October 10th was not a good day for new Amazon sellers, since the giant company closed it’s FBA program to new comers until December 19th, thus leaving them outside of the selling game during the holiday season.

New sellers who have not already sent their first shipment were invited yesterday to start shipping after December 19th.

It’s understandable why Amazon took this decision since it’s fulfillment centers are full, and it’s expected to be even more crowded during the holiday season. For sellers who are enlisted in FBA program, this is a good thing ensuring them that their ordes will be sent in time to their customers. For those who just wanted to start selling on Amazon, the things are different, they could start selling their products Merchant Fulfilled, or they should start looking for other options to sell their products during the holidays.

This decision is one of the three crucial decisions Amazon took in the past few months, starting with brand gating, followed by banning incetivized reviews and finishing yesterday with this blocking of FBA for new sellers. From the customers’ point of view these are all great decisions, that enhance the customers’ faith in Amazon and its products.

Here’s the message you’ll see if you click complete shipping but are a new seller and not allowed:

Your shipment plan cannot be created at this time We are restricting shipments from new-to-FBA sellers to ensure we have the capacity necessary to receive and store inventory and to ship products to customers quickly. If you have not completed your first shipment to Amazon before October 10, 2016, we encourage you to start shipping to Amazon after December 19, 2016. We encourage you to continue selling on Amazon and fulfilling orders directly to customers. We apologize for any inconvenience. If the situation changes before December 19, 2016, we will notify you by e-mail. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Also, lots of sellers are reporting losing reviews, on a Facebook group a seller reported losing more than 50% of reviews for one product.

Is there anything you can do?

Unfortunately, no. Your only choice is Merchant Fulfillment, and you should be starting looking for shipping options. That is true, you lost Prime, but you can still try to get the best out of this situation.

If you want to start your own business selling on Amazon, you can contact us for more details.