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Why You Should Give Amazon Prime Music a Second Chance

Music streaming is all the rage these days. With Spotify, for example, you get a lot of value as a free user Everything You Need to Know About the New Spotify Everything You Need to Know About the New Spotify Spotify is no longer just a music streaming service. At an event in New York, Spotify launched a bunch of new features, including video streaming, in a bid to become an entertainment hub for users. Read More, but if you upgrade to a pa > Spotify Music Streaming: The Unofficial Guide Spotify Music Streaming: The Unofficial Guide Spotify is the biggest music streaming service around. If you're not sure how to use it, this guide will walk you through the service, as well as offer some crucial top tips. Read More too. But there’s one service that tends to get left out when music streaming is discussed: Amazon Prime Music.

It launched in 2014 to a lackluster reception, mainly because it lacked some of the awesome features in all the other streaming services out there. However, if you’ve never actually given Prime Music a try, there are several compelling reasons why you should at least consider it.

So let’s take a look. Maybe you’ll be reassured that your current music streaming service of choice really is the right service for you — or maybe you’ll realize the exact opposite. Either way, Prime Music deserves much more credit than it’s currently getting! Read on to find out why.

1. The Subscription Is Really Cheap

There’s only one way to get Prime Music, and that’s through an Amazon Prime subscription, which, in the U. S., will set you back $99 for the entire year. On a per-month basis, that’s the equivalent of an $8.25 subscription, which is insanely cheap compared to its competitors.

In fact, its three main adversaries — Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play Music All Access — all have the same price at $10-per-month. No matter which alternative you choose, Prime Music will always be the cheapest option. It’s the difference between $99 every year or $120 every year, which is a small but not insignificant expense How to Slash Your Household Expenses in 7 Easy Steps How to Slash Your Household Expenses in 7 Easy Steps Tired of seeing all of your income go towards bills and expenses? You aren't alone. We show you some of the best ways to slash your household expenses. Read More.

If you’re a student, you can save even further with Amazon Prime Student, which comes with a six-month free trial and a 50 percent discount when the trial ends. Meanwhile, Spotify and Google Play Music have one-month free trials and Apple Music has a three-month free trial. Of the three, only Spotify has a special student discount.

The real kicker here is that Nearly half of U. S. households already have Amazon Prime. That means, for all intents and purposes, Prime Music is completely free if you’re already a Prime member. This could be the difference between spending $99 per year for Prime Music or $99 + $120 per year for Prime and another music streaming service.

2. It Has a Lot of Great Features

Prime Music was the last big player to join the game, so the developers had ample time to “steal” and implement all of the features that make services like Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play Music as useful as they are.

But before we dive into that, let’s check out the different interfaces. As of now, Prime Music is accessible through a Web player, a desktop player, and mobile apps on both Android and iOS.

Coming from Spotify, as I personally did, Prime Music’s Web player definitely feels… different. Its design is more minimal and straightforward than other Web players, and that makes it slightly boring at first glance, but it’s very practical and it works well. That’s ultimately what matters, right?

As I use it more, I find myself liking the Prime Music aesthetic more. It’s surprisingly easy to navigate, and no matter what you want to do, it’s never more than a few clicks away. The same can’t be said for most other Web players.

Like the Web player, Prime Music’s desktop player is really good when it comes to usability. In some ways, it feels like a mobile app that was properly adapted for desktop use — simplistic, tab-driven, and lots of breathing room. Navigation is easy, nothing is overly cluttered, and it even has a soft dark theme that’s pleasant to the eyes.

I tend to prefer Web players for music, but in this case, I’m leaning towards the desktop player because it has better performance. The difference may not be noticeable on a brand new computer with strong specs, but even on a run-of-the-mill laptop like mine, Prime Music is smooth, responsive, and lovely.

I have nothing bad to say about the mobile app for Prime Music. It’s fast, clean, and intuitive enough to navigate without any frustration. And what really impresses me is the 13 MB app size, which is tiny compared to the usual sizes of music player mobile apps.

As for the service itself, Prime Music maintains a collection of roughly 1 million songs that you can stream on demand. This falls short of the industry average of 15 million songs, and way short of the 30 million songs available on services like Spotify and Tidal. But even so, it’s not as bad as it seems.

For example, Spotify and Tidal are available in most countries in the Americas, Western Europe, and Oceania, which means a lot of their songs are foreign to U. S. audiences. Meanwhile, Prime Music is mostly aimed at U. S. audiences, so it doesn’t feature much foreign music. The selection is small, nobody can deny that, but it’s mostly relevant.

You can organize Prime Music songs into your own playlists, or you can listen to the hundreds of Expert-curated Prime Playlists designed around moods and activities like Relaxation, Travel, Study & Reading, Party, Energetic, and more.

Offline playback — the ability to download songs to your mobile device and listen even when you aren’t connected to the Internet — is one of the most-loved features to appear in the last five years, so it’s good to know that Prime Music has it too. (Due to digital rights management What Is DRM & Why Does It Exist If It's So Evil? [MakeUseOf Explains] What Is DRM & Why Does It Exist If It's So Evil? [MakeUseOf Explains] Digital Rights Management is the latest evolution of copy protection. It’s the biggest cause of user frustration today, but is it justified? Is DRM a necessary evil in this digital age, or is the model. Read More, downloaded songs can only be accessed with the Prime Music app.)

And then there are Prime Stations, which are online radio stations with no advertisements and unlimited skips for your convenience. The more you listen and rate songs, the more personalized these stations will become for you, which might seem familiar if you’ve ever used a service like Pandora.

As for Audio quality, songs may be delivered to you at bit-rates between 48 Kbps and 320 Kbps, which is potentially higher than the average standard of 256 Kbps. In every Prime Music player, you can choose between four settings:

Low:

Medium:

High:

Auto:

So as you can see, despite Prime Music’s smaller selection of songs, it holds up well when all other features are taken into consideration. If you can get over the relatively limited selection, Prime Music is actually pretty darn good.

