u/FBArbitrage

After years of FBA and multiple suspensions, I've noticed one thing almost every suspended seller has in common: they had the product, they had the invoice, but they couldn't prove the full chain.

Amazon doesn't explain this clearly. Their policy pages mention 'proof of purchase' but what they actually want is something different -- a verifiable supply chain document that traces your product from manufacturer to you.

Here's what that means in practice:

What Amazon says they want:
An invoice showing what you bought and how much you paid.

What Amazon actually wants:
A document that shows your supplier's full legal name, physical address, working phone number, active website, the exact products purchased matching the ASIN you're selling, and quantities that reflect a legitimate commercial relationship.

These elements need to match exactly -- and I mean exactly. I've seen accounts get rejected because the address on the invoice said '123 Main Street' but Amazon's records showed 'Main Street 123.' Same address, different format. Rejected. A missing suite number, a phone number that goes to voicemail, a website that's down -- any of these can kill an otherwise legitimate appeal.

And it doesn't stop at your supplier. Amazon can and does trace the chain further -- from your supplier back to their supplier, all the way to the manufacturer. If any link in that chain can't be verified, the whole document loses credibility.

The part nobody talks about:
Amazon doesn't tell you your document failed because of a missing phone number or an address that doesn't match their records. They just say 'insufficient information' and close the case.

I've seen sellers submit multiple invoices and get rejected every time -- not because they were doing anything wrong, but because they didn't know what the document actually needed to contain.

What I do now:
Before I place any order, I verify that my supplier can provide documentation that meets every single one of those criteria. If they can't, I don't order. The product doesn't matter if the paperwork can't survive a review.

This one habit has kept my account clean for years.

Happy to answer questions -- and additional experiences from others are valuable for everyone here.

I've been doing Amazon FBA for several years. Lost serious money early on, figured it out, and now it runs almost on autopilot while I build my own brand.

People here and in DMs keep asking me detailed questions -- supplier sourcing, Amazon policies, suspension recovery, documentation. I answer everything for free because I remember what it felt like to pay thousands to people who knew less than I did.

Someone suggested I package this into PDFs and sell them. The idea: real information at a fraction of what YouTube gurus charge for their courses.

My hesitation: FBA already pays well. I don't need the money urgently. But if this stops even a few people from making the same $9,500 mistake I made, and I can create it by combining my free time, I think it's worth getting something small in return for the effort.

My question for this community: is there actually demand for low-cost digital guides from someone with real experience? I personally discovered this type of PDF years ago and it genuinely improved my sales process with very specific knowledge I couldn't find anywhere else. Or has the market been so flooded with garbage that people have stopped buying altogether? Is this worth doing -- or was I the only person who ever bought a $5-10 PDF from someone like this?