Chris: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, this is Chris McCabe. Welcome back to Seller Performance Solutions. I'm here with Leah McHugh, also of ecommercechris, how are you doing, Leah?Leah: Good, thanks. How are you, Chris? Chris: Good. I know you're oceans and worlds away right now, but no matter how far you go, how many miles you travel, one thing doesn't change, right?We still hear from people who are telling us, Hey, we got our listing back up, but now it's suspended again. Oh, but the original listing was suspended too, right? We find out that they didn't actually get their listing back up. They somehow hired an agency or a service or a consultant or a service provider who just created the listing newly and ignored the fact that it was suspended, right?We've seen this a handful of times and it seems to be growing. Is that fair to say? Leah: Yeah, and sometimes the seller themselves, just rather than trying to get the original ASIN reinstated. We'll just create a new ASIN. And in all fairness, I have had account health reps and seller support people tell people to do this.Chris: Oh, yeah, for sure. [00:01:00] I should have started with that. Amazonians themselves are erroneously giving terrible advice. Yeah. For whatever reason, they probably don't know, they don't care, they're not trained, no one's watching them, listening to them on these calls or in writing, they're saying, go ahead and relist it, you know, I have a theory that possibly they see that there's a note on the account that says, do not reinstate this listing no matter what.And so they don't know what to tell the seller, except I don't know, try to put it somewhere else, try to change the listing, somehow, try to make a new one. They never tell the seller that they could lose their entire account to a suspension for doing this. Leah: No, and I'm assuming it's because they don't know that or they don't care, I'm not sure which. I assume, but they don't know it. Chris: I think they know it because per policy, if you're going to evade a suspension. It's the same thing as you can't just open another seller account when your first seller account is suspended and just hit the do over button. It's the same thing on the ASIN level.Leah: [00:02:00] Yeah, it's also against the listing policy. Even if your ASIN isn't suspended, if for whatever reason you want to create a new ASIN for the same product, that is also against Amazon policy, unless it's materially different for some reason, like a brand rebrands a product or something like that.Chris: The reason I mentioned, you know, working with an agency or a consultant who either didn't know what the policy was themselves, didn't care was because we saw this on LinkedIn, right? Somebody said, well, if Amazon's against this, why didn't they just pull the second listing down right away?It must be within policy to do this. And then, of course, an Amazon person jumped on the LinkedIn thread to say, no, this is against policy. What the hell? Leah: Yeah, I mean, I feel like I have that conversation with people every day. Well, if this is against policy, how come my other listings are fine? And it's like, oh, because Amazon's bad at consistently enforcing it, but it's still a policy.Chris: Well, it's not even that. First of all, it wouldn't necessarily happen right away. It might be found later. Don't give Amazon too much credit for assuming they've got the best teams, the [00:03:00] best tools, the best technology, as soon as you screw something up, they don't immediately pounce on you and say, we found your violation.We're taking that listing down. And you have to appeal on the first one and also we're taking your account down too or reviewing your account for a suspension. Amazon is not nearly that organized that sophisticated in their technology. So, of course, you found an evasive way to relist the item. What I was talking about originally was somebody said, oh, we got our listing back up, which to me meant their appeal was accepted for reinstatement. Not oh, we found a circuitous way of somehow getting our product relisted. Leah: Yeah, well, I have had conversations with people who hired someone and they're like, yeah, they got it reinstated, but we lost all of our reviews and we had to assign a new UPC to it.And I was like, oh that wasn't reinstated. They just made a new listing for the same product. And so then they want to get their old reviews and their old sales history back. And it's like, well, you can't do that in any way. And then also now your whole [00:04:00] account is a risk. So, sorry.Chris: Well, and then the more they try and some of them, some brand owners, I guess, are being duped by services who don't tell them, they just say I'll get your listing back up. They don't say I'll do it breaking the rules, breaking policies, and I'll risk your whole account.Leah: Well, and it's also not really getting your listing back up, but yeah.Chris: But that's the phrase they use. And then some of the brand owners say, okay, well, they got my listing back up, but they couldn't harvest the reviews for us. So we want to hire you, meaning us, to take over and to lead that effort. We've tried to do it several times on our own and we failed. So they've been jumping up and waving and screaming at Amazon teams enforcement teams to take another look at their account every time they've appealed this every time they've tried to do it themselves. They had no idea they were risking their whole account because the service they hired deceptively told them that they had gotten the listing back up and didn't tell them it broke policies.So, actually, they've been increasing their odds of an account [00:05:00] suspension, right? Leah: Also if you try to merge the reviews by creating a variation family or something like that. That's yet another policy violation. So the more that you try to merge the listings and merge the reviews for this erroneous duplicate listing with the original listing, the more policies you violate in that process.Chris: You compound the problems. A seller last week asked me if this is true, if my relisting this product under a different ASIN in after the 1st listing was suspended. If that was against policy, I went through all my performance notifications. Amazon never sent me a message saying that I couldn't create a duplicate. That was her logic.Leah: Right, but it's in their written policy. They just didn't look at the policy page. Amazon's not going to tell you every time you might be about to violate their policy and be like, oh, hey, you might want to look at this.Chris: Again I think she's assuming that they're all knowing all seeing, top of their [00:06:00] game.And then as soon as you color outside the lines, there's somebody there watching you, like, some sort of overseer to slap your wrist and to send you the warning. I said, of course, you don't have any performance notifications. They don't know that you did this.Leah: Well, and I think we have had the conversation before of like, well, why does Amazon allow this to happen?And from a technical standpoint, it is very difficult for them to stop it before it happens. They're having to rely on product identifiers to differentiate between products because so many products are very much the same on paper. So they can't really look at keywords or descriptions.They really do have to rely on that product identifier, because it could be the exact same product, but maybe it has a different brand name on it and that that makes it a materially different product. It really isn't technically feasible at this point for them to block it from happening.So they really only have the choice at this point to enforce after it does happen.Chris: Exactly. That's the [00:07:00] logic. I think a lot of sellers and brand owners don't understand that Amazon's logic doesn't necessarily square with ordinary logic. It might work for their purposes based on their resources, their tools, and their people, and how their SOPs, their standard operating procedures work.It won't make sense to us really ever. Leah: No, see, I disagree here. I think Amazon's logic is actually sound here. I think Seller's logic here is flawed. Chris: Their logic, it suits their purposes and their interests for what's convenient for them. Leah: Right. But I mean, what are they supposed to do? Every time someone goes to create a listing, they're like, hold on. Let me cross reference that against all the billions of listings we have in our catalog. I think that's a duplicate, that doesn't make sense. Chris: I mean, in terms of seeing this play out in real time or not.Leah: That's what I mean I don't think it's possible for them to like, do this in real time. Chris: But I think the expectation is built out there in people's minds that Amazon can react and take action and pursue things real time and if they don't do it right away or within a [00:08:00] small amount of time, it means you've like gotten away with it.Leah: Well, to those people I say, have you ever talked to seller support? Cause not in real time, right? Chris: Our new comedy hour. Don't worry, everyone. This episode will not go on for an hour. We're going to keep this one short because we really don't need to go that far into it.Whether you're doing it yourself or you're examining the claims made by a service that you might be onboarding to help you with something, examine their language. If they say, we're going to get this listing back up for you, say, okay, do you mean you're going to help me appeal for reinstatement and solve the problem at its source?Or you're going to try to create some sort of masquerade of we'll get your listing back up, but we're going to find a creative, tricky way to do it. Well, that doesn't help your listing because any competitor can report you for this and get that new listing knocked down anytime they want to.Leah: Well, also generally you're not fixing whatever [00:09:00] caused the original suspension in the first place. Chris: Right if the same issues were never addressed or safety or compliance, whatever the case may be.If you're selling anything that has any value to you or takes any valuable sales away from your competition, and I mean, even low amounts of money, they can easily report it.They'll figure out if they have any brains at all, they'll figure out what you did and report it. And they can get Amazon to act on it. Unless they have no idea how to report things, I suppose. But also, consider before you, again, bring in a service to get your listing back up, quote unquote, consider what can happen to your account health.Can you flag yourself in ways that you never would have before for an account review, which could take down the whole account, right? Leah: Well, and I think as something I've said before, I'm sure is just because something is technically possible to do in Amazon system doesn't mean that you're allowed to do it.However, if it is technically possible to do, there will be a service provider who will be happy to take your money to do it. So, just because it's [00:10:00] possible, and just because somebody offers it as a service doesn't mean you should be doing it. It doesn't mean it's within Amazon's policies and. Because I regularly have that conversation with people where well, it like, it's technically possible to do so what what's the problem or catalog will do that for me. So, what's the problem? Just because you can get around the controls and the system doesn't mean that you're allowed to do that. Chris: Just because your account gets suspended, your whole account gets suspended. You somehow find a way to create a 2nd seller account. And they don't suspend it right away. It doesn't mean that's going to last forever. Number one, it's the same principle. But you know, that doesn't mean just because you can do it doesn't mean that it's within policy. The claims made on LinkedIn are becoming increasingly disturbing. So I want to caution everybody from just because it's posted publicly and a couple of people in the comments, are like great idea. Fire. A hundred percent. What a wonderful hack. And it might be LinkedIn. It might be at a conference somebody might. Say, oh, seller hacks, seller hacks. This is great.[00:11:00] The good thing about LinkedIn is we know that Amazon enforcement team people are paying more attention to those posts and sometimes they're commenting on them.Leah: Which I actually really enjoy when they comment on them. It's pretty entertaining, right? Chris: Completely just deflates the balloon, right? Everyone's excited. I can't believe this is a great hack. I can't believe you're sharing this for no money, no money, blinking lights. Obviously Amazonians are on there looking at these posts because they know there's tons of terrible advice.They know that some of these consultants or whoever's posting it, agencies are getting dozens or hundreds of people to follow them Pied Piper style off the cliff. Leah: Well, and that's not to mention the people that they're probably doing it for as their clients.Chris: And if you took those clients or those types of paid customers away, then those agencies probably wouldn't even exist.It's probably they're, not to go into French on you, but they're raison d'etre as people say would be. Yeah, I wanted to weave that in . Leah: Chris is like, I know French guys. Chris: Yes. I used to work on Amazon France. Everybody just outing myself [00:12:00] now, former French speaker. Definitely need to go back to France soon.Thank you for joining me from the other side of the world. I can see that it's still dark there. It is very much light outside here. Trying to shine a light as always on compliance with Amazon policies, keeping you out of trouble. We understand that people are looking for new ways to get better sales rank, sell more items.We're heading into Q4, this is going to be a recurring theme. You have any questions on should I do this, should I not? I was advised to do this, should I do it or not? Feel free to ask us, and especially ask Leah since she's our compliance person. Happy to go over things and answer any questions. So thanks for joining me. Bye. Bye.

Chris: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, this is Chris McCabe. Welcome back to Seller Performance Solutions. I'm here with Leah McHugh, also of ecommercechris, how are you doing, Leah? Leah: Good, thanks. How are you, Chris?  Chris: Good. I know you're oceans and worlds away right now, but no matter how far you go, how many miles you travel, one thing doesn't change, right? We still hear from people who are telling us, Hey, we got our listing back up, but now it's suspended again. Oh, but the original listing was suspended too, right? We find out that they didn't actually get their listing back up. They somehow hired an agency or a service or a consultant or a service provider who just created the listing newly and ignored the fact that it was suspended, right? We've seen this a handful of times and it seems to be growing. Is that fair to say?  Leah: Yeah, and sometimes the seller themselves, just rather than trying to get the original ASIN reinstated. We'll just create a new ASIN. And in all fairness, I have had account health reps and seller support people tell people to do this. Chris: Oh, yeah, for sure. [00:01:00] I should have started with that. Amazonians themselves are erroneously giving terrible advice. Yeah. For whatever reason, they probably don't know, they don't care, they're not trained, no one's watching them, listening to them on these calls or in writing, they're saying, go ahead and relist it, you know, I have a theory that possibly they see that there's a note on the account that says, do not reinstate this listing no matter what. And so they don't know what to tell the seller, except I don't know, try to put it somewhere else, try to change the listing, somehow, try to make a new one. They never tell the seller that they could lose their entire account to a suspension for doing this.  Leah: No, and I'm assuming it's because they don't know that or they don't care, I'm not sure which. I assume, but they don't know it.  Chris: I think they know it because per policy, if you're going to evade a suspension. It's the same thing as you can't just open another seller account when your first seller account is suspended and just hit the do over button. It's the same thing on the ASIN level. Leah: [00:02:00] Yeah, it's also against the listing policy. Even if your ASIN isn't suspended, if for whatever reason you want to create a new ASIN for the same product, that is also against Amazon policy, unless it's materially different for some reason, like a brand rebrands a product or something like that. Chris: The reason I mentioned, you know, working with an agency or a consultant who either didn't know what the policy was themselves, didn't care was because we saw this on LinkedIn, right? Somebody said, well, if Amazon's against this, why didn't they just pull the second listing down right away? It must be within policy to do this. And then, of course, an Amazon person jumped on the LinkedIn thread to say, no, this is against policy. What the hell?  Leah: Yeah, I mean, I feel like I have that conversation with people every day. Well, if this is against policy, how come my other listings are fine? And it's like, oh, because Amazon's bad at consistently enforcing it, but it's still a policy. Chris: Well, it's not even that. First of all, it wouldn't necessarily happen right away. It might be found later. Don't give Amazon too much credit for assuming they've got the best teams, the [00:03:00] best tools, the best technology, as soon as you screw something up, they don't immediately pounce on you and say, we found your violation. We're taking that listing down. And you have to appeal on the first one and also we're taking your account down too or reviewing your account for a suspension. Amazon is not nearly that organized that sophisticated in their technology. So, of course, you found an evasive way to relist the item. What I was talking about originally was somebody said, oh, we got our listing back up, which to me meant their appeal was accepted for reinstatement. Not oh, we found a circuitous way of somehow getting our product relisted.  Leah: Yeah, well, I have had conversations with people who hired someone and they're like, yeah, they got it reinstated, but we lost all of our reviews and we had to assign a new UPC to it. And I was like, oh that wasn't reinstated. They just made a new listing for the same product. And so then they want to get their old reviews and their old sales history back. And it's like, well, you can't do that in any way. And then also now your whole [00:04:00] account is a risk. So, sorry. Chris: Well, and then the more they try and some of them, some brand owners, I guess, are being duped by services who don't tell them, they just say I'll get your listing back up. They don't say I'll do it breaking the rules, breaking policies, and I'll risk your whole account. Leah: Well, and it's also not really getting your listing back up, but yeah. Chris: But that's the phrase they use. And then some of the brand owners say, okay, well, they got my listing back up, but they couldn't harvest the reviews for us. So we want to hire you, meaning us, to take over and to lead that effort. We've tried to do it several times on our own and we failed. So they've been jumping up and waving and screaming at Amazon teams enforcement teams to take another look at their account every time they've appealed this every time they've tried to do it themselves. They had no idea they were risking their whole account because the service they hired deceptively told them that they had gotten the listing back up and didn't tell them it broke policies. So, actually, they've been increasing their odds of an account [00:05:00] suspension, right?  Leah: Also if you try to merge the reviews by creating a variation family or something like that. That's yet another policy violation. So the more that you try to merge the listings and merge the reviews for this erroneous duplicate listing with the original listing, the more policies you violate in that process. Chris: You compound the problems. A seller last week asked me if this is true, if my relisting this product under a different ASIN in after the 1st listing was suspended. If that was against policy, I went through all my performance notifications. Amazon never sent me a message saying that I couldn't create a duplicate. That was her logic. Leah: Right, but it's in their written policy. They just didn't look at the policy page. Amazon's not going to tell you every time you might be about to violate their policy and be like, oh, hey, you might want to look at this. Chris: Again I think she's assuming that they're all knowing all seeing, top of their [00:06:00] game. And then as soon as you color outside the lines, there's somebody there watching you, like, some sort of overseer to slap your wrist and to send you the warning. I said, of course, you don't have any performance notifications. They don't know that you did this. Leah: Well, and I think we have had the conversation before of like, well, why does Amazon allow this to happen? And from a technical standpoint, it is very difficult for them to stop it before it happens. They're having to rely on product identifiers to differentiate between products because so many products are very much the same on paper. So they can't really look at keywords or descriptions. They really do have to rely on that product identifier, because it could be the exact same product, but maybe it has a different brand name on it and that that makes it a materially different product. It really isn't technically feasible at this point for them to block it from happening. So they really only have the choice at this point to enforce after it does happen. Chris: Exactly. That's the [00:07:00] logic. I think a lot of sellers and brand owners don't understand that Amazon's logic doesn't necessarily square with ordinary logic. It might work for their purposes based on their resources, their tools, and their people, and how their SOPs, their standard operating procedures work. It won't make sense to us really ever.  Leah: No, see, I disagree here. I think Amazon's logic is actually sound here. I think Seller's logic here is flawed.  Chris: Their logic, it suits their purposes and their interests for what's convenient for them.  Leah: Right. But I mean, what are they supposed to do? Every time someone goes to create a listing, they're like, hold on. Let me cross reference that against all the billions of listings we have in our catalog. I think that's a duplicate, that doesn't make sense.  Chris: I mean, in terms of seeing this play out in real time or not. Leah: That's what I mean I don't think it's possible for them to like, do this in real time.  Chris: But I think the expectation is built out there in people's minds that Amazon can react and take action and pursue things real time and if they don't do it right away or within a [00:08:00] small amount of time, it means you've like gotten away with it. Leah: Well, to those people I say, have you ever talked to seller support? Cause not in real time, right?  Chris: Our new comedy hour. Don't worry, everyone. This episode will not go on for an hour. We're going to keep this one short because we really don't need to go that far into it. Whether you're doing it yourself or you're examining the claims made by a service that you might be onboarding to help you with something, examine their language. If they say, we're going to get this listing back up for you, say, okay, do you mean you're going to help me appeal for reinstatement and solve the problem at its source? Or you're going to try to create some sort of masquerade of we'll get your listing back up, but we're going to find a creative, tricky way to do it. Well, that doesn't help your listing because any competitor can report you for this and get that new listing knocked down anytime they want to. Leah: Well, also generally you're not fixing whatever [00:09:00] caused the original suspension in the first place.  Chris: Right if the same issues were never addressed or safety or compliance, whatever the case may be. If you're selling anything that has any value to you or takes any valuable sales away from your competition, and I mean, even low amounts of money, they can easily report it. They'll figure out if they have any brains at all, they'll figure out what you did and report it. And they can get Amazon to act on it. Unless they have no idea how to report things, I suppose. But also, consider before you, again, bring in a service to get your listing back up, quote unquote, consider what can happen to your account health. Can you flag yourself in ways that you never would have before for an account review, which could take down the whole account, right?  Leah: Well, and I think as something I've said before, I'm sure is just because something is technically possible to do in Amazon system doesn't mean that you're allowed to do it. However, if it is technically possible to do, there will be a service provider who will be happy to take your money to do it. So, just because it's [00:10:00] possible, and just because somebody offers it as a service doesn't mean you should be doing it. It doesn't mean it's within Amazon's policies and. Because I regularly have that conversation with people where well, it like, it's technically possible to do so what what's the problem or catalog will do that for me. So, what's the problem? Just because you can get around the controls and the system doesn't mean that you're allowed to do that.  Chris: Just because your account gets suspended, your whole account gets suspended. You somehow find a way to create a 2nd seller account. And they don't suspend it right away. It doesn't mean that's going to last forever. Number one, it's the same principle. But you know, that doesn't mean just because you can do it doesn't mean that it's within policy. The claims made on LinkedIn are becoming increasingly disturbing. So I want to caution everybody from just because it's posted publicly and a couple of people in the comments, are like great idea. Fire. A hundred percent. What a wonderful hack. And it might be LinkedIn. It might be at a conference somebody might. Say, oh, seller hacks, seller hacks. This is great.[00:11:00] The good thing about LinkedIn is we know that Amazon enforcement team people are paying more attention to those posts and sometimes they're commenting on them. Leah: Which I actually really enjoy when they comment on them. It's pretty entertaining, right?  Chris: Completely just deflates the balloon, right? Everyone's excited. I can't believe this is a great hack. I can't believe you're sharing this for no money, no money, blinking lights. Obviously Amazonians are on there looking at these posts because they know there's tons of terrible advice. They know that some of these consultants or whoever's posting it, agencies are getting dozens or hundreds of people to follow them Pied Piper style off the cliff.  Leah: Well, and that's not to mention the people that they're probably doing it for as their clients. Chris: And if you took those clients or those types of paid customers away, then those agencies probably wouldn't even exist. It's probably they're, not to go into French on you, but they're raison d'etre as people say would be. Yeah, I wanted to weave that in .  Leah: Chris is like, I know French guys.  Chris: Yes. I used to work on Amazon France. Everybody just outing myself [00:12:00] now, former French speaker. Definitely need to go back to France soon. Thank you for joining me from the other side of the world. I can see that it's still dark there. It is very much light outside here. Trying to shine a light as always on compliance with Amazon policies, keeping you out of trouble. We understand that people are looking for new ways to get better sales rank, sell more items. We're heading into Q4, this is going to be a recurring theme. You have any questions on should I do this, should I not? I was advised to do this, should I do it or not? Feel free to ask us, and especially ask Leah since she's our compliance person. Happy to go over things and answer any questions.  So thanks for joining me. Bye. Bye.

Relisting is Not an Option

Chris: [00:00:00]Hey everybody. Welcome back to another wonderful episode of Seller Performance Solutions. This is Chris McCabe. I'm here with my colleague, Leah McHugh. How are you doing Leah? Leah: I'm doing good thanks, how are you going Chris? Chris: Doing good. I'm doing better now than after reading a few disconcerting emails we got from people who said that they had already escalated something.We've seen, I think an increase in the last month or so. Maybe it was because of Prime Day and some additional desperation that people had to resolve problems quickly. We're hearing more and more from sellers telling us we've escalated this already, but we might need your help to escalate it further.Then we look. Some of your cases are like this, just like mine, we look at the details and we see that there's no escalation, right? They just called support or somebody in account health told them that they were escalating it. I think maybe account health reps are starting to use this term escalation more than they were earlier this year.And it's just like this has to be defined. Otherwise, people are going to think they've escalated something and it [00:01:00] really hasn't changed what they did before. Isn't that fair to say? Leah: Yeah, I mean, I think it's similar to the term hijacking, which we see used incorrectly. Pretty. I mean, part of it is amazon jargon that does get used pretty freely. So catalog team will often say that they're escalating something for you. Or like you said, account health, or I also see just sellers and support cases saying, please escalate this. And I mean, yes, that is an escalation, but that's escalating it to the shift manager. Whereas when we're talking about escalations, we're talking about the VP+ type of escalations. Chris: Right? Well, and people automatically assume and in the old days, you could write to Jeff and it would go to executive seller relations and it would be treated like a proper escalation that email queue has been so overused and so overplayed for years that now you tend to get a message from whoever happened to be hanging around who saw it, who had [00:02:00] the message or the email delegated to them.So you can still write to Jeff, of course. You might even still get a reply from executive seller relations, but not what it used to be, right? You kind of get the same copy and paste lower level response that you got when you were emailing seller performance cues back in the day. So I think some of it is the confusion over, we wrote to Jeff.We know that's an escalation. It went to executives, our relations. We confirmed that it went there. Yes. But was it treated like a proper escalation and reviewed by somebody manager level or higher? Probably not. Leah: Yeah. And also some sellers. When they say escalation, they just mean that they emailed their appeal to as many people as they could find an email address for, and that's not really an escalation either.It needs to have an actual escalation letter in there in order to be escalated. Otherwise, you're just spamming people, essentially. Yeah, Chris: There has to be an escalation language in there. Not just we want to escalate this. That's the other kind of mistake I've [00:03:00] seen lately. One sentence. This has gone on long enough.We're getting no response or bogus responses from your internal teams. We want to escalate this. And that's exactly how they leave it. Requesting an escalation without comments. Justifying it without backing it up with facts and figures without saying why it has to be escalated. I think this is the big underappreciated piece to the equation.You have to say why they need to look at it. Why that person should be devoting time to reviewing it, right? Leah: Yeah, and I think that escalations are sold to a lot of people as well this is just what you do when you want Amazon to do what you want. And you need to have a basis of escalation. That basis generally needs to be that Amazon is not doing what Amazon is supposed to be doing. And you need somebody that knows what they're doing to look at it. Otherwise, you're just spamming people. We don't like it. Fix it. Isn't a basis for escalation.Chris: Right. And there's Weak [00:04:00] reasons and strong reasons for saying you guys aren't doing the right thing, fix it. If you get an appeal denied and they don't tell you why, well, it's because their messaging is murky and opaque and of course they don't tell you why. Almost every message from Amazon doesn't provide real information.But a better escalation would be we call it account health and we confirm that there are no annotations justifying the denial of an appeal. Therefore, we'd like to escalate this for proper managerial level or VP level review. That's one way to go. The other way to go is we called account health, they couldn't tell us anything.The message doesn't tell us anything. So we just want to escalate it. Wrong way to go and there's a huge divide between those two different approaches, right? Leah: Yeah. And of course there's a huge divide in how successful those approaches are. Because again, one is showing Amazon that there are gaps in their processes and their processes aren't working. The other one is just complaining. Chris: Yeah. And one of my pet peeves lately were again, in the emails we got, I think it was last week or the week before, we've already escalated this. And they're [00:05:00] just denying it, or they're just sending us the same message over and over. How would you escalate it differently from us?Well, number one, we wouldn't even be in business if we couldn't escalate it differently than some of the sellers who approach us. Number two, you can't just say we've escalated it without even pausing to think, did I escalate it well? Did I escalate it mediocre mid range or did I escalate it poorly? There's a scale for this stuff.A bad escalation and a good escalation have totally different odds of success. Stop and think about that before you even send something in. We're not necessarily saying that you need us to do every escalation you do between now and the rest of your life. But you have to at least consider or get a second opinion on whether or not what you've put together has a snowball's chance in hell of even being read, let alone accepted.That's one of the big gaps in education about escalations right now. Leah: I also very rarely will immediately escalate a case. Generally speaking, I review everything that's been submitted prior to us taking over. If, if there has been anything submitted prior to us [00:06:00] taking over and then I usually will still have them submit some sort of an appeal that we have written because, generally speaking I can see that there are gaps in the appeals that have already been submitted. So it's not ready to be escalated yet. And I think that's also key, I mean, you can escalate and you can escalate, but if the initial appeal is already missing key information, it doesn't matter how good your escalation is if the appeal isn't there. So sometimes the appeal is solid and I can escalate it, but it's very rare that I can escalate something as soon as we receive the case. Generally speaking, I still will take them through the correct processes first, even if they have already escalated it on their side. Chris: It's the same thing with a plan of action. A lot of people say, well, I did a plan of action and I had it in the appeal and they didn't take it. So I escalated it. Okay. Once again, same concept. Did you think about how good the POA was? Because when you're escalating a plan of action and you think it's complete and you think your account should be reinstated based on that [00:07:00] POA or your ASIN, in the escalation itself, you're highlighting the merits of the plan of action, the strengths of that plan, why it should be enough to convince them, why it should work to improve your operations to make sure the same problem doesn't crop up again.  Don't assume you have a great plan of action and that they rejected it simply because they didn't read it. If you need a second opinion on the quality of your POA, we can give one to you.But, again, there's nothing to escalate with. You're supposed to be quoting from the POA with the highlights of the strengths and why you've improved things. Why you fix the problem, why they should accept it. And that forms the basis of the escalation language, right? Not just, Hey, here's my POA again.We got rejected. We don't know why. Escalate this and reinstate us. Right? Leah: Yeah. I think the main thing that sellers need to know is that you can't just send these in willy nilly, because you essentially burn bridges if you send in a bad escalation, it means that if, if you do [00:08:00] hire somebody to take it over later, or you come back with a second pass to do it better. It's much more difficult to get people to pay attention to you that second time around. So you want to make sure that. What you are sending in is as high quality as possible from the beginning. So you're not having to try to correct those mistakes further down the line. Cause ultimately sometimes things are just too far gone for us to fix when people come to us sometimes.So you really need to make sure that you're doing it right and not creating too much damage for somebody else to take over later. Chris: And of course, you know, for selfish reasons, we like to say, my God, don't come to us after you've already written to Jassy. And all these different executives and complain to them.That's what we mean by burning the bridges. I mean, if you've burned down all your escalation paths and you expect to be rescued later, sometimes when we're contacted, I just say, look, it's too far along. You've already created too much damage for anyone to come along and help you.Not just us. I mean, anybody, unless your next door neighbor works at Amazon, you live in [00:09:00] Seattle, you have a great relationship, and also they review escalations and reinstate accounts. It's probably not going to happen at that point. One last thought before we close this topic, which of course, there'll be an article I'm putting together, there'll be other times we're touching on this during summer, during Q4.The silly subject lines. This is something you and I have talked about quite a bit. People writing at Jassy, or Dharmash, or whoever they might be writing to, high level executives, senior VP, whoever it is, and expecting to get their attention with the same document, the same appeal that's already been rejected just because you put quotes from Shakespeare in the subject lines or something silly or ridiculous.Like, hey, if this is a joke, this isn't funny. Leah: I think it's like the clickbait theory, like, they'll be so intrigued by it that they'll have to click through to read the email. That doesn't really work with Amazon. Chris: Well, you might actually get their attention. Leah: Sure, but it's just not in the way that you want it to be.Chris: Right. For the wrong reasons. It's like how there's good publicity and there's [00:10:00] bad publicity. This is the same concept. And I don't know who started this trend. It's pretty unprofessional. It's also just not effective. Don't really expect to get anywhere if you're going to kind of insult your audience or insult their intelligence with the clickbait theory or just, hey, let's do something eye grabbing and then hope the rest will sort itself out.You know what's eye grabbing? A well thought out POA and a well reasoned appeal. Leah: Well, I also, if you don't have enough hard hitting reasons to put into the subject line for them to actually open it, then you probably shouldn't be escalating. You're not ready to escalate at that point if you can't create a good headline based on what you are escalating for.Chris: Right. It's just like anything else in life. If you're trying to get somebody's attention and impress people by being really flashy and you buy a new sports car and you drive around town with the top down, but you're kind of an insubstantial shallow person on the inside, then you might [00:11:00] not attract the right kind of attention from people.Same thing. You're not going to impress any executives in Amazon just because wow, that's a funny line in the subject line. Half the time, they're not even looking at the subject line. They're looking at the guts of the appeal. We saw a couple of these come in, we understand that sellers don't necessarily think of these.Usually it's like a service that's trying to make themselves or keep themselves relevant. Question these things if you see it, because you're hurting your chances. You're not helping your chances, but ultimately it's not the service that's on the hook for a denied appeal. I mean, they might be on the hook because you paid them some money, but your seller account is what's going to pay the price.And so those are our final words of wisdom for today. Any questions on this? Obviously, Leah and I do different types of escalations for different types of cases. So we're happy to answer questions for you as you have them. Just don't push things too far along until they go over the cliff and then call out for help.We appreciate it if you get to us a bit, a bit earlier in the process. Thanks again for listening. We'll talk to you again soon.

Chris: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to another wonderful episode of Seller Performance Solutions. This is Chris McCabe. I'm here with my colleague, Leah McHugh. How are you doing Leah?  Leah: I'm doing good thanks, how are you going Chris?  Chris: Doing good. I'm doing better now than after reading a few disconcerting emails we got from people who said that they had already escalated something. We've seen, I think an increase in the last month or so. Maybe it was because of Prime Day and some additional desperation that people had to resolve problems quickly. We're hearing more and more from sellers telling us we've escalated this already, but we might need your help to escalate it further. Then we look. Some of your cases are like this, just like mine, we look at the details and we see that there's no escalation, right? They just called support or somebody in account health told them that they were escalating it. I think maybe account health reps are starting to use this term escalation more than they were earlier this year. And it's just like this has to be defined. Otherwise, people are going to think they've escalated something and it [00:01:00] really hasn't changed what they did before. Isn't that fair to say?  Leah: Yeah, I mean, I think it's similar to the term hijacking, which we see used incorrectly. Pretty. I mean, part of it is amazon jargon that does get used pretty freely. So catalog team will often say that they're escalating something for you. Or like you said, account health, or I also see just sellers and support cases saying, please escalate this. And I mean, yes, that is an escalation, but that's escalating it to the shift manager.  Whereas when we're talking about escalations, we're talking about the VP+ type of escalations.  Chris: Right? Well, and people automatically assume and in the old days, you could write to Jeff and it would go to executive seller relations and it would be treated like a proper escalation that email queue has been so overused and so overplayed for years that now you tend to get a message from whoever happened to be hanging around who saw it, who had [00:02:00] the message or the email delegated to them. So you can still write to Jeff, of course. You might even still get a reply from executive seller relations, but not what it used to be, right? You kind of get the same copy and paste lower level response that you got when you were emailing seller performance cues back in the day. So I think some of it is the confusion over, we wrote to Jeff. We know that's an escalation. It went to executives, our relations. We confirmed that it went there. Yes. But was it treated like a proper escalation and reviewed by somebody manager level or higher? Probably not.  Leah: Yeah. And also some sellers. When they say escalation, they just mean that they emailed their appeal to as many people as they could find an email address for, and that's not really an escalation either. It needs to have an actual escalation letter in there in order to be escalated. Otherwise, you're just spamming people, essentially.  Yeah,  Chris: There has to be an escalation language in there. Not just we want to escalate this. That's the other kind of mistake I've [00:03:00] seen lately. One sentence. This has gone on long enough. We're getting no response or bogus responses from your internal teams. We want to escalate this. And that's exactly how they leave it. Requesting an escalation without comments. Justifying it without backing it up with facts and figures without saying why it has to be escalated. I think this is the big underappreciated piece to the equation. You have to say why they need to look at it. Why that person should be devoting time to reviewing it, right?  Leah: Yeah, and I think that escalations are sold to a lot of people as well this is just what you do when you want Amazon to do what you want. And you need to have a basis of escalation. That basis generally needs to be that Amazon is not doing what Amazon is supposed to be doing. And you need somebody that knows what they're doing to look at it. Otherwise, you're just spamming people. We don't like it. Fix it. Isn't a basis for escalation. Chris: Right. And there's Weak [00:04:00] reasons and strong reasons for saying you guys aren't doing the right thing, fix it. If you get an appeal denied and they don't tell you why, well, it's because their messaging is murky and opaque and of course they don't tell you why. Almost every message from Amazon doesn't provide real information. But a better escalation would be we call it account health and we confirm that there are no annotations justifying the denial of an appeal. Therefore, we'd like to escalate this for proper managerial level or VP level review. That's one way to go. The other way to go is we called account health, they couldn't tell us anything. The message doesn't tell us anything. So we just want to escalate it. Wrong way to go and there's a huge divide between those two different approaches, right?  Leah: Yeah. And of course there's a huge divide in how successful those approaches are. Because again, one is showing Amazon that there are gaps in their processes and their processes aren't working. The other one is just complaining.  Chris: Yeah. And one of my pet peeves lately were again, in the emails we got, I think it was last week or the week before, we've already escalated this. And they're [00:05:00] just denying it, or they're just sending us the same message over and over. How would you escalate it differently from us? Well, number one, we wouldn't even be in business if we couldn't escalate it differently than some of the sellers who approach us. Number two, you can't just say we've escalated it without even pausing to think, did I escalate it well? Did I escalate it mediocre mid range or did I escalate it poorly? There's a scale for this stuff. A bad escalation and a good escalation have totally different odds of success. Stop and think about that before you even send something in. We're not necessarily saying that you need us to do every escalation you do between now and the rest of your life. But you have to at least consider or get a second opinion on whether or not what you've put together has a snowball's chance in hell of even being read, let alone accepted. That's one of the big gaps in education about escalations right now.  Leah: I also very rarely will immediately escalate a case. Generally speaking, I review everything that's been submitted prior to us taking over. If, if there has been anything submitted prior to us [00:06:00] taking over and then I usually will still have them submit some sort of an appeal that we have written because, generally speaking I can see that there are gaps in the appeals that have already been submitted. So it's not ready to be escalated yet. And I think that's also key, I mean, you can escalate and you can escalate, but if the initial appeal is already missing key information, it doesn't matter how good your escalation is if the appeal isn't there. So sometimes the appeal is solid and I can escalate it, but it's very rare that I can escalate something as soon as we receive the case. Generally speaking, I still will take them through the correct processes first, even if they have already escalated it on their side.  Chris: It's the same thing with a plan of action. A lot of people say, well, I did a plan of action and I had it in the appeal and they didn't take it. So I escalated it. Okay. Once again, same concept. Did you think about how good the POA was? Because when you're escalating a plan of action and you think it's complete and you think your account should be reinstated based on that [00:07:00] POA or your ASIN, in the escalation itself, you're highlighting the merits of the plan of action, the strengths of that plan, why it should be enough to convince them, why it should work to improve your operations to make sure the same problem doesn't crop up again.   Don't assume you have a great plan of action and that they rejected it simply because they didn't read it. If you need a second opinion on the quality of your POA, we can give one to you. But, again, there's nothing to escalate with. You're supposed to be quoting from the POA with the highlights of the strengths and why you've improved things. Why you fix the problem, why they should accept it. And that forms the basis of the escalation language, right? Not just, Hey, here's my POA again. We got rejected. We don't know why. Escalate this and reinstate us. Right?  Leah: Yeah. I think the main thing that sellers need to know is that you can't just send these in willy nilly, because you essentially burn bridges if you send in a bad escalation, it means that if, if you do [00:08:00] hire somebody to take it over later, or you come back with a second pass to do it better.  It's much more difficult to get people to pay attention to you that second time around. So you want to make sure that. What you are sending in is as high quality as possible from the beginning. So you're not having to try to correct those mistakes further down the line. Cause ultimately sometimes things are just too far gone for us to fix when people come to us sometimes. So you really need to make sure that you're doing it right and not creating too much damage for somebody else to take over later.  Chris: And of course, you know, for selfish reasons, we like to say, my God, don't come to us after you've already written to Jassy. And all these different executives and complain to them. That's what we mean by burning the bridges. I mean, if you've burned down all your escalation paths and you expect to be rescued later, sometimes when we're contacted, I just say, look, it's too far along. You've already created too much damage for anyone to come along and help you. Not just us. I mean, anybody, unless your next door neighbor works at Amazon, you live in [00:09:00] Seattle, you have a great relationship, and also they review escalations and reinstate accounts. It's probably not going to happen at that point. One last thought before we close this topic, which of course, there'll be an article I'm putting together, there'll be other times we're touching on this during summer, during Q4. The silly subject lines. This is something you and I have talked about quite a bit. People writing at Jassy, or Dharmash, or whoever they might be writing to, high level executives, senior VP, whoever it is, and expecting to get their attention with the same document, the same appeal that's already been rejected just because you put quotes from Shakespeare in the subject lines or something silly or ridiculous. Like, hey, if this is a joke, this isn't funny.  Leah: I think it's like the clickbait theory, like, they'll be so intrigued by it that they'll have to click through to read the email. That doesn't really work with Amazon.  Chris: Well, you might actually get their attention.  Leah: Sure, but it's just not in the way that you want it to be. Chris: Right. For the wrong reasons. It's like how there's good publicity and there's [00:10:00] bad publicity. This is the same concept. And I don't know who started this trend. It's pretty unprofessional. It's also just not effective. Don't really expect to get anywhere if you're going to kind of insult your audience or insult their intelligence with the clickbait theory or just, hey, let's do something eye grabbing and then hope the rest will sort itself out. You know what's eye grabbing? A well thought out POA and a well reasoned appeal.  Leah: Well, I also, if you don't have enough hard hitting reasons to put into the subject line for them to actually open it, then you probably shouldn't be escalating. You're not ready to escalate at that point if you can't create a good headline based on what you are escalating for. Chris: Right. It's just like anything else in life. If you're trying to get somebody's attention and impress people by being really flashy and you buy a new sports car and you drive around town with the top down, but you're kind of an insubstantial shallow person on the inside, then you might [00:11:00] not attract the right kind of attention from people. Same thing. You're not going to impress any executives in Amazon just because wow, that's a funny line in the subject line. Half the time, they're not even looking at the subject line. They're looking at the guts of the appeal. We saw a couple of these come in, we understand that sellers don't necessarily think of these. Usually it's like a service that's trying to make themselves or keep themselves relevant. Question these things if you see it, because you're hurting your chances. You're not helping your chances, but ultimately it's not the service that's on the hook for a denied appeal. I mean, they might be on the hook because you paid them some money, but your seller account is what's going to pay the price. And so those are our final words of wisdom for today. Any questions on this? Obviously, Leah and I do different types of escalations for different types of cases. So we're happy to answer questions for you as you have them. Just don't push things too far along until they go over the cliff and then call out for help. We appreciate it if you get to us a bit, a bit earlier in the process. Thanks again for listening. We'll talk to you again soon.

What Is and Isn't an Escalation?