3. You Can Buy Songs or Add Your Own

One of the big weaknesses of most music streaming services is that if a song is missing from their selections, you’re pretty much out of luck as a listener. We all felt this on Spotify when Taylor Swift withheld her latest album Why Taylor Swift Is Wrong About Spotify Why Taylor Swift Is Wrong About Spotify In the past week Taylor Swift has pulled her music from Spotify, inspired countless song-pun laden headlines and reignited the debate about streaming music services. Read More and when Adele followed in her footsteps Why Adele Is Wrong to Stop You Streaming Her New Album Why Adele Is Wrong to Stop You Streaming Her New Album Adele is refusing to let services such as Spotify and Apple Music stream her new album 25. Which is a boneheaded decision that's bad for her, her fans, and her record label. Read More, but it could happen anywhere else too.

Prime Music offers an easy solution: if a song or album is missing and you have a copy, Just upload to your account.

Prime Music is built on top of Amazon Music, formerly known as Amazon MP3, which was an online music locker (basically a cloud where you could store your own MP3s). This integration makes perfect sense because now you can use one app to stream both Prime Music and your own library of music.

And because music files are uploaded to Amazon, Your music stays synchronized across all of your Prime Music apps, including the Web player, desktop player, and mobile apps. How many music files can you upload? Only 250 songs, but that limit can expand to 250,000 songs for just $25 per year.

Or you can just buy songs and albums straight from Amazon. These get added to your Prime Music account and Do not count towards your upload limit. Since Prime Music is “free” for most people (those who already have Amazon Prime), this actually isn’t all that unreasonable.

And yes, as you can see above, you can shop for music right from within whichever player you’re using, including the mobile apps.

4. You Get More Than Just Music

Prime Music is “the only music streaming service with free two-day shipping”, a statement that seems weird and funny at first, but if you think about it, it really proves why everyone should at least cons > 10 Awesome Amazon Prime Benefits You've Probably Overlooked 10 Awesome Amazon Prime Benefits You've Probably Overlooked Free two-day shipping is just the beginning. Here are some notable Amazon Prime subscription benefits you may not know about. Read More .

If you already have an Amazon Prime account, you already have access to everything below. But if you have always avoided Prime Music because you didn’t think it was worth the price, consider all of these extra benefits that you get along with your subscription:

Free two-day shipping

Prime Pantry:

Free cloud storage

Prime Photos:

Prime V >Cut the Cord Forever With These 15 TV Streaming ChannelsCut the Cord Forever With These 15 TV Streaming Channels Cable TV is in decline, as the internet provides cheap, on-demand entertainment. Here are 15 of the best TV streaming services to help you cut the cord. Read More. Kindle First: Every month, you’re presented with a handful of new eBooks and you can choose to download one of them for free. This usually covers several genres so there’s always something that might interest you. Only available to members in the U. S. Kindle Owners’ Lending Library: Every month, you can borrow one Kindle eBook for free and read it on any Kindle-compatible device. There are no due dates for borrowed eBooks and they can be returned at any time, but you must return them before you can borrow another.

Some of these benefits may not be available if you’re using an Amazon Prime Student account. Nevertheless, it’s mind-boggling how much you actually get in addition to Prime Music, and all for a price that’s less than music-only alternatives.

Prime Music: It’s Better Than You Think

We understand that Prime Music isn’t the right choice for everyone. However, we are convinced that Prime Music is a fantastic option for a lot of people, even some who consider themselves to be die-hard fans of other, similar services.

Anyone who has Amazon Prime should check out Prime Music right away, and anyone who doesn’t have it should sign up for the free trial. The only real downside is the smaller music selection, but if you can live with that, the lower price tag and the extra benefits are strong reasons to switch.

If this post has done nothing more than solidify your love for Spotify, Apple Music, or even Tidal, no problem! Just be sure that you aren’t using Spotify wrong and that you maximize your enjoyment with these Spotify tips and tricks.

For more on Amazon Prime, here’s how you can get some of the best Amazon Prime Day deals How to Get the Best Amazon Prime Day Deals How to Get the Best Amazon Prime Day Deals Prime Day is Amazon's biggest sale of the year! Here's how to get the best deals on Amazon Prime Day and not get ripped off. Read More.

Image Credits: Amazon Logo by rvlsoft via Shutterstock

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When playing music on my LG phone i just pause it to stop it!! And the same for Fire tablet. Im not really sure exactly HOW TO STOP THE APP FROM CONTINUING TO PLAY IN BACKGROUND!

Today i was playing music on my Fire stick. When i wanted to close the app and stop music. i couldnt find a way to pause it. So i went into apps in settings and " force stoped can you help me please?

I have prime so I would like to use this to play music in the car, but the interface is chaotic and frustrating. After following playlists, where do they go? They aren't in my music, or under my playlists. I have to scroll and search, search and scroll. I can't do that while I'm driving. Maybe I'm not doing it right, but in my opinion, it should be easy and intuitive, not require a learning curve.

Except it does not work with roku or sony tvs

I have an app on my Roku for Amazon Music. Works fine.

Amazon Prime Music in high resolution? That would be great!

When I listen to Amazon Prime Music it is like listening restaurant band. Many items are not original. I is like listening to Michael Jackson performed by "GLEE". Other words the right songs are performed by sound-alike performers. To substitute the lock of "title" life performance is used, which could be totally different and interrupted by public. All this is nicely packaged to make you believe you are listening to the "good stuff".

I have no idea what you are talking about. I use Amazon Prime Music all the time and have detected none of the things you mentioned.

Am I using Amazon Prime's iOS app wrong? I'd prefer only to use it to stream & download Prime music I don't own (and use the iTunes app for the? I do own and organize in iTunes). But in the Amazon Prime Music app, I see all my iTunes music in "My Music" (the offline stuff), like it's been imported automatically somehow. So the app takes up a lot of storage space on my phone and there's no way to delete except song by song. Am I doing something wrong?

