Amazon Dangerous Goods Hazmat Notification: How to Get Back to PAN EU FBA (Case Study)
Anthony Taylor discovered one of his bestselling products had been flagged by Amazon's dangerous goods team.
His FBA inventory? Marked as unfulfillable. Now gathering dust across Amazon's various EU warehouses. Unsellable.
No warning. No explanation. Just an email notification that froze his revenue overnight.
The damage: £2,000 per day in lost sales.
And even when he "fixed" it by uploading his factory's Safety Data Sheet, Amazon's solution was almost worse than the problem.
Watch Anthony Taylor, CEO of Spincare, explain how a single SDS rejection affected his 7-figure PAN EU FBA strategy (Full Video on WeAreFastTrack.Com Website)
When Amazon Puts Your Inventory in Limbo
Anthony runs Spincare, a now close-to-8-figure Amazon and eCommerce business selling premium vinyl record collecting accessories in the UK and EU.
When Amazon flagged five of his products as potentially dangerous goods, he did what any responsible seller would do: uploaded the Safety Data Sheets from his factory.
Amazon accepted them.
But here's where things got worse, not better.👇
Sound familiar? This is the exact notification Spincare received.
The Multi-Country Inventory Trap
When Anthony uploaded his factory-issued SDS, Amazon reinstated his FBA privileges. Victory, right?
Wrong.
Instead of PAN EU FBA (where Amazon distributes your inventory across Europe from a single shipment), he was stuck on Multi-Country Inventory (MCI).
"My heart sank," Anthony told us. "I was like, this is gonna be a nightmare. We'd had issues with other liquids in the past and I basically just given up. So when they flagged that one, I thought, here we go again."
What MCI actually means:
Instead of sending one shipment to Amazon DE and letting them distribute across all EU marketplaces, Anthony now had to:
Ship inventory separately to each of the EU marketplaces that inbound inventory
Manage stock levels in every single country individually
Pay massively inflated shipping costs for fragmented shipments
Deal with forecasting nightmares (too much in Germany, not enough in France)
And when inventory ran out in one country? That's when MCI becomes truly brutal.
The €2.50 Per Unit Death Spiral
Here's what sellers don't realise about MCI until it's too late:
When you run out of stock in one EU marketplace, Amazon "helped" by auto-shipping from the nearest country—at €2.50 per unit.
So let's say Anthony's 400 units in France sell out faster than expected (great problem to have, right?). Zero inventory in France. Instead of being out of stock, Amazon automatically ships units from Germany or Spain.
The cost? €2.50 per unit for every cross-border transfer.
But that's not even the worst part.
The Buy Box disaster:
When Amazon ships from another country, the delivery promise changes from "Next Day Delivery" to "5-10 Business Days."
Think about that from a buyer's perspective. You're on Amazon France looking at two identical products:
Product A: Next day delivery with Prime ✓
Product B (Anthony's): 5-10 day delivery
Which one are you buying?
The cascade effect:
Lower conversion rates (5-10 day delivery = fewer buyers willing to wait)
Competitors with proper PAN EU FBA steal the sales
Organic ranking tanks (Amazon rewards velocity and conversion)
Ad costs spike (lower conversion = higher ACOS just to maintain position)
More inventory runs out in more countries
More €2.50 transfers
Cycle repeats
Anthony wasn't just losing sales. He was funding his competitors' success while paying Amazon to slowly destroy his organic rankings.
For just one product: £2,000 per day in lost margin and sales.
Multiply that across five products, and you're looking at catastrophic losses.
The Email Every Hazmat Seller Dreads (And Why It's Designed to Confuse You)
Let's break down what Amazon actually asked for in that notification. Because if you've received one of these, you know how overwhelming it feels.
Amazon's requirements sound straightforward:
"Please make sure the SDS complies with the following requirements:
Created or updated within the last five (5) years
Include new GHS/CLP hazard identification information
Match your product listing: The listing title must be the same as the product name shown on the SDS
Include all 16 standard SDS sections"
Simple, right? Just upload an SDS that meets these criteria.
Here's the problem: Anthony's factory-issued SDS checked most of these boxes. And Amazon still wouldn't grant PAN EU FBA status.
Why?
The hidden issues Amazon doesn't explain:
1. "GHS/CLP hazard identification" - Your Chinese factory likely created the SDS using US standards or generic international templates. Amazon's EU dangerous goods team wants EU classifications. Same information, different format. They accept it, but classify your product as higher-risk than it actually is—blocking PAN EU FBA.
2. "Product name must match the listing title" - Your factory SDS lists the chemical name or generic product name ("Vinyl Record Cleaning Solution"). Your Amazon listing says "Spincare Vinyl Record Cleaner Kit By Cleaning Machine Includes Washer Solution..." They don't match character-for-character.
