Over the last couple of months or so, I have been trying to set up an online Amazon seller
account.
It has been a complete disaster.
I was accepted as a seller by Amazon about six weeks ago.
I was one of the “select few”!
By that I mean, I have no idea how many sellers they’ve actually chosen.
I decided to watch a few tutorials online and realised that I need to buy some goods
from overseas to have any chance of being successful in Australia.
So I jumped on the Chinese website Alibaba, ordered a product – some screwdrivers, did
some negotiation, and everything went fairly well.
Unbeknownst to me, Amazon products all require official UPCs – Universal Product Codes,
i.e. barcodes, to be registered on Amazon.
I contacted the Chinese supplier and they told me that they had a UPC for their screwdrivers
and promptly sent it to me.
I registered the product on Amazon, uploaded some photos, wrote a description – a lot
of which was provided by the manufacturer, and everything seemed to be going well.
Then, the next day, Amazon decided to change all my pictures from screwdrivers to mobile
phone cases.
I contacted Amazon via their online help form and a guy named Suman replied within a couple
of hours stating that I had incorrectly categorised my product as a “Mobile Phone Accessory”
and that mobile phone accessories are not a valid Australian product category.
They requested that I delete the product, relist it on Amazon, and put it in the correct
category.
First of all, I was certain I did not list it under “Mobile Phone Accessory”, but
instead under “Hand Tools” or similar.
But just to keep the peace, I followed their instructions and created a new listing.
Same problem!
I tried to reply to my current case, but they had already closed it!
Apparently Suman was so confident in his previous advice, that he was happy to close the case
without any feedback from the customer, i.e. me.
Anyway, I reopened the case and said that the fix didn’t work.
I had followed their instructions to the tee, but yet, mobile phones cases were still being
shown on my screwdriver ad.
I got a reply from a different person named Subhankar who also told me that I had incorrectly
listed my screwdrivers as mobile phone accessories.
I quite bluntly told him that I never listed the product under mobile phone accessories
and that surely it’s an Amazon mistake.
I also told him that if that category is forbidden in Australia, why then is it possible for
me to select it – which I didn’t.
But surely if a product category causes so many problems, it shouldn’t even be accessible
in Australia.
I decided I was sick of contacting people via email, and requested a phone call conversation.
A lady named Anagha contacted me and basically reiterated the points that her colleagues
had mentioned previously.
I tried to explain to her that I didn’t select the category as Amazon was claiming
and that I could clearly see my screwdrivers listed under Hand Tools.
She did a bit of investigating and finally said that my UPC barcode was still on their
system from a couple of years ago.
Although the product had long been deleted, the barcode number was still stuck in their
system under Mobile Phone Accessories.
She said I had to get a new code or apply for an exception.
Either way, it was a pain in the bum.
I had already got my supplier to stick on the old barcodes, and they were in the process
of shipping the goods.
In the end, I bought some dodgy South Korean barcodes off eBay and they’ve been working
ever since.
Amazon didn’t have a clue.
All their help centres are obviously overseas.
Nobody wanted to admit that Amazon had done anything wrong.
None of the employees seemed to have any power to change the product category or update old
details.
They basically blamed me for all the errors in their system.
Luckily, South Korea came to the rescue and sold me some cheap and (apparently) valid
UPC codes.
My next Amazon experience was with Bangladesh.
A guy I know who used to live in Australia wanted to go into business with me selling
traditional Bangladeshi products.
It’s been a complete nightmare!
I decided to invest about $500 into this.
He would basically act as my supplier.
I would select some goods, give him some money, and he would go out and purchase the goods,
prepare them for shipment, and then send them off to Amazon.
Sounds easy, right?
Wrong!
I gave him a list of products that I wanted based on the descriptions and photos he sent
me.
I asked him to provide me with all the measurements – width, length, height and weight, but
he told me he couldn’t get me those details because he didn’t have the right “machines”
for the job.
He even questioned me whether Amazon really needed those details or not.
Of course they bloody do!
How else do they calculate postage?
I told him the only “machine” he needs to measure the product dimensions is a 50c
ruler.
I told him I bought a set of kitchen scales at Target for $12, and that was in Australia!
Surely they’re cheaper in Bangladesh.
It’s a small price to pay to get accurate results.
He kept making excuses and tried to tell me it’s not important.
I insisted that I needed these details in order to get an accurate calculation with
regard to Amazon fees.
I even told him I’ll buy the bloody things for him.
I’ll give him an extra $15 to go out and buy a ruler and a set of scales.
But for whatever reason, he delayed, delayed and delayed.
He started questioning me whether we really needed the height of our products.
He sent me some measurements that he had just estimated.
Not only were they only estimations, he gave them to me in inches, even though I specifically
asked for centimetres.
I held firm though, and insisted that he measure the products properly.
With a bit of hesitation, he went out and bought a ruler.
I really should have taken all of this as a sign from the universe and stopped there.
But against my better judgement, I continued.
From that point onwards, everything just continued to go down hill.
After about a week of me asking for the measurements for these products (there were only three
products by the way), he sent me a picture of one of them with a ruler behind it.
This is the actual picture.
I told him that I need him to measure the products.
I can’t rely on a photo.
I can’t measure the width from this photo.
I certainly can’t measure the height.
And the fact that the bird’s tail is not even in the picture means that I can’t even
accurately measure the bird’s length.
I though where am I?
The Twilight Zone?
I started to wonder whether he actually knew how to measure anything.