Yoni Mazor

Recording with YoniRecording with YoniLeah: [00:00:00] Hey, Amazon sellers. We are here today with Yoni Mazor of GETIDA.com. Very excited that they are sponsoring Seller Velocity for, I think the fourth year in a row, possibly fifth year in a row. When was the beginning? , I think we started in the beginning.Chris: We did New York. You were not there for that, but you've been there for every year since.Yoni: I believe. Hold on. So Velocity 2018 was in the basement of Abigail's? We were there, definitely. We were there with Ezra from my team. Ezra from my team was the speaker there. I remember that. So we were there. We were definitely there. We sponsored it. We spoke and the whole thing. Chris: Yeah, Abigail's isn't there anymore. Things have changed. Yoni: Well, that was like a landmark place. But, I was there. But I wasn't famous enough or, or dignified enough for you to know me, meaning you were up there and I was, I was catching up to Chris.Chris: We know you enough now. That's what matters. Leah: So we're back in New York for the first time since that first year. It's very exciting and this year we are focusing on optimizing your processes [00:01:00] for brand growth because, It's great to expand and spend money on things, but isn't it better to make a little bit more money on what you're already doing?Yoni: A hundred percent. If we compare it back to 2018 or 2019, a lot of the more back then was the hack, the shortcuts of how to generate sales. Okay. Now a different evolution of the sales it's okay, but how do we create sales that are lucrative? Because we're branded and we can really control our destiny.It's much more holistic. So, obviously COVID we had the whole story of COVID in between that gave a whole lift to the whole e commerce industry. So yeah, I think this is the most exciting time because it's so really valuable. It's not the shortcuts. It's the long, long road to really resonate with consumers out there and create something that is special, unique, differentiated, and this environment, you know, Seller Velocity and all the content around it and the activities will nourish that enhance that with, you know, the industry leaders. So that's exciting times to be in the business, but it's even more exciting time to come to New York [00:02:00] and hit up the event.Chris: Yeah, everyone's looking for any additional value, right? Isn't this one reason why you guys have thrived in the last couple of years beyond the last four or five years, but in the last couple of years, any additional value is appreciated and people understand where those areas of additional value are better now than even two years ago, I would think. Right? Yoni: Yeah. Yeah. Because if I had to kind of give commentary, what happened, especially since COVID is that so many players got thrown into this industry. And a lot of these pillars are really professionals or real brands, right? So all of a sudden they have this edge, they have this advantage and being a brand.So they're already being looked for. So the sellers who are just Amazon native or hack native. I had to level up their game or get out and that's where we are today and so they have to kind of layer it in. It's not just one hit and you're good, right? Layer after layer. You know, traffic from outside. There's many sources. There's TikTok. There's Facebook. There's Instagram. Twitter. Each one has its own science. It's own art form, right? Threads. We've got [00:03:00] threads now. You see, in the past, I've waited another two minutes on something else. Things are dynamic, they change. So you got to figure that out.There's email marketing posts, post email marketing, elements. Of course, packaging, it just starts with the whole journey. So a lot of the sellers are thinking about the whole journey of their avatar, their target audience and consumer, and crafting a whole experience from top to bottom.And that is much more professional. It takes much more time, much more resources, much more know how. So you got to be much more connected to the industry, much more than ever. Leah: Yeah, that's what's been fun about doing this conference for the last five years is that we've got to grow the content with the industry growing.So, you know, a few years ago, the focus was how to get omnichannel and not just on Amazon. Now we're to the next level where everybody's pretty omnichannel at this point. So now it's well, how do you do this the best way that you possibly can. And so you're using your resources wisely. So it's nice to get to change the content as things progress.Chris: Yeah. We witnessed the evolution. [00:04:00]Yoni: So yeah, there's an old saying that I learned back in my university days, it just stuck with me and it's so true. And this, this little topic we're touching on now kind of illustrates that the only thing that doesn't change, is change. It's a paradox. So you know, things are changing again. But really, I think honestly, it's special. This is a special time. This is a special moment and sellers really have to understand that they have to gear up. They have to buckle up. And make a switch, instead of a side hustle, lifestyle business, they have to realize that the switches, you gotta have to professionalize in this, you don't go to med school, just, to do it as a side gig.You're not going to invest all these resources just to then do it on the side. It's just not going to work. So you're entering into that moment. Oh, you're in that moment, but. Hopefully with this New York event you're going to elevate that moment and continue the journey.Chris: You've done different things with Seller Velocity every year. We keep it fresh. We don't always have the same [00:05:00] speakers, we don't always have the same content. So we're evolving within the conference, the same way sellers have had to evolve and the way brands have had to evolve. And Amazon evolves really slowly, I think in a lot of ways, but they evolve too.Yoni: Not really slowly. Amazon it's like dog years, one day is like a whole year. But Yeah, I think it's special times. Leah: Yeah. And last year we added the VIP day because networking is incredibly important, particularly in this industry.And we always wanted to make a priority with these conferences to make it intimate and make it, so you leave at the end of the day with friends rather than people that you just met at a conference. So we added that VIP day to give a little bit extra time for people to really get to know each other and do it around an activity, because everybody likes activities and we try to get people to get offline for a day, right?So they can actually focus on their business, focus on who they're talking to, rather than answering emails and calls like we all have to do all day every day. Chris: Networking requires focus too, by the way. If you're constantly looking at your [00:06:00] phone or making calls outside of an event, then you might lose an hour that you could have spent productively networking at the event itself. I mean, I hope people don't do that too much when they pay to attend, but some people do sometimes you see them, even outside, like you were mentioning Las Vegas a minute ago. Sometimes you see people outside the Prosper show who aren't really taking advantage of networking there, which is a much larger event. Leah: They're not taking it in. They're not making that switch that I'm going to professionalize that I'm I'm in the university or whatnot. And I got to hone in on my educational elements and it's important to make that switch. GETIDA have always been very good at that. You guys always have a very good booth for hanging out and networking. Yoni: Yeah, we like to create a kind of usually the lounge effect where you sit down because it can be overwhelming, sensational, Vegas, which is sensational. Then the show, all the booths, all the swag and all the kind of right in a moment, in a moment.So we try to create those moments of okay, I can take a breath, but I want to [00:07:00] touch, to what you said earlier, Chris, where people have to kind of make that switch. It reminds me of the Matrix, the movie, we have to kind of pull them out of the Matrix into the real world, right? I have to go to you know, heading into Zion.I think that was Jerusalem or something like that over there. The other Zion. Yes. The other Zion in the Matrix movie. So you got to unplug yourself, put your phone on fly mode. Once you're in the session, once you're in the zone, five minute session, an hour session. I'm setting the obvious.But it's not so obvious anymore because we're so wired in. So I think that's important that sellers to get out of their comfort zone, travel, zoom out. Of the regular stuff and zoom into educational, then you absorb this, you soak it in, but also people soaking it with you, you, the natural bonding will happen and then one good relationship or one good connection with one seller, they give the one advice that one can make a big difference for you and that's always a super valuable. Now the first day is going to be New York city, Manhattan, right? Yes. The second day is not going to be there, correct? Leah: It is not. And I'll tell you a secret, which we have not actually posted anywhere publicly yet. The venue on the second day. It does not have [00:08:00] phone reception, so people will not have a choice. They are offline. Chris: You are going to be networking. I like what you said about their booth though, because I can give you a testimonial in terms of a GETIDA booth at the average conference, which is you guys are friendly, you're engaging, you show up ready to talk to people about a variety of issues. You have a sense of humor. And also I think sometimes sellers forget that you can network even within a booth because you can meet other people that have a shared or similar problem. And they're waiting to talk to you just like they are. Right. And they can share some notes too. So interacting with sponsors results in networking that's worthwhile as well.Leah: Yeah. We also, in the last couple of years, I know of at least five major business deals that have happened at our conference that either resulted in a merger or an acquisition or some sort of partnership going forward. So, we try to make an environment for that to work for everybody and yeah, this year for the VIP day, people will not be able to be on their phones. Because we [00:09:00] are transporting everybody out in the middle of nowhere. Yoni: But I love it. Chris: It's not just a field trip for fun and to rent a kayak and splish splash on the water. It's to get you away from your day to day grind so that you can focus on these concepts. Otherwise, what are you doing here and will you get the most out of the conference?Probably not. Yoni: Yeah, the beautiful thing is you get a double dip. You get the New York City, Manhattan vibe. Yeah, exactly. And you get the outside. I don't want to say where we're going to go. But it's outside and just a beautiful region, beautiful air. So it's a thing, maybe once in a lifetime opportunity to see what's around.Cause you'll ask many Manhattan New Yorkers. They never go to the Statue of Liberty. They never go anywhere. They just go to a few blocks. They go too much north, it's a nosebleed. If you go too south, they need some oxygen. Chris: And by the way, we're not taking everyone into the Australian outback or the wilderness.We're talking about an hour and change from the city. So it's not a ridiculous amount of time to get there and distance, but who knows in the future we'll do something in Australia. Yoni: I'm [00:10:00] looking forward to that. I've never been there. Leah: Next time. No promises. Chris: All right. Well, thanks for joining us for this. We will see you of course, October 11th and 12th for Seller Velocity, hopefully before then too. Any words of wisdom you would like to leave people for in terms of what you would like to talk to them about when you get to Seller Velocity in october. Yoni: I'm a sponge, whatever they're really experiencing. I just want to hear it. I want to soak it in. And of course, if I'm, I've heard somebody else experiencing that and they found the way out, I was happy to share that in, in a variety of issues and topics. But of course, on the Amazon app, on the Amazon FBA auditing and reimbursements, bring it on.As they say, just always looking to learn something new or solve something new, a new challenge. So bring your challenges, really bring, flush it out. We're here for you guys, you know, as GETIDA. As Leah and Chris and Seller Velocity is just really, we're very passionate about solving problems. I feel [00:11:00] fulfilled. I'm sure you guys feel the same way because your specialty is even more fulfilling you're saving businesses, which is like, we're just nourishing businesses with cash. They never imagined that they can have. But you're saving them. That's like talking about med school, you guys are brain surgeons and taking tumors left and right.So the passion is here. We're ready for you guys. We're looking forward to see you and let's also have a little fun with this. It'll be great. Chris: Absolutely. We'll see you in the matrix. All right. Take care,

Recording with Yoni<h1>Recording with Yoni</h1>Leah: [00:00:00] Hey, Amazon sellers. We are here today with Yoni Mazor of <a href="http://GETIDA.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">GETIDA.com</a>. Very excited that they are sponsoring Seller Velocity for, I think the fourth year in a row, possibly fifth year in a row. When was the beginning? , I think we started in the beginning. Chris: We did New York. You were not there for that, but you've been there for every year since. Yoni: I believe. Hold on. So Velocity 2018 was in the basement of Abigail's? We were there, definitely. We were there with Ezra from my team. Ezra from my team was the speaker there. I remember that. So we were there. We were definitely there. We sponsored it. We spoke and the whole thing.  Chris: Yeah, Abigail's isn't there anymore. Things have changed.  Yoni: Well, that was like a landmark place. But, I was there. But I wasn't famous enough or, or dignified enough for you to know me, meaning you were up there and I was, I was catching up to Chris. Chris: We know you enough now. That's what matters.  Leah: So we're back in New York for the first time since that first year. It's very exciting and this year we are focusing on optimizing your processes [00:01:00] for brand growth because, It's great to expand and spend money on things, but isn't it better to make a little bit more money on what you're already doing? Yoni: A hundred percent. If we compare it back to 2018 or 2019, a lot of the more back then was the hack, the shortcuts of how to generate sales. Okay. Now a different evolution of the sales it's okay, but how do we create sales that are lucrative? Because we're branded and we can really control our destiny. It's much more holistic. So, obviously COVID we had the whole story of COVID in between that gave a whole lift to the whole e commerce industry. So yeah, I think this is the most exciting time because it's so really valuable. It's not the shortcuts. It's the long, long road to really resonate with consumers out there and create something that is special, unique, differentiated, and this environment, you know, Seller Velocity and all the content around it and the activities will nourish that enhance that with, you know, the industry leaders. So that's exciting times to be in the business, but it's even more exciting time to come to New York [00:02:00] and hit up the event. Chris: Yeah, everyone's looking for any additional value, right? Isn't this one reason why you guys have thrived in the last couple of years beyond the last four or five years, but in the last couple of years, any additional value is appreciated and people understand where those areas of additional value are better now than even two years ago, I would think. Right?  Yoni: Yeah. Yeah. Because if I had to kind of give commentary, what happened, especially since COVID is that so many players got thrown into this industry. And a lot of these pillars are really professionals or real brands, right? So all of a sudden they have this edge, they have this advantage and being a brand. So they're already being looked for. So the sellers who are just Amazon native or hack native. I had to level up their game or get out and that's where we are today and so they have to kind of layer it in. It's not just one hit and you're good, right? Layer after layer.  You know, traffic from outside. There's many sources. There's TikTok. There's Facebook. There's Instagram. Twitter. Each one has its own science. It's own art form, right? Threads. We've got [00:03:00] threads now. You see, in the past, I've waited another two minutes on something else. Things are dynamic, they change. So you got to figure that out. There's email marketing posts, post email marketing, elements. Of course, packaging, it just starts with the whole journey. So a lot of the sellers are thinking about the whole journey of their avatar, their target audience and consumer, and crafting a whole experience from top to bottom. And that is much more professional. It takes much more time, much more resources, much more know how. So you got to be much more connected to the industry, much more than ever.  Leah: Yeah, that's what's been fun about doing this conference for the last five years is that we've got to grow the content with the industry growing. So, you know, a few years ago, the focus was how to get omnichannel and not just on Amazon. Now we're to the next level where everybody's pretty omnichannel at this point. So now it's well, how do you do this the best way that you possibly can. And so you're using your resources wisely. So it's nice to get to change the content as things progress. Chris: Yeah. We witnessed the evolution. [00:04:00] Yoni: So yeah, there's an old saying that I learned back in my university days, it just stuck with me and it's so true. And this, this little topic we're touching on now kind of illustrates that the only thing that doesn't change, is change. It's a paradox. So you know, things are changing again. But really, I think honestly, it's special. This is a special time. This is a special moment and sellers really have to understand that they have to gear up. They have to buckle up. And make a switch, instead of a side hustle, lifestyle business, they have to realize that the switches, you gotta have to professionalize in this, you don't go to med school, just, to do it as a side gig. You're not going to invest all these resources just to then do it on the side. It's just not going to work. So you're entering into that moment. Oh, you're in that moment, but. Hopefully with this New York event you're going to elevate that moment and continue the journey. Chris: You've done different things with Seller Velocity every year. We keep it fresh. We don't always have the same [00:05:00] speakers, we don't always have the same content. So we're evolving within the conference, the same way sellers have had to evolve and the way brands have had to evolve. And Amazon evolves really slowly, I think in a lot of ways, but they evolve too. Yoni: Not really slowly. Amazon it's like dog years, one day is like a whole year. But Yeah, I think it's special times.  Leah: Yeah. And last year we added the VIP day because networking is incredibly important, particularly in this industry. And we always wanted to make a priority with these conferences to make it intimate and make it, so you leave at the end of the day with friends rather than people that you just met at a conference. So we added that VIP day to give a little bit extra time for people to really get to know each other and do it around an activity, because everybody likes activities and we try to get people to get offline for a day, right? So they can actually focus on their business, focus on who they're talking to, rather than answering emails and calls like we all have to do all day every day.  Chris: Networking requires focus too, by the way. If you're constantly looking at your [00:06:00] phone or making calls outside of an event, then you might lose an hour that you could have spent productively networking at the event itself. I mean, I hope people don't do that too much when they pay to attend, but some people do sometimes you see them, even outside, like you were mentioning Las Vegas a minute ago. Sometimes you see people outside the Prosper show who aren't really taking advantage of networking there, which is a much larger event.  Leah: They're not taking it in. They're not making that switch that I'm going to professionalize that I'm I'm in the university or whatnot. And I got to hone in on my educational elements and it's important to make that switch.  GETIDA have always been very good at that. You guys always have a very good booth for hanging out and networking.  Yoni: Yeah, we like to create a kind of usually the lounge effect where you sit down because it can be overwhelming, sensational, Vegas, which is sensational. Then the show, all the booths, all the swag and all the kind of right in a moment, in a moment. So we try to create those moments of okay, I can take a breath, but I want to [00:07:00] touch, to what you said earlier, Chris, where people have to kind of make that switch. It reminds me of the Matrix, the movie, we have to kind of pull them out of the Matrix into the real world, right? I have to go to you know, heading into Zion. I think that was Jerusalem or something like that over there. The other Zion. Yes. The other Zion in the Matrix movie. So you got to unplug yourself, put your phone on fly mode. Once you're in the session, once you're in the zone, five minute session, an hour session. I'm setting the obvious. But it's not so obvious anymore because we're so wired in. So I think that's important that sellers to get out of their comfort zone, travel, zoom out. Of the regular stuff and zoom into educational, then you absorb this, you soak it in, but also people soaking it with you, you, the natural bonding will happen and then one good relationship or one good connection with one seller, they give the one advice that one can make a big difference for you and that's always a super valuable. Now the first day is going to be New York city, Manhattan, right? Yes. The second day is not going to be there, correct?  Leah: It is not. And I'll tell you a secret, which we have not actually posted anywhere publicly yet. The venue on the second day. It does not have [00:08:00] phone reception, so people will not have a choice. They are offline.  Chris: You are going to be networking. I like what you said about their booth though, because I can give you a testimonial in terms of a GETIDA booth at the average conference, which is you guys are friendly, you're engaging, you show up ready to talk to people about a variety of issues. You have a sense of humor. And also I think sometimes sellers forget that you can network even within a booth because you can meet other people that have a shared or similar problem. And they're waiting to talk to you just like they are. Right. And they can share some notes too. So interacting with sponsors results in networking that's worthwhile as well. Leah: Yeah. We also, in the last couple of years, I know of at least five major business deals that have happened at our conference that either resulted in a merger or an acquisition or some sort of partnership going forward. So, we try to make an environment for that to work for everybody and yeah, this year for the VIP day, people will not be able to be on their phones. Because we [00:09:00] are transporting everybody out in the middle of nowhere.  Yoni: But I love it.  Chris: It's not just a field trip for fun and to rent a kayak and splish splash on the water. It's to get you away from your day to day grind so that you can focus on these concepts. Otherwise, what are you doing here and will you get the most out of the conference? Probably not.  Yoni: Yeah, the beautiful thing is you get a double dip. You get the New York City, Manhattan vibe. Yeah, exactly. And you get the outside. I don't want to say where we're going to go. But it's outside and just a beautiful region, beautiful air. So it's a thing, maybe once in a lifetime opportunity to see what's around. Cause you'll ask many Manhattan New Yorkers. They never go to the Statue of Liberty. They never go anywhere. They just go to a few blocks. They go too much north, it's a nosebleed. If you go too south, they need some oxygen.  Chris: And by the way, we're not taking everyone into the Australian outback or the wilderness. We're talking about an hour and change from the city. So it's not a ridiculous amount of time to get there and distance, but who knows in the future we'll do something in Australia.  Yoni: I'm [00:10:00] looking forward to that. I've never been there.  Leah: Next time. No promises.  Chris: All right. Well, thanks for joining us for this. We will see you of course, October 11th and 12th for Seller Velocity, hopefully before then too. Any words of wisdom you would like to leave people for in terms of what you would like to talk to them about when you get to Seller Velocity in october.  Yoni: I'm a sponge, whatever they're really experiencing. I just want to hear it. I want to soak it in. And of course, if I'm, I've heard somebody else experiencing that and they found the way out, I was happy to share that in, in a variety of issues and topics. But of course, on the Amazon app, on the Amazon FBA auditing and reimbursements, bring it on. As they say, just always looking to learn something new or solve something new, a new challenge. So bring your challenges, really bring, flush it out. We're here for you guys, you know, as GETIDA. As Leah and Chris and Seller Velocity is just really, we're very passionate about solving problems.  I feel [00:11:00] fulfilled. I'm sure you guys feel the same way because your specialty is even more fulfilling you're saving businesses, which is like, we're just nourishing businesses with cash. They never imagined that they can have. But you're saving them. That's like talking about med school, you guys are brain surgeons and taking tumors left and right. So the passion is here. We're ready for you guys. We're looking forward to see you and let's also have a little fun with this. It'll be great.  Chris: Absolutely. We'll see you in the matrix. All right. Take care,

Don’t Leave Money on the Table with Yoni Mazor

Leah: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of Seller Performance Solutions. I'm Leah McHugh from ecommerceChris, and I am here with Mr. ecommerceChris, Chris McCabe. So this week we're talking about where you get your merchandise from, and it's something that we've talked about a lot. But this week we're specifically talking about sellers who have accidentally sold stolen merchandise. There was an article in CNBC a couple weeks ago about multiple sellers being flagged for selling stolen goods.Turned out most, if not all of them were sourcing from either the same supplier or suppliers that were all related to each other. And it brings up an interesting point because most of the sellers weren't aware that they were selling stolen goods, of course. And second of all, Amazon never actually told them which of the goods that they were selling were considered to be stolen or which ASINs had been flagged as stolen.And Chris actually spoke to CNBC. He was quoted in the article about how Amazon handles these sorts [00:01:00] of cases. Chris: Yeah. They use the line that I say sometimes where you're guilty until proven innocent. We know from our suspension and reinstatement appeal experience that that's quite common. In this case, it looks like some of these sellers bought from suppliers who were on some sort of blacklist that is private, not public, and there's no real way to know if you're buying from a vendor or supplier who's on that blacklist.And the fact that you bought from them was enough for them to assume that the items were stolen. There was a warehouse raid, a California highway patrol found the warehouse in California. It seems I'm talking to a lot of these sellers that a lot of the sellers bought from that warehouse, but within that warehouse, it's still unclear whether everything there was legitimately sourced or some of them.Or some listings that those sellers had in question, but others were considered legit. None of that was specified in the suspension messaging. That's what created a lot of confusion and [00:02:00] misunderstanding. And potentially they cast a wide net as they often do, reeled in all the fish. And then later, maybe, maybe not figured out which fish were good and threw them back in the water and which ones were bad that they kept in the net.That's one big problem with their process and with the way they executed these suspensions. But the good news, I guess, is I'm trying to create this KYS know your supplier movement because Amazon is so hip to know your customer in terms of they want to know their sellers and their buyers, of course, in the marketplace.Backwards and forwards before anyone does any transacting through the marketplace sellers have to create a unique little version of this for themselves before you do business with any supplier of any kind. You need to research them and vet them and know as much about them as possible. Leah: Well, and I think that was the most interesting part of that article were all of the quotes from the people that had purchased from these suppliers essentially saying that they had done absolutely no vetting, there was a telegram group.[00:03:00]And they would get these hot deals and you had to act fast and they would just act fast without doing any research. We see similar things with people coming to us saying, I don't know, I just hired somebody off Instagram. I don't even know who they are. And I found that interesting because these are, one, I'm assuming fairly large purchases that they're making from somebody that they don't really know who they are.And two, it's a very, very risky business model. You're essentially, potentially buying things off the back of a truck, to use an old phrase. Not really thinking about where they're coming from. Chris: This is the new version of the New York based sellers telling us, Oh, we got it from a guy in the back of a truck and we don't know where he got it. This is the new version of it, but it's on Instagram, Telegram, Signal, god knows where else, you have to vet these people. You should already know that you need to vet them because Amazon's demanding all sorts of supply chain documentation from you as a reseller.But even beyond Amazon, just for your own lawful business practices, you need to know who you're doing business with and what their [00:04:00] tactics and methods are the same way, not just for vendors and suppliers, the same way for third party services and consultants in the Amazon space, you're supposed to know more about them too, before you hand them your money, right?Leah: Yeah, and not saying that this is all of the vetting that people should be doing, but when these cases first started coming in to us, I did a cursory Google search and within a pretty short period of time, I found that all of the suppliers seemed to have at least one person in common across all of the different companies that they were registered as they were all registered as different companies.What did I find? Like nine different companies that were all registered and related to the same person. And so that's within less than five minutes. You can see that something isn't quite right there. And again, not saying that that should be the extent of knowing your customer, knowing your supplier, but even just doing a cursory search is a lot better than just trusting them because they're on Instagram or in a telegram group.Chris: Some of the sellers I talked to [00:05:00] did fly up to California, go to the warehouse. And their main focus, I mean, to be fair, their main focus was, are these items counterfeit or not? So they did whatever they did on site inspection to determine that the items weren't counterfeit, the problem is, stolen items are legitimate and aren't counterfeit.But they're stolen. So the real issue is, they didn't have the ability to or didn't take the time to research it enough to know the provenance of those items. Well, going to Amazon and saying, how can you expect us to do all that? How are we supposed to know that, we were duped by these people?Sometimes this happens in business. Give us a pass and let us off. We all know what Amazon's answers is going to be. Answer will be, which is you're the seller of record. This is your responsibility. We're not here to tell you the best way to do it. That's not our role. We're a marketplace in a platform.You have to find out a way to do that. And yes, if stolen inventory shows up on our site. Because of mistakes or [00:06:00] gaps or problems you had, you are the one who's going to take the blame.Leah: Well, and that's another thing that I find interesting in these sorts of conversations, is so many people in our industry do want to put it on Amazon.Oh, well, Amazon should teach sellers this stuff. Amazon needs to have an onboarding process so sellers know how to do this. And, I mean, I am the first person to say when Amazon should be doing something, but there has to be a line. When you're in business and you are a business owner, It is your responsibility to make sure that you are complying with laws.And yes, it is Amazon's responsibility to make sure that you know their policies, but at a certain point, it has to be your responsibility to know that what you're doing in business is legal and I don't think it's fair to put that on Amazon. I think it's fair to put it on Amazon to police it when it happens on their platform, but I don't think it should be put on Amazon to train their sellers how to source inventory.Chris: Not even the burden being Amazon's to teach you [00:07:00] the laws and how to make sure you comply with laws. I don't think it's Amazon's responsibility to teach basic business skillsI mean, this is common sense. Would it be Amazon's obligation to teach basic street smarts? Because some people are just more gullible than the average person. And if you're going to fall for a sales pitch, we hear about this all the time with people who hire some wacky service we've never heard of to do all these things for them.Leah: Right. Or the give us $40,000 and we'll create a turnkey Amazon account for you. That's all managed without you having to do anything. Chris: Yeah. Fully automated. You don't even have to know what we're doing. Leah: Just give us money and we'll make tons of money. Chris: Right. And we're not trying to pile on for people who fell for some of this stuff. We just think it's not really our responsibility and it's not Amazon's responsibility to teach basic business skills that already should have happened or been taken care of before the Amazon [00:08:00] seller account was opened.Because an Amazon expects you to have certain key skills if you're going to be a business on their platform or anywhere, right? I mean, Amazon is the right to determine, you know, you can't just wing it from the get go and learn as you go on the fly. And you can't just assume you're going to learn everything from zero just by opening a seller account and reading seller policy pages or seller university courses and that sort of thing. Leah: I do think that there is a responsibility as members of the seller community, though, if you do have any sort of experience with somebody sketchy, for lack of a better word ,to tell people, it's amazing to me often how reticent sellers are to talk about these sorts of scam experiences that they've had. And what happens is it just becomes this closed loop. And so other people fall for it because they had no idea that it was going on. And so I do think that there is a responsibility within the community [00:09:00] and again, not putting it on Amazon, but I mean, Amazon would be the best person to broadcast this because they have the greatest reach, but I do think there is just this reticence in the community to talk about things like this happening, and I think that that creates an environment for this to just keep happening over and over again.Chris: Yeah, I think there's some of this shows up in the forums. And there are some various mentions of things, but it's the shame of being duped. And it's just like, you can go listen to some podcast where there's a con artist or a fraudster who takes a bunch of people for a ride and takes their money. Those people don't typically share info publicly either because they're afraid that it'll keep happening and they'll be attacked and abused again and again. But also they don't want to wear the scarlet letter of shame that they fell for something like this. Maybe it would deter future investors in their business. Maybe it would be harmful if they have partnerships that are depending on their business.So I can understand that, but we have seen it [00:10:00] propagate to ridiculous degrees. And of course, The attackers and the fraudsters know that no one's going to call them out for this publicly. In this case, there was a CNBC article. We'll include it in the notes. You can, you can read all about it. But tell somebody if you don't want to post it in the forums, at least tell people like us.So we are aware of what's going on and we can bring it to groups we belong to, or we can post it on our own, or we can somehow share the information to prevent other people from getting scammed because the more you prevent, it's not just that you're helping a neighbor or helping a buddy. You might be helping yourself too because you might be closing the door on other scams that never get off the ground because they aren't as hopeful that they'll get away with it.Leah: Exactly. I think creating an environment where it isn't easy for stuff like this to grow and become a bigger problem is, is the best thing that you could do kind of across the board, really because it's getting a little bit better now, but a few years ago, there was this whole thing of like, well, everybody has to break the rules. That's the only way to succeed [00:11:00] on Amazon. And so I think if you do just keep not saying anything and let it happen that fosters that sort of culture within the space, which isn't good for anybody because it just kind of pushes us all into a race to the bottom, which none of us should want. Chris: it's not good for Amazon. It's not good for service providers, sellers or buyers. It's a toxic environment when all of this stays behind the scenes because fraudsters and black hats depend, I mean criminals, let's face it, anyone who steals is a thief and a criminal. They're depending on gullibility of people to shatter their business world and profit from it. If you're apprehensive about sharing the info, not sure what to do with it, let us know. We might have some ideas that we might be able to share it for you. And thanks again, Leah. Talk to you soon.

Leah: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of Seller Performance Solutions. I'm Leah McHugh from ecommerceChris, and I am here with Mr. ecommerceChris, Chris McCabe.  So this week we're talking about where you get your merchandise from, and it's something that we've talked about a lot. But this week we're specifically talking about sellers who have accidentally sold stolen merchandise. There was an article in CNBC a couple weeks ago about multiple sellers being flagged for selling stolen goods. Turned out most, if not all of them were sourcing from either the same supplier or suppliers that were all related to each other. And it brings up an interesting point because most of the sellers weren't aware that they were selling stolen goods, of course. And second of all, Amazon never actually told them which of the goods that they were selling were considered to be stolen or which ASINs had been flagged as stolen. And Chris actually spoke to CNBC. He was quoted in the article about how Amazon handles these sorts [00:01:00] of cases.  Chris: Yeah. They use the line that I say sometimes where you're guilty until proven innocent. We know from our suspension and reinstatement appeal experience that that's quite common. In this case, it looks like some of these sellers bought from suppliers who were on some sort of blacklist that is private, not public, and there's no real way to know if you're buying from a vendor or supplier who's on that blacklist. And the fact that you bought from them was enough for them to assume that the items were stolen. There was a warehouse raid, a California highway patrol found the warehouse in California. It seems I'm talking to a lot of these sellers that a lot of the sellers bought from that warehouse, but within that warehouse, it's still unclear whether everything there was legitimately sourced or some of them. Or some listings that those sellers had in question, but others were considered legit. None of that was specified in the suspension messaging. That's what created a lot of confusion and [00:02:00] misunderstanding. And potentially they cast a wide net as they often do, reeled in all the fish. And then later, maybe, maybe not figured out which fish were good and threw them back in the water and which ones were bad that they kept in the net. That's one big problem with their process and with the way they executed these suspensions. But the good news, I guess, is I'm trying to create this KYS know your supplier movement because Amazon is so hip to know your customer in terms of they want to know their sellers and their buyers, of course, in the marketplace. Backwards and forwards before anyone does any transacting through the marketplace sellers have to create a unique little version of this for themselves before you do business with any supplier of any kind. You need to research them and vet them and know as much about them as possible.  Leah: Well, and I think that was the most interesting part of that article were all of the quotes from the people that had purchased from these suppliers essentially saying that they had done absolutely no vetting, there was a telegram group.[00:03:00] And they would get these hot deals and you had to act fast and they would just act fast without doing any research. We see similar things with people coming to us saying, I don't know, I just hired somebody off Instagram. I don't even know who they are. And I found that interesting because these are, one, I'm assuming fairly large purchases that they're making from somebody that they don't really know who they are. And two, it's a very, very risky business model. You're essentially, potentially buying things off the back of a truck, to use an old phrase. Not really thinking about where they're coming from.  Chris: This is the new version of the New York based sellers telling us, Oh, we got it from a guy in the back of a truck and we don't know where he got it. This is the new version of it, but it's on Instagram, Telegram, Signal, god knows where else, you have to vet these people. You should already know that you need to vet them because Amazon's demanding all sorts of supply chain documentation from you as a reseller. But even beyond Amazon, just for your own lawful business practices, you need to know who you're doing business with and what their [00:04:00] tactics and methods are the same way, not just for vendors and suppliers, the same way for third party services and consultants in the Amazon space, you're supposed to know more about them too, before you hand them your money, right? Leah: Yeah, and not saying that this is all of the vetting that people should be doing, but when these cases first started coming in to us, I did a cursory Google search and within a pretty short period of time, I found that all of the suppliers seemed to have at least one person in common across all of the different companies that they were registered as they were all registered as different companies. What did I find? Like nine different companies that were all registered and related to the same person. And so that's within less than five minutes. You can see that something isn't quite right there. And again, not saying that that should be the extent of knowing your customer, knowing your supplier, but even just doing a cursory search is a lot better than just trusting them because they're on Instagram or in a telegram group. Chris: Some of the sellers I talked to [00:05:00] did fly up to California, go to the warehouse. And their main focus, I mean, to be fair, their main focus was, are these items counterfeit or not? So they did whatever they did on site inspection to determine that the items weren't counterfeit, the problem is, stolen items are legitimate and aren't counterfeit. But they're stolen. So the real issue is, they didn't have the ability to or didn't take the time to research it enough to know the provenance of those items. Well, going to Amazon and saying, how can you expect us to do all that? How are we supposed to know that, we were duped by these people? Sometimes this happens in business. Give us a pass and let us off. We all know what Amazon's answers is going to be. Answer will be, which is you're the seller of record. This is your responsibility. We're not here to tell you the best way to do it. That's not our role. We're a marketplace in a platform. You have to find out a way to do that. And yes, if stolen inventory shows up on our site. Because of mistakes or [00:06:00] gaps or problems you had, you are the one who's going to take the blame. Leah: Well, and that's another thing that I find interesting in these sorts of conversations, is so many people in our industry do want to put it on Amazon. Oh, well, Amazon should teach sellers this stuff. Amazon needs to have an onboarding process so sellers know how to do this. And, I mean, I am the first person to say when Amazon should be doing something, but there has to be a line. When you're in business and you are a business owner, It is your responsibility to make sure that you are complying with laws. And yes, it is Amazon's responsibility to make sure that you know their policies, but at a certain point, it has to be your responsibility to know that what you're doing in business is legal and I don't think it's fair to put that on Amazon. I think it's fair to put it on Amazon to police it when it happens on their platform, but I don't think it should be put on Amazon to train their sellers how to source inventory. Chris: Not even the burden being Amazon's to teach you [00:07:00] the laws and how to make sure you comply with laws. I don't think it's Amazon's responsibility to teach basic business skills I mean, this is common sense. Would it be Amazon's obligation to teach basic street smarts? Because some people are just more gullible than the average person. And if you're going to fall for a sales pitch, we hear about this all the time with people who hire some wacky service we've never heard of to do all these things for them. Leah: Right. Or the give us $40,000 and we'll create a turnkey Amazon account for you. That's all managed without you having to do anything.  Chris: Yeah. Fully automated. You don't even have to know what we're doing.  Leah: Just give us money and we'll make tons of money.  Chris: Right. And we're not trying to pile on for people who fell for some of this stuff. We just think it's not really our responsibility and it's not Amazon's responsibility to teach basic business skills that already should have happened or been taken care of before the Amazon [00:08:00] seller account was opened. Because an Amazon expects you to have certain key skills if you're going to be a business on their platform or anywhere, right? I mean, Amazon is the right to determine, you know, you can't just wing it from the get go and learn as you go on the fly. And you can't just assume you're going to learn everything from zero just by opening a seller account and reading seller policy pages or seller university courses and that sort of thing.  Leah: I do think that there is a responsibility as members of the seller community, though, if you do have any sort of experience with somebody sketchy, for lack of a better word ,to tell people, it's amazing to me often how reticent sellers are to talk about these sorts of scam experiences that they've had. And what happens is it just becomes this closed loop. And so other people fall for it because they had no idea that it was going on. And so I do think that there is a responsibility within the community [00:09:00] and again, not putting it on Amazon, but I mean, Amazon would be the best person to broadcast this because they have the greatest reach, but I do think there is just this reticence in the community to talk about things like this happening, and I think that that creates an environment for this to just keep happening over and over again. Chris: Yeah, I think there's some of this shows up in the forums. And there are some various mentions of things, but it's the shame of being duped. And it's just like, you can go listen to some podcast where there's a con artist or a fraudster who takes a bunch of people for a ride and takes their money. Those people don't typically share info publicly either because they're afraid that it'll keep happening and they'll be attacked and abused again and again. But also they don't want to wear the scarlet letter of shame that they fell for something like this. Maybe it would deter future investors in their business. Maybe it would be harmful if they have partnerships that are depending on their business. So I can understand that, but we have seen it [00:10:00] propagate to ridiculous degrees. And of course, The attackers and the fraudsters know that no one's going to call them out for this publicly. In this case, there was a CNBC article. We'll include it in the notes. You can, you can read all about it. But tell somebody if you don't want to post it in the forums, at least tell people like us. So we are aware of what's going on and we can bring it to groups we belong to, or we can post it on our own, or we can somehow share the information to prevent other people from getting scammed because the more you prevent, it's not just that you're helping a neighbor or helping a buddy. You might be helping yourself too because you might be closing the door on other scams that never get off the ground because they aren't as hopeful that they'll get away with it. Leah: Exactly. I think creating an environment where it isn't easy for stuff like this to grow and become a bigger problem is, is the best thing that you could do kind of across the board, really because it's getting a little bit better now, but a few years ago, there was this whole thing of like, well, everybody has to break the rules. That's the only way to succeed [00:11:00] on Amazon. And so I think if you do just keep not saying anything and let it happen that fosters that sort of culture within the space, which isn't good for anybody because it just kind of pushes us all into a race to the bottom, which none of us should want.  Chris: it's not good for Amazon. It's not good for service providers, sellers or buyers. It's a toxic environment when all of this stays behind the scenes because fraudsters and black hats depend, I mean criminals, let's face it, anyone who steals is a thief and a criminal. They're depending on gullibility of people to shatter their business world and profit from it.  If you're apprehensive about sharing the info, not sure what to do with it, let us know. We might have some ideas that we might be able to share it for you. And thanks again, Leah. Talk to you soon.