This may not help fully, but I get the same issue, and I decided to remove by Genre since that is the least amount of items to do. If you have say 75% of your songs in Classic Rock or Pop or something else, you just list by Genre and delete that Genre. Ok, it's clunky but saves time. There used to be a remove all somewhere I thought.

I got Amazon Prime Unlimited, ended up with 3 months free and then 7.99 after, got it at Christmas and gotta say, it is great, I own ALOT of music but not new stuff. This service gives me access to everything new out there. No it is not like my 1500 turntable or my 1300 dollar dac cd player but I use my dac to cross computer over to my stereo system and sound quality is decent,

I will have this forever. At night on my porch I tell Alexa to play music, anything I ask for she plays. It is the greatest thing for this old man ever created. The music you get with prime isn't all that but unlimited is. If I drove I could use it in my car too but I am a homebody. I also have a sirius subscription. Music is my life. 700 records, 900 cd's, 15,000 mp3's but I still like this. If I don't buy a new album I still can listen here. Just got done listening to David Crosby's new album, Cros, and yep, I listened to it then still bought it.

I finally tried Amazon Prime Music after having an Amazon Prime account since October 2016. I've never used a streaming service of any kind before; I've always just played my CDs, but I wanted to see what it's like.

I searched for something that's included with Prime that I already own on CD so that I could accurately judge the audio quality and I actually found something that I know has excellent sound quality. I clicked on the album, changed my audio quality to "High" and began listening.

The verdict? Hmm. Well, it's acceptable, but I can definitely tell it's not my CD.

Of course, the first suspect is a slow internet connection. My internet connection speed is always about 118 Mbps according to SpeedTest. net (I'm provisioned for 100 Mbps). Even so, the audio quality just didn't have as much depth and audio beauty as my CD does. I wouldn't have called the audio quality "High", as my setting on Amazon Prime Music would indicate. It truly sounded like a compressed audio file to my ears, like a 128k MP3. There wasn't as much separation or distinction between all of the frequencies. The lows didn't go as deep as they do on my CD, the mids were a hair too strong, and the highs were a bit compressed as well. The sound stage was also compressed. It was just slightly dull in comparison. I did an A/B comparison well over a dozen times, and each time the CD sounded *and felt* much better. The sound quality from my CD gave me a noticeably stronger natural desire to move and dance.

The difference reminds me of like a very colorful image that's a little bit washed out and a little bit dull (lacking contrast and whatnot) vs. the same colorful image with full and vivid super clear true-to-life color where all the colors are beautiful and vibrant and there's tons of depth and clarity. Guess which one is analogous to Amazon Prime Music and which one is analogous to the CD. Sure, on its own without anything to compare it to, the first image is quite acceptable and you might not even notice it's a bit washed out and dull and lacking a little bit of contrast and depth. Compare it to the lossless image though, and you can see it immediately.

For those curious about my setup, I don't have the best computer audio system, but it's decent:

My sound card is the X-Fi Titanium HD.

My speaker system is the *original* Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 with very high-end Monster cables for my satellite speaker cables. I have this system connected to my sound card with high-end RCA cables.

For those of you who have any X-Fi sound card, you'll understand all this: when I play a CD, I switch to Audio Creation Mode with Bit-Matched Playback enabled and the Master Sampling Rate to 44.1 kHz.

My preferred media player is Winamp. I use the Maiko WASAPI Exclusive plug-in enabled and I have that carefully configured as well. I even use Winamp's Graphic Equalizer (using Constant-Q EQ with ISO Standard frequency bands).

When I played Amazon Prime Video, I had to disable Bit-Matched Playback so that I could use Audio Creation Mode's built-in Graphic EQ so that I could have more clarity. I tried Entertainment Mode at first, but it was awful. Passable, but awful. Audio Creation Mode was much better. I reached my verdict using Audio Creation Mode doing absolutely everything I could to get the closest audio quality to my CD possible - but it wasn't possible. Even so, I think for casual listening with the music in the background, Amazon Prime Music is quite acceptable. I would never use it for just sitting and listening to my music though. I'd be distracted by the lower audio quality.

For the Average Joe who only cares about being able to hear the music and doesn't care about it being of the utmost highest quality, Amazon Prime Music is actually quite good. I can say this with confidence because I have to admit that it took about 2-3 back-and-forth comparisons for me to truly hear the difference between my CD and Amazon Prime Music. Of course, they need to have a much larger selection, but still.

When I listen to my music though, I naturally take enjoyment from the audio quality as well as the music itself (I can't avoid it). When the audio quality is lacking, so is my enjoyment. For that reason, I probably won't ever really use Amazon Prime Music for any reason. Besides, I don't have any need for an audio streaming service of any kind.

Even so, I hope one day Amazon will be able to offer lossless audio as a streaming option for those who have the bandwidth for it. Perhaps by then, everyone will have the bandwidth for it, even on a phone.

"Of course, the first suspect is a slow internet connection. My internet connection speed is always about 118 Mbps according to SpeedTest. net (I'm provisioned for 100 Mbps). "

Are you kidding? 100 Mbps is NOT slow! Wow, incredible. Where in the world do you think 100 Mbps is slow? Because its not in the majority of the United States where the majority don't even have 15 mbps. Not to mention a great many in the population don't even see 3 -5 mbps down.

You can stream most anything at 10 -15 mbps solo (might not be hd vid), the more users you have the faster speed you need. If you can't stream quality music at 100 mbps something is very very wrong and its not your slow internet connection.

