Amazon continually restricting dietary supplements
We are constantly getting our listings removed by amazon as being flagged as 'restricted products' - amazon's algorithm continues to change and apparently will flag a certain word in the listing usually as a drug intended to cure a disease, I have only been able to get their help staff to explain the queries a couple times - with words such as 'weight loss, mood, stress, inflammation' being triggers, somehow despite the hundreds of listings that use these words successfully and are still listed without issue.
Currently we have one product that amazon is now considering as an 'assault weapon' which is a dietary supplement.
I am unsure why amazon continually does this with our account, if we can have someone with experience with this chime in and elaborate or figure out why this happens to our listings but not more popular ones, that would be helpful.
Account health is and has always been in good standing.
Amazon continually restricting dietary supplements
We are constantly getting our listings removed by amazon as being flagged as 'restricted products' - amazon's algorithm continues to change and apparently will flag a certain word in the listing usually as a drug intended to cure a disease, I have only been able to get their help staff to explain the queries a couple times - with words such as 'weight loss, mood, stress, inflammation' being triggers, somehow despite the hundreds of listings that use these words successfully and are still listed without issue.
Currently we have one product that amazon is now considering as an 'assault weapon' which is a dietary supplement.
I am unsure why amazon continually does this with our account, if we can have someone with experience with this chime in and elaborate or figure out why this happens to our listings but not more popular ones, that would be helpful.
Account health is and has always been in good standing.
30 replies
Seller_e6CucdxhNXC45
@Blake_Amazon@Steve_Amazon@Jim_Amazon I have seen you guys comment on some similar posts, can definitely use some help here as we have several listings that deal with this on a regular basis and is greatly impacting our business here on amazon. thank you
Seller_rI7BZIczK8iAC
You are not alone, the bots do this all the time with all sellers. If you find a listing mentionning "weight loss" it just means that the algorithm didn't yet find and suspend it.
A list of forbidden words you find on Google "Amazon new restricted keywords". But the list is not complete, and making any health claim is walking on a minefield.
Seller_e6CucdxhNXC45
Any mods or employees from amazon able to chime in on this issue? This is getting out of hand
@Glenn_Amazon
@Jameson_Amazon
@Blake_Amazon
@Danny_Amazon
@Cooper_Amazon
@Michelle_Amazon
@Sandy_Amazon
@Danika_Amazon
@Topher_Amazon
@Webb_Amazon
@Emet_Amazon
Michelle_Amazon
Hello @Seller_e6CucdxhNXC45,
Michelle at Amazon here. I am sorry to hear that you are having issues with your products. Can you please provide me with a Seller Support case ID so I can take a look at the ASIN to see if I can figure out what is going on?
I look forward to hearing from you!
Thanks,
Michelle
Atlas_Amazon
Hello @Seller_e6CucdxhNXC45
Thank you for the additional information regarding your situation. For your restricted product concern, if you have removed the search terms and you believe the listing to be compliant, we would recommend letting our team know so that they may review the listing once more. If everything is compliant, then the listing should be reinstated.
For your invoices, be sure to verify that they meet all of the criteria set forth in our sourcing policy. If our team is unable to verify the information provided, they will reject the submission.
If you have any other details available regarding the rejection of your invoice or the restricted product violation, continue to refer to this thread.
Best,
Atlas
Seller_e6CucdxhNXC45
One possible reason the documents provided were denied were because our manufacturers name is different than our company's name, and I think the listing for that product says that we are both the manufacturer and the distributor of the product. I have tried to explain this difference before but it only seems to confuse the amazon workers - any advice on how to properly navigate this?
Seller_e6CucdxhNXC45
Also wondering if i can get help with these cases regarding lost shipments, in addition to these cases, we also have a case of 42 units now stuck in limbo because of the restricted asin that was removed - how do we ensure this package does not get lost by amazon? Each time this has happened before, amazon has lost the entire shipment and has not refunded us from it.:
Case 14672501161 is one they claim the units were recieved and sold already, but there is no way to show what units sold came from which shipment? The math does not add up to the number of bottles sold since the date of when that shipment was checked in on nov 19 to now since we are totally out of stock on that product now aside from the 24 units I just sent in last week that are not yet checked in. If they did recieve the shipment they claimed they did, we would not be out of units currently. I have seen no way to audit these numbers on specific dates.
