Marketplace Facilitator for CA/ Premium Delivery Eligibility Change/ Trademarks Needed in Each Contry

Hello All and Welcome Back

1) Sales Tax: Amazon is now required to collect sales tax in California on behalf of the online sellers as of 10/01/2019.  It seems like most states will eventually do this. Once this is in place, conventional wisdom is that states are less likely to aggressively go after back taxes making the FBA causes nexus claim (ask your CPA for tax advice).

2) If an ASIN is blocked or needs approval, creating a new similar ASIN is not a good idea. “This product is already sourced from you for sale by Amazon. Instead of creating a new, duplicate listing for this product, please manage the existing listing in vendor central.”

3) Inventory Ahead has a newly added feature: A new and redesigned advertising management page, which will able you to get control over your advertising costs. With Inventory ahead you can manage all aspects of your online-selling business including accounting. Sign up  or email [email protected]. (sponsored)

4) “On April 11, 2019, we sent you an email informing you of upcoming changes to the collection of sales taxes on some of the fees you pay on Amazon.com. Based on the feedback we received, we realize that we did not include sufficient details in that email, and we would like to apologize. The purpose of this email is to provide greater clarity on the upcoming changes.” Amazon apologizing for not being clear enough.

5) New! Amazon restricting communication when non-TOS compliant language is used. Please make sure to fix the issue or you will be suspended. “Some of the messages you sent recently were not delivered because your Amazon Seller account is temporarily restricted from initiating contact with Buyers. NOTE – You are not required to take any action to remove this restriction. This restriction will be automatically lifted within 72 to 96 hours…”

6) Many sellers were suddenly gated out of Philips Norelco products without a grace period to sell out stock. Many sellers are requesting in the future Amazon give a grace period for items already in FBA that become gated as it becomes difficult to run a business when this happens without warning.

7) Amazon officially announced the change to Premium Delivery eligibility requirements -two full days after the ASGTG posted it. 

8) “Due to a technical error, you might not have received some emails from Amazon. The error occurred on April 23, 2019, for approximately 12 hours. Only select Amazon emails were impacted. The issue has been resolved.Check your Account Health, Manage Orders and Buyer Message pages for any outstanding actions.”Additionally, this past week on the account health dashboard, many complaints suddenly were removed for 48 hours but then returned. These are dashboard glitches and not a sign of a performance change.

9) New: “Why Is this happening? It has come to our attention that you may have told buyers that you plan to seek legal action against them and may have attempted to obtain funds from buyers by means outside of our payment processes. These are violations of our Seller Policies.”

10) It appears that Amazon now requires a US trademark for the Amazon.com brand registry. Several clients reported that they used a UK trademark to apply on the .com- and it was denied. “To be eligible for Amazon Brand Registry, your brand must have an active registered trademark in each country where you wish to enroll. …Each Country has different Intellectual Property laws, therefore, you will need to register your Brand on each Country.” (HT Yael C.)

Good Shabbos – Ed Rosenberg – ASGTG – The Voice of the Seller