You're Only as Good as Your Worst Supplier

New Rules For ReviewsNew Rules For ReviewsChris: [00:00:00] Hi everybody, this is Chris McCabe. Welcome back to another wonderful episode of Seller Performance Solutions. I'm here with Leah McHugh. Leah, how are you? Leah: Good, thanks. How are you, Chris? Chris: I'm good. We're talking about the FTC announcement June 30th, I believe, trying to eliminate deceptive reviews, practices, online marketplaces, online reviews, and some of their proposed rule changes. Open for public comment, we should note. Leah: So you have 60 days from the day that they posted the notice of proposed changes. That being said, we're not really changing it so much as just further clarifying their stance in regards to product reviews. Chris: I'm hoping this brings to an end the conversations we keep having over and over with. Well, am I just violating Amazon policies or am I violating laws? Is this illegal or am I just breaking a [00:01:00] few gray area rules?  And some of this, I'm gonna read from the FTCs announcements, but they say, for example, some of these proposed rules would prohibit selling or obtaining fake consumer reviews and testimonials. I think that sounds pretty straightforward. Review hijacking, we hear that term quite a bit now.Obviously the FTC is starting to sue people based on that specific sellers, and that's been announced already, buying positive or negative reviews. Buying a negative review, of course, would be paying somebody to leave a negative review for your competitor. Insider reviews and consumer testimonials, company controlled review websites.This is essentially padding your reviews with five stars from friendly accounts or from friendly sources. We've seen that not just with product reviews on Amazon, but with service providers as well, correct? Illegal review, suppression, and finally selling fake social media indicators. So maybe we should start with [00:02:00] that first.How would you define social media indicators and what they mean by that? Leah: Well, they're talking about likes and followers, which I don't know how they're going to retroactively start enforcing that cause that is Widespread. Good that they are starting to. Chris: Illegal review suppression, I'm assuming that means they come up with some fake story about why they were left a negative review and they try to prove it with fake info in order to get it removed from a website. Leah: No, I believe that's when you only show your positive reviews and filter out the negative without indicating that that's what you're doing.Chris: In terms of padding your positive reviews with fake accounts, , everyone is familiar with that. I don't know how many people have been punished for that. Amazon punishes you for doing it, but outside of Amazon product review systems, how many people have been busted for that? Let's say on Google My Business or things like that, I haven't heard a lot about it. Maybe you have.Leah: Not any major cases that I'm aware of. But it's [00:03:00] also a matter of, they do have to prove it before they can file a case. I think the most recent case that is the most relevant probably to our listeners because I think at this point, even if they're still doing it, I think most people know at this point that buying reviews, getting fake reviews, leaving fake reviews, messing with your competitors reviews, those are all not looked upon kindly by the FTC. I think we're all aware of that. I think the area that I see the most confusion or maybe intentional confusion, I'm not sure around this is in regards to the review hijacking, because that is the one that we do still see the most I would say. It's something that I actively get questions about how to do from sellers which I then have to refer to them that is illegal and also against Amazon's policy. It's very easy to see on Amazon's website too. If you look at a product's reviews and you look at the images that are associated with reviews, often they're for a completely different product or if you [00:04:00] read the reviews, they talk about product features that have absolutely nothing to do with the current product. Or maybe were on a previous version of it, that is no longer available for sale. So I think that is where we're still seeing the most confusion or maybe intentional unawareness around this.And, and I think it's also because it is very easy to do. All you have to do in order to merge those reviews. You don't even have to merge the ASINs in order to get an old product listed on the same ASIN as a new product. All you have to do, you don't even have to hijack the ASIN. All you have to do is create a variation family with products that are out of stock and then they don't show up anywhere on the detail page, but all of their reviews do.So one, it's very easy to do. And two, of course there's an incentive to do it because you can take a product that has no reviews and all of a sudden it has 500 reviews from your previous products. And I also understand where some sellers are coming from when they're well, but it's the same [00:05:00] product but for one reason or another, I had to create a new ASIN, whether it's a brand change or one of the many reasons that you do have to create a new ASIN so they don't wanna lose all of their reviews, so they think it's fine to just merge it as a child to keep those reviews, which yes, I understand the incentive, but what I don't understand, and this is on Amazon side, it would be very easy for them to just make it so products that are out of stock, those reviews aren't included on the variation family. That would probably take an engineer not that long to implement. Chris: That's one easy first step, right? Leah: If the FTC is already doing all of the scrutiny, at the very least they could do it so out of stock products don't show up. That does not address the problem of people adding unrelated products to variation families when they're active in order to try to sell more.So that would still be a problem, but in terms of making it look like this product has all of these reviews, which actually belong to other [00:06:00] products that you can't even see on the detail page. All Amazon needs to do is make it so that out of stock products reviews don't show up within the variation family.And I'm sure a lot of sellers are swearing at me right now for saying this because I'm sure they would like their reviews to stay on the detail page, but it would be a very easy fix to this and it would get rid of a lot of abuse. Chris: Beyond that though, Amazon already knows this is a huge strategy. The FTC knows about it. The FTCs been studying reviews on Amazon for I think 28 teams when they first announced an investigation into fake product reviews on Amazon. So these are all well known concepts. How hard is it really to marshal the resources just to figure out, there's a bunch of reviews for an unrelated product on this page.A bunch of these at least have to be deleted, or the merge has to be undone, or the listing needs to be suspended or even the seller needs to be suspended, right? Because we have had people work with us to report it, and a lot of times, It looks like Amazon [00:07:00] doesn't even care. And it's kind of strange when they've locked horns at the FTC lately that they're not even interested in some of the easier stuff to fix, to at least show consumers the world, the media, whoever the FTC, that they're willing to make some changes, as opposed to, I think the other day we got a message back, oh, we looked at these variation families.We didn't see anything wrong. Everything was correct. Obviously the person who read that at Amazon had no interest in fixing it, or they didn't look at it to begin with. They were just saying they did.Leah: I do find it interesting how hard we do have to push to get Amazon to take this seriously when we are reporting it as abuse for clients because the FTC has been very clear that they're paying attention to this. Not even just in their announcement on the 30th. They filed suit against that supplement seller previously this year, and they've also brought it up multiple times in the last couple of years. So I had actually expected after that initial lawsuit that we would see a slew of suspensions regarding review hijacking [00:08:00] and that never came and again, it seems like we have to push a lot harder when reporting this sort of abuse as opposed to other kinds of abuse that we report. So I'm not sure where the disconnect is there, unless Amazon's just under scrutiny from so many government agencies at this point that it's on the list. I'm not sure. Chris: Well, the FTC at the top of the list, FTC should be at the top of the list and is at the top of the list. And even just to clarify, even people that aren't clients, We hear about them writing emails to Andy Jassy, writing to the Jeff at Amazon, or the executive seller relations. Teams writing to Dharmesh, whoever they're doing it because they're being universally ignored by teams that just don't feel like looking at it or doing the work to enforce their own policies.That's why that's happening, right? But why should you have to write to Andy Jasi just to get Amazon to enforce their own policies and their own rules? No one ever explains this, and it is kind of low hanging fruit. If Amazon was pressed about this publicly, they'd probably come back with some [00:09:00] fancy PR statement saying, oh, our engineers are working on this stuff all the time.We have to develop sophisticated tools for this. Teams have to be, we have to add to their headcount to review these cases one by one to make sure we're taking the right action. I think people are looking at some of it, they just don't feel like doing anything about it, and no one's looking over their shoulder to evaluate the quality of that investigation. Leah: Well, and again, if we can see it ourselves without their internal tools it must be so obvious if they were to look at it with their tools, I can go to a listing. And without any additional information from a seller other than the detail page. Obviously if I have additional information, it is easier to find, but it's very easy to see on the detail page and that's just on the front end. That is not even using the tools and their tools would be able to see the 30 or 40 ASINs that are out of stock but are still part of that [00:10:00] variation family.Even though they're unrelated, it's not like they can't see this, and it's not like it isn't automateable and we've already seen them automate parts of this. We just haven't really seen them push the enforcement that much, and I'm not sure why. Chris: Well, what happened to protecting buyer experience? That's supposed to be the number one. And how is this good for buyer experience to have people make a purchase based on a product that has a bunch of reviews for something totally unrelated. This should be the most logical, easy to explain thing that anyone, whether it's a consumer or a seller, has to explain to the company. To anyone who's on marketplace enforcement teams. Why are they so disinterested in this? I don't know. Because it's just drawing a giant target on their back and we already know the FTC is extremely interested in this topic. So it begs the question from me to you, is this just they're thumbing their nose.Hey, we [00:11:00] know you guys are interested in this topic, but we'll get to it when we get to it. We'll care when we want to care. And we're not gonna let the FTC tell us what to do. Is that what this is about? Leah: Maybe, maybe it also just needs to get to the point where the FTC is fining them $50,000 per fake review that they find.Which doesn't sound like a lot, but if you look at millions of fake reviews, that $50,000 goes up pretty quick. Chris: It's a loaded question. I know, but it's a serious question because I can't understand it any other way, the lack of motivation, and let's just say they do incur a bunch of fines and they keep things exactly status quo as they are.What's the motivation for that? Leah: Well, I also think we'll see them pass those fines onto the sellers. We've seen that happen before where Amazon has had a lawsuit or a federal fine levied against them, they then send a letter to that, to whoever was selling that product, saying that that's going to be deducted from their fees.So Fines aren't that important when someone [00:12:00] else is paying them for you. Chris: And I want to briefly touch on this. I don't wanna make this a 20-25 minute podcast because we haven't had one of those in a while, but in another episode we can talk about the inconsistency of enforcement in terms of some of the people doing this, the sellers, whether we've reported them or sellers report them themselves. Why are those sellers still selling? Why are they just giving them a slap on the wrist? Some people get banned permanently for reviews of abuse and they never come back. We've seen that in spades. Other people, maybe a couple of reviews get deleted. Maybe the ASIN gets suspended, but not the account.Maybe the account gets suspended for like a day. Then they go back to doing it again. Leah: I was thinking about this the other day actually, when I was working on a case like this because we can see the front end, but we can't necessarily see which seller did it.And I was wondering if surely there are services because anybody can update a listing. I'm wondering if a lot of these sellers are using services to make these updates to their [00:13:00] listing. So those updates aren't on their account and then now I feel like I'm giving black hat people ideas, so I should stop talking.Chris: But what about my original point in terms of there are sellers who have been caught doing different types of review manipulation, whether it's patting their own five stars or leaving negatives for somebody else or doing any of the things I listed at the beginning of this episode, they've been caught multiple times.They're not banned. They're still on Amazon. And Amazon never explains why one seller will do something wrong once and get a permanent ban out of it. Or they get suspended and the appeals process is exceptionally difficult for them to recover from. While there are other sellers who get maybe a warning email, maybe nothing.Maybe somebody reviews what they were doing and doesn't even give them a slap on the wrist and just passes it. Why are those people allowed to operate with impunity while other sellers are treated so harshly? That's never been explained. Leah: You should listen to our podcast episode called Amazon Is Inconsistent.[00:14:00]Chris: I've thought about that, but there are some sellers. That have hired us to report abuse maybe 12 months ago, and we do it and we know that there's a result. We know the seller lost some listings. The seller were reporting, not the seller that hired us, to be clear. The sellers are hiring us to report an abusive seller.We do this all the time. I'm not even sure how many other people do it to the extent that we do it. Pretty much nobody, but they come back a year later, oh, they're at it again. Can I hire you again? They shouldn't have to hire us again because if they're at it again, that seller that's been reported already as a track record of abuse, and if they're a two-time loser or second go round, they should just be suspended and that should be it.No one ever adequately explains. Even some account managers that I speak to who are working with some of our clients, we ask them. We're reporting the seller again, but why are they even allowed to sell at all at this point? Oh, hang on. Each case [00:15:00] is different and I don't know, I don't work with those guys and I can't look at the annotations and I can't tell you.So that's another episode for another day. But lately, everyone's afraid to have that conversation on I can't explain why a two or a three time loser is still on the site. And by the way, don't ask questions like that because Amazon doesn't wanna have to answer to that and it's just the lack of fairness on the platform underscored a thousand times to me.Leah: Agreed. Chris: So anyone who has examples of this, let me know. Let Leah know. We're happy to take a look. Leah: And I just wanna mention again that you do have, well now less than 60 days, but approximately 60 days since the 30th to comment on the FTC proposed rule making. And I encourage sellers to do that because ultimately you are the ones that are going to be most affected by these FTC changes. And we'll include a link in the show notes, so that's easy for you to find. But absolutely use the process to give your [00:16:00] input. As somebody who is dealing with this all of the time, the FTC might not answer you, but I'm sure they'll appreciate it.Chris: Definitely. Thanks again for listening. Talk to you next time.

New Rules For Reviews<h1>New Rules For Reviews</h1>Chris: [00:00:00] Hi everybody, this is Chris McCabe. Welcome back to another wonderful episode of Seller Performance Solutions. I'm here with Leah McHugh. Leah, how are you?  Leah: Good, thanks. How are you, Chris?  Chris: I'm good. We're talking about the FTC announcement June 30th, I believe, trying to eliminate deceptive reviews, practices, online marketplaces, online reviews, and some of their proposed rule changes. Open for public comment, we should note.  Leah: So you have 60 days from the day that they posted the notice of proposed changes. That being said, we're not really changing it so much as just further clarifying their stance in regards to product reviews.  Chris: I'm hoping this brings to an end the conversations we keep having over and over with. Well, am I just violating Amazon policies or am I violating laws? Is this illegal or am I just breaking a [00:01:00] few gray area rules?   And some of this, I'm gonna read from the FTCs announcements, but they say, for example, some of these proposed rules would prohibit selling or obtaining fake consumer reviews and testimonials. I think that sounds pretty straightforward. Review hijacking, we hear that term quite a bit now. Obviously the FTC is starting to sue people based on that specific sellers, and that's been announced already, buying positive or negative reviews. Buying a negative review, of course, would be paying somebody to leave a negative review for your competitor. Insider reviews and consumer testimonials, company controlled review websites. This is essentially padding your reviews with five stars from friendly accounts or from friendly sources. We've seen that not just with product reviews on Amazon, but with service providers as well, correct? Illegal review, suppression, and finally selling fake social media indicators. So maybe we should start with [00:02:00] that first. How would you define social media indicators and what they mean by that?  Leah: Well, they're talking about likes and followers, which I don't know how they're going to retroactively start enforcing that cause that is Widespread. Good that they are starting to.  Chris: Illegal review suppression, I'm assuming that means they come up with some fake story about why they were left a negative review and they try to prove it with fake info in order to get it removed from a website.  Leah: No, I believe that's when you only show your positive reviews and filter out the negative without indicating that that's what you're doing. Chris: In terms of padding your positive reviews with fake accounts, , everyone is familiar with that. I don't know how many people have been punished for that. Amazon punishes you for doing it, but outside of Amazon product review systems, how many people have been busted for that? Let's say on Google My Business or things like that, I haven't heard a lot about it. Maybe you have. Leah: Not any major cases that I'm aware of. But it's [00:03:00] also a matter of, they do have to prove it before they can file a case. I think the most recent case that is the most relevant probably to our listeners because I think at this point, even if they're still doing it, I think most people know at this point that buying reviews, getting fake reviews, leaving fake reviews, messing with your competitors reviews, those are all not looked upon kindly by the FTC. I think we're all aware of that. I think the area that I see the most confusion or maybe intentional confusion, I'm not sure around this is in regards to the review hijacking, because that is the one that we do still see the most I would say. It's something that I actively get questions about how to do from sellers which I then have to refer to them that is illegal and also against Amazon's policy.  It's very easy to see on Amazon's website too. If you look at a product's reviews and you look at the images that are associated with reviews, often they're for a completely different product or if you [00:04:00] read the reviews, they talk about product features that have absolutely nothing to do with the current product. Or maybe were on a previous version of it, that is no longer available for sale. So I think that is where we're still seeing the most confusion or maybe intentional unawareness around this. And, and I think it's also because it is very easy to do. All you have to do in order to merge those reviews. You don't even have to merge the ASINs in order to get an old product listed on the same ASIN as a new product. All you have to do, you don't even have to hijack the ASIN. All you have to do is create a variation family with products that are out of stock and then they don't show up anywhere on the detail page, but all of their reviews do. So one, it's very easy to do. And two, of course there's an incentive to do it because you can take a product that has no reviews and all of a sudden it has 500 reviews from your previous products. And I also understand where some sellers are coming from when they're well, but it's the same [00:05:00] product but for one reason or another, I had to create a new ASIN, whether it's a brand change or one of the many reasons that you do have to create a new ASIN so they don't wanna lose all of their reviews, so they think it's fine to just merge it as a child to keep those reviews, which yes, I understand the incentive, but what I don't understand, and this is on Amazon side, it would be very easy for them to just make it so products that are out of stock, those reviews aren't included on the variation family. That would probably take an engineer not that long to implement.  Chris: That's one easy first step, right?  Leah: If the FTC is already doing all of the scrutiny, at the very least they could do it so out of stock products don't show up. That does not address the problem of people adding unrelated products to variation families when they're active in order to try to sell more. So that would still be a problem, but in terms of making it look like this product has all of these reviews, which actually belong to other [00:06:00] products that you can't even see on the detail page. All Amazon needs to do is make it so that out of stock products reviews don't show up within the variation family. And I'm sure a lot of sellers are swearing at me right now for saying this because I'm sure they would like their reviews to stay on the detail page, but it would be a very easy fix to this and it would get rid of a lot of abuse.  Chris: Beyond that though, Amazon already knows this is a huge strategy. The FTC knows about it. The FTCs been studying reviews on Amazon for I think 28 teams when they first announced an investigation into fake product reviews on Amazon. So these are all well known concepts. How hard is it really to marshal the resources just to figure out, there's a bunch of reviews for an unrelated product on this page. A bunch of these at least have to be deleted, or the merge has to be undone, or the listing needs to be suspended or even the seller needs to be suspended, right? Because we have had people work with us to report it, and a lot of times, It looks like Amazon [00:07:00] doesn't even care. And it's kind of strange when they've locked horns at the FTC lately that they're not even interested in some of the easier stuff to fix, to at least show consumers the world, the media, whoever the FTC, that they're willing to make some changes, as opposed to, I think the other day we got a message back, oh, we looked at these variation families. We didn't see anything wrong. Everything was correct. Obviously the person who read that at Amazon had no interest in fixing it, or they didn't look at it to begin with. They were just saying they did. Leah: I do find it interesting how hard we do have to push to get Amazon to take this seriously when we are reporting it as abuse for clients because the FTC has been very clear that they're paying attention to this. Not even just in their announcement on the 30th. They filed suit against that supplement seller previously this year, and they've also brought it up multiple times in the last couple of years. So I had actually expected after that initial lawsuit that we would see a slew of suspensions regarding review hijacking [00:08:00] and that never came and again, it seems like we have to push a lot harder when reporting this sort of abuse as opposed to other kinds of abuse that we report. So I'm not sure where the disconnect is there, unless Amazon's just under scrutiny from so many government agencies at this point that it's on the list. I'm not sure.  Chris: Well, the FTC at the top of the list, FTC should be at the top of the list and is at the top of the list. And even just to clarify, even people that aren't clients, We hear about them writing emails to Andy Jassy, writing to the Jeff at Amazon, or the executive seller relations. Teams writing to Dharmesh, whoever they're doing it because they're being universally ignored by teams that just don't feel like looking at it or doing the work to enforce their own policies. That's why that's happening, right? But why should you have to write to Andy Jasi just to get Amazon to enforce their own policies and their own rules? No one ever explains this, and it is kind of low hanging fruit. If Amazon was pressed about this publicly, they'd probably come back with some [00:09:00] fancy PR statement saying, oh, our engineers are working on this stuff all the time. We have to develop sophisticated tools for this. Teams have to be, we have to add to their headcount to review these cases one by one to make sure we're taking the right action. I think people are looking at some of it, they just don't feel like doing anything about it, and no one's looking over their shoulder to evaluate the quality of that investigation.  Leah: Well, and again, if we can see it ourselves without their internal tools it must be so obvious if they were to look at it with their tools, I can go to a listing. And without any additional information from a seller other than the detail page.  Obviously if I have additional information, it is easier to find, but it's very easy to see on the detail page and that's just on the front end. That is not even using the tools and their tools would be able to see the 30 or 40 ASINs that are out of stock but are still part of that [00:10:00] variation family. Even though they're unrelated, it's not like they can't see this, and it's not like it isn't automateable and we've already seen them automate parts of this. We just haven't really seen them push the enforcement that much, and I'm not sure why.  Chris: Well, what happened to protecting buyer experience? That's supposed to be the number one. And how is this good for buyer experience to have people make a purchase based on a product that has a bunch of reviews for something totally unrelated. This should be the most logical, easy to explain thing that anyone, whether it's a consumer or a seller, has to explain to the company.  To anyone who's on marketplace enforcement teams. Why are they so disinterested in this? I don't know. Because it's just drawing a giant target on their back and we already know the FTC is extremely interested in this topic. So it begs the question from me to you, is this just they're thumbing their nose. Hey, we [00:11:00] know you guys are interested in this topic, but we'll get to it when we get to it. We'll care when we want to care. And we're not gonna let the FTC tell us what to do. Is that what this is about?  Leah: Maybe, maybe it also just needs to get to the point where the FTC is fining them $50,000 per fake review that they find. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but if you look at millions of fake reviews, that $50,000 goes up pretty quick.  Chris: It's a loaded question. I know, but it's a serious question because I can't understand it any other way, the lack of motivation, and let's just say they do incur a bunch of fines and they keep things exactly status quo as they are. What's the motivation for that?  Leah: Well, I also think we'll see them pass those fines onto the sellers. We've seen that happen before where Amazon has had a lawsuit or a federal fine levied against them, they then send a letter to that, to whoever was selling that product, saying that that's going to be deducted from their fees. So Fines aren't that important when someone [00:12:00] else is paying them for you.  Chris: And I want to briefly touch on this. I don't wanna make this a 20-25 minute podcast because we haven't had one of those in a while, but in another episode we can talk about the inconsistency of enforcement in terms of some of the people doing this, the sellers, whether we've reported them or sellers report them themselves. Why are those sellers still selling? Why are they just giving them a slap on the wrist? Some people get banned permanently for reviews of abuse and they never come back. We've seen that in spades. Other people, maybe a couple of reviews get deleted. Maybe the ASIN gets suspended, but not the account. Maybe the account gets suspended for like a day. Then they go back to doing it again.  Leah: I was thinking about this the other day actually, when I was working on a case like this because we can see the front end, but we can't necessarily see which seller did it. And I was wondering if surely there are services because anybody can update a listing. I'm wondering if a lot of these sellers are using services to make these updates to their [00:13:00] listing. So those updates aren't on their account and then now I feel like I'm giving black hat people ideas, so I should stop talking. Chris: But what about my original point in terms of there are sellers who have been caught doing different types of review manipulation, whether it's patting their own five stars or leaving negatives for somebody else or doing any of the things I listed at the beginning of this episode, they've been caught multiple times. They're not banned. They're still on Amazon. And Amazon never explains why one seller will do something wrong once and get a permanent ban out of it. Or they get suspended and the appeals process is exceptionally difficult for them to recover from. While there are other sellers who get maybe a warning email, maybe nothing. Maybe somebody reviews what they were doing and doesn't even give them a slap on the wrist and just passes it. Why are those people allowed to operate with impunity while other sellers are treated so harshly? That's never been explained.  Leah: You should listen to our podcast episode called Amazon Is Inconsistent.[00:14:00] Chris: I've thought about that, but there are some sellers. That have hired us to report abuse maybe 12 months ago, and we do it and we know that there's a result. We know the seller lost some listings. The seller were reporting, not the seller that hired us, to be clear. The sellers are hiring us to report an abusive seller. We do this all the time. I'm not even sure how many other people do it to the extent that we do it. Pretty much nobody, but they come back a year later, oh, they're at it again. Can I hire you again? They shouldn't have to hire us again because if they're at it again, that seller that's been reported already as a track record of abuse, and if they're a two-time loser or second go round, they should just be suspended and that should be it. No one ever adequately explains. Even some account managers that I speak to who are working with some of our clients, we ask them. We're reporting the seller again, but why are they even allowed to sell at all at this point? Oh, hang on. Each case [00:15:00] is different and I don't know, I don't work with those guys and I can't look at the annotations and I can't tell you. So that's another episode for another day. But lately, everyone's afraid to have that conversation on I can't explain why a two or a three time loser is still on the site. And by the way, don't ask questions like that because Amazon doesn't wanna have to answer to that and it's just the lack of fairness on the platform underscored a thousand times to me. Leah: Agreed.  Chris: So anyone who has examples of this, let me know. Let Leah know. We're happy to take a look.  Leah: And I just wanna mention again that you do have, well now less than 60 days, but approximately 60 days since the 30th to comment on the FTC proposed rule making. And I encourage sellers to do that because ultimately you are the ones that are going to be most affected by these FTC changes. And we'll include a link in the show notes, so that's easy for you to find. But absolutely use the process to give your [00:16:00] input. As somebody who is dealing with this all of the time, the FTC might not answer you, but I'm sure they'll appreciate it. Chris: Definitely. Thanks again for listening. Talk to you next time.

New Rules for Reviews

Chris: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome back to another wonderful edition of Seller Performance Solutions. I'm Chris McCabe of ecommercechris, I'm with Leah Mchugh here to talk about Prime Day of course. It's coming up very, very soon, not just what you need to focus on in terms of competitor attacks.We talked about that quite a bit all throughout 2023, and Leah posted about this on LinkedIn yesterday. We've had a lot of interesting comments and a lot of clickthroughs on that. But we also want to talk about things you might be doing to get your listings restricted by Amazon itself. Not competitor attack related, but things that aren't compliant.And these are things that Leah, you see constantly, whether it's prime day or not. So I thought you could kind of talk about the restricted product part first. Leah: Yeah. Well we tend to see an upswing in restricted products being flagged. I think partly, Because a lot of people are making changes to their listings around peak holiday periods or [00:01:00] peak sales periods, I should say.I guess Prime Day is not an official holiday. I think at this point it's a holiday. Partly because people are making changes to their listings, which they maybe shouldn't make. So we've talked before about adding keywords to your listing, which implies a disease claim, or implies that your product is a pesticide or implies that your product is for children when maybe you don't have the testing for it to be a children's product.So we tend to see a lot of flags around that. But I don't think it's just Amazon's algorithm and sellers and overdrive. I think it is also that a lot of sellers start reporting each other more. Leading up to peaks holiday periods because , it's in their interest to remove competition where they can.And so sometimes we'll see that in the form of an attack, but we also see a lot more sellers reporting other sellers for policy violations. So again, I think it's important to prepare yourself for an attack, but it's also important to look at yourself and look at your own account and your own practices, and make sure you're not giving anybody any excuse to get you shut [00:02:00] down before a peak sales period. Chris: And I think some people are getting an email from an agency or a marketing company saying, Hey, we're getting you in position to sell more on Prime Day. We know how to enhance your listings. We know how to modify your listings. And then everyone starts thinking, oh yeah, I gotta do something to make sure I really kick it into high gear on Prime Day.So they're really just kind of responding to a special offer that they got in an email.Leah: Well, I think it's just everybody goes into optimization overdrive. So it's not even just listing content, it's also things like let's put these together as a variation, because then it looks like you have more reviews and then that'll boost sales for both products.So we see a lot of anything around listing optimization that can get people into trouble is what we tend to be seeing people being suspended or flagged for around peak sales periods. Chris: And it makes sense that Amazon would do this because they're selling more of everything during prime day.So of course there's more scrutiny, of course there's more [00:03:00] enforcement of policies when there are things that maybe have been ignored in the past, but there's also more scrutiny by your competitors, like you said. So It makes more sense that they're going to get more reports of listing violations.We're constantly reporting listing violations to Amazon, and we've noticed that they take a little bit longer to respond or to review things around this time period simply because of the volume of reports going in. So, Consider that on both sides. One, you might not get flagged until right before prime day because you've been reported already, perhaps, and haven't taken action on it yet because they didn't get to it.And also, if you are looking to report competitors, they might not respond right away. They might not review it correctly. You might have to send it in two, three times. Just because they get easily backlogged and things are misplaced, misunderstood all the time these days. Leah: Well, enlisting violations are also one of the easier things to report people for. All you have to do is look on the website. You don't have to do a test by, you don't have to go through any sales [00:04:00] funnel. You can just see it. It also makes it a lot easier to report it to Amazon because you aren't really having to provide a whole lot of proof other than just explaining to them, this is against this policy because of this, as opposed to potential review manipulation or anything like that.You have to do a lot more investigating on your side before you can report somebody for that. So I think also we see a lot more reports like this around peak sales periods because it's quick and it's easy to report people for. Chris: And I love to refer to my favorite LinkedIn example, that thread where there was an agency or a service promoting all these changes you can make to images, right? They said it was the best user experience. And then there was an Amazonian on there saying, by the way, this is a hundred percent wrong. Leah: Well not wrong. A hundred percent against terms of service.Chris: And the idea, we talked about this in a prior podcast, but the idea that because you see people getting away with stuff means that you should be getting away with it too. Or means that Amazon's okay with it and it's policy compliant simply [00:05:00] because you can see it and it's live on the site.That idea is one that needs to go away as quickly as possible. And also people are picking up on trends that they see posted on LinkedIn, posted on Facebook, posted anywhere with these special offers. Consider the source of the information. Are they compliance experts or are they just trying to milk something like prime day.Leah: Well, and I think people get kind of focused on the reward rather than the risk in peak sales period so they see other people doing it. They're like, oh, it might be against policy, but I'm just gonna do it anyway. Because it is a higher sales period. But they're not really considering the the risk that your entire account could be shut down for that peak sales period. So I think it's a combination of multiple factors, but part of it is also more risky behavior on sellers side. Maybe not doing as much research as they would normally as they're preparing to sales optimize everything for prime day. [00:06:00]Chris: Speaking of great segue point, speaking of not doing enough research, let's talk about abuse reporting and attacks and make sure you research.Don't just assume you're being attacked by a competitor who's just trying to take you down and using any means to do it. Research things you might have done yourself to get your listing suspended before you start pointing fingers. Leah: That's something else I wanted to talk about, if something happens to your listings at this time of year or any time of year really it's nice to assume that you did nothing wrong and it must be an attack, but really the first thing that you need to do before any action is taken on your side is to make sure that you were actually not violating a policy yourself. Because we do get that quite a lot where sellers come to us and they're like, I'm being attacked and we're like, no, this was a correct action by Amazon. Chris: It's a knee-jerk reaction. So let's run through a quick list of the typical types of attacks we see during peak periods, right? Backend keyword abuse is a good place to start. Leah: Yeah. keyword abuse is [00:07:00] consistently a popular form of attack.What I'm seeing more in the keyword abuse area , is well actually sort of gone full circle at this point because we saw this years ago and now we're seeing it again, but seeing a lot more keyword abuse where when you talk to catalog, they say it's a retail contribution, which a lot of sellers tend to think means that Amazon put that information on their listing, but what it actually means is that somebody used Vendor Central to attack your listing. That's a good point. It's a popular form of abuse because if it's a retail contribution, it is a little bit harder to correct.So it does have a tendency to get you taken out for a little bit longer than if they were just putting in incorrect keywords from an international marketplace or via the API. Chris: Well, there's many forms of ASIN contribution abuse. Right? I think a lot of brands still assume that because they're in brand registry and they're the brand owner, that they hundred percent control any contribution to a listing.Leah: Sadly, no. But it's also again, it's similar but different category abuse. So [00:08:00] people getting products moved into a different category or moved into an unbuyable category one that we saw a few years ago, which I'm still kind of impressed with, but if only they use this for good instead of evil. They moved a product into the mobile app category, so then the product was only purchasable from a phone. You couldn't buy it from the desktop site. So we see a lot of stuff like that during holiday periods because again, It just reduces your sales and knocks out their competition from their category.And it's also quick and easy for them to do. Chris: Right. And of course, sometimes we see detailed page abuse. We see people having their titles rearranged. Leah: Hijacking. We see a lot of listing hijacking this time of year too. Particularly if you have a very good selling product with lots of reviews.Chris: And then of course, people using some illicit service to buy from you and try to pump those keywords into their [00:09:00] complaint in terms of this is unsafe, this is hazardous. I went to the hospital. My whole neighborhood was in the hospital because they were all sick or they were all injured.You just have to really prepare. This is counterfeit, even though it's a branded product and only being sold by the brand. These are things you have to prepare for and expect to have to appeal, even if it doesn't make sense, even if it's irrational. You do have to appeal it.Even when you're disputing it, you're not necessarily writing a plan of action of course, you might be asked for one, but you're essentially appealing this as an error saying these are clearly time to tax for prime day. You wanna look for patterns in the buying history of course, if you've had attacks previously from a particular party, you wanna do some research and really kind of comprehensively go through any details you can provide.Because if you're very vague, if you're generic, and if you just throw it at Amazon and say, we're being attacked, you guys figure it out. We don't know exactly what's going on. They're not likely to do anything about it. Leah: Yeah. And then [00:10:00] another one that we see pretty much every major holiday sales period are listings being flagged as adult, that aren't adult products.And a few that I'm seeing this year, which is sort of a newer one because it wasn't really a thing a few years ago was getting products flagged as meltable. They're planning for your inventory to get removed from FBA because it isn't allowed to be an FBA during the summertime.Chris: That's true. Things that haven't have no capability of melting are being flagged as meltable. Leah: Right. And we always see expiration complaints on products that can't expire. My favorite was the plastic containers that were flagged as expired. Chris: Yep. The Tupperware containers. That were not capable of expiration. That's what I mean. Things that don't make any sense. And you would think that Amazon would anticipate that and would flag fewer listings that they could at least lift out the easy ones. Things that don't even expire, for example. Leah: Or just maybe have a person look at it before they send [00:11:00] out the complaint.Chris: Yeah, they're just marching through dozens or hundreds of these in one go, I think. Leah: Oh. I just don't think they're even being reviewed at this point. it's just automated. Chris: Yeah. A lot of what we're talking about today is unfortunate because they've been seen before. These aren't novel forms of attack.These are things that came up Black Friday, cyber Monday last year, maybe Prime Day last year, maybe all of last year. Leah: I wanna say I was working on this stuff on Thanksgiving the year before last. So yeah, we see it pretty much every year, every sales peak.Chris: We want to, at some point, we've got a plan to send calendars to people at Amazon. Circle the year, ,\ it's not 2022 anymore. Pretty sure it's not 2021 either. And see if they can start learning from some of these mistakes instead of just rushing through and slapping it together. Copy and paste last minute ends up being a bad user experience for both sellers and buyers, of course, because buyers end up being [00:12:00] exposed to fewer quality listings than they could be when you're genuine listing is taken down in favor of somebody else. Anyone who's willing to attack you in some sort of black hat fashion probably is willing to mess with the quality of their own products and maybe not have the right ingredients in their product, right? If they can do it cheaper. And just put some info on the label and not expect anyone to care, right? We've seen that too. So yeah, it's weird . Leah: I do assume that the people doing me attacks have not very good products. I don't actually have any evidence to suggest that, but I do assume that for whatever reason.Chris: Yeah, that's not something we spend a lot of time talking about. I'm not even sure if the media spends a lot of time talking about it.Leah: But if you're willing to cut corners in an anti-competitive behavior I assume you're willing to cut corners when it comes to product quality and safety. I didn't realize I made this connection until you just said this.Chris: If you're willing to cheat in terms of policies and even laws, you're probably willing to cheat in terms of other [00:13:00] things tied to your own products, and you're probably just not selling as well as you could be if you had a better product.All right, thanks everybody. Let us know if you have any questions on anything we touched on today. The closer we get to prime day, the more likely strange and unusual things are likely to occur. And of course, some of them aren't unusual. That's the problem. That's the point. Flag those early and get them in front of our eyes or in front of competent eyes if you need to report anything to Amazon, because if something's going wrong now, The sooner the better.Give them as much lead time as possible to fix the problem when you report it. Thanks, Leah. Leah: Thanks Chris.

Chris: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome back to another wonderful edition of Seller Performance Solutions. I'm Chris McCabe of ecommercechris, I'm with Leah Mchugh here to talk about Prime Day of course. It's coming up very, very soon, not just what you need to focus on in terms of competitor attacks. We talked about that quite a bit all throughout 2023, and Leah posted about this on LinkedIn yesterday. We've had a lot of interesting comments and a lot of clickthroughs on that. But we also want to talk about things you might be doing to get your listings restricted by Amazon itself. Not competitor attack related, but things that aren't compliant. And these are things that Leah, you see constantly, whether it's prime day or not. So I thought you could kind of talk about the restricted product part first.  Leah: Yeah. Well we tend to see an upswing in restricted products being flagged. I think partly, Because a lot of people are making changes to their listings around peak holiday periods or [00:01:00] peak sales periods, I should say. I guess Prime Day is not an official holiday. I think at this point it's a holiday. Partly because people are making changes to their listings, which they maybe shouldn't make. So we've talked before about adding keywords to your listing, which implies a disease claim, or implies that your product is a pesticide or implies that your product is for children when maybe you don't have the testing for it to be a children's product. So we tend to see a lot of flags around that. But I don't think it's just Amazon's algorithm and sellers and overdrive. I think it is also that a lot of sellers start reporting each other more. Leading up to peaks holiday periods because , it's in their interest to remove competition where they can. And so sometimes we'll see that in the form of an attack, but we also see a lot more sellers reporting other sellers for policy violations. So again, I think it's important to prepare yourself for an attack, but it's also important to look at yourself and look at your own account and your own practices, and make sure you're not giving anybody any excuse to get you shut [00:02:00] down before a peak sales period.  Chris: And I think some people are getting an email from an agency or a marketing company saying, Hey, we're getting you in position to sell more on Prime Day. We know how to enhance your listings. We know how to modify your listings. And then everyone starts thinking, oh yeah, I gotta do something to make sure I really kick it into high gear on Prime Day. So they're really just kind of responding to a special offer that they got in an email. Leah: Well, I think it's just everybody goes into optimization overdrive. So it's not even just listing content, it's also things like let's put these together as a variation, because then it looks like you have more reviews and then that'll boost sales for both products. So we see a lot of anything around listing optimization that can get people into trouble is what we tend to be seeing people being suspended or flagged for around peak sales periods.  Chris: And it makes sense that Amazon would do this because they're selling more of everything during prime day. So of course there's more scrutiny, of course there's more [00:03:00] enforcement of policies when there are things that maybe have been ignored in the past, but there's also more scrutiny by your competitors, like you said. So It makes more sense that they're going to get more reports of listing violations. We're constantly reporting listing violations to Amazon, and we've noticed that they take a little bit longer to respond or to review things around this time period simply because of the volume of reports going in. So, Consider that on both sides. One, you might not get flagged until right before prime day because you've been reported already, perhaps, and haven't taken action on it yet because they didn't get to it. And also, if you are looking to report competitors, they might not respond right away. They might not review it correctly. You might have to send it in two, three times. Just because they get easily backlogged and things are misplaced, misunderstood all the time these days.  Leah: Well, enlisting violations are also one of the easier things to report people for.  All you have to do is look on the website. You don't have to do a test by, you don't have to go through any sales [00:04:00] funnel. You can just see it. It also makes it a lot easier to report it to Amazon because you aren't really having to provide a whole lot of proof other than just explaining to them, this is against this policy because of this, as opposed to potential review manipulation or anything like that. You have to do a lot more investigating on your side before you can report somebody for that. So I think also we see a lot more reports like this around peak sales periods because it's quick and it's easy to report people for.  Chris: And I love to refer to my favorite LinkedIn example, that thread where there was an agency or a service promoting all these changes you can make to images, right? They said it was the best user experience. And then there was an Amazonian on there saying, by the way, this is a hundred percent wrong.  Leah: Well not wrong. A hundred percent against terms of service. Chris: And the idea, we talked about this in a prior podcast, but the idea that because you see people getting away with stuff means that you should be getting away with it too. Or means that Amazon's okay with it and it's policy compliant simply [00:05:00] because you can see it and it's live on the site. That idea is one that needs to go away as quickly as possible. And also people are picking up on trends that they see posted on LinkedIn, posted on Facebook, posted anywhere with these special offers. Consider the source of the information. Are they compliance experts or are they just trying to milk something like prime day. Leah: Well, and I think people get kind of focused on the reward rather than the risk in peak sales period so they see other people doing it. They're like, oh, it might be against policy, but I'm just gonna do it anyway. Because it is a higher sales period. But they're not really considering the the risk that your entire account could be shut down for that peak sales period.  So I think it's a combination of multiple factors, but part of it is also more risky behavior on sellers side. Maybe not doing as much research as they would normally as they're preparing to sales optimize everything for prime day. [00:06:00] Chris: Speaking of great segue point, speaking of not doing enough research, let's talk about abuse reporting and attacks and make sure you research. Don't just assume you're being attacked by a competitor who's just trying to take you down and using any means to do it. Research things you might have done yourself to get your listing suspended before you start pointing fingers.  Leah: That's something else I wanted to talk about, if something happens to your listings at this time of year or any time of year really it's nice to assume that you did nothing wrong and it must be an attack, but really the first thing that you need to do before any action is taken on your side is to make sure that you were actually not violating a policy yourself. Because we do get that quite a lot where sellers come to us and they're like, I'm being attacked and we're like, no, this was a correct action by Amazon.  Chris: It's a knee-jerk reaction. So let's run through a quick list of the typical types of attacks we see during peak periods, right? Backend keyword abuse is a good place to start.  Leah: Yeah. keyword abuse is [00:07:00] consistently a popular form of attack. What I'm seeing more in the keyword abuse area , is well actually sort of gone full circle at this point because we saw this years ago and now we're seeing it again, but seeing a lot more keyword abuse where when you talk to catalog, they say it's a retail contribution, which a lot of sellers tend to think means that Amazon put that information on their listing, but what it actually means is that somebody used Vendor Central to attack your listing. That's a good point. It's a popular form of abuse because if it's a retail contribution, it is a little bit harder to correct. So it does have a tendency to get you taken out for a little bit longer than if they were just putting in incorrect keywords from an international marketplace or via the API.  Chris: Well, there's many forms of ASIN contribution abuse. Right? I think a lot of brands still assume that because they're in brand registry and they're the brand owner, that they hundred percent control any contribution to a listing. Leah: Sadly, no. But it's also again, it's similar but different category abuse. So [00:08:00] people getting products moved into a different category or moved into an unbuyable category one that we saw a few years ago, which I'm still kind of impressed with, but if only they use this for good instead of evil.  They moved a product into the mobile app category, so then the product was only purchasable from a phone. You couldn't buy it from the desktop site. So we see a lot of stuff like that during holiday periods because again, It just reduces your sales and knocks out their competition from their category. And it's also quick and easy for them to do.  Chris: Right. And of course, sometimes we see detailed page abuse. We see people having their titles rearranged.  Leah: Hijacking. We see a lot of listing hijacking this time of year too. Particularly if you have a very good selling product with lots of reviews. Chris: And then of course, people using some illicit service to buy from you and try to pump those keywords into their [00:09:00] complaint in terms of this is unsafe, this is hazardous. I went to the hospital. My whole neighborhood was in the hospital because they were all sick or they were all injured. You just have to really prepare. This is counterfeit, even though it's a branded product and only being sold by the brand. These are things you have to prepare for and expect to have to appeal, even if it doesn't make sense, even if it's irrational. You do have to appeal it. Even when you're disputing it, you're not necessarily writing a plan of action of course, you might be asked for one, but you're essentially appealing this as an error saying these are clearly time to tax for prime day. You wanna look for patterns in the buying history of course, if you've had attacks previously from a particular party, you wanna do some research and really kind of comprehensively go through any details you can provide. Because if you're very vague, if you're generic, and if you just throw it at Amazon and say, we're being attacked, you guys figure it out. We don't know exactly what's going on. They're not likely to do anything about it.  Leah: Yeah. And then [00:10:00] another one that we see pretty much every major holiday sales period are listings being flagged as adult, that aren't adult products. And a few that I'm seeing this year, which is sort of a newer one because it wasn't really a thing a few years ago was getting products flagged as meltable. They're planning for your inventory to get removed from FBA because it isn't allowed to be an FBA during the summertime. Chris: That's true. Things that haven't have no capability of melting are being flagged as meltable.  Leah: Right. And we always see expiration complaints on products that can't expire. My favorite was the plastic containers that were flagged as expired.  Chris: Yep. The Tupperware containers. That were not capable of expiration. That's what I mean. Things that don't make any sense. And you would think that Amazon would anticipate that and would flag fewer listings that they could at least lift out the easy ones. Things that don't even expire, for example.  Leah: Or just maybe have a person look at it before they send [00:11:00] out the complaint. Chris: Yeah, they're just marching through dozens or hundreds of these in one go, I think.  Leah: Oh. I just don't think they're even being reviewed at this point. it's just automated.  Chris: Yeah. A lot of what we're talking about today is unfortunate because they've been seen before. These aren't novel forms of attack. These are things that came up Black Friday, cyber Monday last year, maybe Prime Day last year, maybe all of last year.  Leah: I wanna say I was working on this stuff on Thanksgiving the year before last. So yeah, we see it pretty much every year, every sales peak. Chris: We want to, at some point, we've got a plan to send calendars to people at Amazon. Circle the year, ,\ it's not 2022 anymore. Pretty sure it's not 2021 either. And see if they can start learning from some of these mistakes instead of just rushing through and slapping it together. Copy and paste last minute ends up being a bad user experience for both sellers and buyers, of course, because buyers end up being [00:12:00] exposed to fewer quality listings than they could be when you're genuine listing is taken down in favor of somebody else. Anyone who's willing to attack you in some sort of black hat fashion probably is willing to mess with the quality of their own products and maybe not have the right ingredients in their product, right? If they can do it cheaper. And just put some info on the label and not expect anyone to care, right? We've seen that too. So yeah, it's weird .  Leah: I do assume that the people doing me attacks have not very good products. I don't actually have any evidence to suggest that, but I do assume that for whatever reason. Chris: Yeah, that's not something we spend a lot of time talking about. I'm not even sure if the media spends a lot of time talking about it. Leah: But if you're willing to cut corners in an anti-competitive behavior I assume you're willing to cut corners when it comes to product quality and safety. I didn't realize I made this connection until you just said this. Chris: If you're willing to cheat in terms of policies and even laws, you're probably willing to cheat in terms of other [00:13:00] things tied to your own products, and you're probably just not selling as well as you could be if you had a better product. All right, thanks everybody. Let us know if you have any questions on anything we touched on today. The closer we get to prime day, the more likely strange and unusual things are likely to occur. And of course, some of them aren't unusual. That's the problem. That's the point. Flag those early and get them in front of our eyes or in front of competent eyes if you need to report anything to Amazon, because if something's going wrong now, The sooner the better. Give them as much lead time as possible to fix the problem when you report it. Thanks, Leah.  Leah: Thanks Chris.

