Amazon Bot Wrongly Flags Items As Seeds Or Plants In Mass Deactivation Meltdown

Amazon sellers are panicking as an apparent "bots gone wild" situation is incorrectly identifying thousands of items as plants or seeds, leading to mass deactivations and warnings for "listing in the wrong category."

Reports of this error are pouring in to the Amazon seller forums and across social media and it couldn't come at a worse time as sellers are gearing up for 4th of July sales and Prime Day.

This product has been identified as a live plant or seed product that is listed outside of the SEEDS_AND_PLANTS or PLANT_SEED categories

We are selling in women's apparel category, and suddenly receiving "Restricted Product Policy Violations" since today morning (29 June), these products are not seeds and plant based at all, please help me with this glitch, till now 250+ products are flagged under this violation, and its continuously increasing minute by minute, and i have thousands of ASIN in same category.

What is this happening with multinational company's system??

Seeds and Plants. Wth

soooo my ceramic drawer knobs are being hit with bogus violations stating they are seeds and plants

I wish they were so I can plant them and I can grow them and not have to buy supplies anymore. I mean come on Amazon what on earth is happening. These are ceramic drawer knobs not live plants or seeds. Your bots are Cuckoo

And just in time for prime day. Sellers have no time for this, we just want to run our businesses efficiently and without any waste of time interruptions. Please fix this

I can't wait to get 1000s more of these over the weekend. I know it's coming. I'll just wait. Great 4th of July weekend. Fun for all I'm sure

Impacted sellers say the message they received informed them their items are in violation because they are plants or seeds that are listed outside of the Seeds and Plants or Plant Seed categories, and that they must take remedial action by July 1st in order to avoid having their items removed from the Amazon catalog.

However, since the items in questions are not actually seeds or plants, there is no correct remedial action sellers can take, leaving them stuck hoping Amazon fixes the issue before July 1st so their items are not removed.

Amazon Seller Help on Twitter is aware of the issue and says they are working to analyze the issue, but have provided no timeline for a fix.

Stay tuned for updates and in the meantime, let us know in the comments below if you have had any Amazon listings flagged as plants or seeds in error!