件。
●老魏备注：上面几段内容比较多，简单翻译了大概的意思，会英语的朋友可以仔细读一下。
我在这里想简单谈一谈我的看法，事件中的主人公刚开始的运营是Ok的，但后来，他们改换了运营策略，采用了铺货模式，上了很多产品，各个品牌的产品，（是否有假货我们不得而知），然后就遭遇了被品牌方投诉、业绩不佳等不良表现。在我看来，这才是导致账号受限的根本原因，你自己乱卖货，还装无辜，最后受限也是必然的。不信你去看看，在亚马逊上，上很多品牌的杂货店，存活的概率有多高。事件中的主人公还是美国人，也因为被投诉侵权和卖假货而导致账号挂掉了，作为中国卖家，就更不要抱着侥幸的心理去尝试了。
Amazon did not explain to the Schapperts or to CNBC why the March 15 and March 16 emails differed in terms of the products listed, nor did they say why Cheapskates was suspended without warning.
To try and get reinstated, Cheapskates explained to Amazon that it cancelled its relationships with distributors tied to inauthentic item claims and provided a full list of suppliers for all the products in the suspension.
It wasn't enough. On April 3, Amazon said that the information was insufficient and that the Schapperts "could no longer sell on Amazon.com." There was no further explanation, just the boilerplate language that, "for privacy reasons, we do not provide details about our investigation methods."
Now the Schapperts are potentially on the verge of having thousands of dollars worth of products destroyed. Twice this month, Amazon has told Cheapskates that it's "submitted a disposal order" for its inventory because the company missed the deadline for removing it.
为了恢复账号，Cheapskates向亚马逊保证停止了和当前供应商的关系，并且提供了所有受限产品的信息。但这对亚马逊来说还不够，并且“由于保密性原则，我们不能知会更详细的调查内容”。因此现在的Schappert一家就面临着可能会有上千美元的货物被销毁。亚马逊也曾发通知要求他们提交移除订单。
●老魏备注：上述内容，相信遭遇过的卖家都觉得熟悉吧？“由于保密性原则，我们不能知会更详细的调查内容”。
In April, Cheapskates hired Chris McCabe, a former Amazon employee who specializes in working with third-party merchants, to help get them reinstated. McCabe said he's dealt with hundreds of sellers who have run into similar problems, but he's almost always able to get them back up quickly as long as there's no serious infraction, like sourcing counterfeits, using someone else's trademark or having really bad performance metrics.
But McCabe said that sometimes reinstatement efforts get pushed to the wrong group at Amazon. At that point, there's often no telling who inside the company is calling the shots or what can be done to make things right.
"Once they get placed in purgatory, it can be hard to reel them back in," McCabe said. "I don't think Amazon wants to be a marketplace where it's haphazard — who stays and who doesn't."
Schappert一家也曾向一名前亚马逊员工Chris McCabe求助，他曾是专门负责与第三方商家的协作工作。在Chris McCabe的个人经验中，不太严重的违规通常都能迅速解决并恢复账号。但是McCabe也表示账号恢复的过程在亚马逊上的进程上有时会相当混乱。时常出现不知道该由谁来决定是否要恢复，谁能做最后拍板决策的问题。McCabe认为“一旦卖家们已经进入了被冻结的程度，那么想要平安无事的返回就会很困难。我不认为亚马逊会愿意成为一个在谁留谁走的问题上全靠随机性的市场平台。”
Amazon said in its statement that sellers must comply with the law and that it "works with customers and sellers to resolve any concerns they may have."
To help small merchants deal with the complexity of the platform, Amazon is rolling out various professional support services. Amazon has recently been promoting a program called Marketplace Growth, which includes "12 months of personalized coaching, training and insight from an assigned Account Manager" and costs up to $5,000 a month.
为了帮助商家处理和平台的种种麻烦事务。亚马逊正在推出多种专门辅助方案。亚马逊最近推出的项目Marketplace Growth就是为这个目的服务的。该项目包含有一个由专门账号经理提供的长达12个月的专业人员培训。而这个服务需要商家每月支付5000美元。
Last month, Amazon touted that service and others at a conference in New Orleans called Boost, designed to teach "strategies, tactics, tools, and services that make the difference for successful FBA sellers."
月前，亚马逊在新奥尔良的Boost会议上推出了这个项目，声明该项目是为了“教授能为FBA卖家带来不同效益的策略，技巧，工具以及服务。”
From a business standpoint, it's working — the company generates almost $40 billion a year in revenue for third-party seller services, which includes commissions, fulfillment and shipping fees. Sales in the first quarter surged 44 percent to $9.3 billion.
只从商业角度来看的话，这个做法是可行的。亚马逊每年从第三方卖家的销售上获得的收益差不多有400亿美元，包括佣金，配送费，库存费用等等。仅第一季度的销售额就激增44%达到了93亿美元。
Peter Kearns, a former Amazon Marketplace leader, spent four years at the company and now helps sellers from the outside. Kearns said that most sellers who get suspended aren't paying close enough attention to what's happening with their business, and with all the nuances and changes at Amazon.
But even those who are being diligent and proactive can get wrapped up in Amazon's aggressive and increasingly automated effort to remove problem merchants, he said.
我们采访了亚马逊的前市场主管Peter Kearns，他在亚马逊工作了四年，现在致力于通过站外方式来帮助卖家解决问题。Kearns说大多数被冻结账号的卖家都没有对自己的业务投注足够多的关注，同时也忽视了亚马逊上不断发生的改变。
"There are a lot of good sellers that get caught in the crossfire of Amazon's machine learning, which it's using to combat the bad apples," said Kearns, who is now a vice president at 180Commerce. In general, "Amazon doesn't just come out of the blue and knock you off and suspend you," he said. "You have to show a pattern of bad behavior."
Kearns表示，“在亚马逊这个机器学习，并与坏苹果不断的交火中，许多表现良好的卖家不幸的手打了波及。亚马逊并不会闪现出来然后把卖家从平台上赶出去。只有在卖家的确已经表现出一些不良的征兆时才会如此。”
Amazon has recently shaken up the marketplace organization, after years of exponential growth led to a surge in counterfeits and all sorts of manipulative seller tactics. Sebastian Gunningham, who was senior vice president of the division, left for WeWork in April, and the person directly below him, Peter Faricy, has since been stripped of most of his responsibilities.
With all the changes, sellers like the Schapperts remain stuck in the vortex, desperate for answers. George Schappert estimates the business is out $6,000 in fees and consulting expenses, not to mention the many tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
"We're just trying to figure out what they want so we can provide that," he said. "But it almost seems like they don't want us there anymore."
鉴于近些年出现的伪造品和其他操纵性的行为在以指数级的程度增长，亚马逊也针对性的进行了人事调整，市场结构组织部副主管被换下，新主管上任。尽管已经在做出改变，像Schappert这样的情况任然看不到乐观的前景。包括咨询费用等等在内，目前他的店铺已经损失了超过6000美元，更不用说在随后的一段时间内还会产生更多的损失。
●老魏点评：
虽然这只是CNBC的一篇新闻报道，但在阅读的过程中，我们可以从卖家的视角、从美国卖家的视角、从亚马逊平台的视角、从第三方服务商的视角来思考作为一个卖家，应该如何做才能更符合平台规则，获得在平台上长期稳定发展的机会。我觉得，这才是阅读这篇文章最深刻的意义。
如果你总是无视规则，如果你总是想当然的认为，如果你总是自以为是，下一个账号挂掉的也许就是你。你认为呢？