Protect Yourself for Prime Day

Chris: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, this is Chris McCabe. Welcome back to another episode of Seller Performance Solutions.I'm once again with Leah McHugh. How are you? Leah: Good. How are you? Chris: Good. I'm all fired up today. I don't know if I look or sound fired up, but--Leah: You can be fired up today. I think I was the fired up one last week. Chris: Right. You've been more fired up lately. I've heard so many sellers, either via consults or just email exchanges, whatever it might be, talking about Amazon telling them to wait and I wanna dissect this. What do you do when Amazon says, just wait. Don't do anything. Get into this a little bit because too many people are waiting too long and I think sometimes they're waiting in vain for nothing or they do eventually get a response around the time it was promised.Maybe a couple days, maybe, 10 days later, it seems like there's a wide range of days that you're being asked to wait. But the answer could be exactly what you were getting before, so why would you wait just to get the same answer. Leah: Yeah. And I think that is kind of the risk of waiting is that, Well, [00:01:00] one, you're waiting for nothing.Which does sometimes happen. Or two, you're waiting for just the same answer and now you've wasted an additional, however many days when you could have been doing something else. So, it's interesting because I feel like for a while the compliance team was very into the like, 10 days, we'll get back to you in 10 days.I actually haven't seen that as much lately. But then I think, I think it was brand registry? Someone in brand registry the other day was like, oh, this will be resolved within 14 days. And I was like, two weeks. Where did that number come from? And it was something to do with the listing. It was like making a change to a listing.And they were like, oh, it'll take 14 days. And it's like, why? Why would that take 14 days, first of all, and where did you pull that number from? Chris: That's a good place to start because I think some of it is the internal team is trying to estimate based on the last time they transferred a ticket or a case somewhere.They're trying to guesstimate based on what it, what the average time is or for that particular team that they're sending it over to. Maybe they've even been told by reps on that [00:02:00] team. Well, this is taking us 11 days lately. So it might not be just pulled out of the air. There might be some validity to it, but no one seems to notice that these are extremely long periods of time to wait for issues that an impacted ASIN, I mean, that seller could be losing 10 or 20 or 30K a day or a week.Leah: Right. And a lot of times I'll get those sorts of timeframes when Amazon is the one at fault. Like it's an error on Amazon side and they're just apparently are no hurry to correct it and so my concern there is if you do just continue to wait for these arbitrary amounts of time.You're essentially telling whoever this has been delegated to that they can put it on the back burner and you'll just wait. I mean it's a fine line because you also don't wanna like harass the teams or course scam the queues, but also just waiting over and over again. Just tells them like, oh, well I can take my time on this they're not going to give me a hard time.Chris: Right. They want to see who's willing to wait. So you don't wanna be willing to wait just to [00:03:00] sound cooperative but not solve the problem. You of course don't wanna antagonize them with spam, like you were just saying, we would never recommend that, but you may have to go to a different team and say, the team that deals with this issue just makes us wait, or just sends us the same generic template over and over and over. And bottom line, the problem isn't solved and we're not even convinced it's being thoroughly reviewed. It'd be one thing if you knew they were researching it for real. And if you waited five to seven days, you were actually going to get a quality answer at the end of that period. If there were track record of that or precedent for that, if you had been through it before and you knew you got a positive outcome, or at least a well researched mm-hmm you know, comprehensively reviewed outcome at the end of that seven days, then, then maybe you are willing to wait because you know, the waiting has a purpose but if you're not even sure, and if the Amazonians talking to you on the phone or messaging you in writing are dubious [00:04:00] that they're even sure that there's going to be a real outcome there. Why would you wait in the first place you just cost yourself? Time, angst, money, energy. Leah: Yeah. Well, and we've also seen people dealing with the strategic account services team, who, all they ever got back in response to their escalation request was, oh, we're working on it. We'll get back to you. This has been delegated. The team will get back to you. 30 days pass you ask for a follow up and they're like, oh, it's been more than 30 days. You have to open a new case now. Chris: Yeah. And I've got two good recent client examples, that are totally different from each other.One was people trying to jump on a listing, trying to hijack the buy box, brand new sellers. Sellers that did not have any track record at all on Amazon and also did not source test buys later showed that they did not source legitimate product of this brand. Amazon sat on it for, this was an SAS, this was an account manager opening a ticket, through the SAS core program. Many, many days went by maybe 10, 11, 12 days. And then the answer came [00:05:00] back, oh, we found the problem. It's because you're not authorized to sell this product. And they sent this to the brand owner. So they were just answering. Leah: Well, that's another thing as well. You can also wait to then get a completely nonsensical answer again, another case that I worked on recently, they got a call back from somebody saying, oh, great news, ASIN blah, blah blah has been reinstated and it's fully active. The ASIN that they had reinstated and was fully active, had absolutely nothing to do with that seller.That seller had no idea what product that they were referring to, they had just completely confused the cases. That they had them waiting for a response for and then had absolutely no idea about their actual product that they were trying to get fixed. Chris: So if you're the brand owner and you're being asked to get permission from the brand owner to sell the item, or even to submit a rights owner infringement, which is what happened in this case, the rights owner submitted a rights owner infringement claim.Completely botched and this was somebody who had the paid account management program. So very, very disconcerting. The [00:06:00] other case I was going to, mention that I was thinking about was abuse reporting, right? So there's listing violations, there's harm being committed to the buyer experience on the site.There could be something illegal happening. There could be something illicit that breaks Amazon policies, that's deliberate, that's malicious, and they're just telling people, oh, it's still being reviewed. Leah: Or they just don't respond at all. You submit a abuse report and just you never really hear anything.Chris: I mean, people start calling into account health teams, and I understand account health reps aren't necessarily in the poll position to resolve the issue, but they can get insights into the issue and tell you what's going on. And they kept calling in not every day, maybe every other day.And the account health reps just kept saying, yep, we can see it's being reviewed, but it's still being reviewed. You just have to wait until they continue to review it. Right? So like 21 days later, you could have called into account health again, and they would've just given you the same answer over and over without any trace of irony of, well, it's actually not being reviewed. If you keep telling me it's being reviewed, right? Leah: Yeah. Just because it says under review, doesn't mean it's actually [00:07:00] being reviewed. Chris: Or again, just to offer some insights on how things work on the inside. The ticket could have been assigned to a particular person or investigator.It could be locked to that person. And that person could be buried under hundreds of tickets and they're going to get to it when they get to it, which could be next month. It could be next six months or they're on vacation and it's locked to them until they get back from vacation.I mean, you don't know any of that. And the person who transferred it that might not have even known that it was going to stay locked to that person for a while. So unless somebody goes in there and takes that ticket away from that employee, I mean, we could go on and on. The bottom line is don't sit there patiently waiting just because you're told to wait.Cast a skeptical eye on the patience is best advice that they give you, because it could be self-serving advice. Leah: Yeah, absolutely, and particularly because the people that you are able to speak to on the phone often can't see the details once a case is locked to somebody. So they can see that it's been assigned and they can see the status, but they usually can't access the actual [00:08:00] information within the case once it's been assigned to somebody else.So any information that they're giving you is usually an educated guess. Chris: And I like that you brought up the 10 days compliance. You do all the compliance stuff. Leah: Well, they stopped saying that, thankfully. Chris: Right. But what about the fact that you were supposed to be able to call into account health reps and get some answers on compliance cases. Now, wasn't that like a Early in 2023 thing that came up. Leah: It wasn't something that they ever announced. It was just something that I had noticed that account health does appear to have a little bit more information when it comes to compliance cases, but still not a ton. And I think that's intentional. I mean, it is a legal team. It's very similar to Amazon's just general legal team. You can't really call into account health and get information on that. So I really don't spend a lot of time with account health for compliance, even though they do have a little bit more information than they did before.Chris: Right. And we can kind of close with full account suspensions because some people are being told to wait, when they submitted a subsequent appeal through Seller Central, maybe they emailed it in. [00:09:00] And those sellers haven't received responses for a while in some of those suspension cases. And it looks like Amazon may have just kind of closed the door on them, but account health reps are still telling people to wait for a reply that's not coming.If your entire account is suspended, you already can't afford to wait because you've probably been suspended for a certain number of days or weeks, maybe even months. So cast a skeptical eye as well on the well, they're just backed up. You're going to have to wait because they're going through a huge pile of these that might not be true.You might not be expecting an answer, or they might just send the same answer, which doesn't tell you anything. One of those, you haven't given us enough details. You haven't, provided sufficient information. So what if you wait and wait, and wait, and you get an answer that is so vague and so opaque.That doesn't help you understand anyway and you're calling account health reps anyway, after you get the response right, to find out why you got that denial, right? So the ever-growing pile of suspended full account [00:10:00] suspension situations, it's not just that there's a backlog. Yes. Is there a backlog? Of course there is. There always is. But it's really interesting to have all these conversations with suspended sellers. Some of them get answers within 10 or 11 minutes. Which shows that, I mean, it would've taken longer than that to read the POA. Leah: Well, it's the same with compliance. My general rule is if you get an answer within less than 24 hours, it hasn't actually been transferred to compliance.Chris: Right, you're looking for the happy medium. Not to get an answer too fast. Don't answer me so right away that you clearly didn't read anything I sent you, just send me denial messaging, but also you can't wait forever and internal Amazon teams know what other teams are like in terms of the communication, in terms of the backlogs, in terms of the very watered down, opaque messaging they send out, so they understand, don't be afraid to pester some other people about the team that you haven't heard from, because those other teams do understand [00:11:00] from their own experiences what it might be like to deal with them as a seller. So, Keep that in mind as well. You won't be shocking anyone at the company by referring seller performance matter to them and expressing some frustration. Not too much, but factual frustration, I like to call it. Because you don't wanna wait. You know, everyone hates waiting. Of course. You don't wanna wait in vain, there might not be anything coming.Leah: There's a tendency to get stuck in a loop, and I feel like that's where a lot of people are when they reach out to us, right? They're stuck in a loop of they submit information, they wait. They get either the same response back that they got before or they get asked for something completely unrelated that doesn't really make any sense.So they submit that, they wait, they wait some more, they get another nonsensical response, and they just kind of get stuck in this cycle. And that's what you don't want to do. And that's usually where people come to us at when they are stuck and they don't really know what the next step should be.Chris: Hopefully before that point. when you're in the vicious cycle, it's often because you've appealed. It got [00:12:00] rejected. You called Account Health. They didn't tell you exactly why it was denied. They just gave you their opinion or suggestions based on their training, in terms of what they think you need to send in next, which might be opinion and not factual.So if it gets rejected again, you kind of know why, if you're just following their general advice or opinions, because obviously the person evaluating the appeal didn't agree with the person who gave you the advice. So another episode for another time. If you've been waiting too long and you're trying to figure out what to do next and you're stuck, feel free to reach out to us.We talk to people about this, I would say every day at this point. Leah: Multiple times a day. Yeah.Chris: Multiple times a day. So we're no strangers to this. And we'll listen to your story and give you some advice. Thanks again for listening. Thanks again, Leah. Talk to you again soon.

Chris: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, this is Chris McCabe. Welcome back to another episode of Seller Performance Solutions. I'm once again with Leah McHugh. How are you?  Leah: Good. How are you?  Chris: Good. I'm all fired up today. I don't know if I look or sound fired up, but-- Leah: You can be fired up today. I think I was the fired up one last week.  Chris: Right. You've been more fired up lately. I've heard so many sellers, either via consults or just email exchanges, whatever it might be, talking about Amazon telling them to wait and I wanna dissect this. What do you do when Amazon says, just wait. Don't do anything. Get into this a little bit because too many people are waiting too long and I think sometimes they're waiting in vain for nothing or they do eventually get a response around the time it was promised. Maybe a couple days, maybe, 10 days later, it seems like there's a wide range of days that you're being asked to wait. But the answer could be exactly what you were getting before, so why would you wait just to get the same answer.  Leah: Yeah. And I think that is kind of the risk of waiting is that, Well, [00:01:00] one, you're waiting for nothing. Which does sometimes happen. Or two, you're waiting for just the same answer and now you've wasted an additional, however many days when you could have been doing something else. So, it's interesting because I feel like for a while the compliance team was very into the like, 10 days, we'll get back to you in 10 days. I actually haven't seen that as much lately. But then I think, I think it was brand registry? Someone in brand registry the other day was like, oh, this will be resolved within 14 days. And I was like, two weeks. Where did that number come from? And it was something to do with the listing. It was like making a change to a listing. And they were like, oh, it'll take 14 days. And it's like, why? Why would that take 14 days, first of all, and where did you pull that number from?  Chris: That's a good place to start because I think some of it is the internal team is trying to estimate based on the last time they transferred a ticket or a case somewhere. They're trying to guesstimate based on what it, what the average time is or for that particular team that they're sending it over to. Maybe they've even been told by reps on that [00:02:00] team. Well, this is taking us 11 days lately. So it might not be just pulled out of the air. There might be some validity to it, but no one seems to notice that these are extremely long periods of time to wait for issues that an impacted ASIN, I mean, that seller could be losing 10 or 20 or 30K a day or a week. Leah: Right. And a lot of times I'll get those sorts of timeframes when Amazon is the one at fault. Like it's an error on Amazon side and they're just apparently are no hurry to correct it and so my concern there is if you do just continue to wait for these arbitrary amounts of time. You're essentially telling whoever this has been delegated to that they can put it on the back burner and you'll just wait. I mean it's a fine line because you also don't wanna like harass the teams or course scam the queues, but also just waiting over and over again. Just tells them like, oh, well I can take my time on this they're not going to give me a hard time. Chris: Right. They want to see who's willing to wait. So you don't wanna be willing to wait just to [00:03:00] sound cooperative but not solve the problem. You of course don't wanna antagonize them with spam, like you were just saying, we would never recommend that, but you may have to go to a different team and say, the team that deals with this issue just makes us wait, or just sends us the same generic template over and over and over.  And bottom line, the problem isn't solved and we're not even convinced it's being thoroughly reviewed. It'd be one thing if you knew they were researching it for real. And if you waited five to seven days, you were actually going to get a quality answer at the end of that period. If there were track record of that or precedent for that, if you had been through it before and you knew you got a positive outcome, or at least a well researched mm-hmm you know, comprehensively reviewed outcome at the end of that seven days, then, then maybe you are willing to wait because you know, the waiting has a purpose but if you're not even sure, and if the Amazonians talking to you on the phone or messaging you in writing are dubious [00:04:00] that they're even sure that there's going to be a real outcome there. Why would you wait in the first place you just cost yourself? Time, angst, money, energy.  Leah: Yeah. Well, and we've also seen people dealing with the strategic account services team, who, all they ever got back in response to their escalation request was, oh, we're working on it. We'll get back to you. This has been delegated. The team will get back to you. 30 days pass you ask for a follow up and they're like, oh, it's been more than 30 days. You have to open a new case now.  Chris: Yeah. And I've got two good recent client examples, that are totally different from each other. One was people trying to jump on a listing, trying to hijack the buy box, brand new sellers. Sellers that did not have any track record at all on Amazon and also did not source test buys later showed that they did not source legitimate product of this brand. Amazon sat on it for, this was an SAS, this was an account manager opening a ticket, through the SAS core program. Many, many days went by maybe 10, 11, 12 days. And then the answer came [00:05:00] back, oh, we found the problem. It's because you're not authorized to sell this product. And they sent this to the brand owner. So they were just answering.  Leah: Well, that's another thing as well. You can also wait to then get a completely nonsensical answer again, another case that I worked on recently, they got a call back from somebody saying, oh, great news, ASIN blah, blah blah has been reinstated and it's fully active. The ASIN that they had reinstated and was fully active, had absolutely nothing to do with that seller. That seller had no idea what product that they were referring to, they had just completely confused the cases. That they had them waiting for a response for and then had absolutely no idea about their actual product that they were trying to get fixed.  Chris: So if you're the brand owner and you're being asked to get permission from the brand owner to sell the item, or even to submit a rights owner infringement, which is what happened in this case, the rights owner submitted a rights owner infringement claim. Completely botched and this was somebody who had the paid account management program. So very, very disconcerting. The [00:06:00] other case I was going to, mention that I was thinking about was abuse reporting, right? So there's listing violations, there's harm being committed to the buyer experience on the site. There could be something illegal happening. There could be something illicit that breaks Amazon policies, that's deliberate, that's malicious, and they're just telling people, oh, it's still being reviewed.  Leah: Or they just don't respond at all. You submit a abuse report and just you never really hear anything. Chris: I mean, people start calling into account health teams, and I understand account health reps aren't necessarily in the poll position to resolve the issue, but they can get insights into the issue and tell you what's going on. And they kept calling in not every day, maybe every other day. And the account health reps just kept saying, yep, we can see it's being reviewed, but it's still being reviewed. You just have to wait until they continue to review it. Right? So like 21 days later, you could have called into account health again, and they would've just given you the same answer over and over without any trace of irony of, well, it's actually not being reviewed. If you keep telling me it's being reviewed, right?  Leah: Yeah. Just because it says under review, doesn't mean it's actually [00:07:00] being reviewed.  Chris: Or again, just to offer some insights on how things work on the inside. The ticket could have been assigned to a particular person or investigator. It could be locked to that person. And that person could be buried under hundreds of tickets and they're going to get to it when they get to it, which could be next month. It could be next six months or they're on vacation and it's locked to them until they get back from vacation. I mean, you don't know any of that. And the person who transferred it that might not have even known that it was going to stay locked to that person for a while. So unless somebody goes in there and takes that ticket away from that employee, I mean, we could go on and on. The bottom line is don't sit there patiently waiting just because you're told to wait. Cast a skeptical eye on the patience is best advice that they give you, because it could be self-serving advice.  Leah: Yeah, absolutely, and particularly because the people that you are able to speak to on the phone often can't see the details once a case is locked to somebody. So they can see that it's been assigned and they can see the status, but they usually can't access the actual [00:08:00] information within the case once it's been assigned to somebody else. So any information that they're giving you is usually an educated guess.  Chris: And I like that you brought up the 10 days compliance. You do all the compliance stuff.  Leah: Well, they stopped saying that, thankfully.  Chris: Right. But what about the fact that you were supposed to be able to call into account health reps and get some answers on compliance cases. Now, wasn't that like a Early in 2023 thing that came up.  Leah: It wasn't something that they ever announced. It was just something that I had noticed that account health does appear to have a little bit more information when it comes to compliance cases, but still not a ton. And I think that's intentional. I mean, it is a legal team. It's very similar to Amazon's just general legal team. You can't really call into account health and get information on that. So I really don't spend a lot of time with account health for compliance, even though they do have a little bit more information than they did before. Chris: Right. And we can kind of close with full account suspensions because some people are being told to wait, when they submitted a subsequent appeal through Seller Central, maybe they emailed it in. [00:09:00] And those sellers haven't received responses for a while in some of those suspension cases. And it looks like Amazon may have just kind of closed the door on them, but account health reps are still telling people to wait for a reply that's not coming. If your entire account is suspended, you already can't afford to wait because you've probably been suspended for a certain number of days or weeks, maybe even months. So cast a skeptical eye as well on the well, they're just backed up. You're going to have to wait because they're going through a huge pile of these that might not be true. You might not be expecting an answer, or they might just send the same answer, which doesn't tell you anything. One of those, you haven't given us enough details. You haven't, provided sufficient information. So what if you wait and wait, and wait, and you get an answer that is so vague and so opaque. That doesn't help you understand anyway and you're calling account health reps anyway, after you get the response right, to find out why you got that denial, right?  So the ever-growing pile of suspended full account [00:10:00] suspension situations, it's not just that there's a backlog. Yes. Is there a backlog? Of course there is. There always is. But it's really interesting to have all these conversations with suspended sellers. Some of them get answers within 10 or 11 minutes. Which shows that, I mean, it would've taken longer than that to read the POA.  Leah: Well, it's the same with compliance. My general rule is if you get an answer within less than 24 hours, it hasn't actually been transferred to compliance. Chris: Right, you're looking for the happy medium. Not to get an answer too fast. Don't answer me so right away that you clearly didn't read anything I sent you, just send me denial messaging, but also you can't wait forever and internal Amazon teams know what other teams are like in terms of the communication, in terms of the backlogs, in terms of the very watered down, opaque messaging they send out, so they understand, don't be afraid to pester some other people about the team that you haven't heard from, because those other teams do understand [00:11:00] from their own experiences what it might be like to deal with them as a seller.  So, Keep that in mind as well. You won't be shocking anyone at the company by referring seller performance matter to them and expressing some frustration. Not too much, but factual frustration, I like to call it. Because you don't wanna wait. You know, everyone hates waiting. Of course. You don't wanna wait in vain, there might not be anything coming. Leah: There's a tendency to get stuck in a loop, and I feel like that's where a lot of people are when they reach out to us, right? They're stuck in a loop of they submit information, they wait. They get either the same response back that they got before or they get asked for something completely unrelated that doesn't really make any sense. So they submit that, they wait, they wait some more, they get another nonsensical response, and they just kind of get stuck in this cycle. And that's what you don't want to do. And that's usually where people come to us at when they are stuck and they don't really know what the next step should be. Chris: Hopefully before that point. when you're in the vicious cycle, it's often because you've appealed. It got [00:12:00] rejected. You called Account Health. They didn't tell you exactly why it was denied. They just gave you their opinion or suggestions based on their training, in terms of what they think you need to send in next, which might be opinion and not factual. So if it gets rejected again, you kind of know why, if you're just following their general advice or opinions, because obviously the person evaluating the appeal didn't agree with the person who gave you the advice. So another episode for another time. If you've been waiting too long and you're trying to figure out what to do next and you're stuck, feel free to reach out to us. We talk to people about this, I would say every day at this point.  Leah: Multiple times a day. Yeah. Chris: Multiple times a day. So we're no strangers to this. And we'll listen to your story and give you some advice. Thanks again for listening. Thanks again, Leah. Talk to you again soon.

Don't Keep Waiting for Amazon Teams to Get Back to You

Chris: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to another wonderful episode of Seller Performance Solutions. I'm Chris McCabe of ecommerceChris here with Leah McHugh. We had an interesting question come in from one of our listeners about sharing manufacturer info with Amazon.I think the bigger question is there's some confusion over how much information you have to give Amazon about your manufacturer or your factory. Some people say, oh, you have to share all this stuff, supply chain documentation, phone numbers, contact info, links to websites, and then other people might argue, you know, actually you don't have to share everything about your manufacturing partners.So, I thought we could start there based on that question. What do people really need to show Amazon? Leah: Yeah. I mean also it depends what regional marketplace and also in what context is that information being provided in.So in terms of the manufacturer attribute on the product listing, generally speaking, you would just input, like if it's your branded product that you have contract [00:01:00] manufactured for you, you can just put your brand there as the manufacturer for those purposes. You are essentially the manufacturer, much like, you know, apple is the manufacturer of Apple products, even though Apple doesn't actually own any factories that does the manufacturing.So for those purposes, for the forward facing information on Amazon, unless you have a different type of agreement with your manufacturer, which is sometimes the case, generally speaking, you would just put yourself down as a manufacturer. But when Amazon is asking for specific supply chain information, that's a different story.You can't just say like, it's us. And that's the end of it. Chris: That's where it comes up a lot. Yeah. All the confusion over, I need a verifiable supplier website. Amazon didn't take my invoice for whatever reason they rejected the invoice. But we're our own private label brand or we make our own products.That's the context that we usually hear. I think within brand registry and some intellectual property issues that comes up in other ways, other contexts. Leah: Yeah. Well, and [00:02:00] also even on the compliance side of things, if you're selling a medical device, and you're the manufacturer is registered with the FDA, particularly for 5 10 Ks, you would then need to show the relationship between the person that owns the pre-market approval for that product and your brand that is selling that product under the brand.So again, it really does depend on the context, but you do need to be able to show. The relationship, I guess, for lack of a better term, between whatever that person is and you, who is the final brand on the product. Chris: Those are compliance teams, right? The ones that you're dealing with consistently as our compliance consultant extraordinaire because obviously I'm seeing it in another context where it's just, Somebody questioned the authenticity of the product, even though it's your product. Send us the invoice, those copy and paste emails that everybody gets. Who's the supplier, who's the invoice? And as we've seen lately, lots of rejection of invoices and rejection of suppliers.Even if the original complaint was inauthentic, [00:03:00] right? Or the original complaint was item condition, this wasn't new. This wasn't authentic, but they're private label brands, right? In the old days, these were let's say a lot easier for investigators to pass through. Once they understood they were dealing with the brand, all you had to really do was send the invoice, oh, this is who we get it from. Oh, supplier of a private label product. Great. They'd check it off and take it. These days we see everything under the sun in terms of rejections, unexplained rejections. Brands are calling into account health. Trying to figure out why was my multi-year invoice that was always accepted, suddenly not acceptable. And there's never really been a great explanation from the Amazon side on that. Leah: I mean, I think it's just tightening things up over the years as a lot of their loopholes were maybe exploited. And they tend to either tighten up too far sometimes, or sometimes they just tighten up the wrong things that weren't really an issue to begin with.But yeah in terms of who is providing that information to Amazon, I think a lot of sellers [00:04:00] are concerned about providing their manufacturer information to Amazon because rumors still abound about how Amazon is going to take your manufacturer and steal your market share and create a duplicate of your product, and like, yes, they have done that in the past. I'm not gonna say that that didn't happen, but I think Amazon has figured out pretty well at this point that they make a lot more money from you as a third party seller than they do when they try to sell your products themselves. We see that kind of across the board really in terms of their own private label brands and also even the vendor central side of things.I mean, that's certainly not getting the attention that it once was from it. Chris: I don't even know if I know why that is, because if they're actually co-opted your supplier, your manufacturer, why would they have a much harder time than you would. Leah: Oh, I know why they make less money, because when things go wrong, as with a third party seller, [00:05:00] if something needs to be returned or customers aren't happy, the seller eats the cost, not Amazon. So when they're selling the product themselves, suddenly they're eating all of these costs that they had previously passed on to the third party seller. That is why they make less money. Chris: Not that part so much. Just in terms of are they having trouble with the co-op, the factory and the manufacturer, and then all of a sudden they realize that the factory is copying the product and competing with the seller, the manufacturer.Leah: That may have happened as well. And also Amazon isn't really a seller, so a seasoned seller is probably going to do a lot better at promoting. I mean, if you look at Amazon's own private label detail pages, they're not great. So I think sellers are better at selling the products on Amazon than Amazon is.And also, Amazon could just pass on all the little costs that they don't wanna deal with to the seller, which they can't do when they're selling it themselves. So it is very unlikely that Amazon is going to try to steal your manufacturer to sell your product. Also, it's a different team. And [00:06:00] again, I'm not saying this hasn't happened, you know, they did testify at Congress and there was a whole bunch of documentation that was given to Congress about this, and yes, they have definitely done it in the past.But the likelihood of the seller performance team or the compliance team, having that conversation with the retail buying team about who manufactures your product is pretty low. And I think it's even lower now than it was in the past. So in terms of providing that information to Amazon, I think that shouldn't be so much of a concern to sellers.Chris: So what else should people think about, what other confusions exist out there, do you think, on this topic? In terms of manufacturer, supplier info, what Amazon's likely to ask for, what they have been asking for, what they shouldn't be asking for and in terms of rejections of appeals or rejections of any documentation?Leah: Yeah. Well, the last episode we did talk about supply chain documentation. I guess we didn't explicitly state that it was [00:07:00] for private label brands. But I think maybe some private label brands, because they are the brand, don't think that they need to have all of the same information as a reseller necessarily would on an invoice.And that is, not the case. You still need to have all of your contact information that matches seller central, all of your suppliers contact information. You still need to have the product identifiers and that is something I see a lot with private label brands. It just will say like their brand name, and then a part number or something like that.You still need to have those universal product identifiers. Even though they're your product identifiers. You still just need to make it easy for Amazon to connect those dots. We also briefly touched on this in the last episode, but if you are actually manufacturing the product yourself, you need to maintain a separate entity for the manufacturing that's separate from the entity that sells on Amazon, because Amazon won't accept what they call self issued invoices.Where you just would basically write an invoice to yourself within the same company, which doesn't actually make sense. So you need to have that separate entity in order to invoice [00:08:00] the selling entity for the products that they purchase to sell on Amazon, for Amazon to accept those invoices and that's another area where we see a lot of sellers who manufacture the product themselves. They don't really think that they would need to have invoices for that, or they have invoices for maybe the raw parts or the raw ingredients of the product rather than the manufacture product itself. The invoice requirements and the documentation requirements for private label brands are as strict as the requirements for resellers. So you need to make sure that you have that information. Even if Amazon needs you to write a letter of authorization to yourself. I've seen it. Chris: Well, that's kind of a sidebar how they ask brands for, do you have a letter of authorization?I mean, those are Stupid things that account health reps throw out there, which I think aren't really required to complete that review or investigation. Leah: Even on the brand registry side of things, I've [00:09:00] seen requests for letters of authorization. Chris: But some of the seller performance messaging, and I think a lot of account health reps are getting mixed up when they suggest I think they're kind of not even aware if they're talking to the brand owner on some of these calls. So that did create some confusion, but The creating a separate entity and what you were just talking about, I feel like people have come a long way and they understand that concept a lot better. Now than they did, let's say in 2020.Leah: Yeah. I think just if you're getting started manufacturing your own product, this isn't something that you really think of. And what often happens is that if you don't really think of it at the start, five or ten years pass and you're still operating the same way and it doesn't really come up until there's a problem.And then you can't really backtrack and create a separate entity to invoice yourself in the past. So it is something that I do still see come up. I think the main thing is just you need to be able to document all of the relationships. And that's something that we've definitely talked [00:10:00] about before.Anything that doesn't exactly match or anything that where there's a gap, you need to be able to document how they relate to each other. And that again, is where we see a lot of private labelers run into issues because like it's their company and it's their operations and they just don't really think about having those legal documents to show it.Chris: So don't take anything for granted. That's good. Closing words of advice and anyone has any questions on these related topics, especially what manufacturer supplier info needs to be shared with Amazon, in what context and what doesn't. Let us know. We're always happy to answer questions and thanks again for listening to Seller Performance Solutions.

Chris: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to another wonderful episode of Seller Performance Solutions. I'm Chris McCabe of ecommerceChris here with Leah McHugh.  We had an interesting question come in from one of our listeners about sharing manufacturer info with Amazon. I think the bigger question is there's some confusion over how much information you have to give Amazon about your manufacturer or your factory. Some people say, oh, you have to share all this stuff, supply chain documentation, phone numbers, contact info, links to websites, and then other people might argue, you know, actually you don't have to share everything about your manufacturing partners. So, I thought we could start there based on that question. What do people really need to show Amazon?  Leah: Yeah. I mean also it depends what regional marketplace and also in what context is that information being provided in. So in terms of the manufacturer attribute on the product listing, generally speaking, you would just input, like if it's your branded product that you have contract [00:01:00] manufactured for you, you can just put your brand there as the manufacturer for those purposes. You are essentially the manufacturer, much like, you know, apple is the manufacturer of Apple products, even though Apple doesn't actually own any factories that does the manufacturing. So for those purposes, for the forward facing information on Amazon, unless you have a different type of agreement with your manufacturer, which is sometimes the case, generally speaking, you would just put yourself down as a manufacturer. But when Amazon is asking for specific supply chain information, that's a different story. You can't just say like, it's us. And that's the end of it.  Chris: That's where it comes up a lot. Yeah. All the confusion over, I need a verifiable supplier website. Amazon didn't take my invoice for whatever reason they rejected the invoice. But we're our own private label brand or we make our own products. That's the context that we usually hear. I think within brand registry and some intellectual property issues that comes up in other ways, other contexts.  Leah: Yeah. Well, and [00:02:00] also even on the compliance side of things, if you're selling a medical device, and you're the manufacturer is registered with the FDA, particularly for 5 10 Ks, you would then need to show the relationship between the person that owns the pre-market approval for that product and your brand that is selling that product under the brand. So again, it really does depend on the context, but you do need to be able to show. The relationship, I guess, for lack of a better term, between whatever that person is and you, who is the final brand on the product.  Chris: Those are compliance teams, right? The ones that you're dealing with consistently as our compliance consultant extraordinaire because obviously I'm seeing it in another context where it's just, Somebody questioned the authenticity of the product, even though it's your product. Send us the invoice, those copy and paste emails that everybody gets. Who's the supplier, who's the invoice? And as we've seen lately, lots of rejection of invoices and rejection of suppliers. Even if the original complaint was inauthentic, [00:03:00] right? Or the original complaint was item condition, this wasn't new. This wasn't authentic, but they're private label brands, right? In the old days, these were let's say a lot easier for investigators to pass through. Once they understood they were dealing with the brand, all you had to really do was send the invoice, oh, this is who we get it from.  Oh, supplier of a private label product. Great. They'd check it off and take it. These days we see everything under the sun in terms of rejections, unexplained rejections. Brands are calling into account health. Trying to figure out why was my multi-year invoice that was always accepted, suddenly not acceptable.  And there's never really been a great explanation from the Amazon side on that.  Leah: I mean, I think it's just tightening things up over the years as a lot of their loopholes were maybe exploited. And they tend to either tighten up too far sometimes, or sometimes they just tighten up the wrong things that weren't really an issue to begin with. But yeah in terms of who is providing that information to Amazon, I think a lot of sellers [00:04:00] are concerned about providing their manufacturer information to Amazon because rumors still abound about how Amazon is going to take your manufacturer and steal your market share and create a duplicate of your product, and like, yes, they have done that in the past.  I'm not gonna say that that didn't happen, but I think Amazon has figured out pretty well at this point that they make a lot more money from you as a third party seller than they do when they try to sell your products themselves. We see that kind of across the board really in terms of their own private label brands and also even the vendor central side of things. I mean, that's certainly not getting the attention that it once was from it.  Chris: I don't even know if I know why that is, because if they're actually co-opted your supplier, your manufacturer, why would they have a much harder time than you would.  Leah: Oh, I know why they make less money, because when things go wrong, as with a third party seller, [00:05:00] if something needs to be returned or customers aren't happy, the seller eats the cost, not Amazon. So when they're selling the product themselves, suddenly they're eating all of these costs that they had previously passed on to the third party seller. That is why they make less money.  Chris: Not that part so much. Just in terms of are they having trouble with the co-op, the factory and the manufacturer, and then all of a sudden they realize that the factory is copying the product and competing with the seller, the manufacturer. Leah: That may have happened as well. And also Amazon isn't really a seller, so a seasoned seller is probably going to do a lot better at promoting. I mean, if you look at Amazon's own private label detail pages, they're not great. So I think sellers are better at selling the products on Amazon than Amazon is. And also, Amazon could just pass on all the little costs that they don't wanna deal with to the seller, which they can't do when they're selling it themselves. So it is very unlikely that Amazon is going to try to steal your manufacturer to sell your product. Also, it's a different team. And [00:06:00] again, I'm not saying this hasn't happened, you know, they did testify at Congress and there was a whole bunch of documentation that was given to Congress about this, and yes, they have definitely done it in the past. But the likelihood of the seller performance team or the compliance team, having that conversation with the retail buying team about who manufactures your product is pretty low. And I think it's even lower now than it was in the past. So in terms of providing that information to Amazon, I think that shouldn't be so much of a concern to sellers. Chris: So what else should people think about, what other confusions exist out there, do you think, on this topic? In terms of manufacturer, supplier info, what Amazon's likely to ask for, what they have been asking for, what they shouldn't be asking for and in terms of rejections of appeals or rejections of any documentation? Leah: Yeah. Well, the last episode we did talk about supply chain documentation. I guess we didn't explicitly state that it was [00:07:00] for private label brands. But I think maybe some private label brands, because they are the brand, don't think that they need to have all of the same information as a reseller necessarily would on an invoice. And that is, not the case. You still need to have all of your contact information that matches seller central, all of your suppliers contact information. You still need to have the product identifiers and that is something I see a lot with private label brands. It just will say like their brand name, and then a part number or something like that. You still need to have those universal product identifiers. Even though they're your product identifiers. You still just need to make it easy for Amazon to connect those dots. We also briefly touched on this in the last episode, but if you are actually manufacturing the product yourself, you need to maintain a separate entity for the manufacturing that's separate from the entity that sells on Amazon, because Amazon won't accept what they call self issued invoices. Where you just would basically write an invoice to yourself within the same company, which doesn't actually make sense. So you need to have that separate entity in order to invoice [00:08:00] the selling entity for the products that they purchase to sell on Amazon, for Amazon to accept those invoices and that's another area where we see a lot of sellers who manufacture the product themselves.  They don't really think that they would need to have invoices for that, or they have invoices for maybe the raw parts or the raw ingredients of the product rather than the manufacture product itself. The invoice requirements and the documentation requirements for private label brands are as strict as the requirements for resellers. So you need to make sure that you have that information. Even if Amazon needs you to write a letter of authorization to yourself. I've seen it.  Chris: Well, that's kind of a sidebar how they ask brands for, do you have a letter of authorization? I mean, those are Stupid things that account health reps throw out there, which I think aren't really required to complete that review or investigation.  Leah: Even on the brand registry side of things, I've [00:09:00] seen requests for letters of authorization.  Chris: But some of the seller performance messaging, and I think a lot of account health reps are getting mixed up when they suggest I think they're kind of not even aware if they're talking to the brand owner on some of these calls. So that did create some confusion, but The creating a separate entity and what you were just talking about, I feel like people have come a long way and they understand that concept a lot better. Now than they did, let's say in 2020. Leah: Yeah. I think just if you're getting started manufacturing your own product, this isn't something that you really think of. And what often happens is that if you don't really think of it at the start, five or ten years pass and you're still operating the same way and it doesn't really come up until there's a problem. And then you can't really backtrack and create a separate entity to invoice yourself in the past. So it is something that I do still see come up. I think the main thing is just you need to be able to document all of the relationships. And that's something that we've definitely talked [00:10:00] about before. Anything that doesn't exactly match or anything that where there's a gap, you need to be able to document how they relate to each other. And that again, is where we see a lot of private labelers run into issues because like it's their company and it's their operations and they just don't really think about having those legal documents to show it. Chris: So don't take anything for granted. That's good. Closing words of advice and anyone has any questions on these related topics, especially what manufacturer supplier info needs to be shared with Amazon, in what context and what doesn't. Let us know. We're always happy to answer questions and thanks again for listening to Seller Performance Solutions.