That's not what I tried to say (come on, I'm not stupid). Perhaps I should have worded it better. Here's how I probably should have worded it:

"Of course, the first suspect is a slow internet connection, but that's definitely not the case for me because my internet connection speed is always about 118 Mbps according to SpeedTest. net (I'm provisioned for 100 Mbps). "

So all I was saying was that the audio quality is excellent for casual listening (to my surprise), but I can personally tell that it's streaming over the internet because it definitely sounds much like 128k MP3s - but those are good enough for casual listening. So, I was trying to set up the expectation for people new to to this that they should expect it to sound very good but it's definitely not CD quality. When I tried to say that, the first response that I anticipated was "maybe your internet connection is slow", so I decided to get rid of that possibility since the only issue here is that I listen to music way too closely. When I'm just listening casually, there's no way I'll ever be able to tell it's not a CD or even vinyl.

I hope this clears up what I was really trying to say.

I love Amazon Prime music. I tried Pandora, I Heart and Apple music before discovering this. I knew about it but never used it. It automatically transferred all of the music from My ITunes account, and I like the auto playlists, the music recommendations are usually spot-on. The offline feature is awesome for listening in the car over Bluetooth to save my cell phone data and I currently have about 8 hours of music available, I have access to WiFi at work. For me, Prime video and Prime music make the cost of a membership worthwhile, Amazon kept making improvements until they got it right.

The lack of gapless play back with Amazon is a big draw back. try listening to Pink Floyd's The Wall, any live concert album or a piece of classical music. The pauses between each track will get very annoying very fast in some cases making the work unlistenable.

Amazon needs to address this if they really want to compete.

100% agree on this. Lack of gapless playback is an absolute deal stopper for me. I did submit an inquiry to their customer support about it, I'll see what they say. It's a shame as I really like the android player's interface better than Google Play which is terrible, and since the Echo doesn't interface with Google Play I'm missing out on some nice functionality. If Amazon enables gapless I'd likely switch in a heartbeat.

Really, that's sort of a realllly dumb reason.

These are my thoughts on amazon prime music:-

1.0 amazon prime music android app does not automatically download music in your playlist like spotify & google music

2.0 switching between online and offline contents is a drag

3.0 music sometimes does not resume after i get a call on my phone

4.0 there is no offline feature on the desktop app. I wonder why this is so

5.0 i think prime musics 1 million songs is really pathetic. amazon has been in this business for a while. they should at least be around the 30 million mark by now

If you want more songs get amazon music mate.

I have been using Spotify Prime for a number of years now, and decided to take a look at Amazon Prime music. I found that Amazon Prime wanted me to pay for albums to listen to that are free to listen to on Spotify. Is this just another way for Amazon to make money out of you, the same with Amazon Fire TV entice you in then hit you with more money requests.

I've been listening to Amazon Prime for. Few months and found it fine, although the site is not as user friendly as Pandora. Having said that, today they have taken an album away which I had in "my music" which is a total deal breaker. The notice read: "we are sorry this albums m is no longer available on prime music"

Very disappointing and totally unacceptable, I'm moving on

I use Amazon Music Daily at work and at home and have done so for several years now. I love the service, have purchased and compiled an extensive library, and love/use the prime stations a lot. I do a lot of business on Amazon so am a Prime member for shipping cost primarily but the Prime Music and Video are icing on an already very delicious cake.

So when I got the notice to download the "new and improved" version of the Amazon Music

App., I d >

If somebody can give me a solution to this problem, I would love to hear it because it is ruining the 5+ star rating I would have given Amazon a few weeks ago.

I previously was able to listen to stations with my prime membership. I cannot do that now because of your new upcharge program. Thank god I didnt cancel my serius account. I am going to expand my service with them. I would pay 10 times more than it is worth just to **** Amazon. As soon as another company offers discount delivery I am done with them. Their tablets are horrible anyway, my kids wont use them, your phone was a rip off, my daughter hates it(i would never use it). We have 3 other services for video, you cant compete with Netflix, not even Hulu. The only thing of value i get from them is discounted delivery. Which Walmart is already giving for free. last time i checked its actually UPS that does the delivery, I like them. That is the way the market is going. So what are they going to be left with? delivering groceries, how stupid is that. Nobody wants that.

We get it. Move on.

Just went looking for an alternative to iTunes (it is all messed up on my computer and I can't fix it), and remembered Prime, which I'm already a member of. I absolutely love the player - so much easier to use than iTunes. The player also incorporates music already located on my computer from my iTunes downloads as a single library, so it's seamless. And hey, I can just add a song to my library, and make playlists, and there it is to listen to by streaming for free? Can't beat that.

Thanks for the list of other Prime benefits. Might as well check them out too.

Drm issues uploading my own music?

Hi Mork74. I did some searching and it appears that DRM-protected music CANNOT be uploaded to or imported into your Amazon Music library. Sorry!

I'm an Amazon Prime subscriber and also have an I-Tunes account. I've been away from Amazon music for a while and used the newly designed service today. I like the variety of stations and playlists and that it lets you have as many skips as you want, although I listened all afternoon and liked almost every song on the 80s music station. Best of all it's ad-free and for me worth the price of a Prime subscription. When I purchase albums I almost always buy from Amazon because their prices are usually less than iTunes and the music loads to my iTunes account as well as my Amazon account. I tried the Apple music service but never subscribed and don't like it as well as Amazon. It's great to have access to both apps but I see myself using Amazon more than iTunes.

Nice to hear of your good experiences with Amazon Music. And the fact that your Amazon-bought music loads into iTunes is awesome. Thanks for sharing, Tara!

I currently have Amazon Prime and Apple music. I find myself listening to Amazon more, and the only thing I can point to is: more user friendly and more intuitive than Apple music. And despite 'only' 1 million songs, to Apples 30 million, I do not get the feeling I'm missing out. The only reason I've continued with Apple music, is that it works so seamlessly with my 4th gen. Apple TV. If not for that, I'd probably pull the plug. Coupled with all the other features in PRIME, Prime music is a steal!