3. "All 16 standard sections" - Many factory SDSs abbreviate sections or skip those irrelevant to their region. Section 14 (Transport Information) is often incomplete. Section 15 (Regulatory Information) rarely includes EU-specific regulations. Amazon flags it as incomplete or high-risk.
4. The exemption sheet option - Amazon mentions you can submit an exemption sheet for products "without harmful chemicals." But what qualifies? When does this apply? They don't explain. Most sellers don't even know this is an option—or that it might be the RIGHT option for their product.
The notification creates the illusion of clarity while actually being vague enough to keep you stuck on MCI indefinitely.
As Anthony put it:
"Amazon is designed to almost exhaust you with a series of labyrinths. Only the very, very strongest will get to the end of that labyrinth and get the reward."
And most sellers? They give up. They accept MCI status. They lose thousands per day.
Anthony almost did too.
What made it worse? He was genuinely worried that continuing to challenge Amazon might make things even worse.
"From a compliance point of view, I didn't also want to push, get something changed and actually be doing something wrong," he said. "You think, well, if Amazon says this is dangerous goods, we better just accept that."
This is the trap. Amazon's bureaucracy makes you question your own position. You start wondering: "What if I'm wrong? What if I keep pushing and they shut down my entire account?" So you accept MCI status. You eat the losses. You give up.
The Hidden Cost Amazon Doesn't Tell You About
When sellers think about Hazmat issues, they think about lost sales. But the operational chaos is often more expensive:
What happened to Spincare:
Individual shipments to multiple EU countries (vs. one PAN EU shipment)
Constant forecasting stress (wrong inventory levels everywhere)
€2.50/unit fees when Amazon cross-ships
5-10 day delivery killing conversion rates
Advertising costs spiked (lower conversion = higher ACOS)
Ops Manager overwhelmed managing multi-country logistics
Team morale tanked (2+ hours a day on this issue)
Cash flow stress (money tied up in wrong countries)
"There was just this constant team drag," Anthony said. "Less things for the team to have to be thinking about would mean their energy could be freed up for something more interesting and useful."
Why Factory SDSs Keep You Stuck on MCI
Here's what most sellers don't understand: Amazon doesn't reject factory SDSs because they're wrong. They accept them—but classify your product as higher-risk than it actually is.
That risk classification determines whether you get PAN EU FBA or stay stuck on MCI.
Chinese manufacturers are excellent at what they do. But when it comes to Safety Data Sheets for Amazon's dangerous goods team, there's a gap.
As Anthony put it:
"The Chinese will often say, 'Yes, that's fine,' but I wouldn't have that confidence. They're not the ones picking up responsibility for product safety once it leaves their factory. That's when yours starts."
Amazon's dangerous goods reviewers are looking for:
Precise GHS classifications that show the product is LOW risk
Transport classifications proving safe transport for smaller quantities
Exemption justifications when products don't meet DG thresholds
EU CLP compliance (not just US OSHA standards)
Factory SDSs rarely include this level of detail. They're designed for basic compliance, not proving to Amazon that your product is safe enough for PAN EU distribution.
The Real Reason Your Factory SDS Is Wrong (And It's Not Their Fault)
Here's what nobody tells you:
Your factory writes SDSs for Full Container Load shipments—not Amazon orders.
Think about it. When your factory creates a Safety Data Sheet, they're writing it for a worst-case scenario: a 40-foot container carrying 20,000 units of your product gets into a high-impact collision on a motorway. The container ruptures. Product spills everywhere.
In that scenario? Yes, you'd need hazmat suits. Yes, there are serious environmental risks. Yes, all those hazard warnings make sense.
But that's not how Amazon ships your product.
Amazon ships your product as Limited Quantity (LQ)—typically 1-2 units at a time in a cardboard box to a customer's home.
The risk profile is completely different:
FCL (20,000 units): Major spillage = environmental hazard, requires specialist equipment
LQ (1-2 units): Minor spillage = grab some paper towels, no specialist training needed
Your factory's SDS is technically correct for bulk freight transport. But when Amazon's dangerous goods team sees all those hazard warnings, they classify your product as high-risk—blocking PAN EU FBA.
The solution? An SDS written specifically for Limited Quantity distribution that accurately reflects the actual risk level. That's what gets you PAN EU FBA status.
Don't Think ChatGPT Will Save You
If you're tempted to have ChatGPT rewrite your factory SDS to meet Amazon's requirements, stop.
We've seen sellers try this, and it creates two problems:
1. You waste Amazon's time and patience with irregular SDSs. Every rejected submission damages your case history. Amazon's dangerous goods team sees a seller submitting inconsistent, AI-generated documents that don't follow proper chemical classification standards. You look unserious. Your next submission—even if it's correct—gets extra scrutiny.
