Prohibited seller activities and actions

These Prohibited Seller Activities and Actions are established to maintain a selling service that is safe for buyers and fair for sellers of both products and services. Failure to comply with the terms of this policy can result in cancellation of listings, suspension from use of Amazon tools and reports and/or the removal of selling privileges.

General guidelines

The following guidelines apply to both sellers of products and services. For guidelines specific to products, see the information following this section. For guidelines specific to services, see Selling Services on Amazon policies.

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:

Your business name (identifying your business entity on Amazon) must be a name that: Accurately identifies you; is not misleading; and that you have 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, you can't use a business name that contains an email suffix such as .com, .net, .biz and so on.

Inappropriate email communications:

Unsolicited emails to Amazon customers (other than as necessary for order fulfilment and related customer service) and emails related to marketing communications of any kind are prohibited.

Appropriate treatment of customer phone numbers:

Amazon provides Professional sellers who fulfil their own orders access to customer phone numbers so that they can comply with carrier label requirements. If you receive this customer information, you are required to adhere to Amazon's customer personal information policy, which can be found in our Seller Agreement.

Please review the policy there and the guidance below to make sure that you are using customers' phone numbers correctly.

• Proper treatment of customer phone numbers:
  • Print on labels to comply with carrier requirements.
  • Dispose of any customer phone number data that you retain after you have processed the customers' orders.
  • Monitor who in your organization has access to customer phone numbers—protecting this data is your responsibility.

• Improper treatment of customer phone numbers:
  • Never contact a customer using their phone number. To contact a customer about their order, only use Buyer-Seller Messaging. Please see our Buyer-Seller Messaging FAQ for more information.
  • Never share customer phone information with an external party.
  • Never pass along customer information of any kind, including phone numbers, outside of Buyer-Seller Messaging.

Direct email addresses:

Buyers and sellers may communicate with one another via the Buyer-Seller Messaging Service.

Filing Infringement Notices as an Agent or Brand Protection Agency

Amazon understands that many brands may choose to have brand protection agencies or agents report intellectual property infringement on their behalf, and accepts submissions from authorized agents. However, Amazon does not permit individuals with active selling accounts to file infringement notices as an agent of a brand when the filing of those notices could benefit their own selling account (through removing competing listings, for example). Any person filing notices as an agent that benefit their own status as a seller may have their selling account terminated.

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, which helps 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 monetary amount of A-to-z Guarantee claims are subject to termination. In cases where a buyer is dissatisfied with a product or service, they 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 see relevant and accurate results. Any attempt to manipulate the Search and Browse experience is therefore prohibited. Prohibited behaviours include, but are not limited to:

• Artificially simulating customer traffic (through Internet bots, paying for clicks on organic search results, etc.).
• Providing misleading or irrelevant catalogue information (title, bullet points, description, variations, keywords, etc.).
• Adding product identifiers (brand names, product names, ASINs and so on), even if they are your own, to hidden keyword attributes.

For more context and guidelines, see Optimize listings for Search and Browse.

Additional guidelines for sellers

The following guidelines apply to sellers of products:

Shipment of 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 fulfilment 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.

Creating duplicate product detail pages:

Creating a product detail page for a product already in the Amazon catalogue is prohibited.

Creating 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:

Sellers 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 two business days of the date the order confirmation is made available to you. It is also important to maintain accurate inventory records, as instances of "stock-outs" could be reflected in your seller feedback rating. If an item you are offering will not be available for immediate shipping upon order, either cancel the order or alert the buyer, and initiate a refund if necessary. Amazon will immediately cancel any seller listing for Books, Music, Video or DVD items that Amazon designates as pre-orderable.

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 products, 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 fulfil that request and charge the buyer directly.

• Unapproved technicians: For in-home services, if you send a non-approved technician to fulfil a service order, your selling privileges may be removed.