I agree with you on the issue of selection size, Larry, and Prime Music is definitely a steal if you're already subbed for two-day free shipping anyway!

Was really excited until I got a message saying "You can only stream from one device at a time". which means this is useless for families unless I buy a prime account for each family member, at which point it's not worth it. Fail.

Ah, yeah, that's definitely a bummer. I don't blame you if that's a deal-breaker.

The family plan lets you play on 6 different devices simultaneously.

The family plan lets you play simultaneously on up to 6 devices

I wanted to try this, but my favorite artist is Independent with no physical release, and Amazon doesn't have any of his music. #ChanceTheRapper

Ah, yeah, Amazon does come up short in cases like that.

Amazon Suspended

Typically, selling your goods or products on platforms like eBay or Amazon is one of best ways of making money online.

However, there is one major issues with the Amazon seller performance program that makes honest sellers loose their businesses due to selling ban as well as removal of their vendor privileges. Indeed, this is one of the most serious problems Amazon sellers face, which in many cases destroys businesses people built over years over night. In one way or another, sellers are highly affected and make them work under constant fear of unwarranted account suspension. If you thought that, it is not a big deal, wait until you get the full explanation, unveiled herein!

It is correct that Amazon Seller Performance is put in place so that it can detect and remove any seller that violates or abuses their selling privileges. Whether you are an Amazon shareholder, customer, or quality seller, you all deserve this. Indeed, this is one of the incredible jobs of the Amazon’s seller-performance team. Actually, it is a crucial aspect of the above online platform to maintain its integrity and name.

However, in the recent past, there seems to be a rise in the number of seller suspensions. It seems the Amazon’s team entrusted with the task of performing seller performance is either sleeping on the job, or it is not doing what is right. To make matters even worse, reinstatement periods are taking longer than required! What is up with Amazon nowadays?

Typically, getting your seller account banned on Amazon can happen overnight without any warning. Even worse most sellers are not allowed to return to sell ever again after the suspension, the truth of the matter is that the seller will be operating with worries and void of sales. At the current rate of suspension, most sellers are in a tight spot trying to catch up with lost income as well as trying their best keeping Amazon seller performance team happy.

To improve Amazon seller performance system, the following recommendations are eminent:

1. Offer a second chance

It is highly significant that Amazon should consider providing sellers who have had their accounts suspended in the past another opportunity to state and defend their cases. Indeed, hundreds and thousands of sellers have wrongfully lost their accounts and even given up on trying to re-open it.

2. Amazon needs to hire qualified and professional staff dealing with seller who had been suspended

If an extensive investigation is carried out of this department, it is unbelievable that most sellers get canned as well as severe responses while asking for more information in regards to a case in hand. Have you even seen a seller performance letter that stated nothing about the case in question?

The entire process is comparable to the game of cat and mice. Indeed, Amazon needs to sit down and discuss again the reason(s) as to why they request these letters to be written yet their representatives do not read and understand its details.

Solution to the above challenge

If it a must that sellers have to write these letters, then Amazon should invest in hiring employees who have the capacity of reading a letter in full, understand them, and write back the responses explaining vividly what they have gathered from the letters.

3. Phone support for Amazon Sellers

Despite the fact that numerous calls from both sellers and buyers can be quite challenging, but it is not justifiable for a customer support department not to have a phone contact.

Typically, it is in order that support representatives have to be reached in some other ways besides email. If not all cases, then phone calls are inevitable for cases that have not been responded for periods more than two weeks or for final removal cases.

4. All of suspension cases should be handled fair and within a reasonable time frame.

Ideally, sellers are quoted a response time of between 24 and 48 hours. However, in most cases, this has never been the reality. In fact, the average response time for most clients has risen to about seven days, yet all of them have been quoted 24 to 48 hours response time.

If merchants on Amazon shipped their orders later than the expected time, definitely, they would have had their privileges removed. In this case, the seller performance representatives should demonstrate the same to sellers or a higher level. Indeed, a seller who has been suspended is neither a criminal nor second-class citizen. Just like any other human being, they can make mistakes, and they deserve honest and quick responses.

Solution

One of the honest opinions is that the seller performance department is either understaffed or underperforming. If this is the cases, then the company should consider hiring customer care representatives. Besides that, implement the new procedures in an efficient manner and place leaders within the organization whose primary duty is to improve sellers’ response times. At the very least, honest response quotes are the absolute key to success; if it takes two weeks, then representatives should say so.

5. Seller Support team should be precise and accurate in their responses

Typically, seller-performance team should not be allowed to be vague with responses since this is not constructive. In other words, it should not be the work of the seller requesting to find their mistakes’ when in most cases, the problems were not either direct complaints or negative reviews. Mostly, the seller is not in a position to see the problem simply because they did not receive any formal information about the issue.

Solution

Amazon should amend their policies and include the requirement that no one can respond to canned template emails. In other words, each letter should be custom. However, the email should be precise, concise, constructive, and to the point. If there is some additional information about a particular case that a seller cannot see, then they are required to have it disclosed so that they identify and address the challenge or defend its validity.

6. Release funds and goods sooner than the 3 months

Lastly, most sellers rely on online selling to earn their living and 90 days grace period is an extraordinarily long and unnecessary amount of time to request inventory and funds. Although it is evident in their policies, it is a good-will issue for Amazon to consider fixing the above.

Amazon sellers, whether you have been suspended in the past or not, it is highly important that you need to join this petition as an ultimate way of seeking fair treatment for all sellers.

Remember, if you have not gone through the daunting suspension process of Amazon, it is more likely that you may be in this situation in the future, and you will require a fair opportunity to speak out your case.