Should you Give Amazon your Manufacturer Info?

Chris: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, welcome back to Seller Performance Solutions. This is Chris McCabe. I'm here with Leah McHugh. We're talking today about all of the conversations we've had. Leah finds these particularly fascinating, around letters of authorization, supply chain documentation. I'm gonna go ahead and guess Unverifiable suppliers, right? Because we've had a couple cases where even when Amazon asked for the supplier's supplier, we were actually able to provide that information and they still said no. So maybe that's the best place to start. Leah: Or you're giving them the manufacturer information and they're asking for the manufacturer's supplier and it's like they're the manufacturer.Chris: It is kind of crazy that they have such knee-jerk reactions. They just say No, kind of no matter what you send, which makes us think that they're not bothering to take a look at any of this stuff. Leah: They may be automating some of it. I know that they're automating a lot of the compliance documentation review, so it could just be badly written AI.Chris: I mean, we're over assuming the AI is taking over, I [00:01:00] think Amazon will do that, but not yet. Leah: I have it confirmed from Amazon employees that they are using automation to review client's docs, so it's not that much of a stretch to assume they're using some sort of automation to review supply chain docs. Chris: There's still a person who's responsible for reviewing the documentation and making a yay or nay decision. The problem is there's no yay, it's always nay. Well, why is that? Well, they're either not looking at it or they're trying to pick it apart and find an excuse not to have to read an appeal or look at other documents. The excuse must be they either think the invoice has been massaged, edited, manipulated, fabricated, which I know they love to over accuse on that. But also sometimes they just say, well, the format doesn't look right. And it's just very vague and sellers have to try to call into account health to find out why this is, but a lot of the answers coming back are not a lot of annotations here that explain why they didn't like it.When there's a dearth of information like that they obviously didn't take the time to look at that [00:02:00] documentation, especially like you said, when it's from the manufacturer and they just say, we couldn't verify your supplier. Oh, that's interesting. Those are the people who make the stuff for us.Leah: Right, here's their website. Here's a direct contact person, their phone number, what wasn't verifiable? I think what I find most interesting about this is Amazon is pretty inconsistent just across the board, but I feel like in this area in particular, all of these conspiracy theories abound around the seller community of like, oh, well, if you send it as a pdf, it won't be accepted. You have to take a picture of the invoice on a surface and then it'll get accepted. Like there are all these urban legends around invoice verification. And so that's why I find it interesting because like I said, Amazon's inconsistent across the board, but I feel like this is the one that sellers really have a whole theory around what to do to get it accepted and what not to do. Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong. But I find it really interesting because I guess this is one of the areas where all sellers are likely [00:03:00] going to be required to present some of this information at some point. So I enjoy the conspiracy theories.Chris: We're looking at a universe where they're going to ask every type of seller to justify with documentation just about everything they source, just about anywhere. Private label reseller, buying from authorized distributors, not buying from authorized distributors. A lot of this is about to blur together with the increases in KYC scrutiny.We've got the INFORM Consumers Act coming our way, but this is probably the first of many procedures because the days of hey just create a detail page and throw it up there, and maybe you've got an invoice, maybe you don't. Maybe you have info in your supplier, maybe you don't. Those days they're over. Everyone should recognize that if they haven't ended for them in particular, they will soon. Leah: Yeah. Well, if you are sourcing in a way that doesn't give you the right documentation, you just have to know that it is a risky business model. And at any point, Amazon could ask you for a documentation that you don't have, [00:04:00] and when you don't have it, they're not gonna let you sell that again.So as long as you go into it knowing that, which unfortunately, I feel like a lot of new sellers in particular go into not knowing that because a course or something tells them that they could just buy stuff at CVS and list it on Amazon. As long as you know what you're getting into.Just keep in mind it's not a great long-term business strategy on Amazon. But I did wanna talk about what you should have on your invoices because that is something that we still have people come to us saying Amazon keeps rejecting documentation and then we take a look at it and it's slack and that's why. Chris: Written on a napkin invoice? Leah: Right, Excel invoicesaren't great either. Word docs. Also, I still see a lot of people submitting commercial invoices or pro forma invoices. Those will not be accepted by Amazon. It needs to be an actual invoice where the inventory has been fulfilled to you and payment has been made, or is at least like net 30, [00:05:00] whatever the case may be.They won't accept a commercial invoice, which is really for shipping purposes or pro forma invoice, which is essentially just your ordering the inventory doesn't actually confirm that you actually got the inventory from that person. Chris: Right. It's like a pre invoice. And of course we've heard from a lot of sellers who said, well, there are services out there that will make an invoice for you. This is still happening.Leah: That's another thing that I wanted to talk about because I see a lot of them marketing it as like it's a real invoice for somebody, we're just making it so it's made out to you. That's not a real invoice. It was a real invoice for whoever purchased the actual product.Chris: At one time it was a real invoice.Leah: It was, but once they changed the information on it to reflect something that didn't happen, it is no longer a real invoice and it is fraudulent documentation. And at that point you are risking permanent deactivation if Amazon catches you doing that. So yeah, that's something to keep in mind because there are still a lot of services that we see, or people come to us saying that they got a real invoice [00:06:00] from a service and it is not a real invoice. So make sure your invoices are real and you know that they're real if you are purchasing those products from the people that the invoices says that it's from. If you're not purchasing the products from the person that's issuing the invoice, that is not a real invoice.Chris: You probably didn't buy all those items from a supplier and forget that you bought those items and then you hired a service to help you remember it. These are extremely dated tactics that probably didn't work that well in the first place, but it's no very amateur level stuff. I understand that desperate times breed desperate measures. But, Amazon's hip to all this stuff, they've been going through this crap for years. So think about that before you start saying, well, I don't have a letter of authorization so actually I really had no choice but to manipulate or fabricate documentation. Well, the choice was not to do it in the first place. I understand that there are a lot of low value courses out there that don't address this [00:07:00] stuff. And when you're new, you just kind of glom onto what they've suggested that you do, but fact check that stuff and question the source. Leah: Yeah. And then a second area that I regularly see sellers running into issues with is their invoices being made out to a company or to an address that doesn't exactly match the information that they have in their Seller Central. You need to make sure that the invoice is made out to the right person, to the right company, and has all of the same information as your account. Otherwise, Amazon's not going to try to connect the dots for you. They're just going to reject that invoice. And then of course, on top of that, you wanna have the contact information for your supplier. Ideally you are including contact information for a specific person, not just like their regular support, phone number or email address, website address. And then ideally you wanna have product identifiers.I prefer GTINS, so UPCs or EANs generally in this country. JANs you're in Japan. just [00:08:00] because those are universal identifiers, whereas an ASIN is just an Amazon specific identifier that those GTINs will be on the listing. So again, it just makes it that much easier for the investigator to match your documents to the products in question.A lot of Chinese invoices just have pictures of the products, that's not enough. You need the actual identifier on there. And we are actually seeing more and more that the invoice is being rejected because it doesn't have a product identifier, it just has like the name or description. Make it easy for the investigator, make sure it has the identifier, and this is all stuff that your supplier shouldn't have any issue with adding to the invoices. Don't add this information to the invoices yourself. Go back to your supplier and say, I need these invoices updated to reflect this information, by the actual supplier. You don't wanna me make those changes.Chris: And we understand, by the way, the insanity of some of the requests from Amazon. There was somebody the other day that said, oh, your invoice was rejected because [00:09:00] the ASIN wasn't on it. I think that person actually expected the Amazon ASIN to appear on the invoice. Leah: Yeah, but that was somebody in account health. So like, Eh. Chris: But the account health reps are sometimes reviewing account annotations and passing along some of that info, and I could totally see that being a reason for rejection.There are nonsensical gibberish reasons, even when you drill down into what was annotated on this ASIN on my account, you will see some crazy stuff. We're not saying that if you follow every thing that we tell you, you'll never get a rejection for no apparent reason, an insane illogical rejection because we hear and see those all the time. We're trying to get you to the point where the reduces the likelihood that that will happen because some people go 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 rounds with these guys. Even calling into account health each time it gets rejected and account health reps, when you're on the phone with these people, hopefully you're only talking to US reps, you can tell in their voice sometimes that [00:10:00] they see how idiotic some of this is, and how nonsensical it is. Leah: I actually appreciate when you can hear in their voice that they're just like, *sigh* it says this. You know that they're just like, oh, this is stupid. and I feel stupid saying this.Chris: Or they just say well, this is what I found, there's mannerisms they use. You can tell that they basically agree with you but they have zero authority to fix something absolutely ridiculous that never should have happened in the first place.But you need that information because for all you know, you're basing your next escalation on. By the way, account health told me, insert nonsensical phrase here. that's gonna keep happening. There's gonna be more of that. So prepare mentally for it. Don't let it frustrate you, but also understand that sometimes those mistakes, and they are plentiful and they're regular on the Amazon side, could become the fruit of your next escalation. Leah: Yeah. And then I just wanna talk really quickly about your relationship with your supplier, because [00:11:00] ultimately you want to be as close to the brand owner as possible. You either want to be the brand owner. If you are the brand owner though, and you are manufacturing the products yourself, you need to have a separate entity from your selling account for the manufacturing, and you need to invoice your selling entity for those products because Amazon won't accept self issued invoices so you need to have those two separate businesses to show that supply chain for the products that you manufacture yourself. If you are a reseller, ideally you are buying directly from the brand. If not directly from the brand, you want to be buying from an authorized distributor. Because again, as a reseller, one Amazon might ask for a letter of authorization.And if you're buying the products very far down the supply chain, it's unlikely that you'd be able to get a letter of authorization from the brand owner and also Amazon might ask for your supplier's supplier. And again, if you're too far down the chain, one your supplier is unlikely to wanna give you [00:12:00] that information.And even if you give your supplier's supplier information, if that's someone that has no real apparent relationship to the brand, Amazon still won't accept that. So you want to be as close to the brand owner as possible when it comes to the supply chain information that you have. And you wanna be able to make sure that you can verify it all the way up to the brand owner and that you can get those letters of authorization if requested.Chris: Well said. And on that note. We both had some long winded passages on this one. Leah: We've been doing this for a long time. Chris: It's good when it comes to supply chain documentation because sometimes even to our surprise, we're still getting some questions that aren't from new sellers about, I don't understand why they rejected this invoice. I completely get that. You can submit an invoice, which is identical to something they accepted 17 times in the past, and they're suddenly rejecting it now. But that's just Amazon being fickle. And Amazon changing their mind from one month to the next on what they wanna accept. We're not justifying that, but it's not [00:13:00] unusual.Amazon likes to change their minds a lot about what's acceptable and what's not. It's also very dependent on the eyeballs that are looking at that invoice. There might be somebody else that will accept it.Leah: But I mean, beyond the outliers, I think the general requirements that Amazon has for the documentation really hasn't changed that much in the last few years and so again, when you're figuring out your sourcing, keep these in mind. Have a checklist for when you're bringing on a new supplier for does their invoice match all of the required information? If not, are they willing to include that in the invoices to you?If they're not, you shouldn't be purchasing from them. And also again, are you able to verify the supply chain from your supplier all the way up to the brand owner. Again, if not, Move on to another supplier. Chris: Even for your own knowledge. It's not even just to show Amazon because we've had people coming to us saying they've been accused by Amazon of selling stolen inventory.All they did was look at some inventory at a warehouse. [00:14:00] They didn't really know where it came from. So this is where that can bite you as well. That's not just Amazon being pushy about invoices. You need to know this for your own knowledge because your entire business could be at stake.Leah: Yeah. And it's not just stolen, could unknowingly be purchasing counterfeit items or gray market items that maybe aren't even approved to be sold in the country that you're selling them in for whatever compliance reasons, labeling, whatever. So for your own business and for your own peace of mind and for your own legal protection, it's good to have this information yourself, not just in case Amazon asks, but also in case Amazon asks. Chris: And in terms of the ultimate, why? Why are they doing this? I mean, there's a lot of reasons. Their KYC procedures are tightening across the board, and this is one of them. The other reason why is, generally speaking, Amazon's just not interested in hosting sales of arbitrage sellers, people buying from liquidators, people buying gray market that might have thrived six, seven years ago.That's not the world we live in today. Amazon doesn't really care if those reseller accounts, especially liquidations, where you're buying [00:15:00] pallets, you're getting no line item invoices. I mean, basic, basic stuff where you know before you even buy the product, you know they're not gonna take the invoice.I mean, why put yourself in that position in the first place, right?Leah: Yeah, exactly. Again, you're not just risking that listing, you're potentially risking your entire account. So risk versus reward analysis, that's up to you guys.Chris: Well, thanks for listening everybody. The wind is picking up a little bit here, so this outdoor podcast experiment will come to an end for today. Feel free to ask us any questions about this. This is something that comes up constantly. Sometimes Amazon investigators ask for letters of authorization out of the blue to brand owners, private label brand owners. So there's interesting stuff going on all the time around this topic. Listen again to Seller Performance Solutions and have a nice day.

Chris: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, welcome back to Seller Performance Solutions. This is Chris McCabe. I'm here with Leah McHugh. We're talking today about all of the conversations we've had. Leah finds these particularly fascinating, around letters of authorization, supply chain documentation. I'm gonna go ahead and guess Unverifiable suppliers, right? Because we've had a couple cases where even when Amazon asked for the supplier's supplier, we were actually able to provide that information and they still said no. So maybe that's the best place to start.  Leah: Or you're giving them the manufacturer information and they're asking for the manufacturer's supplier and it's like they're the manufacturer. Chris: It is kind of crazy that they have such knee-jerk reactions. They just say No, kind of no matter what you send, which makes us think that they're not bothering to take a look at any of this stuff.  Leah: They may be automating some of it. I know that they're automating a lot of the compliance documentation review, so it could just be badly written AI. Chris: I mean, we're over assuming the AI is taking over, I [00:01:00] think Amazon will do that, but not yet.  Leah: I have it confirmed from Amazon employees that they are using automation to review client's docs, so it's not that much of a stretch to assume they're using some sort of automation to review supply chain docs.  Chris: There's still a person who's responsible for reviewing the documentation and making a yay or nay decision. The problem is there's no yay, it's always nay. Well, why is that? Well, they're either not looking at it or they're trying to pick it apart and find an excuse not to have to read an appeal or look at other documents.  The excuse must be they either think the invoice has been massaged, edited, manipulated, fabricated, which I know they love to over accuse on that. But also sometimes they just say, well, the format doesn't look right. And it's just very vague and sellers have to try to call into account health to find out why this is, but a lot of the answers coming back are not a lot of annotations here that explain why they didn't like it. When there's a dearth of information like that they obviously didn't take the time to look at that [00:02:00] documentation, especially like you said, when it's from the manufacturer and they just say, we couldn't verify your supplier. Oh, that's interesting. Those are the people who make the stuff for us. Leah: Right, here's their website. Here's a direct contact person, their phone number, what wasn't verifiable? I think what I find most interesting about this is Amazon is pretty inconsistent just across the board, but I feel like in this area in particular, all of these conspiracy theories abound around the seller community of like, oh, well, if you send it as a pdf, it won't be accepted. You have to take a picture of the invoice on a surface and then it'll get accepted. Like there are all these urban legends around invoice verification. And so that's why I find it interesting because like I said, Amazon's inconsistent across the board, but I feel like this is the one that sellers really have a whole theory around what to do to get it accepted and what not to do. Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong. But I find it really interesting because I guess this is one of the areas where all sellers are likely [00:03:00] going to be required to present some of this information at some point. So I enjoy the conspiracy theories. Chris: We're looking at a universe where they're going to ask every type of seller to justify with documentation just about everything they source, just about anywhere. Private label reseller, buying from authorized distributors, not buying from authorized distributors. A lot of this is about to blur together with the increases in KYC scrutiny. We've got the INFORM Consumers Act coming our way, but this is probably the first of many procedures because the days of hey just create a detail page and throw it up there, and maybe you've got an invoice, maybe you don't. Maybe you have info in your supplier, maybe you don't.  Those days they're over. Everyone should recognize that if they haven't ended for them in particular, they will soon.  Leah: Yeah. Well, if you are sourcing in a way that doesn't give you the right documentation, you just have to know that it is a risky business model. And at any point, Amazon could ask you for a documentation that you don't have, [00:04:00] and when you don't have it, they're not gonna let you sell that again. So as long as you go into it knowing that, which unfortunately, I feel like a lot of new sellers in particular go into not knowing that because a course or something tells them that they could just buy stuff at CVS and list it on Amazon. As long as you know what you're getting into. Just keep in mind it's not a great long-term business strategy on Amazon. But I did wanna talk about what you should have on your invoices because that is something that we still have people come to us saying Amazon keeps rejecting documentation and then we take a look at it and it's slack and that's why.  Chris: Written on a napkin invoice?  Leah: Right, Excel invoicesaren't great either. Word docs. Also, I still see a lot of people submitting commercial invoices or pro forma invoices. Those will not be accepted by Amazon. It needs to be an actual invoice where the inventory has been fulfilled to you and payment has been made, or is at least like net 30, [00:05:00] whatever the case may be. They won't accept a commercial invoice, which is really for shipping purposes or pro forma invoice, which is essentially just your ordering the inventory doesn't actually confirm that you actually got the inventory from that person.  Chris: Right. It's like a pre invoice. And of course we've heard from a lot of sellers who said, well, there are services out there that will make an invoice for you. This is still happening. Leah: That's another thing that I wanted to talk about because I see a lot of them marketing it as like it's a real invoice for somebody, we're just making it so it's made out to you. That's not a real invoice. It was a real invoice for whoever purchased the actual product. Chris: At one time it was a real invoice. Leah: It was, but once they changed the information on it to reflect something that didn't happen, it is no longer a real invoice and it is fraudulent documentation. And at that point you are risking permanent deactivation if Amazon catches you doing that. So yeah, that's something to keep in mind because there are still a lot of services that we see, or people come to us saying that they got a real invoice [00:06:00] from a service and it is not a real invoice. So make sure your invoices are real and you know that they're real if you are purchasing those products from the people that the invoices says that it's from. If you're not purchasing the products from the person that's issuing the invoice, that is not a real invoice. Chris: You probably didn't buy all those items from a supplier and forget that you bought those items and then you hired a service to help you remember it. These are extremely dated tactics that probably didn't work that well in the first place, but it's no very amateur level stuff. I understand that desperate times breed desperate measures. But, Amazon's hip to all this stuff, they've been going through this crap for years. So think about that before you start saying, well, I don't have a letter of authorization so actually I really had no choice but to manipulate or fabricate documentation. Well, the choice was not to do it in the first place. I understand that there are a lot of low value courses out there that don't address this [00:07:00] stuff. And when you're new, you just kind of glom onto what they've suggested that you do, but fact check that stuff and question the source.  Leah: Yeah. And then a second area that I regularly see sellers running into issues with is their invoices being made out to a company or to an address that doesn't exactly match the information that they have in their Seller Central. You need to make sure that the invoice is made out to the right person, to the right company, and has all of the same information as your account. Otherwise, Amazon's not going to try to connect the dots for you. They're just going to reject that invoice. And then of course, on top of that, you wanna have the contact information for your supplier. Ideally you are including contact information for a specific person, not just like their regular support, phone number or email address, website address. And then ideally you wanna have product identifiers. I prefer GTINS, so UPCs or EANs generally in this country. JANs you're in Japan. just [00:08:00] because those are universal identifiers, whereas an ASIN is just an Amazon specific identifier that those GTINs will be on the listing. So again, it just makes it that much easier for the investigator to match your documents to the products in question. A lot of Chinese invoices just have pictures of the products, that's not enough. You need the actual identifier on there. And we are actually seeing more and more that the invoice is being rejected because it doesn't have a product identifier, it just has like the name or description. Make it easy for the investigator, make sure it has the identifier, and this is all stuff that your supplier shouldn't have any issue with adding to the invoices. Don't add this information to the invoices yourself. Go back to your supplier and say, I need these invoices updated to reflect this information, by the actual supplier. You don't wanna me make those changes. Chris: And we understand, by the way, the insanity of some of the requests from Amazon. There was somebody the other day that said, oh, your invoice was rejected because [00:09:00] the ASIN wasn't on it. I think that person actually expected the Amazon ASIN to appear on the invoice.  Leah: Yeah, but that was somebody in account health. So like, Eh.  Chris: But the account health reps are sometimes reviewing account annotations and passing along some of that info, and I could totally see that being a reason for rejection. There are nonsensical gibberish reasons, even when you drill down into what was annotated on this ASIN on my account, you will see some crazy stuff. We're not saying that if you follow every thing that we tell you, you'll never get a rejection for no apparent reason, an insane illogical rejection because we hear and see those all the time.  We're trying to get you to the point where the reduces the likelihood that that will happen because some people go 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 rounds with these guys. Even calling into account health each time it gets rejected and account health reps, when you're on the phone with these people, hopefully you're only talking to US reps, you can tell in their voice sometimes that [00:10:00] they see how idiotic some of this is, and how nonsensical it is.  Leah: I actually appreciate when you can hear in their voice that they're just like, *sigh* it says this. You know that they're just like, oh, this is stupid. and I feel stupid saying this. Chris: Or they just say well, this is what I found, there's mannerisms they use. You can tell that they basically agree with you but they have zero authority to fix something absolutely ridiculous that never should have happened in the first place. But you need that information because for all you know, you're basing your next escalation on. By the way, account health told me, insert nonsensical phrase here. that's gonna keep happening. There's gonna be more of that. So prepare mentally for it. Don't let it frustrate you, but also understand that sometimes those mistakes, and they are plentiful and they're regular on the Amazon side, could become the fruit of your next escalation.  Leah: Yeah. And then I just wanna talk really quickly about your relationship with your supplier, because [00:11:00] ultimately you want to be as close to the brand owner as possible. You either want to be the brand owner. If you are the brand owner though, and you are manufacturing the products yourself, you need to have a separate entity from your selling account for the manufacturing, and you need to invoice your selling entity for those products because Amazon won't accept self issued invoices so you need to have those two separate businesses to show that supply chain for the products that you manufacture yourself. If you are a reseller, ideally you are buying directly from the brand. If not directly from the brand, you want to be buying from an authorized distributor. Because again, as a reseller, one Amazon might ask for a letter of authorization. And if you're buying the products very far down the supply chain, it's unlikely that you'd be able to get a letter of authorization from the brand owner and also Amazon might ask for your supplier's supplier. And again, if you're too far down the chain, one your supplier is unlikely to wanna give you [00:12:00] that information. And even if you give your supplier's supplier information, if that's someone that has no real apparent relationship to the brand, Amazon still won't accept that. So you want to be as close to the brand owner as possible when it comes to the supply chain information that you have. And you wanna be able to make sure that you can verify it all the way up to the brand owner and that you can get those letters of authorization if requested. Chris: Well said. And on that note. We both had some long winded passages on this one.  Leah: We've been doing this for a long time.  Chris: It's good when it comes to supply chain documentation because sometimes even to our surprise, we're still getting some questions that aren't from new sellers about, I don't understand why they rejected this invoice.  I completely get that. You can submit an invoice, which is identical to something they accepted 17 times in the past, and they're suddenly rejecting it now. But that's just Amazon being fickle. And Amazon changing their mind from one month to the next on what they wanna accept. We're not justifying that, but it's not [00:13:00] unusual. Amazon likes to change their minds a lot about what's acceptable and what's not. It's also very dependent on the eyeballs that are looking at that invoice. There might be somebody else that will accept it. Leah: But I mean, beyond the outliers, I think the general requirements that Amazon has for the documentation really hasn't changed that much in the last few years and so again, when you're figuring out your sourcing, keep these in mind. Have a checklist for when you're bringing on a new supplier for does their invoice match all of the required information? If not, are they willing to include that in the invoices to you? If they're not, you shouldn't be purchasing from them. And also again, are you able to verify the supply chain from your supplier all the way up to the brand owner. Again, if not, Move on to another supplier.  Chris: Even for your own knowledge. It's not even just to show Amazon because we've had people coming to us saying they've been accused by Amazon of selling stolen inventory. All they did was look at some inventory at a warehouse. [00:14:00] They didn't really know where it came from. So this is where that can bite you as well. That's not just Amazon being pushy about invoices. You need to know this for your own knowledge because your entire business could be at stake. Leah: Yeah. And it's not just stolen, could unknowingly be purchasing counterfeit items or gray market items that maybe aren't even approved to be sold in the country that you're selling them in for whatever compliance reasons, labeling, whatever. So for your own business and for your own peace of mind and for your own legal protection, it's good to have this information yourself, not just in case Amazon asks, but also in case Amazon asks.  Chris: And in terms of the ultimate, why? Why are they doing this? I mean, there's a lot of reasons. Their KYC procedures are tightening across the board, and this is one of them. The other reason why is, generally speaking, Amazon's just not interested in hosting sales of arbitrage sellers, people buying from liquidators, people buying gray market that might have thrived six, seven years ago. That's not the world we live in today. Amazon doesn't really care if those reseller accounts, especially liquidations, where you're buying [00:15:00] pallets, you're getting no line item invoices. I mean, basic, basic stuff where you know before you even buy the product, you know they're not gonna take the invoice. I mean, why put yourself in that position in the first place, right? Leah: Yeah, exactly. Again, you're not just risking that listing, you're potentially risking your entire account. So risk versus reward analysis, that's up to you guys. Chris: Well, thanks for listening everybody. The wind is picking up a little bit here, so this outdoor podcast experiment will come to an end for today.  Feel free to ask us any questions about this. This is something that comes up constantly. Sometimes Amazon investigators ask for letters of authorization out of the blue to brand owners, private label brand owners. So there's interesting stuff going on all the time around this topic. Listen again to Seller Performance Solutions and have a nice day.

What you Need on Your Invoices

Chris: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to another podcast episode of Seller Performance Solutions. I'm Chris McCabe. I'm here with Leah McHugh. We're both of ecommerceChris, and we're here today talking about, just because you can do something on Amazon doesn't mean you should do something on Amazon. What does that mean? Very fun topic, what does that mean exactly? It means, long story short, we see loads and loads of people embracing loopholes, tricks, gaps in processes, tools left behind when they were created, that shouldn't be happening. They're definitely not compliant with policy. Leah's seeing these examples all the time.The point I wanted to make initially was, whether it's something you see posted in some group somewhere, Hey, this works. You should try it or you're actually hiring an agency or a service who says, oh, I have a solution for that. Pay us something so we can do this for you. Always ask yourself or ask that service or consultant, is this compliant with Amazon [00:01:00] policy?Leah: Yeah. Also ask possibly another service or consultant if it's compliant because a, a lot of times, They will say, yeah, it's totally compliant when it's not. Because I have had that conversation with sellers too where they were told that it was compliant and it definitely was not.Chris: Right. Just because you're told that something is compliant, whether this is by a representative of Amazon, which we've experienced unfortunately, members of seller support, members of account health. But also people that used to work at Amazon who go work at an agency, we've heard people say, oh, your listing got suspended, just make another one.Leah: Or where they don't tell them that they made another one and they're just like, oh, I got your ASIN reinstated, it just doesn't have any sales history or review history. And also it has a new UPC. Chris: First of all, that's not a reinstatement. That's just creating a new listing. But the first thing you need to do then is merge those two listings together. Leah: You can't do that if one of them is blocked. Chris: No, but harvesting the reviews, right? That's one of the things that people have been asking us and [00:02:00] asking around for, hacks around. Well, I have another listing now I just need to get the reviews moved over there, right? Leah: Yeah, right. Which yes, ASIN merges are possible, but they're also under a fair amount of scrutiny, particularly when it is about harvesting the reviews, because the FTC recently sued a supplement seller for doing exactly that.Chris: Well the cat's out of the bag on this ASIN merge stuff, right? Clearly people were abusing it like crazy for years. Leah: I will say I see less of that than I used to. I do recall a few years ago having to like beautiful mind create graphs of how people had merged ASINs together to try to figure out what exactly they did in order to get them reinstated. I don't get that as much as we used to. Chris: Was the chart beautiful? Leah: It was not, I just looked insane. Chris: I don't think you see it as much anymore because people understand that they're finally keeping an eye out for [00:03:00] it. And it's true that there are trends where you can get away with murder for years, and that doesn't mean you'll always be able to get away with it. It also doesn't mean it won't be rolled back once Amazon finally wakes up and pays attention to something, I think that's the part that's forgotten. A short-term gain might first of all risk your whole account. Second of all, it might be rolled back anyway. So what good is it? I mean, are you just trying to sell through a few units or are you trying to sell an ASIN long term?Leah: Yeah. Well, and I think that is where the disconnect tends to happen. There's a very large focus on the short term improvement versus the the long term risk, and also potential drop when it does eventually go away. A lot of these hacks don't really take into consideration that if something does get rolled back, you would essentially be starting from scratch. Where perhaps it's a much better business decision to go for the slow burn in terms of growth because you are doing it [00:04:00] within TOS, but then you have long-term growth as opposed to having to start all over again when something gets taken down. Chris: And what kind of sellers does Amazon want? They want long-term thinking sellers. They don't want, oh, we're just going to employ one trick, hack, loophole, exploitation after another until we sell a little bit more of this asin, a little bit more of that ASIN. If they're consistently flagging your listings or reviewing your account, you're making yourself into a pain in the neck or a headache to them, and this is why the conversation comes up.Why is Amazon so punitive against sellers? Well some sellers, consistently jump up and down and say, Hey, look at me. I'm not interested in what the rules are or I hired an agency to do this for me and I never asked them if they understood what compliance was or if they even had a compliance person. I'm just looking for short term gaming the system.I mean, do you think Amazon wants those types of headaches? Leah: I think what I'm seeing more so [00:05:00] now is less gaming the system and more trying to fix things and things that Amazon don't make easy to fix compliantly, but for whatever reason are quite easy to fix non- compliantly because they haven't tightened up their tools.That's what I'm seeing more now, where a quick fix is actually a lot easier to do non-compliantly than it is compliantly, which is quite frustrating for me because I'm having to do it the hard way compliantly. And then I see other sellers come who are like, oh yeah, they just did this. And I'm like, well, that's totally non-compliant, but glad it was done quickly I guess.Chris: They do it quickly. We know that these case system reps and support whichever teams you're dealing with, love to take you in a circle and that's frustrating. You lose time, you lose money. The problem doesn't initially get fixed. Consider as well, who else, aside from Amazon, has their eyes on you and your listing because if they think you employed, some illicit hack and their [00:06:00] competitors of yours, then that's a valid abuse complaint that they can submit to Amazon internal teams.Leah: Right, and we are getting a lot more people coming to us saying, hey, my competitors are making invalid variations, how can I report them? That is something that we're seeing more and more. So your competitors are watching you, of course. And they are keeping track of these things because also if they can find a pattern in what you're doing, that also makes it a lot easier for them to report you to Amazon. So yeah, I mean, everything that you're doing, just keep in mind that it is somewhat public and I think I've mentioned on the podcast before, but one of my favorite FTC stories is when somebody bought something from Amazon and he worked for the FTC and he got an insert offering to incentivize reviews. People from the FTC buy from Amazon too. Chris: Not just your competitors buying from you and by the way, you can't just say this is abuse, this is a competitor, if it's a completely valid report, right? Where it comes from doesn't actually matter that much, and it doesn't negate the fact that you were [00:07:00] violating a policy or depending on how misrepresented the product might be on the detail page, violating laws.Leah and I have also seen cases that were flagged by product safety and compliance teams where the product itself has been misrepresented just to evade existing detection teams. Leah: Just like removing the certain words that would actually identify it for what it is. Which is something that I actually see a lot of people pushing as a strategy and please, please don't do that. That's a terrible strategy. Again, short-term gains, but you're putting your entire account at risk doing that, and also, you know, potentially committing fraud depending on what you're doing. Chris: Well, I'm not saying that brands don't ask consultants or agencies, is this compliant with policy?I think nowadays they ask that question more before some of these things happen, but study the answer that comes back. If the answer is, we've been doing this for nine months and nobody's slapped our wrist yet, that's not a satisfying answer. That just means maybe it [00:08:00] hasn't been reported. Maybe Amazon didn't catch it.Guess what? Amazon doesn't catch a lot of stuff and that's why people employ these tricks. But, is that long term healthy for your brand or your business to use one of these hacks or tricks? I get that there's conferences or people huddle in a room and share these ideas and maybe you're not even planning on doing it forever, but do they ever talk about the consequences? That's the issue. Leah: Yeah, of course not. They're just talking about those sweet, sweet revenues. Not actually mentioning profits ever. I would just like to add that, it is very important for you yourself to know the policies. I have had a few situations with the catalog team where I am trying to get them to do something compliantly and it's actually easier for them to do it non- compliantly and their tools as well. So they try to start pushing us down that path, and I have to be the one to tell them to stop and not do that because it would put the entire account at risk. And ultimately, Amazon is not going to accept the fact that catalog did it for you [00:09:00] as a reason as to why you should be reinstated. So it's important that you know the policies as well because Amazon's own teams will often push you in the wrong direction. Particularly lately, I don't know if they have a whole new batch of people in catalog who haven't been trained as well or what, but lately I have just been getting so much bad information from them trying to send us in the wrong direction and so make sure that you, yourself know what can and cannot be done. Don't just be like, well, support said it was fine and then they did it.Chris: Right. Or you ask somebody who deals with compliance on a consistent basis, not somebody who dabbles in it once a year. Leah: Yeah. I'm not even talking about compliance, I'm talking about like Amazon policy.Chris: Reading the policy pages and double checking what they tell you, I think people don't understand that you can't take everything they say on these calls as gospel. Just because they work there doesn't mean they understand their own policies. Leah and I have both [00:10:00] been on calls either with account health reps, catalog reps, different people, different teams of Amazon, and we've had to kind of say, go over the policy with me now I have it in front of me. Which part of what's on this page reflects what you're saying. And then they start to backpedal. Leah: Right. Or, conversation I had recently where I was like, so what you're saying is that Amazon will not take action against this clear infringement on our intellectual property.And it's your specific policy that it's the other seller who's infringing on us that has to correct it and suddenly they were backpedaling pretty quickly. Chris: And also keep in mind, it's a lot easier for Amazon instead of just send you warnings over and over into flag listings for review over and over.It's much easier these days for them to just shove it over to account health and say, you know what? We're sizing these people up for a suspension, so give them their 24 hours, call them up, tell them that they have to address this now. Otherwise, we're suspending the account. But take it from Amazon's perspective for a second.Is it easier for them to go into all this minutia [00:11:00] every other day? Delete listings, send you warnings, give you a chance to appeal them individually in Seller central and your account health dashboard, or is it just easier to drop the bomb and suspend the whole account? I mean, what's feasible, what makes sense from their perspective?Leah: Right, exactly. And like I said, they're not going to go back and see if it was support's fault or not. They're holding you responsible unfortunately. Chris: Yeah. In a bizarre way. They expect you to ignore half of what support says because they expect you to know that support doesn't have the knowledge, the training, the ability to, to give you an accurate answer. Same thing with the account health teams. Why do you get seven different answers when you talk to seven different account health reps? Some of them know what they're talking about and some of them don't and I think that's understood Amazon wide. Leah: And they have to tell you something because they're stuck with you on the phone.Chris: They're stuck with you on the phone. So usually we talk to people with that, buyer's remorse as it were. They hire a service, he does some of this stuff. They don't double [00:12:00] check any of it. They're looking for revenue boost. And what happens? They regret it afterwards once they get in trouble because the amount of money they've lost.When their account is suspended or when other things happen that result in suspensions and lost revenue, that amount far exceeds whatever they would've made just by selling through the products. Any questions on this, let me know. Let Leah know. We're happy to talk about this because we're seeing it over and over.We're kind of alarmed at how often we're seeing things that really didn't make sense from the get-go, happening without the brand owner understanding what the risks and consequences were. Leah: And I have been saying this for years, but I'm gonna say it again. Just because other sellers are doing it doesn't mean that it's okay. I can find policy violations in about three clicks if I go to amazon.com.Chris: Maybe we should say that more often. You could throw a rock in the Amazon marketplace and hit two or three or four completely non-compliant listings. Easy to do ,what's live on the site doesn't make it right.So we'll catch you next time. Thanks for [00:13:00] listening to Seller Performance Solutions.

