Amazon Updates Dietary Supplements Policy To Require 3rd Party Testing, Inspection, & Certification
Amazon is making changes to their dietary supplements policy, requiring products to be verified through a third-party Testing, Inspection, and Certification (TIC) organization, effective April 2, 2024.
The notice was posted to the Amazon Seller Forum on the day it took effect, leaving no time for potentially impacted sellers to make adjustments or submit any required documentation.
"We’ve updated the policy on dietary supplements to meet safety standards in our store. Effective April 2, 2024, dietary supplement products need to be verified through a third-party Testing, Inspection, and Certification (TIC) organization.
The Manage Your Compliance dashboard shows listings for dietary supplements that require your action along with the due dates under Compliance status. Listings may be subject to removal if they are not confirmed as being compliant with our policy by the specified due date.
To ensure that your listings are compliant with our policy, you must use the Manage Your Compliance dashboard to initiate a test for each product with one of the third-party TIC organizations. Once testing is requested, you’ll work directly with the third-party TIC organization to complete the testing of your products. For testing instructions, go to the Manage Your Compliance dashboard and select Add or appeal compliance.
Once we receive a test result that confirms compliance with our policy, your product will be eligible for sale on Amazon."
Amazon will be hosting a live webinar April 17, 2024, at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time to answer questions and cover policies on selling dietary supplements.
Sellers in the forum looking to be proactive about compliance asked if they could uploade the required documents now, but have not yet received a response from Amazon moderators.
"Is there a way to proactively upload these documents to prevent disruptions to your listings? I've never understood why we need to wait for Amazon to pull down listings in order to provide the documentation they want. Listings will go go down for 3-5 days minimum even if you have the documents immediately ready to submit."
And some sellers in the Sellers Ask Sellers community were skeptical this policy change would be implemented since Amazon had previously attempted it but had received significant pushback due to the requirements being more than what FDA guidelines call for.
Dogtamer
"The last time it failed was because what Amazon was asking for was above and beyond FDA guidelines and so is this so there will be more big industry push back. I can only assume it’s above and beyond because there’s literally nothing anywhere on what the real requirements are, who these TIC organizations are, and what the process is."
I personally do not ingest anything that is imported from China (remember the antifreeze found in their "toothpaste"?)
At the same time, I cannot help but wonder if Amazon will not soon by unveiling their own brand of supplements. (Something distinct from "Amazon Basics.")
I'm good with anything that drives China out of US markets.