11 thoughts on “ Why Amazon Should Give Suspended Sellers A Second Chance ”

My wife’s Amazon Account was suspended for reasons unknown to her. Seller Performance claimed they notified her of an issue yet there are no messages in her Amazon Messaging to refer to, only her suspension notice. In her immediate reply/appeal they referred her to Ubisoft to remedy the situation that caused the suspension. Ubisoft couldn’t find anything in their system about her or any items she was selling or had sold. She provided that information via screen prints back to seller support as well as a screen print of her Amazon Messaging, that does not allow users to delete, and the only thing Seller Performance will say in their replies is that her selling privileges are still suspended. I must agree that Amazon Performance needs something, what I am not sure of but from some of these horror stories I read here some serious improvement on training needs to be completed.

I was forced to make 100% refund, and the buyer still got to keep the item. That is despite the fact that the product is made out of a very strong material that cannot get damaged under any transportation situation. I wonder why I should be the one to bear the burden when it is clear that the buyer is the one with poor business ethics. Is there anything that I can do?

As per my experience, the Seller Performance system in Amazon is a huge disaster. Sometimes ago, I had a seller account with Amazon which has had been suspended after my failure in clearing the performance review. To be honest, I was pretty frustrated after sitting for 27 days under the review! However, I decided to move on and sent a mail to the Amazon sales support team, inquiring the status of the money I already had in my account. Considering the fact that, Amazon is pretty tough on ensuring professionalism, I expected a quick answer. Here I got the shock of my life! The team never responded back, even after sending repeated e-mails on the same. I have 12k in my account and that’s not an amount that you simply forget about. Till now I have not received a single response on when the money can be released! It’s downright unethical and the worst kind of behaviour that you can expect from a company like Amazon. Highly disappointed!

It’s so unfair that Amazon can hold people to ransom for absolutely no reason. My account was suspended, after only a few weeks of selling. Why? Because they say I need more feedback to continue. All my customers have received their items and I have received no complaints. So what gives Amazon the right to hold onto my money? As if that wasn’t enough they suspended me right before Christmas, my busiest time of the year, so as well as holding onto my hard earned cash they have lost me 1,000s of Dollars in lost revenue. Thanks for nothing.

I agree with your point. You will know how evil Amazon can be when you hear my story. Picture this, for many years I was a loyal seller tripods and things like that at Amazon, however, one day my sales really spiked. First I felt so happy but than I got an message that my selling privileges had been removed. I felt really bad when they told me that my seller account showed suspicious “behaviour”. I tried to appeal without even getting a reply. Is Amazon really fair?

I am among thousands of Amazon. com sellers who had their selling privileges removed. After Amazon account got banned I sent in an appeal. I included all the emails I sent out asking for response from customers hoping that they will resolve the disputes. I hope I get lucky and the suspension is revoked.

Selling online has been for me one of the best ways of earning a living. However, in the recent past, eBay and Amazon have increased rate of account suspensions. I have been selling on Amazon for the last four years and even managed to get a really great feedback score. In fact, I have a rating of 4.8 stars. Now, my problem with Amazon started soon after I had left the country for a three-week vacation.

Despite the fact that I had put my Amazon seller account on vacation mode, soon after I had returned, I noted that it was suspended. Upon enquiring, I got a response that I have been selling fake products. I was shocked by that response, so I proceed to serve them with necessary evidence that whatever I was selling was genuine. After about a month, I got another feedback that my proofs had failed and that the account will not be reinstated. The only hope that I had at that time was the fact that account was still in active mode, which means they had not closed it. Indeed, I am completely upset due to the poor means of communication offered by Amazon!

My Amazon account was also suspended because I was not meeting some kind cancelation targets. In fact, Amazon did not even allow me to improve my order cancelation rate. All Amazon did was to give me a suspension notification email 2 days after closing my account. When I decided to appeal, they send me an email confirming that they can’t do anything.

I fell the victim of Amazon’s suspension in October 2015. Before then I had many happy customers with no complaints against me. At first, they put my account under review for about a month and froze all money I had in my account I made from sales. After Amazon accused me of violating the terms and conditions or something like that, but I knew I had not done anything wrong. Nothing can convince me that Amazon is not a scam after still waiting to get back almost 10K.

What a nightmare! I had an Amazon sellers account that was in good standing, with loads of positive reviews and good service for our customers. Sometimes we even reshipped items for free, no questions asked. Despite all that, my account was blocked out of nowhere. Amazon’s “guarantees” only benefit the buyer, and never the seller, regardless of who is guilty.

Apparently my Amazon account was closed due to some administrative reason I still don’t understand. They still have all my goods in their warehouses. Without knowing what the issue is, what can I do? They simply sent me a form e-mail that they probably send to everyone. I tried calling Amazon and they claimed I can launch some sort of appeal, but since then I haven’t been able to reach them, and I’m starting to loose hope.

Чем владеет Amazon

В 1994 году Джефф Безос искал новое название для своей компании Cadabra и хотел назвать её Relentless - «безжалостный». Домен Relentless. com до сих пор перенаправляет на Amazon, а спустя 25 лет «безжалостный», по мнению Wired, лучшее определение для империи Безоса.

Физически Amazon занимает такое же место, сколько 38 Пентагонов. В Amazon работают около 613 тысяч человек, что вдвое больше, чем в Alphabet (94 тысячи), Facebook (33 тысячи) и Microsoft (135 тысяч) вместе взятых.

Amazon известен в первую очередь из-за онлайн-магазина, но в погоне за ростом компания начала доминировать не только в электронной коммерции. Сейчас Amazon - крупнейший поставщик облачных услуг и системы «умного» дома, дизайнер одежды, рекламная площадка, продюсер телевидения и кино, издатель книг и владелец краудсорсинговой платформы.