Chris: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to another podcast episode of Seller Performance Solutions. I'm Chris McCabe. I'm here with Leah McHugh. We're both of ecommerceChris, and we're here today talking about, just because you can do something on Amazon doesn't mean you should do something on Amazon. What does that mean? Very fun topic, what does that mean exactly? It means, long story short, we see loads and loads of people embracing loopholes, tricks, gaps in processes, tools left behind when they were created, that shouldn't be happening. They're definitely not compliant with policy. Leah's seeing these examples all the time. The point I wanted to make initially was, whether it's something you see posted in some group somewhere, Hey, this works. You should try it or you're actually hiring an agency or a service who says, oh, I have a solution for that. Pay us something so we can do this for you. Always ask yourself or ask that service or consultant, is this compliant with Amazon [00:01:00] policy? Leah: Yeah. Also ask possibly another service or consultant if it's compliant because a, a lot of times, They will say, yeah, it's totally compliant when it's not. Because I have had that conversation with sellers too where they were told that it was compliant and it definitely was not. Chris: Right. Just because you're told that something is compliant, whether this is by a representative of Amazon, which we've experienced unfortunately, members of seller support, members of account health. But also people that used to work at Amazon who go work at an agency, we've heard people say, oh, your listing got suspended, just make another one. Leah: Or where they don't tell them that they made another one and they're just like, oh, I got your ASIN reinstated, it just doesn't have any sales history or review history. And also it has a new UPC.  Chris: First of all, that's not a reinstatement. That's just creating a new listing. But the first thing you need to do then is merge those two listings together.  Leah: You can't do that if one of them is blocked.  Chris: No, but harvesting the reviews, right? That's one of the things that people have been asking us and [00:02:00] asking around for, hacks around. Well, I have another listing now I just need to get the reviews moved over there, right?  Leah: Yeah, right. Which yes, ASIN merges are possible, but they're also under a fair amount of scrutiny, particularly when it is about harvesting the reviews, because the FTC recently sued a supplement seller for doing exactly that. Chris: Well the cat's out of the bag on this ASIN merge stuff, right? Clearly people were abusing it like crazy for years.  Leah: I will say I see less of that than I used to. I do recall a few years ago having to like beautiful mind create graphs of how people had merged ASINs together to try to figure out what exactly they did in order to get them reinstated. I don't get that as much as we used to.  Chris: Was the chart beautiful?  Leah: It was not, I just looked insane.  Chris: I don't think you see it as much anymore because people understand that they're finally keeping an eye out for [00:03:00] it. And it's true that there are trends where you can get away with murder for years, and that doesn't mean you'll always be able to get away with it. It also doesn't mean it won't be rolled back once Amazon finally wakes up and pays attention to something, I think that's the part that's forgotten. A short-term gain might first of all risk your whole account. Second of all, it might be rolled back anyway. So what good is it? I mean, are you just trying to sell through a few units or are you trying to sell an ASIN long term? Leah: Yeah. Well, and I think that is where the disconnect tends to happen. There's a very large focus on the short term improvement versus the the long term risk, and also potential drop when it does eventually go away. A lot of these hacks don't really take into consideration that if something does get rolled back, you would essentially be starting from scratch. Where perhaps it's a much better business decision to go for the slow burn in terms of growth because you are doing it [00:04:00] within TOS, but then you have long-term growth as opposed to having to start all over again when something gets taken down.  Chris: And what kind of sellers does Amazon want? They want long-term thinking sellers. They don't want, oh, we're just going to employ one trick, hack, loophole, exploitation after another until we sell a little bit more of this asin, a little bit more of that ASIN. If they're consistently flagging your listings or reviewing your account, you're making yourself into a pain in the neck or a headache to them, and this is why the conversation comes up. Why is Amazon so punitive against sellers? Well some sellers, consistently jump up and down and say, Hey, look at me. I'm not interested in what the rules are or I hired an agency to do this for me and I never asked them if they understood what compliance was or if they even had a compliance person. I'm just looking for short term gaming the system. I mean, do you think Amazon wants those types of headaches?  Leah: I think what I'm seeing more so [00:05:00] now is less gaming the system and more trying to fix things and things that Amazon don't make easy to fix compliantly, but for whatever reason are quite easy to fix non- compliantly because they haven't tightened up their tools. That's what I'm seeing more now, where a quick fix is actually a lot easier to do non-compliantly than it is compliantly, which is quite frustrating for me because I'm having to do it the hard way compliantly. And then I see other sellers come who are like, oh yeah, they just did this. And I'm like, well, that's totally non-compliant, but glad it was done quickly I guess. Chris: They do it quickly. We know that these case system reps and support whichever teams you're dealing with, love to take you in a circle and that's frustrating. You lose time, you lose money. The problem doesn't initially get fixed. Consider as well, who else, aside from Amazon, has their eyes on you and your listing because if they think you employed, some illicit hack and their [00:06:00] competitors of yours, then that's a valid abuse complaint that they can submit to Amazon internal teams. Leah: Right, and we are getting a lot more people coming to us saying, hey, my competitors are making invalid variations, how can I report them? That is something that we're seeing more and more. So your competitors are watching you, of course. And they are keeping track of these things because also if they can find a pattern in what you're doing, that also makes it a lot easier for them to report you to Amazon. So yeah, I mean, everything that you're doing, just keep in mind that it is somewhat public and I think I've mentioned on the podcast before, but one of my favorite FTC stories is when somebody bought something from Amazon and he worked for the FTC and he got an insert offering to incentivize reviews. People from the FTC buy from Amazon too.  Chris: Not just your competitors buying from you and by the way, you can't just say this is abuse, this is a competitor, if it's a completely valid report, right? Where it comes from doesn't actually matter that much, and it doesn't negate the fact that you were [00:07:00] violating a policy or depending on how misrepresented the product might be on the detail page, violating laws. Leah and I have also seen cases that were flagged by product safety and compliance teams where the product itself has been misrepresented just to evade existing detection teams.  Leah: Just like removing the certain words that would actually identify it for what it is. Which is something that I actually see a lot of people pushing as a strategy and please, please don't do that. That's a terrible strategy. Again, short-term gains, but you're putting your entire account at risk doing that, and also, you know, potentially committing fraud depending on what you're doing.  Chris: Well, I'm not saying that brands don't ask consultants or agencies, is this compliant with policy? I think nowadays they ask that question more before some of these things happen, but study the answer that comes back. If the answer is, we've been doing this for nine months and nobody's slapped our wrist yet, that's not a satisfying answer. That just means maybe it [00:08:00] hasn't been reported. Maybe Amazon didn't catch it. Guess what? Amazon doesn't catch a lot of stuff and that's why people employ these tricks. But, is that long term healthy for your brand or your business to use one of these hacks or tricks? I get that there's conferences or people huddle in a room and share these ideas and maybe you're not even planning on doing it forever, but do they ever talk about the consequences? That's the issue.  Leah: Yeah, of course not. They're just talking about those sweet, sweet revenues. Not actually mentioning profits ever. I would just like to add that, it is very important for you yourself to know the policies. I have had a few situations with the catalog team where I am trying to get them to do something compliantly and it's actually easier for them to do it non- compliantly and their tools as well. So they try to start pushing us down that path, and I have to be the one to tell them to stop and not do that because it would put the entire account at risk. And ultimately, Amazon is not going to accept the fact that catalog did it for you [00:09:00] as a reason as to why you should be reinstated. So it's important that you know the policies as well because Amazon's own teams will often push you in the wrong direction. Particularly lately, I don't know if they have a whole new batch of people in catalog who haven't been trained as well or what, but lately I have just been getting so much bad information from them trying to send us in the wrong direction and so make sure that you, yourself know what can and cannot be done. Don't just be like, well, support said it was fine and then they did it. Chris: Right. Or you ask somebody who deals with compliance on a consistent basis, not somebody who dabbles in it once a year.  Leah: Yeah. I'm not even talking about compliance, I'm talking about like Amazon policy. Chris: Reading the policy pages and double checking what they tell you, I think people don't understand that you can't take everything they say on these calls as gospel. Just because they work there doesn't mean they understand their own policies. Leah and I have both [00:10:00] been on calls either with account health reps, catalog reps, different people, different teams of Amazon, and we've had to kind of say, go over the policy with me now I have it in front of me. Which part of what's on this page reflects what you're saying. And then they start to backpedal.  Leah: Right. Or, conversation I had recently where I was like, so what you're saying is that Amazon will not take action against this clear infringement on our intellectual property. And it's your specific policy that it's the other seller who's infringing on us that has to correct it and suddenly they were backpedaling pretty quickly.  Chris: And also keep in mind, it's a lot easier for Amazon instead of just send you warnings over and over into flag listings for review over and over. It's much easier these days for them to just shove it over to account health and say, you know what? We're sizing these people up for a suspension, so give them their 24 hours, call them up, tell them that they have to address this now. Otherwise, we're suspending the account. But take it from Amazon's perspective for a second. Is it easier for them to go into all this minutia [00:11:00] every other day? Delete listings, send you warnings, give you a chance to appeal them individually in Seller central and your account health dashboard, or is it just easier to drop the bomb and suspend the whole account? I mean, what's feasible, what makes sense from their perspective? Leah: Right, exactly. And like I said, they're not going to go back and see if it was support's fault or not. They're holding you responsible unfortunately.  Chris: Yeah. In a bizarre way. They expect you to ignore half of what support says because they expect you to know that support doesn't have the knowledge, the training, the ability to, to give you an accurate answer.  Same thing with the account health teams. Why do you get seven different answers when you talk to seven different account health reps? Some of them know what they're talking about and some of them don't and I think that's understood Amazon wide.  Leah: And they have to tell you something because they're stuck with you on the phone. Chris: They're stuck with you on the phone. So usually we talk to people with that, buyer's remorse as it were. They hire a service, he does some of this stuff. They don't double [00:12:00] check any of it. They're looking for revenue boost. And what happens? They regret it afterwards once they get in trouble because the amount of money they've lost. When their account is suspended or when other things happen that result in suspensions and lost revenue, that amount far exceeds whatever they would've made just by selling through the products. Any questions on this, let me know. Let Leah know. We're happy to talk about this because we're seeing it over and over. We're kind of alarmed at how often we're seeing things that really didn't make sense from the get-go, happening without the brand owner understanding what the risks and consequences were.  Leah: And I have been saying this for years, but I'm gonna say it again. Just because other sellers are doing it doesn't mean that it's okay. I can find policy violations in about three clicks if I go to <a href="http://amazon.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">amazon.com</a>. Chris: Maybe we should say that more often. You could throw a rock in the Amazon marketplace and hit two or three or four completely non-compliant listings. Easy to do ,what's live on the site doesn't make it right. So we'll catch you next time. Thanks for [00:13:00] listening to Seller Performance Solutions.

Just Because you Can, Doesn't Mean that you Should

This is the definitive podcast that covers performance and policy teams from the perspective of a former Seller Performance team member, and former Amazon employee Chris McCabe.   Leah McHugh nails down analysis of listing compliance violations and presents viable solutions to troubleshoot product takedowns.  We created Seller Performance Solutions to help sellers better understand the inner workings of the team I worked on at Amazon, and to help 3rd party marketplace sellers cope with account and listing suspensions.  We answer questions around things like, How does Seller Performance investigate a seller before taking them down? What do they need to see in an appeal, to reactivate the account for future selling?  What are common mistakes that sellers make trying to get reinstated on Amazon?

Chris: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Seller Performance Solutions. I'm Chris McCabe of ecommerceChris, I'm here with Leah McHugh, also of ecommerceChris. How are you doing, Leah? Leah: Good, thanks. How are you, Chris? Chris: Great as always. Today's hot, hot, hot topic is the INFORM Consumers Act.Heard a lot about this lately. Amazon sent out some messaging recently about June 27th being the red letter day for when they're going to start enforcement. I've heard that they've done enforcement already. They've already started re-verifying accounts. It looks like there's already some identity verification changes in the offing. Do you want to just give a quick overview for people based on your reading of the act and its potential impact on Amazon? Sellers are really sellers of any online marketplace. Leah: Sure. Well, so June 27th is actually the day that the act comes into effect. It's not the a day that Amazon decides to start enforcing it. Chris: I thought those were one and the same, no? [00:01:00]Leah: Well, I mean, in theory they should probably have it already started before June 27th, because that's the deadline for having that information. Chris: For those of you unfamiliar Amazon with four weeks lead time, A project of this complexity and magnitude, very difficult to accomplish across the board.Leah: Well, so I mean, a lot of this information Amazon already has on sellers. But I'm getting ahead of myself anyway, so the act basically means that Marketplaces have the legal obligation to collect certain information from high volume sellers. It's kind of funny because in Amazon's notification they say that it obliges the seller to provide information, which technically it does, but the act itself specifies that the marketplace is obligated to obtain that information. So before we even get into that, what does high volume seller mean? Because what you think of as a high volume seller on Amazon isn't necessarily what Congress thinks is a high volume seller. So according to the Congressional [00:02:00] Act, a high volume seller is 200 or more transactions a year with revenues of $5,000 or more in a 12 month period.Chris: So basically everybody.Leah: Yeah, not really what I would call high volume, but sure. Congress, they're not selling on Amazon. Chris: They're talking about all online marketplaces. They can't give one number for Amazon, one number for Walmart. Maybe they should, but they probably can't do that for whatever reason.Leah: So it requires that the marketplaces obtain bank account information, which obviously they already have government issued identification, which at this point Amazon, I would think has from most sellers since they've been doing verification.Tax identification numbers and contact information. it also obliges the online marketplaces to make that information available to consumers if requested and also on the product listing itself. So a lot of this stuff we've already been seeing Amazon doing. Chris: Yeah. The good news is they've already been asking for [00:03:00] this. They've already kind of done some prep by pushing people to review this stuff, correct it, make sure it matches. That's the good news. Of course, the bad news is we've seen implementation all over the map in terms of how Amazon verifies a seller account, what they consider verifiable.And then when it comes to invoices, of course, you go down another rabbit hole with why are they rejecting my invoice? Why are they rejecting my supplier? But then there's the video calls confirming your identity and they're already behind on those. Leah: Backing that up a little bit.So those sellers have already gone through this process at this point. What sellers should be doing right now though is just double checking the account information that they have inside Seller Central. Make sure that it's all up to date. Make sure that it hasn't been rolled back at some point.Maybe if you needed to have your account sanitized or to go rolled back and you didn't notice at the time, which I think we talked about a few weeks ago. We did make, make sure that all of the information on your account is correct and then also make sure that you have. [00:04:00] Documentation that matches the information on your account.Because we have already seen Amazon start re-verifying accounts that have already been through the verification process since they sent the email a few weeks ago. So that's the most proactive things that sellers can be doing right now is checking the information on the account, making sure it's accurate, making sure that they have all of the documentation requested.Chris: Many sellers who have already been verified by Amazon, will have to do it again. They might wonder why they have to do it again. They might wonder why they're mixed in with newer sellers who are going through this identity verification process.Why they have to show invoices for things they've sold for years. Tip number two today, is don't waste time wondering why. Just understand that there's the INFORM Consumers Act. Amazon has to do this stuff. Understand in advance that Amazon won't necessarily be consistent in how they implement this.There'll be mistakes. They might schedule video verification calls with [00:05:00] people and then not show up for them, we've heard about that happening quite a bit. Sometimes they'll reschedule with you when their rep doesn't show up, and they'll miss that one too. Not telling you this to panic. Just be ready for things not exactly going down the way they advise you to prepare for them, or they're not going down the way they promise that they'll fulfill their obligations on their side.Leah: Yeah, I mean, realistically, there's no way they're going to be able to re-verify all sellers by June 27th. So, I'm not really assuming that that's going to be consistent in the next month or so, and I don't get the sense that they're trying to re-verify all sellers. That being said, the notification that they did send out did mention that they may require you to do this annually now to confirm that all details.Chris: So this may not happen to you, but be prepared for it in case it does happen to you because we've tried to predict which sellers they'll throw into which buckets for however long in the past. We usually have a [00:06:00] pretty good yard stick based on experience for that sort of thing, but no one's going to be right a hundred percent of the time, and Amazon sometimes changes things up, not even just for us, for their own internal people.In terms of how they do it. Sometimes it's going too slowly. Sometimes there are too many errors. Sometimes they learn by doing so it can change even after this process begins. Good things to keep in the back of your mind while you prep for this, whether or not you actually get a message saying, Hey, today's the day.Yeah, and again, all of the information that they're asking me for is pretty basic business information that you should have anyway. I mean, government issued ID, I assume everybody has at this point a business address, your bank account information, a working email address, and a working phone number. I mean, these are all pretty basic. Oh, and a tax identification number. These are all things that you needed to open your account anyway. So it's just making sure that all of your information matches the documentation that you have. Oh, sure. In theory, [00:07:00] It's a piece of cake. It should be a piece of cake.It should be straightforward. But this is Amazon we're talking about, right? They're always bringing a guy outta the bullpen to throw curve balls. So that's what they need to prepare for because just on the face of it, bank account statements address, while everyone has a bank account, so it seems straightforward.Leah: But we've also seen many, many sellers put bank account information on their account and then don't have a bank account statement that matches the rest of the information on their account. So that's the main prep preparation point that I would like sellers to check before, before they get requested for this information.Chris: And some people, it's been fixable, it's solvable, but some people would just update an address. Obviously some of what we're talking about today is make sure everything's updated. In the past, we've seen some people update credit card info, bank account info, street address, whatever, and then they were temporarily deactivated. That wasn't that unusual, fixable, but sometimes there'd be a gap or [00:08:00] an interruption in selling. Clearly some of this we will find out throughout the month of June as this comes into effect, I'm sure we'll see certain changes. Amazon will be getting themselves ready for it, not just getting sellers ready for it.One thing to keep in mind, if you show up for your video verification call, the Amazon rep isn't there, or they even tell you that they won't be there and they reschedule you and then they don't show up for that. Make sure you're not forgotten. Make sure you're not just waiting to hear back from them with the threat of a deactivation hanging over you or God forbid you've already been deactivated, because waiting is not always the best thing to do, even if it's something they tell you to do and you're trying to follow their instructions.If you have to call into account health reps and find out, Hey, how do I get this rescheduled? Do that. If you're really getting desperate because that's not working either check with us in terms of who you could potentially think about emailing and how you can try to get it rescheduled. But we've heard from some sellers who have been rescheduled a couple of times.Obviously, if they're piling on [00:09:00] thousands and thousands of these all within four weeks, people are going to be missed, mistakes will be made. So just don't sit back passively and wait for Amazon to come to you. Be proactive and make sure if they're the ones who aren't showing up. Or if for some reason you have trouble on your side and you don't show up, make sure you're proactively following up and rescheduling those.Leah: Also, make sure that the person whose government ID you're using is the person on the verification call. That is also an error that we've seen sellers make. Don't have your employee present your ID. You need to be the one on the call.Chris: And obviously we're heading into Prime Day very soon. This is happening on the cusp of it, right before it. Craziness will ensue. Right? So we'll be covering this again, this won't be our last podcast on the INFORM Consumers Act but just keep in mind that things tend to be disruptive very quickly.Sometimes Amazon tries to preempt confusion and disorganize behavior and it creates more of it. They're trying to get out in front of it as best they can, but it's a [00:10:00] large organization. Lots of different teams that don't have a great history of talking to each other, that are siloed from each other.So just keep us informed. If you want to put anything in front of us, get our opinion on it, feel free. Otherwise do your best to keep all your information ready to go. Documentation on your suppliers invoices ready at a moment's notice in case they come asking for it. Because you might not necessarily get tons of notice from Amazon if they are delayed, if they are behind on things.Per the usual. And as Leah said, make sure the right person is ready for that call and they're not on a beach somewhere sipping pina coladas and not available for the verification call.Leah: I mean, if the beach has wifi, go for it. Chris: Maybe, not a lot of sand you can plug into these days, but yeah, we've heard of some people trying workarounds, illicit means offaking, who's on the call, misrepresenting, who's there to verify the account. This is not something that you should be doing. Amazon is doing a lot better on [00:11:00] this than they have in the past on verifying which documents have been fabricated or edited or manipulated. You don't want to be caught in all of that because then you'll start getting suspension notices that cite the code of conduct, calling you a bad actor saying you don't belong in the marketplace.That would be a terrible way for you to experience. The suffering involved in an account suspension, especially if you're an established seller with big time losses that you could be facing.Leah: Yeah. And they're also using facial verification software on the call. Yes. So, makes it even harder to pretend someone else is you.Chris: We are not facial software recognition experts by any means but we've already heard some horror stories. Do not believe anyone who tells you that you can fake this and slide this past them. Don't even try it, is my closing words of advice. Leah: Yeah. And my closing words of advice is that faking it as fraud.Chris: And it's also illegal, not just against policy, which we will never say that you should try. Any questions [00:12:00] on this obviously an evolving topic. There'll be more episodes on it. Feel free to let us know. And thanks again for joining us for another episode of Seller Performance Solutions.

Chris: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Seller Performance Solutions. I'm Chris McCabe of ecommerceChris, I'm here with Leah McHugh, also of ecommerceChris. How are you doing, Leah?  Leah: Good, thanks. How are you, Chris?  Chris: Great as always. Today's hot, hot, hot topic is the INFORM Consumers Act. Heard a lot about this lately. Amazon sent out some messaging recently about June 27th being the red letter day for when they're going to start enforcement. I've heard that they've done enforcement already. They've already started re-verifying accounts. It looks like there's already some identity verification changes in the offing.  Do you want to just give a quick overview for people based on your reading of the act and its potential impact on Amazon? Sellers are really sellers of any online marketplace.  Leah: Sure. Well, so June 27th is actually the day that the act comes into effect. It's not the a day that Amazon decides to start enforcing it.  Chris: I thought those were one and the same, no? [00:01:00] Leah: Well, I mean, in theory they should probably have it already started before June 27th, because that's the deadline for having that information.  Chris: For those of you unfamiliar Amazon with four weeks lead time, A project of this complexity and magnitude, very difficult to accomplish across the board. Leah: Well, so I mean, a lot of this information Amazon already has on sellers. But I'm getting ahead of myself anyway, so the act basically means that Marketplaces have the legal obligation to collect certain information from high volume sellers. It's kind of funny because in Amazon's notification they say that it obliges the seller to provide information, which technically it does, but the act itself specifies that the marketplace is obligated to obtain that information. So before we even get into that, what does high volume seller mean? Because what you think of as a high volume seller on Amazon isn't necessarily what Congress thinks is a high volume seller. So according to the Congressional [00:02:00] Act, a high volume seller is 200 or more transactions a year with revenues of $5,000 or more in a 12 month period. Chris: So basically everybody. Leah: Yeah, not really what I would call high volume, but sure. Congress, they're not selling on Amazon.  Chris: They're talking about all online marketplaces. They can't give one number for Amazon, one number for Walmart. Maybe they should, but they probably can't do that for whatever reason. Leah: So it requires that the marketplaces obtain bank account information, which obviously they already have government issued identification, which at this point Amazon, I would think has from most sellers since they've been doing verification. Tax identification numbers and contact information. it also obliges the online marketplaces to make that information available to consumers if requested and also on the product listing itself. So a lot of this stuff we've already been seeing Amazon doing.  Chris: Yeah. The good news is they've already been asking for [00:03:00] this. They've already kind of done some prep by pushing people to review this stuff, correct it, make sure it matches. That's the good news. Of course, the bad news is we've seen implementation all over the map in terms of how Amazon verifies a seller account, what they consider verifiable. And then when it comes to invoices, of course, you go down another rabbit hole with why are they rejecting my invoice? Why are they rejecting my supplier? But then there's the video calls confirming your identity and they're already behind on those.  Leah: Backing that up a little bit. So those sellers have already gone through this process at this point. What sellers should be doing right now though is just double checking the account information that they have inside Seller Central. Make sure that it's all up to date. Make sure that it hasn't been rolled back at some point. Maybe if you needed to have your account sanitized or to go rolled back and you didn't notice at the time, which I think we talked about a few weeks ago. We did make, make sure that all of the information on your account is correct and then also make sure that you have. [00:04:00] Documentation that matches the information on your account. Because we have already seen Amazon start re-verifying accounts that have already been through the verification process since they sent the email a few weeks ago. So that's the most proactive things that sellers can be doing right now is checking the information on the account, making sure it's accurate, making sure that they have all of the documentation requested. Chris: Many sellers who have already been verified by Amazon, will have to do it again. They might wonder why they have to do it again. They might wonder why they're mixed in with newer sellers who are going through this identity verification process. Why they have to show invoices for things they've sold for years. Tip number two today, is don't waste time wondering why. Just understand that there's the INFORM Consumers Act. Amazon has to do this stuff. Understand in advance that Amazon won't necessarily be consistent in how they implement this. There'll be mistakes. They might schedule video verification calls with [00:05:00] people and then not show up for them, we've heard about that happening quite a bit. Sometimes they'll reschedule with you when their rep doesn't show up, and they'll miss that one too. Not telling you this to panic. Just be ready for things not exactly going down the way they advise you to prepare for them, or they're not going down the way they promise that they'll fulfill their obligations on their side. Leah: Yeah, I mean, realistically, there's no way they're going to be able to re-verify all sellers by June 27th. So, I'm not really assuming that that's going to be consistent in the next month or so, and I don't get the sense that they're trying to re-verify all sellers. That being said, the notification that they did send out did mention that they may require you to do this annually now to confirm that all details. Chris: So this may not happen to you, but be prepared for it in case it does happen to you because we've tried to predict which sellers they'll throw into which buckets for however long in the past. We usually have a [00:06:00] pretty good yard stick based on experience for that sort of thing, but no one's going to be right a hundred percent of the time, and Amazon sometimes changes things up, not even just for us, for their own internal people. In terms of how they do it. Sometimes it's going too slowly. Sometimes there are too many errors. Sometimes they learn by doing so it can change even after this process begins. Good things to keep in the back of your mind while you prep for this, whether or not you actually get a message saying, Hey, today's the day. Yeah, and again, all of the information that they're asking me for is pretty basic business information that you should have anyway. I mean, government issued ID, I assume everybody has at this point a business address, your bank account information, a working email address, and a working phone number. I mean, these are all pretty basic. Oh, and a tax identification number. These are all things that you needed to open your account anyway. So it's just making sure that all of your information matches the documentation that you have.  Oh, sure. In theory, [00:07:00] It's a piece of cake. It should be a piece of cake. It should be straightforward. But this is Amazon we're talking about, right? They're always bringing a guy outta the bullpen to throw curve balls. So that's what they need to prepare for because just on the face of it, bank account statements address, while everyone has a bank account, so it seems straightforward. Leah: But we've also seen many, many sellers put bank account information on their account and then don't have a bank account statement that matches the rest of the information on their account. So that's the main prep preparation point that I would like sellers to check before, before they get requested for this information. Chris: And some people, it's been fixable, it's solvable, but some people would just update an address. Obviously some of what we're talking about today is make sure everything's updated. In the past, we've seen some people update credit card info, bank account info, street address, whatever, and then they were temporarily deactivated.  That wasn't that unusual, fixable, but sometimes there'd be a gap or [00:08:00] an interruption in selling. Clearly some of this we will find out throughout the month of June as this comes into effect, I'm sure we'll see certain changes. Amazon will be getting themselves ready for it, not just getting sellers ready for it. One thing to keep in mind, if you show up for your video verification call, the Amazon rep isn't there, or they even tell you that they won't be there and they reschedule you and then they don't show up for that. Make sure you're not forgotten. Make sure you're not just waiting to hear back from them with the threat of a deactivation hanging over you or God forbid you've already been deactivated, because waiting is not always the best thing to do, even if it's something they tell you to do and you're trying to follow their instructions. If you have to call into account health reps and find out, Hey, how do I get this rescheduled? Do that. If you're really getting desperate because that's not working either check with us in terms of who you could potentially think about emailing and how you can try to get it rescheduled. But we've heard from some sellers who have been rescheduled a couple of times. Obviously, if they're piling on [00:09:00] thousands and thousands of these all within four weeks, people are going to be missed, mistakes will be made. So just don't sit back passively and wait for Amazon to come to you. Be proactive and make sure if they're the ones who aren't showing up. Or if for some reason you have trouble on your side and you don't show up, make sure you're proactively following up and rescheduling those. Leah: Also, make sure that the person whose government ID you're using is the person on the verification call. That is also an error that we've seen sellers make. Don't have your employee present your ID. You need to be the one on the call. Chris: And obviously we're heading into Prime Day very soon. This is happening on the cusp of it, right before it. Craziness will ensue. Right? So we'll be covering this again, this won't be our last podcast on the INFORM Consumers Act but just keep in mind that things tend to be disruptive very quickly. Sometimes Amazon tries to preempt confusion and disorganize behavior and it creates more of it. They're trying to get out in front of it as best they can, but it's a [00:10:00] large organization. Lots of different teams that don't have a great history of talking to each other, that are siloed from each other. So just keep us informed. If you want to put anything in front of us, get our opinion on it, feel free. Otherwise do your best to keep all your information ready to go. Documentation on your suppliers invoices ready at a moment's notice in case they come asking for it. Because you might not necessarily get tons of notice from Amazon if they are delayed, if they are behind on things. Per the usual. And as Leah said, make sure the right person is ready for that call and they're not on a beach somewhere sipping pina coladas and not available for the verification call. Leah: I mean, if the beach has wifi, go for it.  Chris: Maybe, not a lot of sand you can plug into these days, but yeah, we've heard of some people trying workarounds, illicit means of faking, who's on the call, misrepresenting, who's there to verify the account. This is not something that you should be doing. Amazon is doing a lot better on [00:11:00] this than they have in the past on verifying which documents have been fabricated or edited or manipulated. You don't want to be caught in all of that because then you'll start getting suspension notices that cite the code of conduct, calling you a bad actor saying you don't belong in the marketplace. That would be a terrible way for you to experience. The suffering involved in an account suspension, especially if you're an established seller with big time losses that you could be facing. Leah: Yeah. And they're also using facial verification software on the call. Yes. So, makes it even harder to pretend someone else is you. Chris: We are not facial software recognition experts by any means but we've already heard some horror stories. Do not believe anyone who tells you that you can fake this and slide this past them. Don't even try it, is my closing words of advice.  Leah: Yeah. And my closing words of advice is that faking it as fraud. Chris: And it's also illegal, not just against policy, which we will never say that you should try. Any questions [00:12:00] on this obviously an evolving topic. There'll be more episodes on it. Feel free to let us know. And thanks again for joining us for another episode of Seller Performance Solutions.

INFORM Consumers Act: What You Need to Know

[00:00:07] Leah: Hello Amazon Sellers, welcome to the Seller Performance Solutions Podcast. I am Leah McHugh, and with me as always is Mr.ecommerceChris, Chris McCabe. [00:00:18] Chris: Hello.[00:00:19] Leah: Hello. So, today we wanted to talk about documenting your relationships, which is something that I feel like I touch on in pretty much every podcast that we record, but I don't think we've ever actually done a full episode on it.I don't think we have. We should probably clarify what we mean by relationships in terms of do we mean relationships with your business partners or with third party services, or with agencies who are managing your brand and so forth.I mean, all of those things. So the reason we were discussing this before we started recording, a lot of times we see sellers get suspended for being related to a suspended account and really the only way to get reinstated from that is to either get the original account reinstated that you may or may not be related to or document to Amazon.Why they would maybe think that you are related, but how you are actually a completely separate business that maybe just has some point of relation at some point in your time as a seller. [00:01:21] Chris: Typically there's Appeal this as an error so you'd essentially be taking that choice, documenting this is a mistake, it only looks like we're related, but we're not actually related, here's why.[00:01:33] Leah: Yeah. And so normally we see related accounts come up because of a mutual employee or a past business partner, a service provider, sometimes we even see it where , a third party warehouse causes a relation between sellers and so really that's where having documentation as to the nature of your relationship comes in very important because that is the easiest way to document to Amazon. Like, we are not the same business. This is why you think we're related, we aren't actually related. So what does that look like? That looks like things like contracts, which in general you should probably have anyway with, with anybody that you are working with. [00:02:12] Chris: No handshake agreements. No I sent you an email when we started and no one sent an email when we stopped working together. We mean contracts, written contracts.Dates and signatures, and not sending Amazon something that's dated today. That should have been from 2020 or 2019. [00:02:31] Leah: Yeah. And so the contract would differ based on the nature of the relationship. You would have employment contracts with your employees, you would have service contracts with service providers, like a third party warehouse you would have some sort of service contract. But the main thing to keep in mind is that at this point, most people that are working with this in this industry have probably worked on another Amazon account at some point. And most likely will work on other ones in the future. So you need to have that documentation as to the nature of your relationship, because you don't wanna be held responsible for something that they may have done in the past, made you in the future, or even just somebody who they may work with in the past or the future who did some bad stuff that could cause relation.[00:03:13] Chris: As soon as that relationship ends, remove those permissions. Save the date, get the documentation ready, which would be sending a termination letter and also just generally speaking, as a quick sidebar, not everyone under the sun needs access to your Amazon account is just to look at stuff, just to look at things.We can't tell you how many people every day, every other day are trying to give us access to their account, they send us their credentials, really not the way to go. Not best practices, design SOPs that are hey, access to our account is need to know only. Unless they're really managing the entire account for you.There's a lot of services that don't need to go into Seller Central and poke around just for the sake of it. [00:04:01] Leah: Yeah, and so in our case, we only really do account access for our monthly clients. We don't for any of the project clients, we don't access their account because honestly, we don't need account access.You can usually get the information you need either by asking for it or doing a quick screen share where you see the information needed, unless somebody is regularly working on things in your account. There really is no need for account access, and it's also worth regularly auditing who has account access.Like Chris says we see accounts sometimes where there's like 40 users on the account and it's like, who even are these people, half of them, that don't even work there anymore or aren't people that you work with. [00:04:38] Chris: That's the thing. A lot of these brands we work with have former employees that go off and start seller accounts. Sometimes they were using their own computer, so the IP address is the same. They go off, they create an account that gets suspended. It's the same IP address that previously signed in during their job. Amazon doesn't always have visibility into these things. They don't always know exactly what happened.And as we all know, sometimes they are likely to suspend first, ask questions later, and that's when the appeals process comes in. [00:05:07] Leah: Yeah, absolutely and further to documenting your relationships, it's also worthwhile having documentation that shows your relationship with your suppliers or whether you are getting a manufacturer to make your products or you are buying products from a brand and reselling them.It's worth having that documentation that shows either your wholesale agreement or your manufacturing agreement handy in case there is ever any issues around authenticity, or again, related accounts. We are seeing, not necessarily related accounts, but we are seeing a number of sellers who are using the same suppliers all getting action taken against them at the same time. So again, worth having proper documentation that shows that relationship on top of your regular invoices and proof of authenticity. [00:05:55] Chris: Sometimes the factory or manufacturer goes into business for themselves, right? Lots of brands have complained. Oh, now we have a competitor. And it's the factory we used to use or the manufacturer, and then they get suspended because they probably don't know that much about Amazon. They just know that you're selling your brand really well on there and then there's a relationship already there.So if you're not working with these guys anymore, get that in writing. Don't have phone calls. Phone calls aren't paper trails that won't help you. Don't have random emails. Something that is in writing, if it has to be translated. Get it in writing, get that translated very quickly. So that you have it ready to go in case Amazon ever questions the nature of that relationship. [00:06:35] Leah: And then the other area that we're seeing this more so in the last few years as there's been more buying and selling of businesses within the Amazon space, is documenting when the business entity changes, whether that is a change in partnership or complete change in ownership.You need to have that very well documented. You need to update the information on the account as soon as possible because we have been seeing a lot of sellers run into issues where Amazon wants to re-verify a previous owner of the account who they now have no contact with because they haven't owned that account in few years.So having that documentation that this account or this business was sold to you on X date, that other person has absolutely nothing to do with the business anymore, will help you get around those issues instead of trying to find somebody that you bought a business from however many years ago, to do a call with Amazon to verify their identity.[00:07:26] Chris: We've had a lot of people contact us recently for sure who said that they could not reach the other party. Amazon said, this isn't sufficient documentation, they couldn't even reach or find or locate this other party, that person was gone. Sometimes they even disappear before they transfer all the assets like they're supposed to and then you're stuck. And if you're being asked for documented proof and you don't have it, You might stay stuck. And that's a terrible thing, especially after money has already changed hands. [00:07:59] Leah: Well, and sometimes it's years later. So how are you supposed to track down a person that you no longer have a business relationship with from years ago?[00:08:07] Chris: Well, Amazon's re-verifying accounts. They're redoing some of the video verifications. I think what happened in some of the cases, based on my conversations this month, last month, what happened was the seller did one video verification that passed initially, and then they part ways. And they don't know where those people are.And then Amazon says, by the way, we went over this again, and it's like six months later they wanna re-verify and that person can't contribute, can't show up for the video verification call. And they consider that a fail, right? And if they think you failed these verifications, they move you from active to deactivated and in a way that you can't necessarily recover.[00:08:46] Leah: So change in ownership, change in company structure is kind of a twofold one, because you do run the risk of being related to somebody that used to earn the account or you used to be a business partner with and then you also have potentially verification issues.Again, very important to document those changes to update the account. As soon as possible. And also revoke their access to your account. It's actually kind of amazing to me how many people have had business partners who they parted ways with years ago, who they still have as a user on their seller account, that that should be part of the offboarding process, is that they should not have any access to your account. Just in general, again, legally, you probably want to document the change in business ownership but from an Amazon standpoint as well, you need this very, very carefully and specifically documented so you don't run into these issues.[00:09:34] Chris: A dissolution of a partnership, you're documenting that legally already, so this isn't necessarily something that different or new in terms of what if your former partner ends up suing you? You've got like the agreement all spelled out. You need it for that, and in case they go start an Amazon account, that gets suspended, right? So this isn't really that groundbreaking, hopefully. [00:09:59] Leah: And then just a final note, if you do ever have to get your account sanitized, if there is any sort of security breach, make sure you check that business information hasn't been reverted back to previous ownership, because that is also something that we have seen where they just didn't check after an account was sanitized and then Amazon started asking them about previous business information that was from years ago. [00:10:19] Chris: And in some cases, Amazon changed it back to that info themselves. The seller performance guys had done that. [00:10:26] Leah: Right, that's what I mean. If they sanitize the account, they changed that information, they could change that information back. If there's any account compromise where your account needs to be sanitized, just make sure you are double checking, not just your bank account, because you should be checking that if there's any account compromise anyway. But also check the business information and the user permissions just to make sure that nothing has been added back that shouldn't be there. [00:10:49] Chris: Also what I was referring to is sometimes when they sanitize an account, they don't take the step of getting rid of the fake business info. They leave it in there and give you instructions to restore your password access so double checking it for that because we have had people call us and say, Oh, randomly this happened three weeks ago and I happened to look in my settings and find all sorts of crazy bogus info. Assuming that Amazon's going to remove that for you, bad idea.[00:11:18] Leah: Yeah, exactly. And same with user permissions, they don't always necessarily restore the correct user permissions, so worth checking if the account does get sanitized for any reason. [00:11:28] Chris: I do not miss spending hours of my life in individual days sanitizing accounts and sending password reset instructions to sellers. That's one of the things about my time at Amazon I will never miss.[00:11:41] Leah: Everything else you miss all the time? [00:11:44] Chris: Repetitive emails to sellers who had sent in really weak or subpar appeals or plans of action. Not the greatest, but over and over, going through an entire bucket of account compromises repeatedly for hours, not enjoyable. [00:12:00] Leah: And so this is just kind of an extension of what I feel like I've been saying for years now, which is document everything. Everything that you do on your account should have some sort of legally binding or can hold up legally documentation as proof. Again, not just for Amazon, but also because this is a very competitive space and we are seeing a lot more legal action being taken against sellers, brands, whomever. So worth having that documentation to protect yourself legally and also protect yourself against Amazon making mistakes. [00:12:34] Chris: And hopefully the days are coming to a close soon where sellers say, well, we kind of didn't do that right, hopefully it'll never come back to bite us or if we ever do have a problem, we'll just email Amazon, explain it, and everything will be sorted out.You can't assume any of that stuff because sometimes Amazon just says, I don't know what you did. You don't seem able to explain it. Why should we spend time on it if you haven't taken these steps the way an established proper business should. So you can't really just say, well, we're new, we made mistakes, we didn't know. They really don't care about those stories. [00:13:08] Leah: Right. And that's also where it becomes a lot more important to have very clear documentation. So rather than having 10 different documents that, this connects to this, connects to this, connects to this, having that one document that shows how everything was connected or is connected and how it is no longer the case, makes it a lot easier for you to keep track of and also makes it much more likely that the investigator will actually read it and review it. [00:13:34] Chris: Yeah. If the whole thing's a jigsaw puzzle, they're not gonna spend the time on it, they're not going to understand it. They might put it on you to re-explain it again, but how many of them are willing to sit there and read through all of that?[00:13:45] Leah: Right. If you can send one document instead of ten, always do that. [00:13:50] Chris: Yes, always do that. Well, thanks for listening everybody. We understand there could be a lot of questions on this type of problem, so shoot them over to us, let us know and thanks again.

