I was devastated after reading the email notifying me that I was banned from Amazon Merch, as designing & uploading to Merch had become a regular part of my day to day routine.
The thing I loved most about being a newcomer to the MBA scene was how they gamify it for new sellers, helping them get acclimated to how it works slowly but surely.
What I mean by this is that they limit you to 1 upload a day, and allow a maximum of 10 products for sale online at a time until you sell ~5 products (give or take, this number changes).
As you sell more, you're able to list most products & your daily upload limit increases.
By breaking it down into smaller, more attainable/realistic goals, the average seller is less likely to feel overwhelmed and give up in the early "learning phases".
And if you're familiar with my content, you can probably imagine how excited I was once I started seeing the sales roll in.
I would look at my daily royalties and multiply them by * 365 to project how much I had increased my annual income, every day, multiple times throughout the day.
But then one fateful day, all of my joy & excited vanished because I had toe'd the line of the Amazon Merch content policy one too many times, and was officially suspended.
Here's the email I received on July 30, 2017 (that I hope you never see):
Subject: Merch By Amazon - Account Suspension Notice - Account ID [CENSORED]
We are contacting you regarding your Merch by Amazon account and the designs you have submitted through the Merch by Amazon portal. During our review process, we have found multiple designs that do not comply with our Content Policy and the Merch by Amazon Services Agreement. You have been contacted with information regarding each design rejection.
Due to these repeated violations, we have suspended your Merch by Amazon account. You may continue to log into your account and view your reports, however you will not be able to upload new designs or edit existing products.
Next steps
In order to reinstate your account, please email merch-notices@amazon.com using your Merch by Amazon account email address within 5 business days acknowledging that 1) you understand Merch by Amazon's Content Policy and 2) any future violations will result in the termination of your account. We review reinstatement requests periodically and will contact you if your account is reinstated.
If you own IP rights to your designs
If you believe you have sufficient rights to distribute the design(s) and associated product information and all intellectual property contained within, please provide documentation demonstrating you have the necessary rights. The documentation must be either a confirmation letter from the intellectual property rights holder or a copy of the applicable license. You should submit the documentation to: merch-sellers-contactus@amazon.com. Please set the Subject field to "Design Submission" and include your product titles, ASINs, and documentation of rights within the email's body.
Note that you are not permitted to create a new Merch by Amazon account. Any additional Merch by Amazon accounts found will face immediate termination and we may withhold royalty payments.
Additional questions
Please do not reply to this email address. Replies to this account are routed to an unmonitored mailbox. If you have additional questions please refer to Merch by Amazon Resources at https://merch.amazon.com/resource.
I immediately responded with a thorough email acknowledging my wrong doing & explaining to them how I'd fix my approach moving forward.
They do mention very specifically that "We review reinstatement requests periodically and will contact you if your account is reinstated.", so I made sure to only send a single email only send two emails :), as to not bother them with spam.
Here was my first email to them:
Hello,
I understand Merch by Amazon's Content Policy and I understand that any future violations will result in the termination of your account.
Please consider reinstating my account - I spend hours and hours every day researching and designing.
I believe that many of the strikes against my account were for uploading a shirt like my "Beer Olympics" shirt that was rejected (I'm assuming) for containing the world "Olympics", I thought it was be OK and was hoping to promote the shirt on my website (OMITTED) which ranks #1 on many related keywords and gets 325,000-350,000 hits every month.
Another time I received 3 strikes for misspelling the word "shirt" and spelled it "shit", earning my 3 more strikes.
Ultimately it's up to you, but I understand that this is an incredibly valuable opportunity. If you care enough to read a bit more, I'd love to share some of my story with you:
(I included a cheesy blurb here about how I promote Merch & actively participate in communities dedicated to sharing tips & tricks)
PLEASE reconsider! Thanks :)
And 6 hours later (I was probably freaking out still) I sent a second follow-up email:
Sorry for the second email, I also just wanted to mention that I'm currently running 13 AMS campaigns running CPC to some of my merch shirts.
Since being tiered up to 500 I have lost sleep to ensure that I got my daily uploads maxed.
I am really just trying to illustrate how valuable my Merch by Amazon account is to me.
I just completed the audit of my account and deleted all shirts that seemed like they might potentially go against the guidance provided in the TOS. I also consulted some of the Facebook groups for their advice about what is/isn't OK, and leaned towards playing it safe in every case with each shirt that was live on my account.
I'm sincerely sorry for submitting too many shirts to manual review and would be extremely grateful for the opportunity to continue this journey.
Unfortunately, after an entire month I still hadn't heard back and was beginning to give up hope.
How I Got My Amazon Merch Account Unbanned
While I was suspended, I was still collecting royalties from my sales (if you were wondering).
That helped keep my spirits high that I would one day get reinstated.
After a full month since the day I received the notification that I was suspended from Merch, I though back to how I initially got accepted into Merch by Amazon...
Months after my initial attempt at getting in (I never heard back from them with a rejection....), I re-applied & was accepted within 2 weeks!
I thought to myself: If that worked, then I should try 1 more time!
So I emailed them requesting a review & reinstating of my account one last time.
Here was my final email to them that got me unbanned:
I understand Merch by Amazon's Content Policy and that future violations will result in the termination of my account.
It was short, concise, & to the point.
If a human actually has the job to sit there and sift through thousands of emails from sellers begging to be reinstated... they might actually appreciate that this one was different!
(I honestly don't know if it's an automate system or what)
We have reinstated your account. Please be aware any future violations will result in the termination of your account and potentially the forfeiture of royalties.
Additional questions
Please do not reply to this message. Replies to this account are routed to an unmonitored mailbox. If you have additional questions please refer to Merch by Amazon Resources at https://merch.amazon.com/resource.
It's kind of comical that my initial attempts at writing long, drawn-out emails where I apologized & sucked up did nothing for me... but when I wrote a 1-sentence email telling them exactly what they wanted to hear, I got my Amazon Merch account back.
At the end of the day, your takeaway should be clear:
Don't break the rules!
Your Merch by Amazon account is valuable & if you think a design might get rejected, don't chance it!
Please also check out my Safe Upload Strategy article that will help protect you against receiving multiple strikes against your account from a single design (which is easy to do with the multi-product uploader).
Or watch the YouTube walkthrough of how to protect your account:
Be safe guys!
