Amazon recommends sellers to use sealing strips, but sellers complain!

In a recent announcement, Amazon US recommended that sellers use sealing strips on products in its consumables product group to prevent buyer complaints. Some sellers said that the real problem came from the workers in Amazon warehouses.

In this announcement, Amazon said that in a recent analysis of buyer complaints, it was found that buyers would consider unsealed products as "used" when they received them. In the announcement, Amazon also provided two video links to provide sellers with suggestions on how to prevent product conditions from occurring.

But sellers who use Amazon's FBA delivery service counter that workers at Amazon's distribution centers sometimes put returned items back on shelves that shouldn't have been there in the first place.

A seller commented: "We have received several complaints about 'missing accessories' and 1 complaint about old products being exchanged for new ones. These products are all from FBA returns that have just been put into the 'new' inventory pool."

The seller also suggested that to prevent FBA returned goods from being automatically returned to sellable inventory in the "new" state, sellers should be allowed to decide whether to put the product back on the shelf for sale, or at least automatically change the product status to "used", so that customer expectations will be lowered.

Some sellers also said that they were the manufacturer of the product and had seen the pictures of the complained product. In the pictures, the sealing strip of the packaging had been removed and ordinary tape was used, and the contents had been swapped.

"The buyer complained that we were selling used items as new and posting them on product reviews (the seller can no longer respond), but I know that was not the case when my product was boxed and shipped to Amazon. The only explanation is that it was returned to Amazon in this condition and then sold to another customer. The health and safety of Amazon customers is a top priority, and consumable and topical products should undergo additional inspections."

Another seller said they would be happy if Amazon gave them the option to never put the returned product back into sellable inventory. The seller also offered an interesting solution: “Instead of requiring sellers to use random seals, Amazon should design a universal seal. That way, FC staff can easily detect used items.”

Before Amazon provides a solution, the editor still recommends that sellers prepare sealing strips themselves to prevent complaints due to returned products.

Amazon US

FBA

Buyer Complaints