[00:00:07] Leah: Hello Amazon Sellers, welcome to the Seller Performance Solutions Podcast. I am Leah McHugh, and with me as always is Mr.ecommerceChris, Chris McCabe.  [00:00:18] Chris: Hello. [00:00:19] Leah: Hello. So, today we wanted to talk about documenting your relationships, which is something that I feel like I touch on in pretty much every podcast that we record, but I don't think we've ever actually done a full episode on it. I don't think we have. We should probably clarify what we mean by relationships in terms of do we mean relationships with your business partners or with third party services, or with agencies who are managing your brand and so forth. I mean, all of those things. So the reason we were discussing this before we started recording, a lot of times we see sellers get suspended for being related to a suspended account and really the only way to get reinstated from that is to either get the original account reinstated that you may or may not be related to or document to Amazon. Why they would maybe think that you are related, but how you are actually a completely separate business that maybe just has some point of relation at some point in your time as a seller.  [00:01:21] Chris: Typically there's Appeal this as an error so you'd essentially be taking that choice, documenting this is a mistake, it only looks like we're related, but we're not actually related, here's why. [00:01:33] Leah: Yeah. And so normally we see related accounts come up because of a mutual employee or a past business partner, a service provider, sometimes we even see it where , a third party warehouse causes a relation between sellers and so really that's where having documentation as to the nature of your relationship comes in very important because that is the easiest way to document to Amazon. Like, we are not the same business. This is why you think we're related, we aren't actually related. So what does that look like? That looks like things like contracts, which in general you should probably have anyway with, with anybody that you are working with.  [00:02:12] Chris: No handshake agreements. No I sent you an email when we started and no one sent an email when we stopped working together. We mean contracts, written contracts. Dates and signatures, and not sending Amazon something that's dated today. That should have been from 2020 or 2019.  [00:02:31] Leah: Yeah. And so the contract would differ based on the nature of the relationship. You would have employment contracts with your employees, you would have service contracts with service providers, like a third party warehouse you would have some sort of service contract. But the main thing to keep in mind is that at this point, most people that are working with this in this industry have probably worked on another Amazon account at some point. And most likely will work on other ones in the future. So you need to have that documentation as to the nature of your relationship, because you don't wanna be held responsible for something that they may have done in the past, made you in the future, or even just somebody who they may work with in the past or the future who did some bad stuff that could cause relation. [00:03:13] Chris: As soon as that relationship ends, remove those permissions. Save the date, get the documentation ready, which would be sending a termination letter and also just generally speaking, as a quick sidebar, not everyone under the sun needs access to your Amazon account is just to look at stuff, just to look at things. We can't tell you how many people every day, every other day are trying to give us access to their account, they send us their credentials, really not the way to go. Not best practices, design SOPs that are hey, access to our account is need to know only. Unless they're really managing the entire account for you. There's a lot of services that don't need to go into Seller Central and poke around just for the sake of it.  [00:04:01] Leah: Yeah, and so in our case, we only really do account access for our monthly clients. We don't for any of the project clients, we don't access their account because honestly, we don't need account access. You can usually get the information you need either by asking for it or doing a quick screen share where you see the information needed, unless somebody is regularly working on things in your account. There really is no need for account access, and it's also worth regularly auditing who has account access. Like Chris says we see accounts sometimes where there's like 40 users on the account and it's like, who even are these people, half of them, that don't even work there anymore or aren't people that you work with.  [00:04:38] Chris: That's the thing. A lot of these brands we work with have former employees that go off and start seller accounts.  Sometimes they were using their own computer, so the IP address is the same. They go off, they create an account that gets suspended. It's the same IP address that previously signed in during their job. Amazon doesn't always have visibility into these things. They don't always know exactly what happened. And as we all know, sometimes they are likely to suspend first, ask questions later, and that's when the appeals process comes in.  [00:05:07] Leah: Yeah, absolutely and further to documenting your relationships, it's also worthwhile having documentation that shows your relationship with your suppliers or whether you are getting a manufacturer to make your products or you are buying products from a brand and reselling them. It's worth having that documentation that shows either your wholesale agreement or your manufacturing agreement handy in case there is ever any issues around authenticity, or again, related accounts. We are seeing, not necessarily related accounts, but we are seeing a number of sellers who are using the same suppliers all getting action taken against them at the same time. So again, worth having proper documentation that shows that relationship on top of your regular invoices and proof of authenticity.  [00:05:55] Chris: Sometimes the factory or manufacturer goes into business for themselves, right? Lots of brands have complained. Oh, now we have a competitor. And it's the factory we used to use or the manufacturer, and then they get suspended because they probably don't know that much about Amazon. They just know that you're selling your brand really well on there and then there's a relationship already there. So if you're not working with these guys anymore, get that in writing. Don't have phone calls. Phone calls aren't paper trails that won't help you. Don't have random emails. Something that is in writing, if it has to be translated. Get it in writing, get that translated very quickly. So that you have it ready to go in case Amazon ever questions the nature of that relationship.  [00:06:35] Leah: And then the other area that we're seeing this more so in the last few years as there's been more buying and selling of businesses within the Amazon space, is documenting when the business entity changes, whether that is a change in partnership or complete change in ownership. You need to have that very well documented. You need to update the information on the account as soon as possible because we have been seeing a lot of sellers run into issues where Amazon wants to re-verify a previous owner of the account who they now have no contact with because they haven't owned that account in few years. So having that documentation that this account or this business was sold to you on X date, that other person has absolutely nothing to do with the business anymore, will help you get around those issues instead of trying to find somebody that you bought a business from however many years ago, to do a call with Amazon to verify their identity. [00:07:26] Chris: We've had a lot of people contact us recently for sure who said that they could not reach the other party. Amazon said, this isn't sufficient documentation, they couldn't even reach or find or locate this other party, that person was gone. Sometimes they even disappear before they transfer all the assets like they're supposed to and then you're stuck. And if you're being asked for documented proof and you don't have it, You might stay stuck. And that's a terrible thing, especially after money has already changed hands.  [00:07:59] Leah: Well, and sometimes it's years later. So how are you supposed to track down a person that you no longer have a business relationship with from years ago? [00:08:07] Chris: Well, Amazon's re-verifying accounts. They're redoing some of the video verifications. I think what happened in some of the cases, based on my conversations this month, last month, what happened was the seller did one video verification that passed initially, and then they part ways. And they don't know where those people are. And then Amazon says, by the way, we went over this again, and it's like six months later they wanna re-verify and that person can't contribute, can't show up for the video verification call. And they consider that a fail, right? And if they think you failed these verifications, they move you from active to deactivated and in a way that you can't necessarily recover. [00:08:46] Leah: So change in ownership, change in company structure is kind of a twofold one, because you do run the risk of being related to somebody that used to earn the account or you used to be a business partner with and then you also have potentially verification issues. Again, very important to document those changes to update the account. As soon as possible. And also revoke their access to your account. It's actually kind of amazing to me how many people have had business partners who they parted ways with years ago, who they still have as a user on their seller account, that that should be part of the offboarding process, is that they should not have any access to your account. Just in general, again, legally, you probably want to document the change in business ownership but from an Amazon standpoint as well, you need this very, very carefully and specifically documented so you don't run into these issues. [00:09:34] Chris: A dissolution of a partnership, you're documenting that legally already, so this isn't necessarily something that different or new in terms of what if your former partner ends up suing you? You've got like the agreement all spelled out. You need it for that, and in case they go start an Amazon account, that gets suspended, right? So this isn't really that groundbreaking, hopefully.  [00:09:59] Leah: And then just a final note, if you do ever have to get your account sanitized, if there is any sort of security breach, make sure you check that business information hasn't been reverted back to previous ownership, because that is also something that we have seen where they just didn't check after an account was sanitized and then Amazon started asking them about previous business information that was from years ago.  [00:10:19] Chris: And in some cases, Amazon changed it back to that info themselves. The seller performance guys had done that.  [00:10:26] Leah: Right, that's what I mean. If they sanitize the account, they changed that information, they could change that information back.  If there's any account compromise where your account needs to be sanitized, just make sure you are double checking, not just your bank account, because you should be checking that if there's any account compromise anyway. But also check the business information and the user permissions just to make sure that nothing has been added back that shouldn't be there.  [00:10:49] Chris: Also what I was referring to is sometimes when they sanitize an account, they don't take the step of getting rid of the fake business info. They leave it in there and give you instructions to restore your password access so double checking it for that because we have had people call us and say, Oh, randomly this happened three weeks ago and I happened to look in my settings and find all sorts of crazy bogus info. Assuming that Amazon's going to remove that for you, bad idea. [00:11:18] Leah: Yeah, exactly. And same with user permissions, they don't always necessarily restore the correct user permissions, so worth checking if the account does get sanitized for any reason.  [00:11:28] Chris: I do not miss spending hours of my life in individual days sanitizing accounts and sending password reset instructions to sellers. That's one of the things about my time at Amazon I will never miss. [00:11:41] Leah: Everything else you miss all the time?  [00:11:44] Chris: Repetitive emails to sellers who had sent in really weak or subpar appeals or plans of action. Not the greatest, but over and over, going through an entire bucket of account compromises repeatedly for hours, not enjoyable.  [00:12:00] Leah: And so this is just kind of an extension of what I feel like I've been saying for years now, which is document everything. Everything that you do on your account should have some sort of legally binding or can hold up legally documentation as proof. Again, not just for Amazon, but also because this is a very competitive space and we are seeing a lot more legal action being taken against sellers, brands, whomever. So worth having that documentation to protect yourself legally and also protect yourself against Amazon making mistakes.  [00:12:34] Chris: And hopefully the days are coming to a close soon where sellers say, well, we kind of didn't do that right, hopefully it'll never come back to bite us or if we ever do have a problem, we'll just email Amazon, explain it, and everything will be sorted out. You can't assume any of that stuff because sometimes Amazon just says, I don't know what you did. You don't seem able to explain it. Why should we spend time on it if you haven't taken these steps the way an established proper business should. So you can't really just say, well, we're new, we made mistakes, we didn't know. They really don't care about those stories.  [00:13:08] Leah: Right. And that's also where it becomes a lot more important to have very clear documentation. So rather than having 10 different documents that, this connects to this, connects to this, connects to this, having that one document that shows how everything was connected or is connected and how it is no longer the case, makes it a lot easier for you to keep track of and also makes it much more likely that the investigator will actually read it and review it.  [00:13:34] Chris: Yeah. If the whole thing's a jigsaw puzzle, they're not gonna spend the time on it, they're not going to understand it. They might put it on you to re-explain it again, but how many of them are willing to sit there and read through all of that? [00:13:45] Leah: Right. If you can send one document instead of ten, always do that.  [00:13:50] Chris: Yes, always do that. Well, thanks for listening everybody. We understand there could be a lot of questions on this type of problem, so shoot them over to us, let us know and thanks again.

Document Your Relationships

[00:00:07] Chris: Hey everybody, this is Chris McCabe. Welcome back to Seller Performance Solutions. I'm here once again with Leah McHugh, our expert consultant extraordinaire when it comes to listing misuses and things that sellers do or fail to do when they're trying to correct mistakes on their listings. Some are opening cases with civil support, but not correcting their flat files. That's one scenario. And others do correct the flat files, but never call in and talk to catalog. [00:00:37] Leah: Yeah. Or some people just don't do any of that and just send email appeals that aren't gonna go anywhere because they're not correcting the issue. [00:00:44] Chris: That goes without saying, some people will always write to Jeff before they do anything else, even though Jeff left a long time ago.So, you think it's one way or the other. Do you think they don't take the action in the flat files, they just open a case with support, hoping that they can explain what they were trying to do or what they didn't do. Or do you think it's not a lack of working on the flat files, it's the failure to call catalog?[00:01:12] Leah: Well, I think Amazon doesn't make any of this clear. So I know this because I work on it every day. So what Chris is talking about is if your agent is suspended for a restricted product claims, the only path to reinstatement is to remove those product claims, which Amazon does tell you.But what they don't tell you is that when a listing is blocked, changes that you make to the listing in Seller Central, don't push through to Amazon's internal system meaning what you see on your listing isn't necessarily what Amazon sees on their side and people that are looking at the listing to reinstate it are only looking at their tools.They're not logging into your account to see what the backend of the listing looks like on your end. So the only way generally to get changes pushed through on a listing when it's suspended is to upload the changes via a flat file. And then once that flat file has processed, use the batch ID and call into catalog and make sure that they can see the changes that you've made on their end and if they can't manually process those changes for you. Amazon tells you none of this. They just tell you to correct the listing and let them know when that's done. [00:02:28] Chris: They don't say that. They don't even say that. They say, create a case with seller support and go from there.[00:02:34] Leah: Well, they do say to remove the restricted claims usually, but they also don't tell you what the restricted claims are most of the time. Or where they are. So that's specifically if the claims are in the detail page, like regular content.If the claims are in the A+ content, again, what they don't tell you is that your changes aren't going to go through while the listing is blocked. So what you have to do is make those changes, then remove it from the ASIN, and then save it as a draft. And again, you need to confirm with catalog that has actually been removed from the listing, because sometimes it'll still stay attached on their side, even though on your side it's not attached to the ASIN at all. So everything that you're doing with contents, when your listing is restricted, you need to confirm with the catalog team because you can't trust what you see on your side. You can't even trust the category listing report. Unfortunately, when the listing is blocked, you can only go off of what catalog can see internally in their system.And usually that means more than one phone call to catalog because not everybody has the same level of training or understanding of their job within Amazon. So I like to do other things while I'm on hold with catalog. Because you may be spending a good amount of time on the phone. [00:03:49] Chris: That was a lot of info. People might get pieces of that process, but very few will get all of that consecutively in a row correct. So what are people doing who don't follow that? They're just opening cases with support, making random calls, not understanding why the listing's coming back live. How would they eventually figure that out, let's just say if they missed one of those steps?[00:04:14] Leah: Yeah, I see a lot of people that struggle with it. Eventually they'll get someone in support that can make the changes for them. But generally speaking, general support, don't know how to do this. Generally speaking, general support don't have access to the compliance team. So you do need to speak to catalog, but again, you need to be making those changes, particularly if you are the brand registered owner catalog can't necessarily make those changes for you without a flat file.Also, if you do make the changes and then call into catalog, catalog may be like, oh, we can't do it. Brand registry has to do it. And then brand registry comes back with instructions on how you can like upload a flat file and it's like, yep, that's what we did. So again, that's where you often have to call catalog more than once to get somebody that knows what they're doing to actually push those changes through for you. [00:05:03] Chris: I've noticed lately brand registry is pointing fingers at catalog and catalog is pointing fingers at brand registry a lot more than last year. it's about the same for you? It seems to me like there's more people just saying, why are you asking us how to do this? We don't do this stuff. Those guys do. If they told you to come to us, go back to them.[00:05:26] Leah: Well the thing is catalog isn't saying go to Brand Registry Catalog is actually transferring your case to brand registry with all of their notes and with all of your information that you've already given to catalog.And then brand registry just sends you a template of how to upload a flat file. So that's pretty much consistent with my experience with Brand Registry for the last three or four years. [00:05:46] Chris: Yeah, I understand. Brand registry used to have value everybody. There used to be some degree of competency.There used to be some professional skill level or value or insight into what's going on with your brand. Those days unfortunately are long behind us.[00:06:02] Leah: Well, and I do think a big part of that is because there isn't phone support for brand registry, because when you email catalog, nine times out of ten, you get the same kind of response from catalog where you ask them a very specific question or you're trying to fix a very specific issue and they send you just a general template of instructions, stuff that you've, half the time have already told them that you've already done and it didn't work.So I think part of the issue is that when it's email support, They have a very limited amount of time that they're allowed to spend on your case, whereas when you have them on a phone call, they can spend as much time as you are willing to stay on that call. And brand registry doesn't have phone support, so you don't have the option of actually working with brand registry to work through the issue.They just have to respond to you as quickly as they possibly can. I think that's why we consistently see just templated answers that aren't even necessarily relevant half the time from brand registry. Because they're only being audited on speed and you have no way of getting them out of that KPI hell that Amazon has put them in. Whereas with catalog, you can call and you can have them spend an hour if necessary on the call with you, assuming the call doesn't drop or get disconnected, or maybe they hang up on you, I'm not sure which, because that happens a lot too. But you don't have that option of working through the scenario with them where they aren't on the clock, where Amazon's like, you're taking too long. Come on, answer it. Answer it, get it off your desk. [00:07:22] Chris: Well, it's the same with account health reps, right? They seem to have all day. They can put you on hold as many times as they want. Even if they come back, the answers they give you don't show that they really researched anything while you've been on hold. But the amount of time can range to hours. [00:07:37] Leah: And I've also been told by both account health reps and catalog reps, because I've said to them, things like what we discuss on a call often doesn't really have anything to do with what you email me after we've had the call, they send some other messaging that is like, okay, well this is not what we discussed.And I've had multiple people tell me that they are actually very restricted in what they're able to email you. So they have to choose from a certain number of options when emailing.Whereas with a call they can actually discuss it with you. So again, I feel like that's probably why we're consistently seeing this issue with brand registry because they have no option of calling you. [00:08:16] Chris: Right, exactly. Any other words of wisdom for our now petrified audience in terms of how to navigate this. I'm sure you've seen escalations that really haven't contributed to change internally in terms of how catalog operates or what brand registry teams do. So do they need to escalate a certain way? In order to break through and push past some of these barriers, or is it really just calling back and getting the right catalog person?[00:08:46] Leah: So I like to do a little bit of both at the same time. Specifically with restricted product claims, I do generally find that you can get it resolved a lot faster if catalog transfers the case for you to compliance as opposed to you emailing compliance directly. Also, because half the time when you try to email compliance directly, it gets routed to the wrong team and then seller support sends you a nonsensical answer.Whereas when it's actually transferred by catalog, it actually does get sent to the correct team for review. Catalog also has the ability of requesting a manual review of compliance issues, whereas when you're emailing into compliance, sometimes those are just like AI looking at your information probably and sending you a response.[00:09:26] Chris: Wait for the future when it's all AI. [00:09:30] Leah: Yeah, I'd like to do a little bit of both, but I do like to continue to work with the catalog team while also potentially escalating it externally, because in my experience, most people within Amazon that don't work in catalog don't actually understand how the catalog works.So you can escalate it and they're like, oh, that sounds messed up. But they don't under actually know what to do. So I like to do a little bit of both because it also allows whoever I'm escalating it to, to refer to whoever was working on the case previously. And you're likely to get a quicker resolution that way. [00:10:10] Chris: Very logical. Yes. I think that's good strategy to navigate. Some of these twists and turns. We understand that all of the wonderful many things that Leah just said might be overwhelming. If you have any questions on these, feel free to ask us. We're going to be doing more episodes like this.Covering what the heck do you do with catalog? What the hell do you do with brand registry? I don't know what to do, I don't know how to escalate. We're getting these questions every other hour. We're probably getting a couple while I'm talking right now. [00:10:40] Leah: I'm surprised you said ask us. I thought this was definitely one of the situations where you'd be like, ask Leah.[00:10:45] Chris: Don't ask me, ask Leah. But I say that every time. So I had to say, ask us this time. Um, and I've been talking about stuff like this all day, as you can hear in my voice, starting to fail. So, Thank you for listening to my My hoarse voice and to Leah's wisdom. We will catch you next time on Seller Performance Solutions.

[00:00:07] Chris: Hey everybody, this is Chris McCabe. Welcome back to Seller Performance Solutions. I'm here once again with Leah McHugh, our expert consultant extraordinaire when it comes to listing misuses and things that sellers do or fail to do when they're trying to correct mistakes on their listings. Some are opening cases with civil support, but not correcting their flat files. That's one scenario. And others do correct the flat files, but never call in and talk to catalog.  [00:00:37] Leah: Yeah. Or some people just don't do any of that and just send email appeals that aren't gonna go anywhere because they're not correcting the issue.  [00:00:44] Chris: That goes without saying, some people will always write to Jeff before they do anything else, even though Jeff left a long time ago. So, you think it's one way or the other. Do you think they don't take the action in the flat files, they just open a case with support, hoping that they can explain what they were trying to do or what they didn't do. Or do you think it's not a lack of working on the flat files, it's the failure to call catalog? [00:01:12] Leah: Well, I think Amazon doesn't make any of this clear. So I know this because I work on it every day. So what Chris is talking about is if your agent is suspended for a restricted product claims, the only path to reinstatement is to remove those product claims, which Amazon does tell you. But what they don't tell you is that when a listing is blocked, changes that you make to the listing in Seller Central, don't push through to Amazon's internal system meaning what you see on your listing isn't necessarily what Amazon sees on their side and people that are looking at the listing to reinstate it are only looking at their tools. They're not logging into your account to see what the backend of the listing looks like on your end. So the only way generally to get changes pushed through on a listing when it's suspended is to upload the changes via a flat file. And then once that flat file has processed, use the batch ID and call into catalog and make sure that they can see the changes that you've made on their end and if they can't manually process those changes for you. Amazon tells you none of this. They just tell you to correct the listing and let them know when that's done.  [00:02:28] Chris: They don't say that. They don't even say that. They say, create a case with seller support and go from there. [00:02:34] Leah: Well, they do say to remove the restricted claims usually, but they also don't tell you what the restricted claims are most of the time. Or where they are. So that's specifically if the claims are in the detail page, like regular content. If the claims are in the A+ content, again, what they don't tell you is that your changes aren't going to go through while the listing is blocked. So what you have to do is make those changes, then remove it from the ASIN, and then save it as a draft. And again, you need to confirm with catalog that has actually been removed from the listing, because sometimes it'll still stay attached on their side, even though on your side it's not attached to the ASIN at all. So everything that you're doing with contents, when your listing is restricted, you need to confirm with the catalog team because you can't trust what you see on your side. You can't even trust the category listing report. Unfortunately, when the listing is blocked, you can only go off of what catalog can see internally in their system. And usually that means more than one phone call to catalog because not everybody has the same level of training or understanding of their job within Amazon. So I like to do other things while I'm on hold with catalog. Because you may be spending a good amount of time on the phone.  [00:03:49] Chris: That was a lot of info. People might get pieces of that process, but very few will get all of that consecutively in a row correct. So what are people doing who don't follow that? They're just opening cases with support, making random calls, not understanding why the listing's coming back live. How would they eventually figure that out, let's just say if they missed one of those steps? [00:04:14] Leah: Yeah, I see a lot of people that struggle with it. Eventually they'll get someone in support that can make the changes for them. But generally speaking, general support, don't know how to do this. Generally speaking, general support don't have access to the compliance team. So you do need to speak to catalog, but again, you need to be making those changes, particularly if you are the brand registered owner catalog can't necessarily make those changes for you without a flat file. Also, if you do make the changes and then call into catalog, catalog may be like, oh, we can't do it. Brand registry has to do it. And then brand registry comes back with instructions on how you can like upload a flat file and it's like, yep, that's what we did.  So again, that's where you often have to call catalog more than once to get somebody that knows what they're doing to actually push those changes through for you.  [00:05:03] Chris: I've noticed lately brand registry is pointing fingers at catalog and catalog is pointing fingers at brand registry a lot more than last year. it's about the same for you?  It seems to me like there's more people just saying, why are you asking us how to do this? We don't do this stuff. Those guys do. If they told you to come to us, go back to them. [00:05:26] Leah: Well the thing is catalog isn't saying go to Brand Registry Catalog is actually transferring your case to brand registry with all of their notes and with all of your information that you've already given to catalog. And then brand registry just sends you a template of how to upload a flat file. So that's pretty much consistent with my experience with Brand Registry for the last three or four years.  [00:05:46] Chris: Yeah, I understand. Brand registry used to have value everybody. There used to be some degree of competency. There used to be some professional skill level or value or insight into what's going on with your brand. Those days unfortunately are long behind us. [00:06:02] Leah: Well, and I do think a big part of that is because there isn't phone support for brand registry, because when you email catalog, nine times out of ten, you get the same kind of response from catalog where you ask them a very specific question or you're trying to fix a very specific issue and they send you just a general template of instructions, stuff that you've, half the time have already told them that you've already done and it didn't work. So I think part of the issue is that when it's email support, They have a very limited amount of time that they're allowed to spend on your case, whereas when you have them on a phone call, they can spend as much time as you are willing to stay on that call. And brand registry doesn't have phone support, so you don't have the option of actually working with brand registry to work through the issue. They just have to respond to you as quickly as they possibly can. I think that's why we consistently see just templated answers that aren't even necessarily relevant half the time from brand registry. Because they're only being audited on speed and you have no way of getting them out of that KPI hell that Amazon has put them in. Whereas with catalog, you can call and you can have them spend an hour if necessary on the call with you, assuming the call doesn't drop or get disconnected, or maybe they hang up on you, I'm not sure which, because that happens a lot too. But you don't have that option of working through the scenario with them where they aren't on the clock, where Amazon's like, you're taking too long. Come on, answer it. Answer it, get it off your desk.  [00:07:22] Chris: Well, it's the same with account health reps, right? They seem to have all day. They can put you on hold as many times as they want. Even if they come back, the answers they give you don't show that they really researched anything while you've been on hold. But the amount of time can range to hours.  [00:07:37] Leah: And I've also been told by both account health reps and catalog reps, because I've said to them, things like what we discuss on a call often doesn't really have anything to do with what you email me after we've had the call, they send some other messaging that is like, okay, well this is not what we discussed. And I've had multiple people tell me that they are actually very restricted in what they're able to email you. So they have to choose from a certain number of options when emailing. Whereas with a call they can actually discuss it with you. So again, I feel like that's probably why we're consistently seeing this issue with brand registry because they have no option of calling you.  [00:08:16] Chris: Right, exactly. Any other words of wisdom for our now petrified audience in terms of how to navigate this. I'm sure you've seen escalations that really haven't contributed to change internally in terms of how catalog operates or what brand registry teams do. So do they need to escalate a certain way? In order to break through and push past some of these barriers, or is it really just calling back and getting the right catalog person? [00:08:46] Leah: So I like to do a little bit of both at the same time. Specifically with restricted product claims, I do generally find that you can get it resolved a lot faster if catalog transfers the case for you to compliance as opposed to you emailing compliance directly. Also, because half the time when you try to email compliance directly, it gets routed to the wrong team and then seller support sends you a nonsensical answer. Whereas when it's actually transferred by catalog, it actually does get sent to the correct team for review. Catalog also has the ability of requesting a manual review of compliance issues, whereas when you're emailing into compliance, sometimes those are just like AI looking at your information probably and sending you a response. [00:09:26] Chris: Wait for the future when it's all AI.  [00:09:30] Leah: Yeah, I'd like to do a little bit of both, but I do like to continue to work with the catalog team while also potentially escalating it externally, because in my experience, most people within Amazon that don't work in catalog don't actually understand how the catalog works. So you can escalate it and they're like, oh, that sounds messed up. But they don't under actually know what to do. So I like to do a little bit of both because it also allows whoever I'm escalating it to, to refer to whoever was working on the case previously. And you're likely to get a quicker resolution that way.  [00:10:10] Chris: Very logical. Yes. I think that's good strategy to navigate. Some of these twists and turns. We understand that all of the wonderful many things that Leah just said might be overwhelming. If you have any questions on these, feel free to ask us. We're going to be doing more episodes like this. Covering what the heck do you do with catalog? What the hell do you do with brand registry? I don't know what to do, I don't know how to escalate. We're getting these questions every other hour. We're probably getting a couple while I'm talking right now.  [00:10:40] Leah: I'm surprised you said ask us. I thought this was definitely one of the situations where you'd be like, ask Leah. [00:10:45] Chris: Don't ask me, ask Leah. But I say that every time. So I had to say, ask us this time. Um, and I've been talking about stuff like this all day, as you can hear in my voice, starting to fail. So, Thank you for listening to my My hoarse voice and to Leah's wisdom. We will catch you next time on Seller Performance Solutions.

Correcting Listing Content When Your ASIN is Restricted

[00:00:07] Chris: Hey everybody, this is Chris McCabe. Welcome back to another episode of Seller Performance Solutions. I'm here with Leah McHugh. Leah, how are you? [00:00:13] Leah: Good, thanks. How are you Chris?[00:00:15] Chris: I'm doing okay. Today we're talking about some of the negative effects we've seen from brands who are, what would you say, over-reporting or erroneously reporting IP claims and submitting false IP infringement claims and committing abuses that lead to, in some cases, revocation of their brand registry. We've heard from some people saying, we lost our brand registry. Brand registry tickets aren't getting answered in any meaningful way. We're not sure what's going on.And then when we probe, I think you and I both talked to people about this recently, when we probe a bit, then they say, either we reported ourselves and some of those were counterfeit complaints without test buys or some of it's just bogus IP claims. Is that fair to say? [00:01:01] Leah: Yeah. And you know, it's either them, like you said, or they're maybe hiring a service who's says that it's not automated, and then turns out it's automated and a few thousand false claims have been submitted on your behalf.[00:01:14] Chris: Right. That was the recent one we talked about. [00:01:16] Leah: Yeah.[00:01:17] Chris: That was the 6,000 IP claims were submitted.[00:01:19] Leah: Was the 6,000? I don't remember. I just remember it was in the thousands.[00:01:22] Chris: Yeah. Well, unfortunately, we're in 2023 and we still talk to people who don't understand that just because a reseller or someone on your listing is considered not authorized to sell your brand on Amazon, doesn't mean you can use any and all tactics to get them removed. We understand it's a proliferation of videos and articles and strange tweets and blog posts saying you can kind of do whatever you want to knock off anyone who's not authorized. I believe some of those people are offering that kind of advice because they understand that when, when their target has their listing or their whole account suspended and they contact Amazon, Amazon is likely to say something along the lines of, well, you have to show a letter of authorization to sell a brand, right?Amazon's part of the problem. They're asking everyone for this, and they're missing the fact that it might be a counterfeit complaint that has no basis or no proof. [00:02:14] Leah: Yeah. Well, it's a combination of the two, right? I mean, trademark infringement isn't necessarily counterfeit, but I think sellers are kind of using those interchangeably, I mean like obviously if somebody's actually infringing on your trademark or actually selling counterfeits absolutely you should be reporting them. I think the issue is that counterfeit reporting and IP infringement reporting is just getting used to get rid of people that you don't want selling your product. And unauthorized sellers is not IP infringement, nor is it counterfeit products. And yeah, it probably seems like a quick fix, but one, there's repercussions with Amazon.And two, there are potential legal repercussions as well, which is also something that we've been seeing more and more often.[00:02:56] Chris: More and more potential resellers suing a brand for making a false accusation. So that's not necessarily losing brand registry, but you could be accused of damaging another business.And I like that you said that people are using it interchangeably because I think Amazon teams are using those terms interchangeably as well. And that's one reason why it's kind of circular. Right? That's another reason why brands are doing it, because they realize that Amazon's using these terms interchangeably.[00:03:26] Leah: Right? Well, and it's the same, we hear people saying that their listing has been hijacked and hijacked listing means that somebody took your listing and is changing the information on it. Hijacked listing does not mean that somebody that you don't want selling the product is selling the product on the same ASIN. Which again is something that I see a lot of sellers use incorrectly or interchangeably, when what they actually mean is that they don't want somebody else selling the product. And I think the issue for a lot of sellers. I also think there are probably sellers who know exactly what they're doing, and they know that they're reporting it incorrectly.It just seems like a quick and easy way for them to get rid of sellers that they don't want selling their products. [00:04:03] Chris: Yeah, and this goes back to even some of the law firms that were pitching these services just to kind of collect fees, to exploit the ambiguity or the misnomers and the jargon around these terms.And the way Amazon teams are known to mishandle some of these cases by just saying, we'll get rid of these unauthorized sellers for you by helping you submit infringement claims or even fake counterfeit. They wouldn't say fake. Of course, they're pitching for purpose. [00:04:31] Leah: But I've also seen people talk about using AI to write IP infringement claims and counterfeit claims. So you know that's gonna be a mess. I look forward to seeing. [00:04:42] Chris: That'll add to the mess. Auto reporting automation around IP claims and infringements. I had a seller contact me the other day that was trying to cook up some scheme of like, well, what if I accuse all these people of copyrights because they haven't copyrighted their images and I'm gonna copyright, you know, sellers who are looking for these angles to play will find receptive audiences out there, whether they're pitching a service or whether they're trying to use another service to report competitors. This is where Amazon kind of needs to get up to speed and wake up a little bit in terms of, this is a very well known, well trod path of abuse. So what are they prepared to do to up their game on reviewing IP claims instead of just rubber stamping them?[00:05:29] Leah: Yeah. Well, and so I have three bad outcomes for doing this that I think most sellers don't know about, which I would like to share with the sellers who are listening right now. So one we've actually talked about before, but I'm assuming not everybody listening has listened to every podcast episode. If you have, thank you. But one that we see most common is that your brand registry will get revoked if you report false infringement often enough. And Amazon realizes that. So you no longer get access to any of the brand registry tools as the brand owner. And there's kind of an appeal path, but there isn't really an appeal path.And it's not the kind of appeal path where you explain how you're gonna make sure it never happens again. And then Amazon reinstates it. The appeal path is really just for like, well, this was incorrect and this is why, and maybe that'll get reviewed, but there isn't really an appeal path with Amazon in terms of like right now, it doesn't really seem like they have plans on giving you access back to brand registry once they revoke brand registry.Which brings me to number two. That most sellers don't know about, which is once one brand registry that you're associated with gets revoked, you can never enroll another brand again. Amazon's now associated you with abusive conduct, and next time you try to enroll a brand, it's going to be denied because you're going to be related to abusive conduct.[00:06:51] Chris: So for sellers that create a new brand and wanna launch a new brand, that brand won't have brand registry access.[00:06:59] Leah: The likely the likelihood that any of your future brands will get access to brand registry is fairly low, and I'm not going to say it will never happen because we all know that Amazon is inconsistent and maybe they'll just miss it, but, We see a lot of brands who then who had a brand registry revoked or had an account suspended, whatever the case may be. When they try to enroll an entirely new brand that has nothing to do with that, it gets denied for being related to abusive conduct.So it's not like you can start a new brand and it's like starting from scratch. You're still related to the bad reporting and Amazon doesn't wanna give you access to those tools again. [00:07:37] Chris: Right, or just because it doesn't happen right away doesn't mean you won't lose access later. If you have a competitor that reports you for something, they might discover it then and then take it away. [00:07:48] Leah: Yeah, I mean, more and more it seems like it's just automated. They've already flagged your account as abusive and you get almost an immediate denial when you submit a brand registry application going forward. So you're not only putting your current brand at risk in terms of brand registry tool access, you're also putting any potential future brands at risk. And this brings me to two and a half point, two and a half, which, which is that if you're using a service that's have access to your brand registry account and they're reporting false infringement claims on other accounts, their abusive conduct can also get you flagged and potentially result in the loss of your brand registry access because anybody related to your brand registry account doing any sort of abuse, has the potential of putting your brand registry account at risk, which is also something we've seen a lot where it wasn't even necessarily the person, their brand owner itself.It was someone that they hired and whether they did it on that account or they did it on another account, Purely the relation between them is what caused them to lose their brand registry, or not be able to get brand registry on new brands. [00:08:56] Chris: Truth be told, I wanted to do a whole separate episode just on that, but more broadly, talking about if you hire a service that does a bunch of things that you don't know about, even on accounts that aren't tied to your brand or listings that aren't tied to your brand, you could face the consequences for it. Because I don't know, I've been doing a lot of interviews lately on who ultimately pays the price when a service does something on your behalf.And you and I have also talked about all the questions we've gotten from sellers who are worried, we don't even work with these people anymore. But they did all these things on our behalf. And rights ownership claims these days are clogging up the queues at Amazon.They're concerned about it. You should be concerned about contributing unsubstantiated claims to those cues because as we've seen in the past, when Amazon gets grumpy about something that's making life uncomfortable for them, what do they do historically? They take it out on sellers. [00:09:57] Leah: Well, and particularly in the extreme cases like we mentioned, where something's automated and submitting thousands and thousands of incorrect claims, they're just gonna shut all of that down as quickly as they possibly can.[00:10:09] Chris: Yeah, it's a code of conduct violation at that point. [00:10:12] Leah: Yeah, so whether it's on your account or another account that they're working on, the likelihood is that you will be flagged for being related to that abuse. So something that a lot of sellers don't realize and something that they should probably know.And number three that a lot of sellers are not realizing is, You can get sued. You can get sued for damages for submitting false IP claims. And it's not just, well, they're not authorized, like that's not gonna hold up in court if you're claiming counterfeit or you're claiming trademark infringement.Again, these are legal claims that you're making and if you're making them knowingly, falsely, You could end up paying the reseller or even wholesaler, whoever it may be, you could end up paying them damages because of your actions, which probably didn't seem that consequential at the time, but you know, later on it could be a problem.[00:11:05] Chris: Some of the legal cases, I've been doing more expert witness testimony in these, you know, writing preliminary reports and some of these lawsuits, but some of these cases are due to the company or the seller signed an agreement saying that they wouldn't sell the items on Amazon, and then they did.And that's constituting a breach and that's where the lawsuit comes in. So there is more that we can dissect on that topic. [00:11:32] Leah: Sure. If they're in breach of contract, then you know, feel free to counter sue on that. But that doesn't mean that your false IP claims are suddenly like mute. [00:11:42] Chris: And a lot of people don't understand who's handling infringement claims at Amazon. Hopefully we're at the point where you understand that there's many thousands and tens of thousands of these floating around any given hour of the day for Amazon. You don't have paralegals and lawyers studying these.Who actually understand trademark laws or understand design and patent the way you think, you think that they would based on the messaging they send back to you. That's not really how Amazon works. [00:12:12] Leah: Well, patent, they at least have some process now.[00:12:14] Chris: Yeah, the Apex process is here with us now, so I should have actually exempted that from, but in terms of, Copyright and trademark. We've had sellers tell us that they've called into, let's say, account health reps and asked to review, hey, I got this infringement. We've seen language and messages, and we've heard sellers talking about calls they've had where the concepts of trademark weren't even well understood.Sometimes they even said, well, you violated this brand's trademark, and that wasn't even what the suspension notification said. So there's a lot of kind of mixing and matching with these things if you really need good IP attorney advice. Leah and I have talked to a few different IP attorneys in this space over the last several years that we can refer you to. We can't give you IP advice since we're not attorneys, but, we do understand that even some of the attorneys advising some brands don't understand, this is scary I know, don't understand the concepts of you can't just report stuff to Amazon without consequences. [00:13:18] Leah: Well, and I think generally speaking in my experience, The attorneys that we've seen work on this stuff who are maybe not giving good advice aren't actually IP attorneys. So if you're looking for intellectual property advice, speak to an IP attorney. I cannot stress this enough because yes, I have seen sellers have brand registry revoked due to poor advice from their attorney who was not an IP attorney. So keep that in mind when you are reporting these things that maybe it's worthwhile speaking to an IP attorney before you start submitting infringement complaints.[00:13:51] Chris: Which is, by the way, awkward for us when the brand owner shows us the letter from the lawyer and it's like, well, this is wrong and we're not lawyers, and we have to say, well, this is obviously somebody making an unlawful claim on your behalf who happens to be an attorney. Not shocking that there's lawyers out there running around that aren't really worth their fee. I think we all know, at least in the United States, that we're kind of drowning in attorneys, but story for another time. The focus here is really just you need a second opinion. Get it. But make sure you're not making any unsubstantiated IP claims. And don't just kind of set it and forget it when it comes to reporting. Just because you think somebody unauthorized, you're just because you're assuming that somebody unauthorized is selling counterfeit or is violating any of either your intellectual property rights.I wouldn't make that assumption unless you think you're on the right side of the law. [00:14:42] Leah: Yeah. And final note as well, just on the legal side of things is, I know a lot of sellers or a lot of services that do this their first step is sending a cease and desist where you are threatening to submit in an infringement claim and again, that can have legal repercussions even though it isn't through Amazon's system. A cease and desist letter is a legal document. You are making legal threats if you are threatening to then report them for infringement, which is an actually infringement. So something to keep in mind. I know again, this is something I have recently seen people talking about just use chat gpt to write a cease desist letter. Like maybe consultant attorney is all I'm saying. [00:15:19] Chris: Well, and also, I don't know if we've heard from a lot of people who were sending cease and desist, who lost brand registry because of it. There's kind of a disconnect between those two. [00:15:28] Leah: Well, because it's not going through Amazon's system, right? It's going directly to the seller. I'm not saying that that seller couldn't then report you to Amazon, they probably could. But I haven't personally seen that, but I have personally seen people take legal action for baseless, cease and desist letters. Yeah, so keep it in mind. [00:15:45] Chris: We've seen what you just said, legal action that results from making those claims inappropriately. But we've also seen brand registry damage. Typically people show up in our inboxes saying, Hey, I don't have access to A+ content anymore.Or, Hey, I got a message from Amazon saying, I'm guilty of illicit, fraudulent, abusive behavior, and I don't know what they're talking about. When Leah and I dig deeper into these, which we don't have to dig that deep, typically two questions in, we start finding out that there's been some behaviors, some activities that aren't compliant or that result in fake IP claims or unsubstantiated IP claims going in.Amazon didn't really do this in 2021 as much as 2022. And now in terms of taking it out on you, and you don't want that to happen if you're a thriving brand on Amazon. Any questions on this? As I always say, contact Leah, not me. She's got all the answers. [00:16:36] Leah: I will send you to an IP attorney.[00:16:38] Chris: You can send them to an a good IP attorney, of course. Thanks again for listening to Seller Performance Solutions. We know they'll be questions about this. We know people are struggling to understand some of the messaging they get from Amazon and some of the consequences of these types of decisions, so feel free to ask away and we'll catch you next time.Thank you.