It looks like shipment FBA17D29S6Z0 is ALSO showing 0 of the 24 units were recieved, The previous cases were inquiring on shipment ID FBA17J9XQNFH. I am extremely confused as to what is going on and would like this situation to be handled in a more professional manner
LeviDylan_Amazon
Hello @Seller_e6CucdxhNXC45,
Thank you for providing new questions and updates in this thread.
I can see that you are posting about new issues in this thread. Are you still facing restricted product policy issues?
As @Michelle_Amazon mentioned about the keywords being an issue for the first case, were you able to make those edits? For the second case I see that there were document requests. Have you created a new case for this and checked the sourcing policy that @Atlas_Amazon mentioned to see if the documents meet the requirements?
I would advise for new FBA concerns to create a new topic to ensure accurate support from the correct departments. Here is a link to start a new discussion.
I want to ensure you are provided with the best support possible. For this, I am going to forward your information to the Account Health Support team. Please ensure your contact information is up-to-date as they may reach out.
The seller forums community and I are here to support you. Please feel free to post further questions and updates in this thread.
Wishing you the best,
LeviDylan
Seller_e6CucdxhNXC45
This listing has AGAIN been restricted not two hours after receiving an email saying there is no restriction on the listing:
ASIN: B0BN9W8C8R
This product has been identified as claiming to be a treatment, cure, or remedy for cardiovascular or related heart diseases or conditions such as blood clots, cardiac arrest. Products including dietary supplements, essential oils, homeopathic remedies and topicals marketed as products for cardiovascular treatments, remedies, cures, or similar disease-related products are prohibited unless they have been approved by the FDA. To be considered for reinstatement, please remove the prohibited disease claim from the detail page and appeal the restriction
Please tell me EXACTLY what word they now have a problem with... this is unbelievable.
Seller_IlVkdhTORsI1g
You might try removing the words "Blood pressure" from your title listing.
Seller_e6CucdxhNXC45
I'd find that hilarious - since you search 'blood pressure supplement' and will find 16 products on the first page that have 'blood pressure' on the actual product name - where are the bans and restrictions for all of these products?
Still waiting for an amazon employee to give a response. This kind of favoritism is getting old.
Seller_IlVkdhTORsI1g
No doubt, but the first steps should be to get your listing back up and running, then to sort out why other Sellers aren't being held to the same standard.
Michelle_Amazon
Hello @Seller_e6CucdxhNXC45,
I have reviewed ASIN B0BN9W8C8R and it is back live on the site.
Please let me know if you have any other issues.
Michelle
Seller_e6CucdxhNXC45
There are still plenty of issues - we cannot write the words 'blood pressure' 'kidney health' heart health' 'blood flow' and 'circulation' on this product without it getting banned, while there are thousands of other dietary supplements actively listed using these words.
Please reconcile this so we can actually write a description for this product or ban the thousands of other products if these are truly 'restricted health claims' as amazon wants to claim on our listing.
Seller_e6CucdxhNXC45
been trying to inquire for the second part, the mods here just tell me they have no information or want me to personally report thousands of listings
Seller_9H5tLtAvo6re9
This is why I stopped selling them 2 years ago. I saw the constant restrictions and it just wasn't worth it.
Seller_fFRU6piWlMKVE
I get the same issue. Some items is able to get cleared but some have a lot of issues. Let me know plz if you find a resolution.
Seller_UmBwIdmrLdMZV
We manufacture our own supplements, and this is, and has been an ongoing problem, for years. Sometimes Amazon creates new testing requirements that requires sellers / manufacturers to test for the absence of banned ingredients (such as in the weight loss and male enhancement categories). When this happens, you have to comply.
But other times, Amazon's bots flag your listings for things that have nothing to do with your supplement. In this case, you have to appeal, appeal, and appeal. We have someone on staff that works full time on these kinds of issues. It happens all the time. Just last week I woke up to see 15,000+ units in stranded inventory because we had products flagged for something to do with a thyroid ingredient. None of them have anything to do with a thyroid ingredient, so we appealed. Took a couple of days, but they were all cleared.
There's no easy fix. You just deal with the problems as they come.
Seller_GFfVFLo163Btc
If your product gets marked by Amazon as a supplement due to weight loss or weight management keywords and in reality, your product has nothing to do with being a dietary supplement, don't even try appealing or getting them laboratory documents, their "internal team" is fully run by bots and crawlers, they could care less. They won't reinstate your product even with the documents provided, they NEVER revisit their decisions and barely reply to your emails. Remove inventory, create a new listing, and remove prohibited keywords.
