Category: Amazon

Amazon Chemical and Heavy Metal Restrictions: An Overview

Posted on by Ivan Malloci — Leave a comment

Amazon sets chemical and heavy metal restrictions regarding products sold on its platform. This guide is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on Amazon’s Restricted Substances Lists, which primarily concern Amazon’s restrictions for its private label brands.

The second part focuses on substances that Amazon restricts in several categories of products for all sellers, as well as regulations that include substance restrictions. You must also comply with those restrictions if you want to sell your product on Amazon.
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List of Restricted Products on Amazon: An Essential Guide

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Cosmetics

Certain products are subject to restrictions on Amazon. In many cases, Amazon only reflects the regulatory requirements, in the sense that certain products must comply with mandatory standards of substance restrictions. However, some products are subject to standards that are otherwise voluntary, or outright banned – due to Amazon policy.

In this guide, we only focus on products that Amazon either prohibits or restricts for sale on its US marketplace.

Methodology: We used the list of products listed on the Amazon Seller Central page titled “Restricted products” as the reference point. We have expanded on requirements that this page does not cover in detail. Notice that we do not cover all restricted products in this guide.

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Amazon Beauty Products and Cosmetics Requirements For Sellers: An Overview

Posted on by Ivan Malloci — 6 Comments

Cosmetics and skincare products

Selling cosmetic and beauty products on Amazon requires that you ensure compliance with applicable compliance requirements. These cover chemicals and heavy metals, ingredients, labeling, testing, documentation, and claims.

Notice that this guide only covers requirements relevant to selling cosmetic and beauty products on Amazon in the United States.

If you intend to sell cosmetic products in the EU or UK, then you need to ensure compliance with the regulations in these jurisdictions instead. However, this guide can still be helpful for understanding what Amazon requires from cosmetics sellers, regardless of which marketplace you sell through.

Methodology: We used information from Amazon US Seller Central guidance pages. We also link to some of these pages throughout this guide.
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CE Marking Requirements for Amazon Sellers: A Complete Guide

Posted on by Fredrik Gronkvist — 11 Comments

Selling electronics, toys, PPE, and medical devices on Amazon in the European Union requires that your products are correctly CE marked – or you face the risk of immediate and permanent product removal.

In this guide, we explain what Amazon sellers must know about CE marking, and why it also affects companies located in the UK, US and China – that are selling certain product types on Amazon in the EU.

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Amazon Clothing & Textiles Requirements For Sellers: An Overview

Posted on by Ivan Malloci — 9 Comments

Amazon Clothing Requirements for Sellers

If you sell clothing and textiles on Amazon, you must ensure that your products comply with various rules, regulations, and standards. In this guide, we explain some of these requirements, including requirements for children’s clothing, dangerous goods, and packaging.

Also, we only considered requirements that pertain to selling clothing and textiles in the United States, and we refer to US regulations, such as 16 CFR Part 1615 – Standard for the Flammability of Children’s Sleepwear: Sizes 0 Through 6X (FF 3-71). Note that requirements in other markets, such as the EU, the UK or Australia, are different.

Methodology: We used information that we found on Amazon Seller Central Guidance pages hosted on Amazon.com (US version). We linked to some of these documents in the sections below.

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Amazon Lithium Batteries Requirements For Sellers: An Overview

Posted on by Ivan Malloci — 17 Comments

Lithium Batteries Requirements

Selling lithium batteries and products that contain lithium batteries on Amazon requires compliance with various regulations, safety standards, and other requirements. These includes UL standards, also dangerous goods requirements.

This guide covers different types of lithium batteries and the requirements that apply in terms of standards. We also take a look at button and coin batteries which are covered by additional requirements.

This guide only takes requirements related to selling lithium batteries on Amazon in the United States into consideration. Note that similar requirments also apply when selling products on Amazon in the European Union, Australia, Japan, and elsewhere, although specific requirements may differ.

Methodology: We used information that we found on Amazon Seller Central Guidance pages hosted on Amazon.com (US version). We link to some of these pages, in the sections below.

We also refer to US regulations, such as 16 CFR Part 1263 – Safety Standard for Button Cell or Coin Batteries and Consumer Products Containing Such Batteries.

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Reporting unsafe and non-compliant products on Amazon

Posted on by Fredrik Gronkvist — Leave a comment

Reporting unsafe and non-compliant products on Amazon
Amazon takes product safety and compliance seriously. In practice, this means that Amazon takes action against non-compliant products by carrying out routine checks, implementing measures for new listings, and taking action when they receive reports.

However, Amazon is also assisted by professionals who identify non-compliant products sold on the marketplace. This can, for example, include products that are not correctly labelled.

One pioneer in this area is Florian Roth, the founder of AMZ Compliance, based in Ostfildern, Germany. In this article, Florian shares his experience in finding and reporting non-compliant products directly to Amazon – for the sake of levelling the playing field for sellers.
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Amazon Product Compliance Document Requests and Removals

Posted on by Fredrik Gronkvist — 2 Comments

Amazon sometimes contacts sellers to request test reports, label photocopies, and product certificates, for the sake of verifying that the product is safe and fully compliant with the national regulations in the concerned marketplace. Such a review can be trigged when listing a new product, consumer complaints, or by Amazon’s own internal compliance review team.

In this guide, you will learn why Amazon requests compliance documents from sellers, and what they normally expect. We also cover real-life case studies, to demonstrate how products are subject to different types of compliance document requests. Continue reading Amazon Product Compliance Document Requests and Removals

Bag Suffocation Warning: US State & Amazon Seller Requirements

Posted on by Fredrik Gronkvist — 12 Comments

Bag suffocation warnings are mandatory in several large US states, including New York and California. Further, bug suffocation warnings are printed on poly bags. In this guide, we explain what US brands must know about bag suffocation warning requirements, including warning texts, placements, exemptions, and more.
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