How can I ungate those restricted categories?
The category most everyone interested in Replens wants or needs to get ungated, is Grocery, and If you are wondering if it’s possible to ungate the grocery category on a completely new account with zero sales, the short answer is absolutely.
The way to accomplish this for any category or specific product, is to setup a wholesale account with a manufacturer or a distributor and order 10 or more of an existing Amazon item that you are currently gated in. Make sure you order 10 or more of that same item. Don’t worry if it’s profitable, just find a low cost item to get you ungated and then you can worry about sourcing profitable items later.
From the Grocery category, one site that we have seen recent success with, in terms of providing an invoice that Amazon will accept, is Frontier Foods. Just make sure you setup a wholesale account with them and once you place your wholesale order, they will Email you an invoice. You then need to use this invoice to submit for approval on the Amazon item that you ordered.
If you do use an emailed invoice to submit for approval rather than the one that ultimately comes in the shipment, go ahead and print it out and make a couple of folds in it, unfold it, and then take a picture with your phone camera. This seems to work much better rather than just sending the image from your Email.
For other categories such as topicals, otc medications, baby diapering, and baby feeding, we would recommend you buy products from Price Master. In some cases, baby feeding will require you to provide a CPC. The latest we have heard is that sometimes Price Master provides this and sometimes they do not. The best bet if it is required for you is to call them and verify before you place your order.
Another site we know people have tried with some success but it seems to be hit or miss is Kole Imports. We mention them here just to provide you another option, but definitely try them as a last resort.
If you do all of the above and your request for approval gets denied, just want a little while and submit it again. If you originally submitted with the emailed invoice, wait for the invoice that comes in the box and submit that along with a photo of the actual product in the box. This has worked in the past.
We hope this helps you get ungated in those categories. If you have any questions or comments for us, please leave them in the comment section below.