Shocking Interview with an Amazon Employee
In order to protect the identity of the interviewee, we changed his name. David started working at the Amazon head quarter back in 2006. He was hired as a customer service guy dealing with angry customers.
2008 he moved to Amazon seller compliance and risk assessment unit, monitoring the performance of merchants participating in the Amazon marketplace.
We met David, in a local Starbucks in Terry Avenue North Seattle on the 11th of October 2012.AS:
Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. How are you today?
David:
I am good, just got out of the office.
AS:
How does it feel do work for one of the largest retailers on the planet?
David:
It’s pretty challenging. The workload sometimes is just too much. We have to reply angry emails from sellers all the time. I would say dealing with the negative attitude from those banned Amazon sellers is the worst part of the job.
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AS:
How many sellers did you ban from selling on Amazon?
David:
Actually seller accounts are disabled automatically determined by a secret algorithm. Most of the time sellers get banned because of too many customers’ complaints. We track how and where sellers access their Amazon account. The algorithm also looks at unusual sales patterns. E.g. someone creating a new account and adding 1000 items on the first day would lead to a ban. So your question should be how many accounts I have restored (David smiles). But I have to disappoint you, in the last 4 years working in that department I have restored so far around 40 Amazon accounts. The algorithm is just pretty dame good, and the guidelines we get from Amazon are very strict. In most cases there is not much we can do to help those sellers.
AS:
How much time do you have to deal with an account which has been suspended and is under review?
David:
We have less than 1 minute. Sellers with more than $50 000 revenue a month have a higher chance to get back on Amazon. We call them internally VIS (Very Important Seller).
AS:
What’s the percentage of sellers who got banned and try to open a new Amazon account?
David:
That’s a tricky questions, as we only know from the sellers we catch. If somebody is smart starts selling with a new account without us knowing that he had been banned before, he would not show up in the static. I would say roughly 15-20%.
AS:
Are you aware that people who get suspended from Amazon in many cases lose everything they built over many years?
David:
Unfortunately yes. But there are very strict rules we have to follow. There is not a lot of margin to restore an account; even we know the devastating effect that decision will have on the individual seller.
AS:
Did you ever sell on Amaozn?
David:
(Smiling) I never actually sold anything online. My work contract does not allow me to participate in the marketplace.
AS:
Thank you for the interview
David:
Good luck