Amazon начала свою деятельность в качестве онлайн-продавца книг в 1994 году и до сих пор владеет несколькими издательствами и дочерними компаниями по продаже книг. Большинство из них принадлежат Amazon Publishing - издателю и владельцу импринтов одновременно:

Thomas & Mercer публикует мистику, триллеры и криминальные романы; Little A занимается научной литературой и фантастикой; AmazonCrossing переводит тексты; 47 North занимается фантастикой и фентези; Skyscape издает книги для подростков; Two Lions издает книги для детей; Jet City Comics - комиксы; Montlake Romance - романтическая литература; Waterfall Press публикует христианскую литературу; Grand Harbor Press отвечает за «вдохновляющие» книги; Lake Union Publishing - книжный клуб фантастики; Amazon Original Stories издает короткие романы и публицистику; Amazon Encore занимается классическими произведениями, которые считались утерянными; TOPPLE Books публикует работы, которые отбирает сценаристка Джилл Солоуэй.

Также Amazon принадлежат книжные компании Avalon Books, The Book Depository, BookFinder и AbeBook.

В 2005 году Amazon купила самиздат BookSurge и CustomFlix - компанию по выдаче фильмов по запросу, переименована в CreateSpace. В 2007 году Amazon купила независимого издателя аудиокниг Brilliance Audio и ACX.

Одновременно с первой электронной книгой Kindle компания запустила собственное издательство электронных книг Kindle Direct Publishing и за $300 млн купила магазин по продаже аудиокниг Audible.

Alphr

В 2009 году Amazon объединила CreateSpace и BookSurge в издательство On-Demand Publishing (под брендом CreateSpace). В 2013 году Amazon купила агрегатор книг Goodreads и объединила с Shelfari - ещё одной социальной сетью с каталогизатором книг, приобретенной в 2008 году.

В 2014 году Amazon купила платформу цифровых комиксов ComiXology, а в 2015 запустила Amazon Rapids - приложение, которое по подписке присылает короткие детские рассказы в виде тестовых сообщений.

В 2018 году CreateSpace объединили с Kindle Direct Publishing. Теперь компания занимается всеми услугами по публикации электронных книг и книг в мягкой обложке, а все медиа-услуги передали в новую компанию Amazon Media on Demand. Она отвечает за производство и доставку дисков.

Также у Amazon есть больше десятка розничных магазинов Amazon Books и цифровой магазин Kindle, где пользователи устройств бренда могут купить электронные книги и другой контент Kindle.

Mashable

В 1998 году Amazon купила онлайн-базу фильмов IMDB и увеличила свой ассортимент до продажи музыки, предлагая пользователям более 125 тысяч CD - и DVD-дисков, а в 1999 году приобрела Alexa Internet - компанию по анализу веб-трафика.

В 2007 году Amazon запустила стриминговый сервис Amazon MP3, переименованный в Amazon Music. В 2006 году компания запустила Amazon Unbox - сервис для покупки и загрузки видео, который затем был переименован в Amazon Video on Demand, Amazon Instant Video и Prime Video (Amazon Video). В сервисе Prime Video Amazon предлагает контент от Amazon Studios - компании, которая с 2010 года занималась сценариями, но теперь производит и распространяет сериалы и фильмы.

В 2017 году Amazon купила права на «Властелин Колец» за $250 млн, чтобы снять сериал по книжной вселенной. Также Amazon купила Withoutabox - сервис, который упрощал процесс представления и отбора фильмов для кинофестивалей (сейчас в стадии закрытия), и в 2008 году Box Office Mojo - сервис, отслеживающий кассовые сборы фильмов.

Grand Tour - один из основных эксклюзивов Amazon Prime

В начале 2014 года Amazon приобрела американского разработчика видеоигр Double Helix Games и переименовала в Amazon Game Studios, а затем купила стриминговую платформу Twitch за $970 млн и Curse - игровую платформу-сообщество. Все учетные записи Curse были переведены в Twitch, что расширило базу пользователей.

В 2015 году Amazon запустил Amazon Tickets - сервис по продаже билетов на концерты и другие мероприятия Великобритании.

Также Amazon владеет образовательными ресурсами Amazon Inspire и TenMarks (находится в стадии закрытия), а также Whispercast - сервис по обмену аудиокнигами среди преподавателей. DPreview - популярный сайт, посвященный фотокамерам, тоже принадлежит Amazon.

Более 6 млн независимых торговцев платят Amazon за продажу товаров через площадку компании, а также за дополнительные услуги - хранение на складах и доставку. Также Amazon продает и собственную продукцию через десятки брендов, среди которых:

Mountain Falls - товары личной гигиены; Rivet - мебель; Daily Ritual - женская одежда; Amazon Basics - альтернативы популярным товарам от Amazon.

Продавцы могут платить за размещение рекламы через Amazon Advertising - третью по величине платформу цифровой рекламы, которая уступает только Google и Facebook с долей рынка около 4,2%.

Amazon выдает кредиты на открытие бизнеса на своей площадке с помощью программы Amazon Lending, запущенной в 2011 году. С её помощью компания выдала миллиарды долларов компаниям, которые не могли получить кредит в других местах.

На Amazon. com работает подписка Amazon Prime, запущенная в 2005 году. Вначале компания предлагала только бесплатную двухдневную доставку, но быстро превратилась в большой бизнес. В подписку входят сервисы Amazon Music и Amazon Video, сервис хранения фотографий Amazon Photos, облачное хранилище Amazon Drive, сервис аренды электронных книг Prime Reading, доставку непортящихся продуктов Amazon Prime Pantry, службу доставки и получения продуктов Fresh, а также доставку еды Amazon Restaurants и доставку товаров в течение часа Amazon Now.

Также есть сервис по продаже бу вещей Amazon Warehouse и Amazon Second Chance, сервис для отремонтированных товаров с гарантией Amazon Renewed и площадка по заказу услуг по ремонту и уборке дома Amazon Home Services.

Для работы с подрядчиками Amazon создала компанию Amazon Flex, а также собственную платежную систему Amazon Pay, запущенную в 2007 году. В 2018 году Amazon купила индийскую платежную систему Tapzo за $40 млн и тут же анонсировала её закрытие и перевод пользователей в Amazon Pay.

