Welcome Amazon Merchants!

General Guidelines

The following guidelines apply to both sellers of products and services. For guidelines specific to products or services, see the information following this section.

• Attempts to divert transactions or buyers: Any attempt to circumvent the established Amazon sales process or to divert Amazon users to another website or sales process is prohibited. Specifically, any advertisements, marketing messages (special offers) or "calls to action" that lead, prompt, or encourage Amazon users to leave the Amazon website are prohibited. This may include the use of email or the inclusion of hyperlinks, URLs or web addresses within any seller-generated confirmation email messages or any product/listing description fields.
• Unauthorized and improper business names: The Business Name (identifying a seller’s business entity on Amazon) must be a name that: accurately identifies the seller; is not misleading; and the seller has the right to use (that is, the name cannot include the trademark of, or otherwise infringe on, any trademark or other intellectual property right of any person). Furthermore, a seller cannot use a business name that contains an email suffix such as .com, .net, .biz, and so on.
• Inappropriate email and phone communications: Unsolicited email and phone communications with Amazon users, email and phone communications other than as necessary for order fulfillment and related customer service, and emails and phone calls related to marketing communications of any kind (including within otherwise permitted communications) are prohibited.
• Direct email addresses: Buyers and sellers may communicate with one another via the Buyer-Seller Messaging Service, which assigns unique Amazon-generated email addresses to both parties.
• Multiple seller accounts: Operating and maintaining multiple Seller Central accounts is prohibited. If you have a legitimate business need for a second account, you can apply for an exception to this policy. From the bottom of any page in your seller account, click Contact Seller Support. Select Your account, then select Other account issues.In your request, provide an explanation of the legitimate business need for a second account. To be considered for approval, you must have the following:
  
  1. An account in good standing with excellent Customer Metrics
  2. A separate email address and bank account for the new account
  3. No intention to sell the same products or services in both accounts
  4. Intention to sell in entirely different categories
  5. The inventory sold in each account must be different

  You’ll receive a response to your request within 2 to 3 business days.

• Misuse of the Amazon selling service: If you upload excessive amounts of data repeatedly, or otherwise use the service in an excessive or unreasonable way, Amazon may in its sole discretion restrict or block your access to product feeds or any other functions that are being misused until you stop its misuse.
• Misuse of ratings, feedback, or reviews: Any attempt to manipulate ratings, feedback, or reviews is prohibited.
  • Ratings and feedback: The rating and feedback features allow buyers to evaluate the overall performance of a seller, helping sellers to develop a reputation within the Amazon Marketplace. You may not post abusive or inappropriate feedback or include personal information about a transaction partner. This also includes posting ratings or feedback to your own account. You may request feedback from a buyer, however you may not pay or offer any incentive to a buyer for either providing or removing feedback.
  • Reviews: Reviews are important to the Amazon Marketplace, providing a forum for feedback about product and service details and reviewers' experiences with products and services—positive or negative. You may not write reviews for products or services that you have a financial interest in, including reviews for products or services that you or your competitors sell. Additionally, you may not provide compensation (including free or discounted products) for a review. Review solicitations that ask for only positive reviews or that offer compensation are prohibited. You may not ask buyers to modify or remove reviews.
• Misuse of sales rank: The best seller rank feature allows buyers to evaluate the popularity of a product. Any attempt to manipulate sales rank is prohibited. You may not solicit or knowingly accept fake or fraudulent orders, including placing orders for your own products. You may not provide compensation to buyers for purchasing your products or provide claim codes to buyers for the purpose of inflating sales rank. In addition, you may not make claims regarding a product's best seller rank in the product detail page information, including the title and description.
• Misuse of the Amazon A-to-z Guarantee: Any misuse of the Amazon A-to-z Guarantee claims process is prohibited. Sellers who have an excessive number or dollar amount of A-to-z Guarantee claims are subject to termination. In cases where a buyer is dissatisfied with a product or service, buyers can contact the seller to make arrangements for a refund, return, or exchange, as appropriate. Amazon reserves the right to seek reimbursement from the seller if we reimburse a buyer under the terms of the Amazon A-to-z Guarantee.
• Misuse of Search and Browse: When customers use Amazon's search engine and browse structure, they expect to find relevant and accurate results. To protect the customer experience, all product-related information, including keywords and search terms, must comply with the guidelines provided under Optimize Listings for Search and Browse. Any attempt to manipulate the search and browse experience is prohibited.

Additional guidelines for sellers

The following guidelines apply to sellers of products:

• Shipping BMVD Products : Books, Music, Video, and DVD products offered through Amazon must be shipped within two business days of the date the order confirmation is made available to you.
• Post-transaction price manipulation and excessive shipping fees: Any attempt to increase the sale price of an item after a transaction has been completed is prohibited. Additionally, sellers cannot set excessive order fulfillment and shipping costs.
• Matching product offerings inaccurately: When listing items for sale using an existing product detail page, the product being offered must be listed on a product detail page that accurately describes the product in all respects, including (but not limited to) the following attributes: manufacturer, edition, binding, version, format, or player compatibility. Sellers may not match their item to a detail page with a different ISBN, UPC, EAN, or other external identifier. Exception: Club editions of audio CDs and rental editions of DVD and Blu-ray discs should be listed against the detail page for the standard edition of the CD, DVD, or Blu-ray, even if the UPCs of the two editions are different, if the following criteria are met:
  • The club or rental edition is listed in Used condition;
  • The content on both editions is identical
  • A page with the UPC for the club or rental edition does not already exist in our catalog. Use the listing comments to indicate that the item is a club edition. Format of the products (CD, DVD, Blu-ray) must be identical.
  • Use the listing comments to indicate that the item is a club or rental edition.
• Duplicate product detail pages: Creating a product detail page for a product already in the Amazon catalog is prohibited.
• Separate listings: Sellers may not create separate listings for identical copies of the same item. Individually listing the same item several times is confusing for buyers and frustrating for other sellers. Sellers must use the quantity field to offer multiple copies of the same item, and only list separately if offering the same item in different conditions.
• Pre-sells of BMVD Products: You should not list or match against Books, Music, Video, or DVD products that Amazon designates as pre-orderable. BMVD Products offered through Amazon must be shipped within 2 business days of the date the order confirmation is made available to you.

Additional guidelines for service providers

The following guidelines apply to service providers:

• Upselling: The service provider must perform the service as outlined in the scope of work on the service detail page on the date the service was purchased. The service provider may not solicit additional product, parts or service orders before, during or after the service call. If the buyer requests services, parts, or products outside of the defined scope of work, then the service provider may fulfill that request and charge the buyer directly.
• Unapproved technicians: For in-home services, if you send a non-approved technician to fulfill a service order, your selling privileges may be removed

Operating and maintaining multiple Seller Central accounts is prohibited. If you have a legitimate business need for a second account, you can apply for an exception to this policy. From the bottom of any page in your seller account, click  Contact Seller Support. Select Your account, then select Other account issues. In your request, provide an explanation of the legitimate business need for a second account. To be considered for approval, you must have the following:

• • An account in good standing with excellent Customer Metrics
  • A separate email address and bank account for the new account
  • No intention to sell the same products or services in both accounts

• Intention to sell in entirely different categories

• The inventory sold in each account must be different

You’ll receive a response to your request within 2 to 3 business days.