Amazon title background:
Back to 202 1, Amazon began to ban sellers who violated the rules of the platform in April, and in May, the "ban storm" intensified, affecting more than 50,000 China merchants, from beginning to end, and even small and medium-sized sellers. As a result, tens of billions of funds have been frozen, and hundreds of billions of inventory of named sellers cannot be sold. Among them, there are about 65.438+0.28 billion yuan of frozen shop funds, and about 400 sites have been blocked; Zebao Technology was blocked by 367 sites, and the frozen funds were about 32.24 million yuan; Tongtuo was banned from 54 stores, involving frozen funds of about 4 1.43 million yuan. Although after the accident, the first reaction of the big seller was to file a complaint with Amazon, demanding that the blocked store be lifted and the funds be frozen. Some big sellers in South China City even flew to Amazon headquarters to complain face to face, but they did not achieve obvious results. Amazon has a tough attitude towards this.
The reason for Amazon's title
As the world's largest e-commerce platform, Amazon has many sellers from all over the world. These sellers make money on Amazon, and also enrich Amazon's product categories. In fact, both sides are mutually beneficial and win-win. Then why did Amazon do it?
The reason was that hackers hacked into the background of a billing company at that time, exposing the behavior of Amazon sellers to charge and distribute small cards. This exposure caused an uproar in the United States, and various media rushed to report it. The American people strongly condemn Amazon, believing that Amazon tolerated the seller's behavior and failed the trust of the buyers, because they only bought things on Amazon platform based on the authenticity of platform customer reviews and the quality of products, and even applied for membership. Amazon's move broke their hearts. At that time, Amazon was also under an antitrust investigation by Congress. The exposure of this incident has caused them great pressure and affected their development. Therefore, in order to prove his innocence and show his determination to rectify, this large-scale naming activity was held.
How do sellers save themselves after Amazon titles?
After being named by Amazon, how should the seller save himself? Negotiation? Sue? Do nothing and let it kill you?
Negotiations are no longer feasible because Amazon has a tough attitude. Most sellers have indeed done illegal brushing. Amazon's second outline, "Paying service fees and receiving sales revenue", stipulates:
As you can see in the detailed rules, when your behavior may violate our terms ... we can decide to refuse to pay you any money at our own discretion "or violate our planning policy for many times, then we can decide to refuse to pay you remuneration permanently at our own discretion. "
Sue? The seller doesn't even have the right to sue, because Article 18 of Amazon Services Business Solutions Agreement stipulates binding arbitration for all disputes:
Amazon and you both agree that any dispute with Amazon or its affiliates or any claim related to this agreement or your use of the service in any way will be settled through the binding arbitration mentioned in this paragraph, rather than in court. Part of the agreement requires the seller to agree to settle the dispute through "binding arbitration ... instead of court". The contract also requires the seller to "arbitrate only by individual means", rather than collective, joint or agency litigation.
In other words, the contract excludes prosecution and class action. Only separate arbitration can be initiated, and the cost of separate arbitration is very expensive in the United States, with a minimum of several hundred dollars. Most small and medium-sized sellers can't afford such an expensive fee.
Do nothing and let it kill you? In that case, no one can do it and let their hard work be in vain.
How should the title seller break the game?
So, is there really nothing you can do? In fact, the current successful cases have pointed out the direction for us. The breakthrough lies in whether Amazon's terms and actions conform to procedural justice? Is there monopolistic behavior?
First of all, according to the American judicial system, procedural justice is very important. Even if the seller pays the bill, it should be considered inappropriate to seal up the property right, freeze the funds and ask the seller to move the warehouse in a short time without any prior notice and time preparation before the seller exercises the right to hearing and litigation, which is not in line with the principle of procedural justice.
Secondly, although the format clause that the seller clicks to confirm when entering Amazon does contain relevant content that class action is not allowed, it obviously violates the principle of fairness and the Anti-Unfair Competition Law. , should be identified as monopolistic behavior.
Therefore, as far as this successful case is concerned, at least most title sellers are given a reference, and they can safeguard their rights and interests from the following aspects:
1. Big sellers who have economic strength and are greatly affected should strive for time, conduct individual arbitration immediately, ask Amazon to unfreeze funds, and stop asking sellers to transfer positions. At least you can get back the frozen funds and win the time of goods transfer first.
2. Medium-sized sellers should file a class action lawsuit against Amazon by holding a group to reduce the litigation cost and ask Amazon to compensate for the losses caused by the title and safeguard its own rights and interests. According to the above successful cases, although the agreement between Amazon and the seller stipulates that Amazon has the right to decide to refuse payment permanently according to the actual situation. However, according to the arbitration results of the American seller's case, this clause has been found invalid.
Some last thoughts.
Winning this case is of great benefit to all Amazon sellers, including China sellers. The common law system to which the United States belongs is "case law" and has a tradition of following precedents. In the subsequent arbitration, with the support of these successful cases, the probability of China sellers winning the case will be greatly increased. A seller in China must entrust a lawyer from a foreign law firm or a lawyer with experience in foreign-related cases from a domestic law firm cooperating with a foreign law firm. Because foreign-related litigation spans two countries and two legal systems, it is very complicated both in procedure and execution. Don't waste time and money by looking for an inexperienced lawyer who has only handled domestic cases, and finally you won't get the results you want.
Although sellers in China were banned because of false comments and their funds were frozen, if enterprises continue to take the road of e-commerce and continue to operate on Amazon platform, they must pay attention to returning to compliance operation. Seriously study and practice the platform rules to ensure product safety, compliance with foreign-related intellectual property rights (including patents, trademarks and designs), tax compliance and company operation compliance. Let the enterprise go further and further, and go better and better.