Did you know the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OHSA) is investigating Amazon’s workplace safety? If not, it’s no big deal because it just retracted all probes but one (something about handling TVs).
That’s one good news for Amazon. But what if there are two bad ones?
- Amazon’s holiday glitch 👾
- Get your high-quality reviews for 2025 💯
- Holiday strike 🪧
BLACK MARKET
ICYMI (lucky you), an Amazon glitch has caused chaos for over a week.
The issue? The Seller Payment Dashboard failed to display accurate data and disburse funds! It also continued to charge sellers, causing negative imbalances.
Cases upon cases were posted on the Seller Central forums. Luckily, Amazon forum representatives swiftly attended to the concerns. EcommerceBytes monitored the issue and compiled the recent updates.
🤕 Blow by blow
- Dec. 11: Amazon acknowledged the glitch but said it was only “delaying updates to Payments Dashboard” and that “disbursements to bank accounts are not impacted.”
- Dec. 12: Amazon engineers were reported to have resolved most of the issue. Financial data should be updated, but report generation may fail. 📊
- Dec. 17: As the issue persisted, Amazon forum representatives reached out to the Incidents Team (who reported the issue was resolved).
- Dec. 19: The latest update said, “That team has already resolved the issue causing increased latency for data availability on Payments Dashboard, Settlement Reports, and Date Range Reports and is now actively working to restore availability of the Deferred Transaction Report as its top priority.”
⌚ The worst timing
This glitch has caused cashflow disruption during the worst time of the year. If money from sales cannot be released to sellers, they won’t be able to restock and keep business operations going. Many rely on Q4 financial reports to strategize and forecast inventory and cash flow for the upcoming year.
This is truly a black stain on Amazon’s holiday performance. Also, it’s a hard lesson for sellers not to depend on just Amazon disbursements.
TOGETHER WITH REVIEWSCOOP
Last hurrah to get those high-quality product reviews for 2025
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If it's not these factors that people say you should pay utmost attention to, then what is?
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BITES OF THE WEEK
- The Price is Right: The Amazon algorithm favors competitively priced products—not too high, not too low.
- Enhanced eStore: Level up your ecommerce by building a unique online store specific to your business.
- Social Shopping: The new digital landscape is all about combining social media and shopping.
HOT TOPIC
Amazon workers are on strike—what’s gonna happen to your holiday shipments?
If you think the glitch was bad, what about a warehouse strike?
INQUIRER.net recently reported about the “largest Amazon strike in U.S. history”. The strike was organized by Amazon workers and Teamsters labor union members, including truckers, as part of a national campaign to push for unionization and better working conditions.
❓ Why is this happening?
A little background: In April 2022, Amazon workers at Staten Island voted in favor of a union. June this year, the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) voted to be affiliated with Teamsters.
However, Amazon has delayed contract negotiations for the past 2 years, arguing that the vote was unfairly administered. It even contested the authority of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and plans to go to the Supreme Court with appeals.
🤝 A united front
According to Guardian, 7 out of 10 unionized facilities are joining, including:
- 1 in the borough of Queens in New York
- 1 in Atlanta
- 3 in Southern California
- 1 in San Francisco
- 1 in a Chicago suburb
A German union, ver.di, supported the U.S. strike with work stoppages in 8 Amazon facilities in Germany involving 16,000 workers. 🪧
What does this mean for sellers like you?
The strike will inevitably affect order deliveries and inventory shipments. So, it’s best to warn your customers of the possible delays in their orders.
Alternatively, you can choose other fulfillment methods such as third-party logistics. 🚚oon.