2. ChatGPT doesn't know what Amazon actually accepts. It can format a document to look like an SDS, but it can't properly classify chemicals under EU CLP/GHS regulations. It doesn't understand transport codes. It can't determine if your product qualifies for an exemption sheet. It's guessing—and Amazon's dangerous goods reviewers will spot AI-generated nonsense immediately.
An SDS isn't a marketing document you can wordsmith. It's a technical compliance document that requires understanding chemical hazard classifications, transport regulations, and Amazon's internal review criteria.
Our Head of Compliance holds a Masters in Microbiology and has had over 2,100 SDSs accepted by Amazon. He knows exactly what their dangerous goods team needs to see—and what gets rejected.
"You Were Speaking My Language"
When Anthony reached out to FastTrack, something clicked.
"Initially, I felt a lot happier because there was someone that was speaking my language. You got it. You were like, 'Yeah, I've seen this before.'"
"SDSs rarely get mentioned in seller groups. It's not in emails. It's all AI, it's all PPC. SDSs are very much hidden away."
Here's what we did differently:
We didn't just rewrite the SDS. We explained why Amazon wouldn't grant PAN EU FBA in the first place.
"When you said, 'This isn't dangerous goods,' that validated the situation," Anthony said. "It made me a lot more determined because I felt sure of my position. All I needed to do was convince Amazon of that position."
We revised all five SDSs to properly classify the products as low-risk for Limited Quantity distribution. We created exemption sheets where applicable—proving to Amazon that these products didn't meet dangerous goods thresholds at all. Then we guided Spincare through every Seller Support case to approval.
Timeline: All products back to PAN EU FBA within a few weeks.
The Results: €30K+ Saved Per Year (On One Product Alone)
Let's talk numbers.
For just one product, Spincare now saves approximately €30,000 per year in fulfilment fees by being on PAN EU FBA instead of MCI.
That's not counting:
Eliminated €2.50/unit cross-border transfer fees
No more fragmented shipping costs to multiple countries
No more forecasting nightmares
Apply that same saving across the other four products we fixed, and you're looking at well into six figures saved annually.
But the financial wins go deeper:
Next-day Prime delivery restored across all EU markets
Conversion rates recovered (customers buy when it arrives tomorrow)
Organic ranking stabilised (consistent velocity = better rankings)
Ad spend back to normal (better conversion = lower ACOS)
Operational burden eliminated (one shipment, not multiple)
Team bandwidth freed up for growth instead of firefighting
"It's been a huge outcome for us. A massive financial saving.
I hope other people can benefit from it."
~ Anthony Taylor, CEO & Founder of Spincare
Who Should Care About This?
If you're selling any of the following on Amazon, you need properly classified SDSs:
Liquids (cleaning products, skincare, detergents)
Gels (hand sanitizer, hair gel, topicals)
Sprays (air fresheners, disinfectants, cosmetics)
Aerosols (deodorants, hairspray, lubricants)
Pastes (polishes, creams, adhesives)
Even if your products are currently on PAN EU FBA, Anthony recommends getting your SDSs reviewed:
"I'd even go as far as to say anyone that's got an SDS would benefit from just having them sense-checked and looked at. Just to understand what level they are."
You might be one Amazon audit away from being downgraded to MCI.
And if you're launching new products?
"It's key when you've got a new line to get it uploaded and try to send it in. The earlier you upload it, the sooner you'll see there's an issue, the sooner you can formulate a strategy to address it."
The Bottom Line
Anthony's story isn't unique. We see this every week:
Sellers with factory SDSs stuck on MCI instead of PAN EU FBA
Products bleeding margin through cross-border fees and fragmented logistics
Competitors winning because they have next-day delivery and you don't
Teams burning out managing inventory across multiple countries
The good news? Most of these cases are solvable in 2-4 weeks with properly classified SDSs and exemption sheets.
Spincare went from losing £2,000/day on one product (stuck on MCI) to saving €30,000+/year on that same product (restored to PAN EU FBA)—and that's just one of five we fixed.
Get Your SDSs Reviewed (Before Amazon Audits Them)
If you're selling liquids, gels, sprays, or aerosols on Amazon and you're stuck on MCI (or worried you might be), we should talk.
Here's what we'll do:
Review your current SDSs, Exemption Sheets and dangerous goods classifications
Identify why Amazon won't grant PAN EU FBA status
Provide revised SDSs with proper risk classifications and exemption sheets
Guide you through the Seller Support process to approval
Backed by our Money-Back Guarantee. If Amazon doesn't accept our SDS, you don't pay. We've had 2,100+ accepted—we know what works.
No more MCI nightmares. No more €2.50 transfer fees. No more losing to competitors with next-day delivery.
About Spincare:
Spincare is a close-to-8-figure Amazon Seller & eCommerce business operating in the UK & EU, providing high-quality vinyl record collecting accessories.
