Amazon is not unaware of the concerns of thousands of Sellers affected by the nationwide lockdown due to Coronavirus. We are facing a great challenge and it has impacted almost all businesses, whether big or small.
There are almost 600,000 sellers across India that sell on Amazon. Micro-entrepreneurs, small and medium businesses, and women sellers, artisans & weavers form a significant part of that seller base.
For small sellers, it is a far greater concern as a lot of them rely on their Amazon sales for their bread and butter. And a lot of sellers have been asking me about how their performance will be impacted, and how will they recover from the negative impact.
We finally
have a few answers and as promised, I am going to share whatever update I have,
with all of you.
To help sellers navigate through this tough time and support them, the
e-commerce giant Amazon has planned to take several steps.
Below are the 6 major steps Amazon is taking to mitigate the negative impact on sellers’ business due to the lockdown caused as a result of coronavirus.
6 Steps by Amazon to reduce Negative Impact on Sellers due to COVID Lockdown
1. 50% waiver on referral fees (Selling on Amazon Fees)
- Till end of June 2020
- Applicable for sellers whose *GMS for January & February 2020 is INR 10,000 or less.
*Gross Merchandise Sales
2. Waiving of Storage Fees for March & April 2020
- Till April 30
- Applicable for all FBA sellers using long term storage of Amazon India.
- Also includes inventory delayed/returned due to nationwide lockdown
3. Refund of all fulfillment and referral fees for canceled orders
- Applicable on orders (containing lower priority items) canceled by Amazon in last few weeks
- To reduce the impact of cancellations on sellers
4. Relaxation on Account Performance Metrics
- Order Cancellation & Returns related Performance Metric policies
- Applicable until the situation returns to normalcy.
5. Claim Reimbursements for returned, lost, or damaged items beyond regular claim window
- Original policy – reimbursements should be claimed within a week or month
- Now – Sellers can file claims even if they miss the regular claim window.
- Valid until end of May.
- A 30-day notice will be provided to sellers before rolling back to the original policy.
6. Priority Wish List Programme
- To encourage and reward sellers for bringing in more and more high priority products to Amazon Fulfilment Centres
- Special incentives in the range of INR 23-35 per unit will be provided to sellers for every unit of priority product they bring to Fulfilment Centres
- Priority item categories – Food, Groceries, Medicines, and Healthcare
- Applicable until the end of May 2020
So these were the 6 steps that Amazon is taking to support us sellers and mitigate the negative impact on us due to this COVID Lockdown.
Hopefully, everything will soon return to normalcy. And with e-commerce operations scheduled to open soon, I would highly recommend all sellers to start working on optimizing your listings without wasting any time.
Check your competitors’ listings, take stock of your inventory and get back in form to ensure you are up and ready from the very start!
Video in Hindi
5 Things Amazon Sellers can do during Lockdown due to Coronavirus
Recently I had come live to share with you 5 things that Amazon Sellers can do during this lockdown due to Coronavirus.
You can check that video again here 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1Acuem8qr0 (with subtitles in 14 languages)
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