Maybe he hadn’t learnt how to use a ruler?
The fact that I had asked him and asked him for a full week, and still I didn’t have
any measurements means that something is seriously wrong with this guy.
But I pressed on.
Finally, he sent me a detailed list of product measurements.
Everything seemed right except that all the weights of each item were exactly 60 g.
Different sized items were coincidentally the same weight.
I double checked with him and he swears those measurements are accurate.
To this day, these are the weights that I have placed on the Amazon listing.
They better be bloody right!
Finally, I thought we were able to move past all of this and place an order.
I gave him an exact list of products that I wanted which totalled 9.9 kg.
He told me that he was able to get a discount on postage if I ordered 10 kg in total.
I figured with packaging and labels etc., 9.9 kg would easily reach the 10 kg mark.
He made up an invoice and sent it to me.
In total, it came to $510.
I asked him if I could pay by PayPal, but he told me that PayPal isn’t available in
Bangladesh.
Fair enough.
He told me I should use Western Union (which every tutorial told me not to do, but again,
I went against my better judgement).
I went onto the Western Union website, created an account, and put in all the pertinent details.
I found out that the cheapest way to send money would be to his bank account.
Do you think he had a bank account?
Of course not!
He told me that because he had lived in Australia for so long, his Bangladeshi ID had expired
and that he needed that to create a bank account.
I said, well, go out and apply for a national ID and a bank account.
He told me it would take over a month to do.
All the time, I’m paying Amazon fees, regardless of whether I’m selling anything or not.
So I gave in and sent him cash via Western Union which incurred a higher fee than a bank
transfer.
I told him that in the future, I won’t be sending cash anymore, and that he must open
a bank account in the meantime.
He agreed, but we’ll see what really happens in the future.
A few days later, he came back with another problem.
He couldn’t get all the goods.
He said that the shop had run out.
Instead of buying 50 parrots, he was only able to get 17.
Instead of buying 25 fish ornaments, he could only get six.
It was a disaster.
I said, well, you’ve already got my money.
Whatever happens, I need you to go out and buy 10 kg of products to make this worthwhile.
I told him to go and order some more of the products from the shop, but he said that would
take an extra week.
I had already been waiting for a couple of weeks at this point, so I told him just to
go out and do it.
A week went past, and he came back and told me that the shops couldn’t order in any
more of the products.
Instead, he had bought eight different products.
I was only ever planning to buy three, but apparently that’s the best he could do.
He bought four of one product, 60 of another, five of another, 27 of another, and so on.
It was a nightmare.
He asked that I send him all the barcode labels, but in order to do that, I had to create all
the listings on Amazon.
I told him that I needed photos of all the products on a white background.
He told me no problem.
Finally, he had packed all the goods after about four weeks of mucking about.
I thought everything was done and I could relax for a while.
But no, of course not!
He went to DHL to deliver the goods and told me that because the items were in three separate
boxes, they couldn’t send them as part of one shipment.
There was going to be an extra $87 shipping fee.
But his so-called “friend” at DHL had shipped them anyway thinking that DHL headquarters
in Bangladesh will probably let it slide this time.
During this waiting period, he sent me the product photos on a white background.
The only problem being that many of the products were off the edge of the white paper, like
this one.
Can you see that the bird’s red crest blends in with the red carpet in the background?
It makes it incredibly difficult to edit.
I asked him to redo the photos, but he told me that the products were already on the plane.
For the life of me, I can’t understand why he didn’t let me check the photos before
sending the damn products.
Anyway, a few days later while I was on holidays, he sent me a message saying that DHL headquarters
had rejected the package.
He asked me if he could put them all in one box to avoid the extra fee.
I told him of course he could, and I created and sent him a new label from Amazon.
A couple of days later, actually, yesterday, he said that DHL told him that the package
is now too big and will cost us extra money.
I got angry at that point and told him that we had an agreement.
I told him that I’m not paying any more money.
This has been going on for far too long.
He sent me a message telling me that this is a DHL rule, and that he’s not making
it up.
I said that I didn’t doubt that it’s not a DHL rule.
I said that the postage fee was already confirmed when I made payment.
These issues should have been sorted before then!
Why should I pay more money for his incompetence?
He told me there’s only two options, pay the extra DHL money, or go with a third party
that doesn’t have tracking.
I told him that there’s actually a third option – that he returns all the goods and
gives me my money back.
He told me that the shops won’t allow returns, which I know is false, because I checked their
bloody website.
They have a 30 day returns policy.
He just doesn’t want to.
And quite frankly, he’s got my money, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Finally, this morning, I got an email saying that he has shipped my goods to Amazon Australia
using a third party shipping company.
He promised me that they are a reliable service.
However, there’s no tracking, so there’s no bloody way I’ll know whether the goods
are actually on their way, or lost at sea.
I had great hopes in Amazon.
But after having all these terrible experiences, it’s way more trouble than it’s worth.
Luckily, I’ve only invested a total of $1100 in my products.
The worst thing that happens, I sell them at cost and end this awful nightmare.
The people at Amazon, i.e. the Indian call centre, don’t have a clue what they’re
doing.
My Bangladeshi friend doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing.
I’m surrounded by incompetence.
And it’s all my fault.
I should have seen the signs and quit while I was only a little bit behind.
Instead, I’ve got myself stuck in this stinky, muddy quagmire.
Fortune favours the bold, they say.
I reckon I would have been better spending my money at the racetrack.
At least there would have been an element of fun with that.
Cheers.