Need a break from your Amazon business? Don’t worry, it’s possible without having to close your valuable seller account.
There are a number of reasons for sellers to temporarily halt their Amazon businesses, which is why Amazon facilitates sellers with a couple of options to do so.
I’ve put together this post to guide you through the entire process of cancelling your Amazon seller Account. I’ll discuss everything, from crucial preliminary measures to step-by-step guides, and much more!
Let’s get right into it.
What Should You Keep In Mind Before Cancelling Your Amazon Seller Account
Before we discuss how to actually execute the cancellation, let’s first discuss a couple of things to keep in mind before you do so.
- First of all, keep in mind that you would still have to pay monthly subscription fees even after you have deactivated your Amazon product listings.
- Secondly, do not forget to check for any pending orders for the products you intend to stop listing.
Many sellers skip this and assume that Amazon will take care of cancelling buyers’ orders automatically. This, however, is not true so make sure to deliver your orders if any (or else, be prepared for negative reviews). - Last thing you need to do is to continue replying to your customers within 24 hours. Contrary to what many sellers mistakenly believe, Amazon does not deactivate your Buyer-Seller Messaging even if your listings are inactive.
How To Temporary Cancel Your Amazon Seller Account?
There are two ways to temporarily close your Amazon seller account:
- Pause your product listings
- Delete your product listings
I’ll discuss each one in detail one by one:
Downgrading to Individual Account
Before you delete or deactivate your listings, there is another thing you need to take care of first: downgrading your professional account to an individual account.
Remember we said that you still have to pay your monthly fees even after having deactivated your listings? Well, this is how you can avoid that.
Unlike a professional Amazon seller account, an individual seller account does not have a monthly fees. Instead of the monthly $39.99, individual sellers only have to pay $0.99 for every item sold on Amazon.
Having no active listings mean you won’t be making any sales, so why keep paying a hefty monthly fee? Downgrade your seller account to avoid it right away.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to downgrade your Amazon seller account:
- After logging into your Amazon Seller Central Account, select “Account Info” from the “Settings” drop-down menu in the upper right-hand corner:
- Now, click on the “Manage” button in the “Your Services” section of the page:
- Click on “Downgrade”:
- Amazon will ask you to confirm your decision. Select “proceed” to downgrade your account:
Temporarily Deactivate Your Listings
This option is suitable for sellers who just want to take a break or are going away on holiday.
What I mean to say is that they want to keep on selling the same product, but just want to pause for a while. They would like things to be just as they are once they are ready to start selling again.
So, how to make your listing(s) inactive? Let me guide you step-by-step:
First of all, go to “Manage Inventory” under the “inventory” tab:
You will see a detailed list of all of your product listings. Each listing will have a “Edit” drop-down menu. Find the listing you want to make inactive, and select “Close listing” from this menu:
This option makes your listing inactive until you reactivate it again. The deactivation takes effect within 24 hours.
The reactivation process is also pretty simple and takes effect right away (after only 15 minutes). You can relist any inactive item whenever you want.
Be careful though, this option does not ask for confirmation and just deactivates the listing right away.
Permanently Delete Your Listings
This option is suitable for dead products. If you don’t have hope for a particular product to be able to make substantial sales, it is best to delete its listing.
Remember, deleting a listing is different from closing it as you no longer have the option to reactivate it again.
So, how to do it?
Simply go to “Manage Inventory” under the “inventory” tab:
There will be a “Edit” drop-down menu for each one of your listings. Find the listing you want to get rid of and in its menu, select “Delete product and listing”:
Selecting this option means that the deleted SKU and its sales history along with product information are all permanently removed from your seller account.
I recommend you take a moment to think about your decision before selecting this option as there will be no way to go back once the listing has been deleted by Amazon.
Moreover, update the inventory quantity of the product to 0 before deleting it.
Product deletion and inventory quantity deletion are two separate things so just taking care of the former won’t let you delete a listing successfully, and the offer will still remain live on the offer listing page.
How to Permanently Cancel Your Amazon Seller Account?
If you close your Amazon account permanently, keep in mind that there is no way to reinstate or reactivate it again.
Furthermore, there are a number of other factors to consider and some prerequisite measures to take before you proceed.
So, how to cancel your Amazon account permanently? Here’s a step-by-step guide:
First of all, go to “Account Info” under the “Settings” drop-down menu:
Now, click on “Close account” in the right-most section of the page:
Fill the required fields and hit “Send” to request Amazon to delete your seller account:
Now, you’ll see this message:
Amazon will process your request and will either send you a confirmation email stating that your account has been successfully shutdown, or – if you don’t meet their criteria – they will notify you of all details regarding why your account cannot be closed.
Moreover, they will also recommend you some actions to take in order to meet their eligibility criteria. If your first attempt to close your account is not successful, implement these recommended steps and request Amazon again to close your account.
Wrapping it Up
We all need breaks and it’s not uncommon for sellers to pause their Amazon listings or delete them.
Don’t forget to take care of all the aforementioned preliminary steps before you proceed to cancel your account.
I’ve also discussed a step-by-step guide to delete your account permanently but I suggest you go through our post about this matter before actually closing your account forever.
Think I missed something out? Let me know in the comments below!