Реклама купленного сервиса Twitch на коробках доставки Amazon Polygon

Также Amazon владеет другими площадками электронной коммерции: обувным магазином Zappos, магазином женской одежды Shopbop и мужской одежды East Dane, дискаунтером 6pm, и магазином тканей Fabric. com. В 2010 году Amazon купила Woot! - платформу с ежедневными скидками на товары, а в 2017 году дубайскую платформу электронной коммерции Souq. com за $580 млн и Wing. ae - стартап, который доставляет на следующий день после заказа товара. Amazon принадлежит и индийская платформа электронной коммерции Junglee.

В 2017 году Amazon купила Whole Foods - сеть премиальных продуктовых магазинов, а в 2018 году приобрела 49% акций More - одной из крупнейших в Индии продуктовых сетей.

Одновременно Amazon управляет собственной сетью частично автоматизированных продуктовых магазинов Amazon Go, в которых нет продавцов и запустила сеть торговых грузовиков Treasure Trucks.

Amazon владеет краудсорсинговой платформой Amazon Mechanical Turk, запущенной в 2005 году.

Amazon Web Services

В 2003 году Amazon запустила веб-хостинг AWS, который под брендом Merchant. com помог запустить собственные онлайн-площадки для ритейлеров Target и Borders. В 2006 году компания запустила Amazon S3 - поставщика услуг облачного хранения и хостинга, который по состоянию на 2013 год хранил более двух триллионов цифровых объектов. S3 используют Tumblr, Reddit, Pinterest и Dropbox в качестве основного поставщика хранения данных.

Chicago Tribune

Также в Amazon входят подразделения Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud и Amazon Simple Queue Service. В 2011 году Amazon запустила AWS GovCloud - облачную платформу для государственных учреждений, в 2015 AWS IoT - платформу для управления «интернетом вещей» и выиграла контракт на $600 млн для создания облачного хранилища ЦРУ - AWS Secret Region.

В 2015 году Amazon купила стартап Showfitr - он помогает определить размер обуви клиента во время онлайн-покупок, и Safaba - систему машинного перевода.

В 2017 году Amazon купила Body Labs - компанию трехмерного сканирования и моделирования человеческого тела, и платформу для разработчиков игр GameSparks. Amazon использовала эти компании для развития технологий дополненной и виртуальной реальности Amazon Sumerian. Также в 2017 году куплены стартапы по кибербезопасности Harvest. ai и Sqrrl.

Amazon запустила собственную систему распознавания лиц Amazon Rekognition, которую используют правоохранительные органы США. Она вызвала критику за неточность в распознавании - во время проверки системы, 28 членов Конгресса США были сопоставлены с преступниками.

Энергетика и транспорт

Чтобы снабжать центры обработки данных энергией, Amazon заключила контракт с компаниями по разработке возобновляемых источников энергии для создания ферм ветровой и солнечной энергии в Индиане, Вирджинии, Огайо и Северной Каролине. В 2017 году Amazon построила крупнейшую ветряную электростанцию Amazon Wild Farm в Техасе.

Amazon владеет парком грузовых самолетов Prime Air Cargo Planes и компанией морских грузоперевозок. С 2014 года компания работает над службой доставки товаров дронами Prime Air Drones. Проект находится в ранней стадии, но в 2016 году первая посылка была доставлена дронами клиенту в Англии.

Global Trademark

Устройства

В 2004 году Amazon открыла Lab126 - R&D-подразделение, которое выпустило успешные продукты компании - электронные книги Kindle, планшеты Kindle Fire, ТВ-приставку Kindle Fire TV и TV Stick, колонки Amazon Echo и Echo Dot, а также «умную камеру» Echo Look. Также Lab126 отвечала за провальный Amazon Fire Phone.

Echo Look / Wired

В 2012 году Amazon купила роботехническую компанию Kiva Systems за $775 млн и переименовала её в Amazon Robotics. После покупки Amazon расторгла все контракты Kiva с другими компаниями, оставив склады Amazon в качестве единственного клиента.

В 2017 году Amazon запустила сервис Amazon Key, который позволяет сотрудникам Amazon доставлять товары в дом клиента с помощью «умной» камеры Amazon Cloud Cam, совместимого «умного» замка и приложения Amazon Key. Ещё Amazon владеет Blink Home - компания разрабатывает технологии домашней автоматизации, а также Ring - «умный» дверной звонок. Также доставка Amazon Key работает и для автомобилей с помощью услуги Amazon Key In-Car.

Здравоохранение

В 2014 году Amazon открыла секретную лабораторию по разработке технологий здравоохранения. У неё три названия: 1492, The Amazon Grand Challenge и Project X. Лаборатория сотрудничает с центром исследования рака имени Фреда Хатчинсона в Сиэтле, чтобы использовать возможности машинного обучения для предотвращения или лечения рака.

Для компаний по медицинскому страхованию Amazon предлагает Hera - технологию, которая определяет ошибочные диагнозы и помогает выставить счета пациентам. Также Amazon продает больницам лекарства через b2b-сервис Amazon Business.

За первый квартал 2018 года Amazon наняла более 20 врачей и экспертов в области здравоохранения, а также заключила партнерство с JPMorgan Chase и Berkshire Hathaway для создания новой компании, призванной улучшить здравоохранение и сократить расходы на медицину.

В августе 2018 года издание CNBC рассказало, что Amazon планирует открыть клинику первичной медицинской помощи в своей штаб-квартире в Сиэтле. В июне 2018 года Amazon за $1 млрд купила онлайн-аптеку PillPack - стартап, который доставляет лекарства клиентам напрямую.

Глава Amazon владеет множеством компаний за пределами Amazon: он владеет инвестиционным холдингом Bezos Expeditions и космической компанией Blue Origin, а в 2013 году купил газеты Washington Post и Newsweek за $250 млн.