After reducing royalties this week, Amazon launched a new application process for its Merch by Amazon program and is requiring sellers who have been on the waiting list to reapply.
Merch By Amazon lets people submit designs on T-shirts. When a T-shirt sells, Amazon does the printing, shipping, and fulfillment, and gives the designer a royalty.
Amazon notified sellers (designers) of the change in the application process today:
“We are happy to announce that we have launched a new application process today! We heard your feedback that we could improve and we agreed. So, we created a new process to approve the best sellers who create genuine and compelling content for our customers.
“If you have any questions about the new application process or account approvals, you can view the new “Account Requests” section of the FAQ page here. If you are asked to reapply, we will provide you with an expected decision timeframe upon submitting your new application.
“Please do not email us with requests to expedite the decision on your new application. We have to stop making decisions to respond to your email!
“We will notify you of the decision via email as soon as it has been made. As you wait for an approval decision, please review the Resources page and our content policies for design submissions.
“Thank you all for your patience as we work to approve more sellers, faster.”
Sellers who have been on the waiting list to join Amazon Merch for as long as a year weren’t happy to hear that they would have to start over from scratch. In response to one such seller, an Amazon moderator responded: “Thank you for the question. We’re asking content creators on the waitlist to reapply using our new application process. You can see more details in my announcement post here.”
Update: From the reapplication FAQs on why pending sellers are being asked to reapply:
“We want to open our business to more Merch by Amazon sellers and approve new sellers faster. So, we’ve launched a new application process. We are asking you to reapply because we want to give you the opportunity to provide us more information about yourself and your business. We realize this may be a slight inconvenience, but believe we are creating a better seller experience. The new application process should only take about 15 minutes.”
It’s really frustrating they didn’t give priority to those that applied first. I have heard that some applicants are getting approved much faster now anyway. One person told me it he was approved 3 days after applying.
Thanks for sharing!