Ungating Products

Gated brands / categories are something you may come across when selling on Amazon. The gating system is used to protect Amazon's customers from fake and therefore dangerous / harmful products. Some brands on Amazon work with Amazon directly to ensure that their products are gated; this allows Amazon to ensure only legitimate products of each brand are sold on their marketplace. Certain categories on Amazon are also gated; for example, baby products, this ensures that the products are of the highest standard, not illegitimate, and won’t be hazardous to babies.

You’ll know if a product on Amazon is gated, as when you try to add the ASIN to your inventory, you’ll have to “apply to sell”, rather than simply being able to add to inventory as you usually would.

Occasionally when you “apply to sell”, you’ll be able to request approval and become automatically ungated on that particular brand / category - this is called auto-ungating. On new accounts, you won’t see this as often, however as time goes on and you ungate multiple categories and brands, you’ll start to auto-ungate on 90% of brands/categories. If you cannot auto-ungate a brand / category you’ll usually need to submit an invoice for 10 units and sometimes images of the product too. In this situation, you’ll need to order from a wholesaler / approved distributor to obtain an invoice which you can then in turn submit to Amazon. Amazon will not accept receipts from general retailers like Tesco or Sainsburys. In many situations, each brand / category will be gated for many listings. So for example you may be looking to sell a Tommee Tippee product you’ve brought as a lead from Tesco. However, these may cost you £10.00 each. If they were on clearance, they will usually be roughly the same price or slightly less from a distributor. This would therefore cost you £100.00 to buy 10 units from a distributor. We can instead find a cheaper Tomme Tippee product from a distributor, find the Amazon listing, and request to sell to ensure it is also gated - some lower selling products of the brand or category may not be included gated. We can then purchase 10 units of this product from the distributor and submit the invoice (and photos if required) to become ungated for Tomme Tippee. This would allow you to sell the products you were purchasing from Tesco. You can then either return the 10 units you bought from the wholesaler / distributor or simply sell them on Amazon for a small profit or break-even. If you are trying to sell a gated product, please open a Live Chat and let us know the brand / category you are gated for, and we will be able to provide you with the best / cheapest ungate to use. This will consist of a wholesale / distributor link to purchase 10 units, and the ASIN relating to this product. Once the product arrives, you’ll need to add the ASIN to inventory, request to ungate and submit the invoice (plus photos of the product if required by Amazon). Within 48 hours, you’ll then be ungated for that brand/category and be able to sell on any other listings gated for the same brand / category. You’ll also receive an email from Amazon confirming this.