"This year's Christmas peak season is coming soon. After over ten years on Amazon, this year my expectations are the lowest! U.S. Black Friday 2026 is on November 27, and counting from today, October 27, there are 31 days left," said an Amazon veteran seller.

The last week of October is normally when cross-border sellers deploy for Black Friday, but many sellers are not enthusiastic about Q4 this year.

Sellers' Relentless Order Decline

To describe current sales in a few words, "sales have been cut down to the knees" is many sellers' sentiment.

One seller said: "The product is not seasonal, there were no discounts before, during, or after the fall sale, and the category didn't change much, but sessions dropped by a fifth, and conversion rate keeps falling." Another said: "Conversion was around 8% before the fall sale and fell to 5% after. Daily ad spend stayed the same, but ad conversion simply declined, while overall category ranking remained relatively stable."

Other sellers reported that category conversion fell by a third and sales dropped, yet subcategory ranking stayed stable.

According to seller feedback, many categories have stable rankings but declining conversion. Sellers first checked: did ad keywords go wrong? They searched backend and third-party tools and found no misfit keywords. Did category ranking drop? Subcategory stayed rock steady. Did big promotions bring in irrelevant searches? Reviews didn't match either.

Many sellers concluded that traffic quality itself is worsening.

Some sellers mentioned that products were automatically recategorized by AI, and orders only recovered after contacting customer service to fix it. Others suggested checking keyword add-to-cart data in Brand Analytics for the last two weeks to rule out "many adds, few purchases."

Omnisend's survey of 4,363 consumers in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia shows that 44% to 55% still plan to shop Black Friday/Cyber Monday, so participation hasn't collapsed. But U.S. consumers' planned per-capita spending fell from $479 last year to $336, down 30% year over year. More worrying is the structural shift: the share of high-budget shoppers planning to spend over $1,000 dropped from 15% to 7%, while those budgeting under $100 rose from 5% to 14%.

WunderKind's 2026 Black Friday report shows that 40% of consumers leave items in carts waiting for offers, and 31% revisit product pages hoping to trigger retargeting discounts. High-ticket buyers are shrinking while low-budget buyers are increasing, which directly explains why "traffic sessions haven't dropped much, but conversion keeps falling."

The post-fall-sale decline isn't necessarily disappearing demand; it may be a simultaneous shift in traffic quality, category placement, and purchasing pace.

Is Amazon Section 3 Sweeping Accounts Again?

Every year before peak season, Amazon launches a wave of account compliance checks.

Around the 16th, a seller received a Section 3 suspension email without any performance warning. The email stated that the account was used for unfair or abusive Amazon features or services, attempts to influence customer ratings, feedback, or reviews, or attempts to circumvent the sales process; listings were removed and funds held.

The seller said: "No performance notice came, just this email. My other accounts are fine—I checked. Now they're catching beneficiaries..."

Some sellers retorted: "Stop blaming account sweeps, it's just your own account problem." Others said multiple accounts were hit the same day. Reportedly, that seller had four accounts suspended on the 16th.

Past Section 3 penalties mostly targeted clear violations like fake orders, selling counterfeits, and serious account linkage, following a path of "evidence first, warning next, punishment last." But the wave starting in H2 2026 has switched to AI-driven retrospective risk control: the system first scans the entire account for suspicious traces, directly restricts selling privileges, and then puts the burden of proof on sellers.

Service providers note that receiving Section 3 without a first performance notification may stem from a platform logic shift from "penalize violations" to "reversed burden of proof": previously stores were closed only after confirming cheating, now AI flags risky accounts first and asks sellers to prove themselves.

AI doesn't look at "current violation records" but at whether there are inconsistencies, mismatches, or untraceable traces in entity identity, fund flows, and supply chain history.

Sellers suggest first checking three areas: any review-related actions in the past six months, including cards, rebates, review services, off-site review solicitation, contacting buyers to change reviews, even orders by employees or friends; account linkage—verify all same IP, device, payment card, legal representative or beneficiary information; and whether any third-party service providers or agencies operated in the account.

The appeal (reactivation) requires explaining what methods were used, which accounts and third parties were involved, how to fix it, and how to prevent recurrence. So root causes must be factual; don't deny everything or drag in irrelevant matters. Prepare documents like remediation SOP, proof of terminating relevant service providers, identity materials of beneficiaries and legal representatives, and originals and details for video verification. Funds follow the platform's fund disbursement eligibility policy and basically can't be touched before appeal approval, so don't waste energy pushing. If rejected multiple times, consider finding service providers with similar successful cases, and first understand contracts and fees.

As Black Friday and Christmas promotions approach, it's not surprising that the platform intensifies compliance checks, but what makes 2026 special is that both the intensity and logic of checks have escalated.