Sellers on Amazon often get tripped up by Amazon’s product compliance policies. Whether you’re about to start selling on Amazon or you’ve already started, it’s essential to know what to do about product compliance requests.

When it comes to product compliance on Amazon, knowing what’s required before you receive the request will prevent major headaches down the line when one of your products is suddenly blocked.

Click Fluency can help you get all the information you need to save valuable time. We provide marketing services to prominent companies, helping them optimize their Amazon account to avoid issues like noncompliance.

How Amazon Detects Product Noncompliance

With the sheer number of products available on the Amazon marketplace, you’re probably wondering how Amazon could check every one of them for noncompliance.

Amazon has stated that it uses language processing and machine learning tools to scan hundreds of millions of products daily to detect potential compliance concerns. The company’s goal is to ensure that every product sold in its store is safe and compliant with the respective country or territory guidelines.

There are a few things that can trigger Amazon’s system to check the compliance of your product:

● A newly listed product

● A complaint from consumers

● An internal review from Amazon’s compliance team

It may seem unlikely that Amazon would choose your product among hundreds of millions of other product listings. Still, you should assume that you will have to prove the compliance of your product one day, even if it’s been on the market for a while.

Once the system is triggered, it blocks your product from being sold on the site. You will have a short time frame to submit the required documents to show that your product is compliant before Amazon removes the ASIN. This is what makes product compliance on Amazon a crucial part of your online business.

Why Amazon Requests Compliance Documents From Sellers

Products have various regulations they must follow depending on the type of product and where the consumer is. For example, the seller must provide a Children’s Product Certificate (CPC) if they are selling a product intended for children.

Amazon wants to uphold a reputation of being consumer-focused because it wants people to feel confident buying products from its site. If consumers often found products to be fake or noncompliant somehow, Amazon would not be as successful as it is now.

To maintain that reputation of being a carefully curated site of millions of safe and genuine products, Amazon must press sellers for information about their goods. Usually, the information they request from you will consist of various documents proving your products’ compliance with whatever standards are required.

Product Compliance Documentation for Amazon

Finding out what documents need to be submitted can be very stressful for a seller, especially if Amazon blocks your product from being sold in the meantime. You might be scrambling to find out what you need or where to find the proper documents to submit.

It’s best to know what compliance documents are and how to prepare before you are required to provide them. When you receive product compliance requests from Amazon, the company might ask for the following:

● Photos of the product

● Manuals and instructions

● Description of the product

● Test or inspection reports

● Certifications

The type of documents required will depend on the type of product. You may have to provide test reports from a third-party lab containing information about the materials in your product. If there are safety guidelines for the product type, you might have to submit inspection reports.

Amazon could also request photos of your product’s label to ensure that you use the proper markings. For example, Amazon might request an FCC marking for electronics or a CE marking to show the country of origin.

The compliance team at Amazon will review your documents for accuracy, validity, and compliance. Once Amazon confirms that your merchandise is up to standard, you can start selling it again.

Get Your Documents Before Amazon Asks

Since you will have a short time to submit proof of compliance once the system requests it, you should have your documents ready to go before it happens.

Research the markets you’re selling your products in and ensure you have the materials to comply with their respective regulatory agency’s policies. Getting certifications or third-party inspections can take valuable time. Also, you can’t always rely on the supplier to provide the documents on request.

Technically, you could send your product off for inspection after receiving the request, but this comes with some pretty significant risks.

● Your product may be non-compliant. If that’s the case, you’ll want to know long before producing thousands of them.

● The tests could take a while. You might run out of time to submit documentation before you get the reports back.

● Every minute that your product stays suspended, money is lost.

Amazon Compliance Tools You Can Use

Any compliance requests you receive will pop up in your Amazon Health Dashboard. Sellers like you can utilize this tool to keep track of notices regarding your products and submit requested documents.

Seller Central has a handy tool for finding compliance policies for your product. The Compliance Reference tool lets you search by inputting the product’s country of origin, where you want to sell, and a keyword describing the product. Your search should reveal the compliance policies for that specific item.

Conclusion

Navigating the deep pool of product compliance on Amazon can be exhausting, so we’re throwing you a lifeline. Hopefully, you have a better understanding of why Amazon has these policies, what kind of documents it requests, and how you can prepare for it.

Product compliance on Amazon is tricky, but we can lead you through it. We at Click Fluency have a lot of experience wading through Amazon’s requirements for selling products on its marketplace. We want to use our knowledge to help you take the next step for your brand and become an established seller on Amazon.

Our marketing firm manages Amazon accounts for well-known brands. Contact us today to find out all the services we can provide to help you succeed!