Weekly Amazon Seller News – February 23rd, 2021

“Winter storm impact on order fulfillment” (Source: Amazon News)

As a result of the severe weather and its effects on operations, Amazon will mitigate any impact to your account health.
Consider temporarily setting your seller-fulfilled listings to inactive if you anticipate that you are unable to meet your shipping service levels.
Amazon encourages you to temporarily turn off the Prime badge on your offers to contain the impact on the customer experience.
Contact buyers through the Buyer-Seller Messaging Service about the status of their orders for seller-fulfilled orders to be shipped within areas potentially impacted by the winter storm.
No action is required for products fulfilled by Amazon, and Amazon will handle messaging for all FBA orders impacted by the storm.
If you have shipments en route to fulfillment centers in the impacted region, you should expect delays and potential carrier reschedule notifications.
For more information, see the Delivery delays due to natural disasters Help page.
Read the full article here

The Manage Your Experiments feature now includes A/B testing of product images.
For the first time, you can test alternate versions of your main product image and see what images may drive higher conversion rates with customers.
At no additional cost, you can use A/B tests to help optimize your product images which can generate confidence with customers and help drive purchase decisions.
With Manage Your Experiments, you can run A/B experiments on three areas of your detail page: A+ Content, product titles, and images.
Experiments are easy to start and the results are simple to understand, so you can be confident you are making the right choice for your products.
It takes less than five minutes to create an image experiment with results shared weekly.
Start an experiment in the Manage Your Experiments tool in Seller Central.
Read the full article here

Based on changes to Illinois state tax law, Amazon began calculating, collecting, and remitting retailer occupation tax for all orders shipped to customers in Illinois on January 1, 2021.
Your existing tax calculation and account settings do not require any changes as a result of the legislation.
Order details and payment reports will automatically reflect any tax Amazon collects and remits from your orders.
The Illinois Department of Revenue published a resource page “Leveling the Playing Field for Illinois Retail Act” and flow chart for your reference.
However, you may consider working with your tax advisor to determine if your business has any other ongoing tax remittance or reporting obligations.
Answers to common questions are available in the Marketplace Tax Collection FAQ.
Read the full article here

Due to the severe winter storms impacting much of the US, Amazon is experiencing a delay in receiving and processing customer returns.
For some returned units, there will be a delay in either getting the inventory back to your account or reimbursing you for those items.
You do not need to take any actions for the returns.
If you have questions about the status of your customer returns, please review the reports accessible via the FBA inventory reimbursement policy.
Read the full article here

Amazon announced the launch of Video Creative Builder, a free tool that allows you to quickly and easily create eye-catching video ads or enhance existing creative assets.
Combined with Amazon DSP’s capabilities, Video Creative Builder can help you reach the right customers at the right time, with the right message.
Video Creative Builder makes it easy to build eye-catching video ads, without the need for existing video creative assets.
You can customize creative to suit your brand objectives, deliver customer experiences that resonate, and test, measure and optimize all within the tool.
The process is quick, easy, free, and does not require any prior production resources and design expertise.
Access the Video Creative Builder through seller central to get started.
Read the full article here