Short answer: we don’t know.

However, we at Tactical Tea Company have been experiencing a lot of problems with two of the largest tech companies (at least the two that we have dealt with the most in trying to grow our company)–Amazon and Facebook. We’ll share our experiences here and if anyone else has experienced similar problems, we would love to hear your stories.

Before going into detail regarding our recent experiences, for the sake of this post, we are going to ignore the difficulties we experienced in getting our teas listed on Amazon initially. Those incidents occurred months ago and, while not normal based upon our conversations with other Amazon Sellers, we don’t want to conflate the issues here.

The latest issues began on Sunday, November 25th, as we were adjusting the price of our “Soul Collector Tea” (the pouch containing 20 tea bags) on Amazon, in preparation for our planned Cyber Monday promotion–we had been selling this tea (at a huge loss) for only ninety-nine cents ($0.99) as a way of boosting sales and reviews and were adjusting the price back to its original selling price of $18.99. Soul Collector Tea was immediately delisted for a “potential pricing error” even though this was its original price and a price which fell within the range of acceptable prices established by us–and which was supposed to prevent these delisting issues from occurring.

We immediately attempted to rectify the problem using multiple methods: by adjusting the price slightly lower (and still within the acceptable range), adjusting the price back to its original list price, and by contacting Amazon Support and following their instructions. Nothing worked and our most popular tea remained delisted from Amazon.

Since this occurred, we have contacted Amazon several times and, as of today (December 9, 2018), Soul Collector Tea remains delisted and we have missed out on the busiest shopping season of the year. Here is a screen shot from Amazon and our recent delisting reports:

The most recent message from Amazon was, in layman’s terms, “We’re working on it”:

(The “To” email is blacked out due to Amazon emails being sent to a personal email address.)

So, “Soul Collector Tea” in our pouch containing 20 tea bags remains delisted–even though you can still purchase our pouch containing three ounces of loose leaf tea and our “P.Tea” green matcha tea on Amazon. (If you’re wanting Soul Collector Tea in tea bags, please use our website for its purchase until we get the situation corrected with Amazon. Or, buy the loose leaf tea on Amazon, purchase some empty tea bags at your favorite “big box” store, and make your own–the empty tea bags are inexpensive and you’ll get twice the amount of tea for the same price.)

Now, for Facebook. Dear, dear Facebook….

Unlike Amazon and just prohibiting us from advertising, they approve our ads only to later disapprove them “after a closer review” and accuse us of selling firearms, firearm parts, ammunition and having a website where these activities make up the majority of our business. Here is the approval of our most recent ad:

After being approved, we later receive the disapprovals:

When we go to Facebook page, this is the message we have received stating our infraction–and alleged cause of our ad being disapproved:

We are given the opportunity to appeal the decision–which we do (of course). For those of you who have never advertised on Facebook and gone through this process, you are also given the opportunity to state your case and explain why your advertisement should not have been disapproved. In this following image, you can see our explanation as well as the response from Facebook:

And, we get the subsequent emails to let us know that our appeal has been denied–again, allegedly, because we our advertisement promotes the sale of firearms, firearms’ parts, and/or ammunition and our website sells firearms, firearms’ parts, and/or ammunition as a major component of its business. Here is what those emails look like:

Oh, and those ads that we’ve been discussing. Here they are:

Once the appeal is denied, you have no other options–Facebook’s determination is final and there is no further appeals process. According to Facebook, you can edit the ad(s) in question but, if you’re not selling firearms, firearms’ parts, ammo, or other prohibited weapons, how can you edit the ad to not show things which are already not shown? How do you edit a website which has never sold firearms, firearms’ parts, ammo, or other weapons to not sell something which has never been sold there at any time?

So, anyway, we’ll keep pushing on and providing high quality, great-tasting teas at affordable prices and continue supporting our fellow military, veterans, and first responders. Thank you all for your continued support!

And, if you have a similar story regarding Amazon, Facebook, or any other major tech company, please share it with us.