Ungating with Amazon: The Ultimate Guide

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Ungating with Amazon. It’s not possible is it? The process already confuses people!

Amazon makes the concept of restricted categories clear in their beginner’s guide:

What are restricted product categories?

It’s important that customers are able to shop with confidence on Amazon, which is why some product categories (like certain grocery or automotive products) are known as “restricted product categories.” Amazon might require performance checks, additional fees, and other qualifications in order for you to sell certain brands or list items within restricted categories. You’ll be able to request approval from within Seller Central. — The beginner’s guide to selling on Amazon

Ungating: What Exactly Does that Mean?

As stated above, Amazon restricts certain product categories. Many brands also restrict selling on Amazon, ranging from requiring sellers purchase inventory from authorized distributors to outright prohibiting selling without the brand’s letter of authorization (LOA) in hand. I cover this more in detail in my “Is Arbitrage Legal?” post. Simply put, ungating means to get approval to sell a brand’s products on Amazon. To further complicate things, sellers only find out they need approval to sell when they try to list a product on Amazon to sell. Aside from this chart of categories that specify which are and which are not ungated, and their policies for getting ungated, Amazon doesn’t specify exactly what sub-categories or which brands newbie sellers need approved. All of these puzzle pieces makes it difficult for newbie sellers to understand how, when, and where to ungate products. Fortunately, Amazon considers themselves a wholesaler/distributor, and we resellers can use that to our advantage.

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Ungating with Amazon… Seriously?

Yeah, hard to believe, right?!?! I was skeptical myself at first, but I persuaded myself with a very common reason to do something: “F–k it, got nothing to lose by trying.” This is a good time to point out that this method has been around for a minute. I actually borrowed this from another member of the Amazon Launchpad Discord, Jeff G. Also turns out that this method has made its round on the Internet. So I followed Jeff’s instructions. Find a product on Amazon that I’m gated in. Check. It has to be sold and shipped by Amazon. Check. Buy 10 units. Check. I can’t buy it using Prime. Check. The names and addresses on both my Amazon customer account and seller accounts must match. Check. I tried it first with “Neutrogena© Makeup Remover Cleanser Towelettes” and Fancy Feast cat food. I was gated. It is sold and shipped by Amazon. I added 10 units each to my cart. Then I ran into a little snag.

Ungating Snag: Prime

I subscribe to Prime on my Amazon customer account. And I couldn’t figure out how to place an order without using Prime, and I didn’t want to cancel Prime. Then I saw this on my Seller Central dashboard.

I happened to have an Amazon Business account for my other company, so I logged in, not sure why. Then I saw this at the top right.

Holy. Shit. Jeff, you’re on to something.

I immediately added the same Neutrogena products to my business account cart and checkout. I don’t have Prime on this account! Never thought I’d be this excited to buy 10 packs of makeup remover towelettes. My delivery arrived a week later.

Ungating in Action

I submitted these invoices:

It can’t be *that* easy, right? No, it’s *that* easy! Since, I’ve ungated several more brands, and I have two ungate orders en route. Others have, too.

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