I have to admit I have a reading problem. If there were a 12 step program for book buyers, I’d have to join. The problem with all those books is they take space. At some point you can build any more bookshelves. Older books are moved to storage, but eventually the collection gets out of hand.
My wife dropped some “subtle” hints the book collection was getting out of hand. The last time that happened I ended up recycling 800 pounds of my college notes.
My solution? Sell the books, and some CD’s I haven’t listened to in several years on Amazon Marketplace. After listing a few books, I decided I needed a faster way, so tech support pointed me to the paid version that let me use my trusty bar code scanner to scan the book’s bar codes to list the books or CD’s. It also let me download shipping information to feed to PayPal’s shipping system.
Things were going along smoothly, eliminating a half dozen books/CD’s every few days, until one Friday afternoon I get the following email:
From: Amazon.com Seller Performance Team [seller-performance@amazon.com]
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 2:06 PM
To: me
Subject: Notice: Your Amazon.com AccountHello from Amazon.com.
This message is to inform you that we have blocked your selling
account. You may no longer sell on our site.We took this action because it has come to our attention that you may
be selling recopied media. As stated in our policies, recopied and
otherwise unauthorized media infringe upon copyrights and trademarks
and are illegal to sell.If you still have items to ship, please take appropriate steps to
resolve your pending sales. Your Seller Account will remain
accessible and you are encouraged to refund or ship pending orders.Any remaining funds are being reserved in your Amazon.com account for
90 days from the date your account was blocked. After 90 days, the
funds will be disbursed minus any A-to-Z Guarantee claims or charge-
backs. If you have further questions about your funds please write to
payments-funds@amazon.com.While we appreciate your interest, please understand that the closure
of an account is a permanent action. Any subsequent accounts that are
opened will be closed as well. Thank you for your understanding with
our decision.
Regards,
Seller Performance Team
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com
I read the first two paragraphs and fire back a response:
From: me
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 5:32 PM
To: 'Amazon.com Seller Performance Team'
Subject: RE: Notice: Your Amazon.com AccountFirst the item I sold I also purchased from Amazon.
Second I disclosed I wasn't sure if the item was real or not because
it looked handwritten but I've seen that done occasionally and the
cover artwork appeared to be legitimate.IF the item was a copy, it was sold in ignorance.
Gregg Marshall, CPMR, CSP
Speaker, Author, Consultant
Then I went back and read the whole email. The last paragraph really got me mad. They’ve closed my account, it is permanent, and there is no appealing the decision. Given it was the weekend, there wasn’t much I could do—except cancel all the open orders I had with Amazon, mostly pre-orders of books that weren’t released yet, cancel my Prime membership, and sign up with Barnes and Nobel.
The following Monday I sent this letter to Jeff Bezos:
May 23, 2010
Jeff Bezos
Amazon Incorporated
1200 12th Avenue South, Suite 1200
Seattle, Wa 98144Dear Jeff:
This letter is in reference to the attached email I received from Amazon, but first some history:
I've been a customer since at least February 1997, very likely earlier. That's the oldest email receipt I have, but I know that I don't have copies of any Compuserve emails which predated my own servers in late 1996.
Until this weekend, when the text of the email sunk in, I still had the Blue, and the Purple, Amazon Mugs sent to me for Christmas in those early years. They used to go with me to Starbucks and to many business meetings and conferences.
I was a Prime test member and had a Prime membership continuously since 2005. When I joined Barnes and Noble's equivalent this weekend, I was surprised to find it priced 68% less.
If you take the trouble to pull a lifetime customer value report on me (gmarshall@-repconnection.com), you'll find I've spent tens of thousands of dollars with Amazon since 1997.
You can imagine how upset I was when I received the attached email (as yet my initial response to that email goes unanswered except for the automated acknowledgement). I could have understood the blocking of the account while the matter was investigated. In fact I fired off my explanation after reading just the first paragraph.
Of course then I returned to the email and read it all. Imagine my shock when I read that the closure of my account was a permanent action and any subsequent accounts would be closed as well.
The items I had listed on my seller account were books and CD's I had bought from Amazon over the years and finally reached the point of needing more space for future purchases.
Really Jeff, permanently closing the selling account of a long time customer on the basis I might have sold recopied media. No investigation? No appeal? The only other organization I know of with a "guilty until proven innocent" policy is the Internal Revenue Service, and they have an appeals process.
I am absolutely flabergasted any company would have the arrogance to implement such binary policies that don't account for any customer history, reputation or intent. I can only hope that the acquisition of Zappos will infuse their customer service focus to Seattle.
I will miss One-click. But I'm sure my wallet will appreciate the cooling off period that will likely keep me from instantly ordering books while I am listening to speakers at conferences.
I've written many articles about Amazon in the past. I'm certain this experience will serve as a case study for articles and talks in the future.
It's with much disappointment and reluctance that I move on to Barnes and Noble. Although I think I'll also renew an old friendship with The Tattered Cover here in Denver.
Sincerely,
Gregg Marshall, CPMR, CSP
Speaker, Author, Consultant
I did get curious about what my lifetime customer value actually was, it wasn’t quite as high as I thought it was, but I have spent at least $11,402 that I have the email receipts for.
There are several things I think Amazon has done wrong in this situation:
- They didn’t consider the circumstances. If I were one of the many merchants making a living selling products through Amazon, Amazon’s response is one thing, but such a draconian response to an individual who hasn’t listed more than one of anything certainly doesn’t make a lot of sense.
- They didn’t look at my customer history. Not only was I a good Amazon customer, I had a perfect seller rating.
- Their initial contact wasn’t a request for more information. It was the announcement that my account had been permanently been closed.
- There was no appeals process. As I mentioned in my letter, even the IRS has an appeals process.
- Why would you send such a letter/email to a customer on a Friday afternoon? That leaves the whole weekend without any response to emails sent in return, further frustrating the customer.
Since the emails and my letter, I have been in contact with a semi-automated customer service “person” who has restored my seller account. Not too sure I’ll be using that account until I hear back from someone at Amazon about the process failure.
In addition to calculating my lifetime customer value, I also took a critical look at whether it made any sense to sell the stuff on Amazon. I had been thinking it wasn’t working out, it turns out I was right. By the time I deduct the Amazon fees the cost of the padded envelopes I was using to ship books in, and the postage, I was barely breaking even, and that did not include anything for time spent. Sadly, there aren’t any used bookstores in the the area that will take business/technical books. I have found a charity that will pick up the books, although I have a feeling they’ll end up trashing them, at least I get the income tax deduction (which is a lot more than the net from selling the books).
The first three orders from Barnes and Nobel since this have gone ok (nothing spectacular). One thing I like is a book that I ordered and realized wasn’t going to be worth the time to read could be returned to the local Barnes and Nobel store instead of having to package and ship it back.
My question to all of you is: have you looked at your processes to make sure you can’t possibly drive off your best customers??