Amazon Pay - individual selling plan not available at registration?

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment
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I forgot I had Amazon Pay enabled and a customer just used it, so I have to sign up to be able to collect my funds. I see that I qualify for the “individual selling plan” which is a per-transaction fee, but in trying to register and go through setup, it’s forcing me to give my credit card and wants to charge $40/month - I can’t afford that, that’s way too expensive. I’m a solo artisan. :disappointed_face:

Edit: I heard back from Amazon support with a poorly worded response than after being charged, I can downgrade to the pay-as-you-go and reach out for a refund, but as a one-person business that sounds like a level of hassle I’m disinclined to deal with.

I’ve also read elsewhere that if you use Amazon Pay, you’re subject to their refund policies. Does anyone know if this is true? Curious about other folks’ experiences using Amazon Pay. I’m leaning towards canceling the sale and not dealing with Amazon at all… it’s probably great for dropshippers, but it sure sounds not so great for solo artisans.

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Couple ideas:

  • Their suggestion of the refund sounds like it should work, you’ll have a copy of the email they sent you in case there are any disputes you can point to that.

  • Contact the customer and explain the situation, I’m sure they would be totally fine paying via another payment method if you explain what happened.

  • Consider doing the $40/mo, keep Amazon pay, and selling your product on Amazon. You could list your product(s) and try for 1 month, if no sales then it was a $40 business experiment. If you get sales, boom you may have discovered a new market to connect with customers.

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Thanks for taking the time to read/reply.

My profit margins are already razor thin, so I can’t absorb the $40 fee monthly, and don’t want to go back and forth with Amazon for the refund or risk them continuing to bill me. As a one-person artisan business I just don’t have it in me to deal with the hassle - the time costs me too much - I need to be in my studio making new things instead.

I ended up canceling the order and asking the customer to use another payment method if she still wants the item, and I offered her free shipping as a consolation and that’s about the best I can do. I also removed Amazon Pay as a payment provider (I forgot that I had even added that in the first place - my mistake). There wasn’t even an option to give feedback to Amazon that their registration process forcing you into the recurring fees is a terrible policy and although I dreaded the idea of making the customer upset, I think I made the right call on this one due to my type of business.

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