A great many of those jumping ship from eBay, due to this year’s policy & fee changes, are looking to Amazon as an alternative channel for selling their goods.  But, not everyone is able to sell on the “Big River”, and not all inventory leaving eBay is acceptable either.

It’s fairly widely known that Amazon throw seasonal restrictions on what they call 3rd party vendors (i.e. independant sellers) in categories such as Jewellery and Toys and Games.  What’s probably less well known is their market protection for domestic sellers.

I’ve heard from one of our members that he has been told categorically, that he cannot sell on Amazon due to his location – if I said he’s in the Orient, you can probably guess who immediately – despite being able to fulfill all of Amazon Payments criteria for the UK, and despite having had an Amazon Payments account for four years already.  This is the message he got from Amazon UK Seller Support -

“Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk Marketplace.

At this time, only sellers who are resident within the UK are eligible to apply for Amazon Payments. Unfortunately, the lack of an international standard for identity verification has made it impossible thus far for us to offer this service to our international sellers.

Please also note that it is clearly stated in our Participation Agreement that the goods have to be physically located in the United Kingdom at the time of purchase. This is because every time a transaction is completed, the seller is expected to send goods within two working days.

Since Amazon Payments is required in order to sell on our third-party selling platforms, we realise that you will not be able to sell on our site at this time.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Thank you for your interest in Amazon.co.uk Marketplace. “

 Hmmm ….. “an international standard for identity verification” now let me see …. ah yes, that would be the new passports with embedded bio-metric data that most countries (if not all) are now issuing, wouldn’t it?  Or, the PayPal method for “minor” nation residents of faxing a copy of passport ID page, utility bill, and a recent issuing-bank communication showing the registered address of the credit or debit card added to the account being opened.

Or, for expatriates like our unlucky member, the internationally accepted proof of address certificate from local Consular officials, or nation of residence immigration officers (in the case of China that would be the Public Security Bureau, or in the USA, it would be the INS inspectors). 

However, the information in Seller Support’s email does not tally with the information published on the Amazon UK website.  On their Pro-merchant subscription information page, it states -

“you must dispatch items within two business days of seller payment “

However, and it’s a big BUT, the FAQ page that details how a seller is paid states -

“You won’t receive the money from your sale instantly, but you can hurry the process along yourself:

• When someone buys one of your items, the money is transferred from their card to your Amazon Payments account.
• Money is then automatically transferred from your Amazon Payments account to your bank account once every 14 days. This cycle begins 14 days after you register for Amazon Payments. So, for example, if money from your first transaction is transferred to your Amazon Payments account 15 days after you register, the next automatic transfer won’t happen for another 13 days.
• Fortunately, you can initiate a manual transfer of funds from Amazon Payments to your bank account up to once a day.“

Therefore, in essence, under the strictest interpretation of the combined policies, sellers have up to 16 days to get the goods from wherever they are in the world, to the buyers, wherever they may be.  AND this is what happens in practice – I know of residents in South America and Asia that have shown me purchases they’ve made from Amazon, and when asked how long it took them to arrive, they said anywhere from one to two weeks. 

If you thought eBay was full of double standards, this then is one of those from squeaky clean Amazon – they’ll allow sales exported from their marketplaces to take more than the advertised two days, but they won’t allow imports into there to do the same.  

Sound like an issue for the WTO to take up?  Nahhh! Sounds to me more like Amazon UK using a cop-out excuse to keep overseas sellers off their site.  Oh, hang on, doesn’t that come under some international treaty or other about protectionist policies?

Does anyone know if Amazon.com (USA) accepts 3rd-party sellers from outside the US – perhaps with a tied agreement to use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)?

I know someone who would really like to know the answer to that.

Ed