This shares COVID-19 Amazon Updates, as of March 25, 2020, notifying about a pause in acceptance of new deals (through April 5, 2020), as well as waivers of certain fees.
Vendor and Seller: Deals Restricted -Lightning Deals, 7 Day Deals, and Coupons:
To help Amazon prioritize high demand products that customers need at this time, they are not accepting new deals through April 5, 2020. All previously submitted deals that are in Running or Upcoming states will run for inventory already in place. Please note that Selling Partner Support does not have further guidance. Also note that recommendations for Prime Day deal submissions are still available, and you may submit those deals.
Implications: Given that deals are not appearing on the Amazon homepage right now, if you had a deal planned between now and April 5, you may want to cancel it. However, the Amazon Prime Day deal deadline for Vendors is still May 8, based on our knowledge. To be considered for Prime Day, Lightning Deal, recommendations should be submitted by this time so brands should be thinking about what deals they want to submit by that time.
Seller Central: Removal order delays and long-term storage fee waiver
To ensure the capacity to receive, restock, and ship high-priority products like household staples and medical supplies, we have temporarily paused removal operations in some of our fulfillment centers. You can continue to create removal orders, but there will be delays in completing the requests. Similarly, auto-removals will be delayed.
As a result, Amazon is waiving the April 15 long-term storage fees for inventory stored in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the Czech Republic.
Implications: A removal order typically can take up to 14 days during normal operations. Please plan on it taking longer than that during this crisis.
Vendor Central: Chargeback Waiver on Ships in Own Container Chargeback
Effective March 1, 2020 until at least April 30, 2020, we are waiving the Frustration-Free Packaging/Ships in Own Container (SIOC) chargeback on all consumables products: Baby, Beauty, Grocery, and Health and Personal Care.
The chargeback will remain visible on the Vendor Central Operational Performance dashboard. However, it will show as Waived, and no fee will be charged. Prior to reinstating the SIOC chargeback, Amazon will provide a 30-day notice to impacted vendors.
Vendor Central: Catalog Change request delays:
Amazon is currently experiencing higher than normal wait times. As a result, they are not able to assist with changing product attributes or categories at this time so that they can prioritize the most critical contacts. Please consider using the self-service tool to change attributes or categories.
HINGE COMMERCE will continue to share COVID-19 Amazon updates as we learn them. Click here to see the full set of updates and recommendations to help you through this crisis.