[00:00:07] Chris: Hey everybody, this is Chris McCabe. Welcome back to another episode of Seller Performance Solutions. I'm here with Leah McHugh. Leah, how are you?  [00:00:13] Leah: Good, thanks. How are you Chris? [00:00:15] Chris: I'm doing okay. Today we're talking about some of the negative effects we've seen from brands who are, what would you say, over-reporting or erroneously reporting IP claims and submitting false IP infringement claims and committing abuses that lead to, in some cases, revocation of their brand registry. We've heard from some people saying, we lost our brand registry. Brand registry tickets aren't getting answered in any meaningful way. We're not sure what's going on. And then when we probe, I think you and I both talked to people about this recently, when we probe a bit, then they say, either we reported ourselves and some of those were counterfeit complaints without test buys or some of it's just bogus IP claims. Is that fair to say?  [00:01:01] Leah: Yeah. And you know, it's either them, like you said, or they're maybe hiring a service who's says that it's not automated, and then turns out it's automated and a few thousand false claims have been submitted on your behalf. [00:01:14] Chris: Right. That was the recent one we talked about.  [00:01:16] Leah: Yeah. [00:01:17] Chris: That was the 6,000 IP claims were submitted. [00:01:19] Leah: Was the 6,000? I don't remember. I just remember it was in the thousands. [00:01:22] Chris: Yeah. Well, unfortunately, we're in 2023 and we still talk to people who don't understand that just because a reseller or someone on your listing is considered not authorized to sell your brand on Amazon, doesn't mean you can use any and all tactics to get them removed. We understand it's a proliferation of videos and articles and strange tweets and blog posts saying you can kind of do whatever you want to knock off anyone who's not authorized.  I believe some of those people are offering that kind of advice because they understand that when, when their target has their listing or their whole account suspended and they contact Amazon, Amazon is likely to say something along the lines of, well, you have to show a letter of authorization to sell a brand, right? Amazon's part of the problem. They're asking everyone for this, and they're missing the fact that it might be a counterfeit complaint that has no basis or no proof.  [00:02:14] Leah: Yeah. Well, it's a combination of the two, right? I mean, trademark infringement isn't necessarily counterfeit, but I think sellers are kind of using those interchangeably, I mean like obviously if somebody's actually infringing on your trademark or actually selling counterfeits absolutely you should be reporting them. I think the issue is that counterfeit reporting and IP infringement reporting is just getting used to get rid of people that you don't want selling your product. And unauthorized sellers is not IP infringement, nor is it counterfeit products. And yeah, it probably seems like a quick fix, but one, there's repercussions with Amazon. And two, there are potential legal repercussions as well, which is also something that we've been seeing more and more often. [00:02:56] Chris: More and more potential resellers suing a brand for making a false accusation. So that's not necessarily losing brand registry, but you could be accused of damaging another business. And I like that you said that people are using it interchangeably because I think Amazon teams are using those terms interchangeably as well. And that's one reason why it's kind of circular. Right? That's another reason why brands are doing it, because they realize that Amazon's using these terms interchangeably. [00:03:26] Leah: Right? Well, and it's the same, we hear people saying that their listing has been hijacked and hijacked listing means that somebody took your listing and is changing the information on it. Hijacked listing does not mean that somebody that you don't want selling the product is selling the product on the same ASIN.  Which again is something that I see a lot of sellers use incorrectly or interchangeably, when what they actually mean is that they don't want somebody else selling the product. And I think the issue for a lot of sellers. I also think there are probably sellers who know exactly what they're doing, and they know that they're reporting it incorrectly. It just seems like a quick and easy way for them to get rid of sellers that they don't want selling their products.  [00:04:03] Chris: Yeah, and this goes back to even some of the law firms that were pitching these services just to kind of collect fees, to exploit the ambiguity or the misnomers and the jargon around these terms. And the way Amazon teams are known to mishandle some of these cases by just saying, we'll get rid of these unauthorized sellers for you by helping you submit infringement claims or even fake counterfeit. They wouldn't say fake. Of course, they're pitching for purpose.  [00:04:31] Leah: But I've also seen people talk about using AI to write IP infringement claims and counterfeit claims. So you know that's gonna be a mess. I look forward to seeing.  [00:04:42] Chris: That'll add to the mess. Auto reporting automation around IP claims and infringements. I had a seller contact me the other day that was trying to cook up some scheme of like, well, what if I accuse all these people of copyrights because they haven't copyrighted their images and I'm gonna copyright, you know, sellers who are looking for these angles to play will find receptive audiences out there, whether they're pitching a service or whether they're trying to use another service to report competitors. This is where Amazon kind of needs to get up to speed and wake up a little bit in terms of, this is a very well known, well trod path of abuse. So what are they prepared to do to up their game on reviewing IP claims instead of just rubber stamping them? [00:05:29] Leah: Yeah. Well, and so I have three bad outcomes for doing this that I think most sellers don't know about, which I would like to share with the sellers who are listening right now. So one we've actually talked about before, but I'm assuming not everybody listening has listened to every podcast episode. If you have, thank you. But one that we see most common is that your brand registry will get revoked if you report false infringement often enough. And Amazon realizes that. So you no longer get access to any of the brand registry tools as the brand owner. And there's kind of an appeal path, but there isn't really an appeal path. And it's not the kind of appeal path where you explain how you're gonna make sure it never happens again. And then Amazon reinstates it. The appeal path is really just for like, well, this was incorrect and this is why, and maybe that'll get reviewed, but there isn't really an appeal path with Amazon in terms of like right now, it doesn't really seem like they have plans on giving you access back to brand registry once they revoke brand registry. Which brings me to number two. That most sellers don't know about, which is once one brand registry that you're associated with gets revoked, you can never enroll another brand again. Amazon's now associated you with abusive conduct, and next time you try to enroll a brand, it's going to be denied because you're going to be related to abusive conduct. [00:06:51] Chris: So for sellers that create a new brand and wanna launch a new brand, that brand won't have brand registry access. [00:06:59] Leah: The likely the likelihood that any of your future brands will get access to brand registry is fairly low, and I'm not going to say it will never happen because we all know that Amazon is inconsistent and maybe they'll just miss it, but, We see a lot of brands who then who had a brand registry revoked or had an account suspended, whatever the case may be. When they try to enroll an entirely new brand that has nothing to do with that, it gets denied for being related to abusive conduct. So it's not like you can start a new brand and it's like starting from scratch. You're still related to the bad reporting and Amazon doesn't wanna give you access to those tools again.  [00:07:37] Chris: Right, or just because it doesn't happen right away doesn't mean you won't lose access later. If you have a competitor that reports you for something, they might discover it then and then take it away.  [00:07:48] Leah: Yeah, I mean, more and more it seems like it's just automated. They've already flagged your account as abusive and you get almost an immediate denial when you submit a brand registry application going forward. So you're not only putting your current brand at risk in terms of brand registry tool access, you're also putting any potential future brands at risk.  And this brings me to two and a half point, two and a half, which, which is that if you're using a service that's have access to your brand registry account and they're reporting false infringement claims on other accounts, their abusive conduct can also get you flagged and potentially result in the loss of your brand registry access because anybody related to your brand registry account doing any sort of abuse, has the potential of putting your brand registry account at risk, which is also something we've seen a lot where it wasn't even necessarily the person, their brand owner itself. It was someone that they hired and whether they did it on that account or they did it on another account, Purely the relation between them is what caused them to lose their brand registry, or not be able to get brand registry on new brands.  [00:08:56] Chris: Truth be told, I wanted to do a whole separate episode just on that, but more broadly, talking about if you hire a service that does a bunch of things that you don't know about, even on accounts that aren't tied to your brand or listings that aren't tied to your brand, you could face the consequences for it. Because I don't know, I've been doing a lot of interviews lately on who ultimately pays the price when a service does something on your behalf. And you and I have also talked about all the questions we've gotten from sellers who are worried, we don't even work with these people anymore. But they did all these things on our behalf. And rights ownership claims these days are clogging up the queues at Amazon. They're concerned about it. You should be concerned about contributing unsubstantiated claims to those cues because as we've seen in the past, when Amazon gets grumpy about something that's making life uncomfortable for them, what do they do historically? They take it out on sellers.  [00:09:57] Leah: Well, and particularly in the extreme cases like we mentioned, where something's automated and submitting thousands and thousands of incorrect claims, they're just gonna shut all of that down as quickly as they possibly can. [00:10:09] Chris: Yeah, it's a code of conduct violation at that point.  [00:10:12] Leah: Yeah, so whether it's on your account or another account that they're working on, the likelihood is that you will be flagged for being related to that abuse. So something that a lot of sellers don't realize and something that they should probably know. And number three that a lot of sellers are not realizing is, You can get sued. You can get sued for damages for submitting false IP claims. And it's not just, well, they're not authorized, like that's not gonna hold up in court if you're claiming counterfeit or you're claiming trademark infringement. Again, these are legal claims that you're making and if you're making them knowingly, falsely, You could end up paying the reseller or even wholesaler, whoever it may be, you could end up paying them damages because of your actions, which probably didn't seem that consequential at the time, but you know, later on it could be a problem. [00:11:05] Chris: Some of the legal cases, I've been doing more expert witness testimony in these, you know, writing preliminary reports and some of these lawsuits, but some of these cases are due to the company or the seller signed an agreement saying that they wouldn't sell the items on Amazon, and then they did. And that's constituting a breach and that's where the lawsuit comes in. So there is more that we can dissect on that topic.  [00:11:32] Leah: Sure. If they're in breach of contract, then you know, feel free to counter sue on that. But that doesn't mean that your false IP claims are suddenly like mute.  [00:11:42] Chris: And a lot of people don't understand who's handling infringement claims at Amazon. Hopefully we're at the point where you understand that there's many thousands and tens of thousands of these floating around any given hour of the day for Amazon. You don't have paralegals and lawyers studying these. Who actually understand trademark laws or understand design and patent the way you think, you think that they would based on the messaging they send back to you. That's not really how Amazon works.  [00:12:12] Leah: Well, patent, they at least have some process now. [00:12:14] Chris: Yeah, the Apex process is here with us now, so I should have actually exempted that from, but in terms of, Copyright and trademark. We've had sellers tell us that they've called into, let's say, account health reps and asked to review, hey, I got this infringement. We've seen language and messages, and we've heard sellers talking about calls they've had where the concepts of trademark weren't even well understood. Sometimes they even said, well, you violated this brand's trademark, and that wasn't even what the suspension notification said. So there's a lot of kind of mixing and matching with these things if you really need good IP attorney advice. Leah and I have talked to a few different IP attorneys in this space over the last several years that we can refer you to.  We can't give you IP advice since we're not attorneys, but, we do understand that even some of the attorneys advising some brands don't understand, this is scary I know, don't understand the concepts of you can't just report stuff to Amazon without consequences.  [00:13:18] Leah: Well, and I think generally speaking in my experience, The attorneys that we've seen work on this stuff who are maybe not giving good advice aren't actually IP attorneys. So if you're looking for intellectual property advice, speak to an IP attorney. I cannot stress this enough because yes, I have seen sellers have brand registry revoked due to poor advice from their attorney who was not an IP attorney. So keep that in mind when you are reporting these things that maybe it's worthwhile speaking to an IP attorney before you start submitting infringement complaints. [00:13:51] Chris: Which is, by the way, awkward for us when the brand owner shows us the letter from the lawyer and it's like, well, this is wrong and we're not lawyers, and we have to say, well, this is obviously somebody making an unlawful claim on your behalf who happens to be an attorney. Not shocking that there's lawyers out there running around that aren't really worth their fee. I think we all know, at least in the United States, that we're kind of drowning in attorneys, but story for another time. The focus here is really just you need a second opinion. Get it. But make sure you're not making any unsubstantiated IP claims. And don't just kind of set it and forget it when it comes to reporting. Just because you think somebody unauthorized, you're just because you're assuming that somebody unauthorized is selling counterfeit or is violating any of either your intellectual property rights. I wouldn't make that assumption unless you think you're on the right side of the law.  [00:14:42] Leah: Yeah. And final note as well, just on the legal side of things is, I know a lot of sellers or a lot of services that do this their first step is sending a cease and desist where you are threatening to submit in an infringement claim and again, that can have legal repercussions even though it isn't through Amazon's system. A cease and desist letter is a legal document. You are making legal threats if you are threatening to then report them for infringement, which is an actually infringement. So something to keep in mind. I know again, this is something I have recently seen people talking about just use chat gpt to write a cease desist letter. Like maybe consultant attorney is all I'm saying.  [00:15:19] Chris: Well, and also, I don't know if we've heard from a lot of people who were sending cease and desist, who lost brand registry because of it. There's kind of a disconnect between those two.  [00:15:28] Leah: Well, because it's not going through Amazon's system, right? It's going directly to the seller. I'm not saying that that seller couldn't then report you to Amazon, they probably could. But I haven't personally seen that, but I have personally seen people take legal action for baseless, cease and desist letters. Yeah, so keep it in mind.  [00:15:45] Chris: We've seen what you just said, legal action that results from making those claims inappropriately. But we've also seen brand registry damage. Typically people show up in our inboxes saying, Hey, I don't have access to A+ content anymore. Or, Hey, I got a message from Amazon saying, I'm guilty of illicit, fraudulent, abusive behavior, and I don't know what they're talking about. When Leah and I dig deeper into these, which we don't have to dig that deep, typically two questions in, we start finding out that there's been some behaviors, some activities that aren't compliant or that result in fake IP claims or unsubstantiated IP claims going in. Amazon didn't really do this in 2021 as much as 2022. And now in terms of taking it out on you, and you don't want that to happen if you're a thriving brand on Amazon. Any questions on this? As I always say, contact Leah, not me. She's got all the answers.  [00:16:36] Leah: I will send you to an IP attorney. [00:16:38] Chris: You can send them to an a good IP attorney, of course. Thanks again for listening to Seller Performance Solutions. We know they'll be questions about this. We know people are struggling to understand some of the messaging they get from Amazon and some of the consequences of these types of decisions, so feel free to ask away and we'll catch you next time. Thank you.

The Dark Side of Infringement Complaints

[00:00:07] Chris: Hey everybody. Welcome back to another wonderful episode of Seller Performance Solutions. I'm Chris McCabe of ecommerceChris, former Amazonian, current Amazon seller and brand owner consultant. I'm here with Lee McHugh, also ecommerceChris Leah, wonderful to have you back on our program today.[00:00:23] Leah: Thanks, Chris. It's always a pleasure to be here.[00:00:25] Chris: Today we're talking about account health services again, a topic we've covered a couple of times, but recently they've gone back to this blinking red light here. They've gone back to the 72 hour warning where they say, we need a plan of action within 72 hours, or We need you to suddenly clean up all these demerits and marks against your account health on the dashboard within 72 hours. Or there could be potentially damaging repercussions, right? And the first question we get is, is it a real 72 hours? Will it be less? No one knows when these teams are going to strike. Would it be 48 hours and they're looking to get the POA, the plan of action from you right away? And others of course don't even see the message until it's been after 72 hours and nothing has happened by the time they read it.[00:01:17] Leah: Well, sometimes they call as well, right? They call and tell you that you have 72 hours.[00:01:22] Chris: Or they send a message saying, you get a call from us within 24 hours, right? And then once the call happens, then they put you on the 72 hour clock. But point being, it's very kind of confusing and they don't really stick to their own deadlines.They never have truth to be told.[00:01:39] Leah: No. often they just don't even respond. And you're like, I guess I'm not going to get suspended since it's been more than 72 hours . [00:01:46] Chris: Well, right, but especially for people who consult with us or hire us, they're on edge. So they ask us, should we call back? Should we clarify?And of course, every time you call account health, you get a different answer, right? But sometimes they actually tell you, no, you don't need to submit another plan of action. This one hasn't been rejected. It just hasn't been reviewed yet and of course, this was somebody last week or the week before that hired us to do work on something like this.It's been a week, it's been 10 days. They called again I think today or yesterday, and the answer was, oh, you don't have to do anything else. We see that you're in your account health. We see that you're taking it seriously, but it hasn't been reviewed yet. Begging the question, why do they blast all these out?I know this is a rhetorical question, but why would they blast all these messages out, arrange for all these phone calls, tell you that they're going to call so that you're waiting every second of the day for that all important account health call that could determine the feature of your account.And then you send this thing in after toiling over it for a day, a week, whatever it was, and then they don't review it for three weeks, four weeks.[00:02:56] Leah: Well, I mean, , at least they're giving you a heads up. Compliance have gone the opposite way, where when they ask for documentation to do a documentation review, they don't even give you a like grace period in which to submit it anymore.They suspend your listing and then ask for the documentation. So at least there's a heads up. [00:03:12] Chris: But is this an artificial grace period? Is this kind of a smoke screen where they've taken so much criticism from so many angles about their lack of compassion for sellers, their lack of communication with sellers, their lack of transparency with sellers.Is this really just so that they can tell somebody far down the line or maybe a few months from now, congressional hearing or whatever it might be, some media article. Are they really just going to count how many people were given 72 hours to appeal and maintain their seller status just so they can give a hard count number?Well, we did send 711 sellers last month a message indicating that they had the better part of a week to appeal this.[00:03:58] Leah: Well, so I know we've seen them doing this on and off before, but isn't this also part of their whole, if your account health is in good status, we'll warn you before we suspend your entire account?Remember, a few months ago they announced that they won't just suspend your account if you maintain a certain level of health, you get a warning. I assumed that this new kick of the 72 hours is part of that. But we have seen them do this on and off throughout the years . [00:04:21] Chris: They do but not everyone is part of that new initiative or program, which is called Laughingly enough, aHA, Account Health Assurance.[00:04:30] Leah: Right. That's it, I couldn't think of the name assurance.[00:04:31] Chris: But some people got an actual message saying, you are now part of Account Health Assurance. And of course, last fall, I think when we heard from people they were definitely reassured that they got this message because they thought that automatically put them in the winner's circle of I will not be suspended randomly or in a lightning strike or without warning.[00:04:50] Leah: Which I think I said this at the time, and maybe I didn't say it publicly, but I find it very hard to believe if they think that there's fraud being committed or like a massive safety issue, that they're gonna just like wait and not suspend you immediately because you're part of Account Health Assurance.[00:05:04] Chris: Well they reserve the right to suspend in what they would consider to be an urgent situation or an emergency. So those sellers aside, first of all, we haven't heard much about this AHA. [00:05:16] Leah: Well, I think you just get the heads up. So it's a 72 hour thing. I have yet to see messaging that specifically said, because you're part of account Health Assurance, you're getting a pre-warning. But I mean, we have been seeing more pre-warnings.[00:05:28] Chris: We've seen more pre-warning, but a lot of the people contacting us now weren't even part of this AHA thing, so. [00:05:36] Leah: Maybe Amazon just was like, maybe you should just do this across the board. I have stopped trying to make sense of this particular thing because like I said, the 72 hour thing we have seen on and off for what, the last five years.[00:05:48] Chris: So it's definitely confusing. Traditionally their communication skills not really up to snuff, what you should do about it. So we'll move the conversation away from the madness because it is kind of crazy. As a brief aside to cattle prod somebody into, this is an emergency, write something quickly, but make a good, you might only have one shot at the pre-POA before we suspend the account then all the rest of the dominoes could fall and you might be tossed on the pile of account suspensions. Oh, by the way, we didn't mean the whole 72 hour thing, right? We meant 572 hours, which is god knows how many days because you were probably changing the course of your day and week. You're scrambling your teams, you're going over your operations. you could be pulling inventory out of FBA to inspect it, just so you have a removal order cooking that you can put in front of them, Hey, we're taking this quality control issue seriously.[00:06:45] Leah: Well, I think when they say the 72 hours, I always just assumed that that meant that if you didn't have a POA in by that time that you would be suspended. I mean, granted, maybe Amazon is implying that they're gonna get back to you within 72 hours, but I just never thought that that was gonna happen because they're not great at their own timelines.[00:07:02] Chris: They used to make the decision shortly thereafter, so what you're saying is maybe you just have to get the damn thing in there within that time and then they'll get to it when they get to it. [00:07:13] Leah: Yeah. I mean, well, that just seems to be how they're treating them. [00:07:16] Chris: This go round?[00:07:17] Leah: Yeah. [00:07:17] Chris: Which is kind of interesting because maybe it means they sent them to too many sellers. If they over sent it, then they're raising anxiety levels and stressing people out for no reason. If this was the right number of people to send it to, then why wouldn't they grab some people from other teams, get some headcount behind it so that people wouldn't keep calling them and creating more work for account health reps.Did you read it yet? Call tomorrow. Did you read it yet? Because nobody wants to just take off for the weekend. How many people contact us on weekends who have been suspended? Nobody wants to work on this all week. Take off for the weekend, come back Monday, suspended. Right? Everyone knows this, including Amazon.[00:07:58] Leah: Yeah, I just think I'm just getting too cynical after doing this for so long, when they say that they're gonna get back to you with a certain timeframe, I always just kind of take that with a grain of salt at this point because half the time they're like, we'll get back to you in 10 business days. And it's like, I'm sorry, what? [00:08:11] Chris: For your compliance cases that you're working on?[00:08:13] Leah: Not just compliance. I've seen brand registry come back with that as well. But in general, at this point, I just timeframes with a grain of salt on the Amazon side, whereas if Amazon gives you a timeframe, you definitely need to do your part of it by that time. But in terms of like the 72 hours, I've just started expecting that if you have to have it in by then, if you don't have it in by then, then you're definitely getting suspended. Amazon may get back to you within the 72 hours, but chances are they probably won't. [00:08:40] Chris: And just as a warning to everyone, when I mentioned that we had heard from people who had been sent this message and missed it for a series of days. That's very atypical. Most of the time, if they haven't heard from you at all, the 72 hours shows you know that they're willing to give you some time to do a POA, but if you don't show any signs of life, you have to expect a suspension at that point if you haven't submitted anything. On the other hand, if you hastily slap something together, as we often see and you submit it right away, you're kind of wasting some of those 72 hours because you could have put a better quality document in front of them and you didn't simply because you wanted to get it off your plate or you thought the sooner you respond the better.We love to say haste makes waste around here. No more so true than with this because I think you saw those POAs that I was sent the other day where it kind of looked like something scribbled on a napkin had been typed up. [00:09:39] Leah: Well, that's always been my concern with the 72 hour notice since the first time we saw this, was one, it's going to incite sellers to rush their plan of action which is almost never a good idea. And two, I mean, certainly previously, maybe not so much now because people are a little bit more concerned about getting suspended. But I remember the first time around that we saw this, a lot of sellers didn't really take it that seriously.They're like, but they didn't suspend me. It's just a warning, so I'll just send them something and it'll be fine. That's kind of always been my concern here, is that people are rushing it and people aren't really taking it as seriously as a normal suspension notice. And yeah, certainly having that timeframe in there doesn't help with that. [00:10:20] Chris: I think at this point, historically enough, 72 hour message people have ultimately been suspended, that people do take it more seriously. [00:10:26] Leah: But they still are rushing to send something in which, generally speaking, it kind of reinforces the behavior of, oh, we'll submit this and fix the actual problem later, and I mean, that's another thing is that Amazon expects you to fully implement your plan of action before you even submit it. So they're giving you 72 hours to fully start doing the things that you're promising to do in the plan of action and write it up and submit it to them for them to review.They're asking for that to not work well. [00:10:58] Chris: That's why I kind of overly kindly refer to this as like cruel and unusual punishment.[00:11:05] Leah: Wasn't there a case in the EU where they decided that Amazon had to give sellers notice before suspending them?I think that's where the messaging originally came from, however many years ago. [00:11:14] Chris: Germany, yeah, that was Germany. But that was years ago and I haven't heard about that since. [00:11:19] Leah: I'm just saying I don't think it was like a well-planned thought out process when they started doing this, it was just, oh, well we have to give notice now, 72 hours.[00:11:26] Chris: We've talked to some sellers who have gotten on the phone with account health reps multiple times to go over multiple versions of their plan of action. So it seems like the account health reps are around. I mean, some of them at least have been well trained and they're around to help you write a plan of action, which is kind of the biggest thing they're there to do.[00:11:45] Leah: And as account health likes to tell you every time you call them, they are available 24 hours a day. Two days a week. [00:11:50] Chris: That's right. The only problem is if you've already submitted one and you're looking for like, where is it in the pipeline? That's when they start drawing blanks and that might be what you need a lot more than hey, another pair of eyes on another POA. Some people have actually been alarmed because they went over everything with a previous account health services rep. They thought they had a pretty tight, well composed document together. They send it in, they're waiting, and then when they call back to check on it, the new rep is like, oh, I don't agree with anything that rep told you. I mean that's very unnerving. It's also just extremely inconsistent and poor management. [00:12:27] Leah: Well, and half the time account health sends you on a wild grease chase about something that has nothing to do with the reason for the warning and not what seller performance is looking for anyway. [00:12:38] Chris: Take it with a grain of salt. My favorite one this week was the account health rep told our client, maybe you should change categories. Which had absolutely nothing to do with the suspension case. I'm not sure why you would say something like that.[00:12:50] Leah: Our frequent listeners are very familiar with this. If you aren't a frequent listener, we have many episodes where we talk about dealing with account health. Check them out.[00:12:58] Chris: Yes, but if this is new to you, make sure you're not spending hours and hours and hours a day calling just to hear what everybody's different opinion is, as if they're just going around the circle and saying, Hey, think of something else to say to this person because that is the experience of numerous sellers. We haven't heard much about the account health services teams in terms of we're gonna tighten up the training, or we're gonna audit these calls and make sure that there's no bad information being handed around.It's kind of just sitting there left to its own. [00:13:31] Leah: And what's funny is I've had actual calls with Account Health and people who did know what they were talking about. And when I've mentioned that somebody else has told me something completely differently, they have actually said like, oh yeah, not everybody has the same level of training. If somebody tells you something that sounds wrong, just call back. It's like, oh, okay. [00:13:47] Chris: Not only that, but I don't think the reps realize they could be sweeping aside like a 55 minute conversation you had with that other person.[00:13:54] Leah: Right, exactly. and it does take a long time a lot of the time, even if you was on hold for a good 10 minutes.[00:13:59] Chris: Well, if they repeatedly put you on hold, it means they're just trying to make it look like they're doing something and they're probably not sure what to do.Or they're just scrounging around for info or they're asking somebody else to help them find some info. So that's probably not. A good use of your time, but you probably figured that out when you're on hold so much. So, getting back to the 72 hour window, anyone who's got questions on where you think you are in that pipeline, how serious they are about suspending your account, their response or review of your plan of action draft that you put in front of them, whether or not that's something you can trust or believe in, let us know. Obviously we're dealing with these issues all the time and we're happy to kind of help clear away some of the lingering discolor smoke from some of these episodes because we know it can be confusing.We know there's kind of a lot of back and forth if you feel like they're kind of pulling a bait and switch on you in terms of the timeline, we're happy to kind of clarify what your first or second action items should be at that point, you don't necessarily wanna jump into rewriting the POA. You don't necessarily want to write to Jeff at Amazon right away the way some people still seem to do. And you, you want to make sure you vet whatever advice you find out there, whether it's on the forums or on random blogs or kind of anywhere like YouTube. [00:15:18] Leah: And so top tips for Account health because maybe you do have a 72 hour notice and you don't have time to listen to our other episodes about this. Top tip number one with account health specifically, keep calling back until you get somebody that's in the United States. . And top tip number two, any information they give you, you need to clarify that it is from the investigator's notes and not just their opinion. If it's their opinion, it very well might be wrong.[00:15:43] Chris: Correct. Very much so. They might try to tell you that, well, I've got a lot of training for this, so my opinion carries a lot of weight. But that doesn't mean that they are giving you a real reason why your previous appeal was rejected. That's what you need confirmed. [00:15:57] Leah: Well, and at the end of the day, I think some sellers think that account health has the authority to actually reinstate or approve an appeal. They do not, it's only seller performance. So at the end of the day, their opinion doesn't really mean anything. It comes down to what the investigator's opinion was.[00:16:13] Chris: Exactly. So thanks for listening in on this episode of Seller Performance Solutions. Leah and I will be back next week and we hopefully will not hear from you with a major crisis, but if something big does develop, reach out to us sooner than later, as opposed to just diving in and winging it and throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, because that often doesn't end well.So thanks again for listening.

72 Hours

Extreme ASIN Merging

Gary Huang

[00:00:07] Chris: Hey everybody, this is Chris McCabe. Welcome back to Seller Performance Solutions podcast with Leah McHugh and Gary Huang, who I met, I believe in 2016.So we've known each other six or seven years. I guess we would say you're most recently known for the Seven Figure Seller Mastermind that's coming up in Japan pretty soon. Now, about a month and a half away. Is that right? [00:00:29] Gary: Yeah, definitely. We have a brand new event, it's the first ever Amazon conference in Japan for Amazon sellers since Seven Figure Seller Japan Mastermind in Tokyo, April 4th to the 5th. Very excited about that. Thanks for having me on the show guys. [00:00:45] Chris: Oh, of course. And Leah and I are gonna be there of course, in Tokyo, so we're pumped about it too. Maybe taking a step back from that, how did you get started in e-commerce, but also the Amazon space? [00:00:55] Gary: I got started in E-com a long time ago. I'm not gonna give you my life story , but basically, I started off on eBay. 2005. Selling women's shoes, women's shoes. So for those of you that, to remember that they come in the nineties, married with children. I was kinda like the online Al Bundy. I was women's shoes online on eBay. So they weren't fancy shoes. They were just like imported from China. These kind quirky Mary Janes. And they're like, you know, this like niche culture of like rockabilly and people that love like Polkadots.So that's how I got started. They were imported from China. I knew a local wholesaler. I was based in LA at the time, my hometown. So that's how I got started in e-com. Back then eBay was the biggest player, kinda like Amazon today. , Amazon did not exist at that time.We had a very small warehouse I was sharing with my mom. She's in the fashion industry, so I was self fulfilling. Go pick and pack. Yeah. We had a deeper printer. We were driving to the post office. I was driving myself. I said we, I had like a high school. I in a couple hours. I think every two days she would help me like pack the shoes and I would drive off to the post office.I thought it was pretty cool. I held my little business, so that's how I got started.I did that for about three years and then 2008 came up and I made to Shanghai. The US economy was suffering with the financial crisis as everybody remembers. And China, it was like the Rising Star Beijing Olympics and stuff. So I made a move and I found a job in the corporate world, working in supply chain. So I worked for a small consulting firm sourcing. So I was the point person for my foreign clients. Literally I visited hundreds of Chinese factory, like from like the big fancy ones to like the really scary ones that may have some, like health code violations. I put the e-commerce business on hold at the time cause it was very difficult to fulfill with myself being there. I'm also fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and my family is from China originally. I was born in states and I majored in Chinese and it was kinda like my superpower. So I use Chinese a lot, handled multimillion dollar working campaigns for clients, really like many different industries. So it got a lot of experience with that. That's chapter two, chapter three. I started listening to podcasts in like 2015, 2016. And then I started getting back into e-commerce. I figured I'm on the ground in China, I can hop on the train to go to the factories. So I built a Amazon private label business with a partner, Apple watch band category. So we created a private label brand in that. So we built a six figure business within like less than a year. So that's how I kind of got back into Amazon at that time. That's chapter three.[00:03:40] Chris: So I have a question on that. When you started selling on Amazon because most of what we're talking about today is going to be about expanding into international marketplaces. You were on.com or you started with that, and then you went in the UK and then you tried Europe.How did you look at, you know, I'm starting in USA or were you not even thinking in those terms? [00:04:01] Gary: Yeah, I launched a number of private label brands. Yes. That was the plan. I mean, that's what I was doing.So I started at.com and then I went over to Europe. Went over to UK, Germany. We had some success there. And also the smaller marketplace, that was before all of the extensive VAT requirements, that we see now. [00:04:19] Chris: So you expanded within like a year, or how aggressive were you with it?[00:04:26] Gary: I expanded probably around, I wanna say 2017, so about a year, year and a half to two years. And then, I would always go to these e-commerce conferences. At the time I was based in Shanghai at the time, so I lived in Shanghai for 11 years.Met my wife there, my son was born there, and I would always go to conferences. That's where we we met Chris in Hong Kong at the Global Sources conference. [00:04:51] Chris: Back then, I was talking to brand owners a lot about, when is it smart to expand internationally? Will Amazon support brands that are being aggressive about it? That conversation's changed a ton since 2017. But it did lead us to conversations about which are the best marketplaces to expand to in terms of Amazon's regional marketplaces. So that conversation usually leads people to UK, or Germany, or of course Japan, right? Japan was sort of the unsung marketplace for some of our US-based clients for a while. But I think people started to understand how big the marketplace was there, how much opportunity was there. And that was something that even got you and I talking about the mastermind that you're putting on there.So maybe we can talk a little bit about, just how Japan differs from other regional marketplaces where some sellers might have had success, like say UK and why some opportunities there may have been missed up to this point. [00:05:54] Gary: Yeah, I feel Japan is very underrated because it's the fourth biggest marketplace. Behind US, UK, and Germany. But almost nobody is talking about it, I think people are intimidated by Japan, the language barrier and cultural barriers but I think some people would be surprised that, I mean, there are barriers, but you can totally do it without knowing Japanese. I still don't speak Japanese very well and I selling in Japan, and there are also certain advantages that it's actually, it may be easier and more cost effective to sell your product in Japan than a UK and Germany. So I do think it's a good opportunity.[00:06:37] Chris: You and Leah, work on the compliance side a lot. I thought we could talk about compliance a bit. Because I know that'll be served well at the Seven Figures Teller Mastermind in Tokyo. [00:06:47] Gary: So, talking about compliance, the opportunity is definitely there. It's the fourth biggest market, yet there's a lot lower level of competition compared to UK and Germany, and even compared to some of like the smaller markets like Italy, there's more sellers on in italy and Spain than in Japan, and they're like a fraction of the size of that. And people forget Japan is the third biggest economy in the world. I mean, like people are kinda sleeping on Japan, right? and Amazon is the number one most popular e-commerce shopping platform in Japan. So actually, when I moved into our new apartment, we had furnish the whole thing. I was asking the realtor, where I buy my stuff, which shop should I go?He like Amazon. So people may be surprised that Amazon has overtaking Rakuten. Rakuten was the former number one platform. So Amazon is the biggest platform in Japan. Yeah. So, it's great opportunity.But talking back to compliance, there are so many important differences. If sellers want to sell into Japan, probably number one is importing. To legally import into Japan, you cannot just use a US LLC as the import of record, like what you could do with some other country. In Japan, you would need a Japanese registered address.So whether that's an importer of record that's based in Japan, or an individual based in Japan . Japanese government wants to have some support of accountability. Somebody in Japan if something happened, right? But that's number one. That's one of the, the big requirements for Japan. After that, number two is product compliance, because Japan's compliance laws and regulations are different from other types. So for example, even if you are selling a water bottle, Japan has like any product that touches food, basically you would need compliance testing for that. And there are different types of compliance tests that are required. And I think one other thing that surprised me is you cannot just take any compliance test certificate and apply it for Japan. Japan actually has their own approved laboratory. So it cannot just be like an SGS, it has to be their pre-approved laboratory from X, Y, Z agency, based like in Hong Kong or based in Tokyo, for example. So you really have to work with someone that's familiar with the compliance laws in Japan to be able to legally import to Japan. Otherwise, you know, there's nightmare stories or products getting stuck at customs and there's the fines and you have to find a place to put it if it's rejected, et cetera. So that's why it's very important to pay attention to these japanese compliance regulations.[00:09:20] Leah: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's maybe something that a lot of sellers in other countries aren't necessarily used to dealing with. Even in regulated spaces, Amazon doesn't always preemptively ask for that information before it gets to them. So a lot of times they've been selling it for years and didn't even know that they were compliance regulations for their products.So in terms of the first step that you think seller should make when they're thinking about expanding into Japan, what, what do you think their first step should be? [00:09:49] Gary: I think if they're brand registered, they can get started to apply the brand registry, you can move it to Japan so that way you have all of the protections. Sometimes there are like kind of unscrupulous sellers that are like selling your product in Japan without you knowing it. They're dropshipping it and they're selling it for like four times the retail price, right?So that way once you have brand registry, you can knock those guys off. I think that would be the first step. And then as you are moving your products to Japan, obviously, make sure, you do your product research, there are excellent tools out there to verify the demand, verify the competition. Competition on the whole is a lot lower, but you have to be careful with the demand because Japanese consumers are a little different. But the tool, helium10 works for Japan. So definitely use the tool for that.And then also one of the, the big things, the big advantages selling in Japan, a lot of people are not aware of this, is that the review threshold in Japan is actually a lot lower than in Europe, in other countries. That means that you can move your product into Japanese market. You can carry over those. So even if you have just like a couple hundred reviews, you could become, one of the top sellers in terms of review count from day one. A lot of sellers are not aware of that. So that gives you a huge advantage, you have the reviews, you have the social proof. I mean Japanese shoppers, I find they pay more attention to the number of reviews, not just necessarily the score.[00:11:14] Chris: That's a great point. clients of ours and others love to talk about reviews but maybe you can get started and ramp up quickly. If you haven't sold in Japan before, maybe you can jump in and sort of make a splash and get a handful of reviews that will be meaningful for your sales rank without eons of time passing first, right? [00:11:32] Gary: Yeah. I mean, you, you carry over those reviews and like in the past there was a phenomenon where you could carry over like those 500 reviews from us to the foreign market, but once you get the first review in that foreign market, all those reviews go away. That's not the case anymore. You still keep those 500 reviews and you just add onto that. And then one other benefit, and I'm sure a lot of people will be happy to hear this, is that the PPC costs in Japan are lower than us, than UK, than Germany, than the European markets. So that will be an advantage as well. PPC expenses, that's probably the number one or number two expense, you know, after Your product costs, your inventory costs, right? So you'll have to add an advantage. [00:12:08] Leah: And then how are you handling localization and the language difference? Cause I think that is probably the barrier that most sellers think of when they think about expanding into Japan. Yeah. Definitely do not use Google Translate. Definitely higher an agency that can do the translation or the localization.I mean, there's great ones out there, like YLT. Yana runs a great agency. They have native Japanese speakers. You know, she's helped us with that. Not just that like localization, Japanese consumers with their product with looking differently. They may look further in detail.So, with the images as well, make sure that the images have japanese on them. But yeah, definitely hire, don't just Google translate.[00:12:51] Chris: What types of sellers do you think the sellers coming to the Seven Figure Seller Mastermind in April are going to be? Mostly people who have already established themselves mostly?Western sellers who have already established themselves in Japan? Or will there be kind of a mix of people who are thinking about doing it and just wanna stick a toe in the pool or some mixture of the two? And then maybe after that we can talk about the different speakers you've got. [00:13:17] Gary: Yeah. So coming to the event, we do have seven figure sellers already selling US, already selling in the European marketplaces and they're looking to expand their brands into a brand new market. I think this is one of the best ways to scale your business because you are going kind of into a blue ocean, right? You're not just competing with like the million plus sellers in the US, right?There's only about , in Japan last time we checked, I think it was about 70,000 sellers compared to one point, I think 2 million. So it can be a very blue ocean opportunity. Um, and our goal is to help sellers make additional, like let's say 300K to 900K in Japan revenue, right? That's our goal. So if you do have you know, successful SKUs, like all the challenges you know, at the conference we'll have import of records, we'll have product localization experts, we'll have compliance testing experts. So you basically, any question you have in the room to help you so you don't have tto search the internet, we can help you pick all the top people we think we can help sellers .[00:14:18] Chris: And I know Ritu Java's gonna be there, right? [00:14:22] Gary: Yes, yes. Ritu Java. You know, she's actually lived in Japan for 17 years. She has Japanese permanent residency. So she helped me with my Japanese listings, she has a wealth of knowledge in Japan.Not many people are aware of that. And then she's one of the top speakers in the world. She just won, I think the favorite speaker award at one of the events recently. So she's gonna be speaking about important topic, Amazon Japan SEO and PPC best practices. We may even get her to talk a little bit about Chat GPT and how you can use it.And we also, we have Amazon coming, Amazon ads. We have eight figure Amazon Japan sellers, seven figure Amazon Japan sellers. So I think there's gonna be a strong line up of speakers. I think this will be one of the best events this year, regardless of Japan. Obviously I'm biased, but we put a lot of time, Chris's gonna be here as well, you know, for brand protection. So, you got to play defense as well, right? So obviously defense it's very important.[00:15:23] Chris: For sure. We're gonna be talking about brand protection, brand abuse, and reporting things to the right teams. And of course, if you're reporting things through proper channels in Japan, and it's not getting anywhere, how to escalate and surface those things elsewhere within the Amazon ecosystem to make sure they get the proper attention and review and get fixed. So, healthy selling for sure. I'm really looking forward to this. Any last thoughts before we close on what you want people to know who are kind of on the fence about going to Japan? It's Tokyo, April 4th and 5th. It's cherry blossom season. We could talk about that for a moment. [00:15:59] Gary: Yeah, This time of year will be the best time to visit. As Chris and Leah knows it's the famous cherry blossom season. People like tourist actually come to Japan this time of year just to see the cherry blossom. So we wanted all of the attendees to be able to enjoy this, this time of year, so the evening of day one, April 4th, we're going to have a networking social in a local Tokyo Park underneath the cherry blossom tree. So we're really gonna lay out a spread with some Japanese sake, beer, sushi bento boxes and network with other sellers, you know, the speakers like Chris and some of the other guys. So we really wanted to create this one of a kind Japan experience. You cannot get anywhere else in the world. So I think that is big. And the other thing is, I think just choosing the right marketplace for sellers, I think that could be as important or even more important than choosing the right product, right?Because expanding to Japan, you're not really risking a new product. You already have the supply chain. You have the manufacturing, you have the proven listing, right? You're just moving it to a new marketplace. I mean, obviously there are challenges and obstacles, but if you're able to overcome these challenges, these challenges are becoming like a mote around your business because all the other sellers are intimidated. They will be left out outside and you guys will be inside. [00:17:16] Chris: That's a great point. Once you climb that wall, you're on the other side of it. Everyone else has to start at the bottom of that wall. [00:17:24] Gary: Exactly. So we're gonna be able to fast track this for you guys in two days in Tokyo, April 4th to the 5th at the Seven Figure Seller Japan Mastermind. So yeah, I'm super excited, guys. [00:17:36] Leah: Yeah, me too. And we'll include the link to the conference in the show notes as well so anyone that wants to sign up can find that easily. [00:17:43] Chris: And I would argue that anyone who can survive the challenge of dealing with or selling on Amazon anywhere in the world is strong enough and competent enough to deal with a different, potentially strange and unusual, but different marketplace like Amazon Japan.Any questions about that, certainly reach out to Gary directly. Gary, the best place for them to reach you with questions about the event?[00:18:06] Gary: Yes, it'll be by email gary@8020sourcing.com. So gary@8020sourcing.com. [00:18:16] Chris: Sweet. All right. We'll include that at the bottom. Thanks again for talking to us today. We can't wait to see you in person. Awesome. [00:18:22] Gary: Thanks so much, Chris and Leah, can't wait to see you guys here in Tokyo.[00:18:26] Leah: Thanks, Gary.

Selling on Amazon Japan with Gary Huang

Daniel Fernandez

[00:00:07] Chris: Hey everybody, this is Chris McCabe. We're back with Seller Performance Solutions, our wonderful podcast about brands and Amazon sellers.I'm here with Leah McHugh and today speaking with Daniel Fernandez of AMZ Clever, and you're based in Miami, right? [00:00:26] Daniel: Very close. I'm in West Palm Beach.[00:00:27] Chris: And we're, we're speaking with him today about his past experiences as a seller and also now currently helping Sellers as an agency.So maybe we can start there. What were your first experiences with selling, and then at what point did you decide that you wanted to transition to an agency owner and help sellers that way? Did it grow organically from just your initial interest in e-commerce? [00:00:50] Daniel: Yeah, absolutely. So I would say I've been in the industry for about eight years. That time I was living in San Francisco, working in tech, and somebody, just a random friend sent me one of the first FBA podcasts from a guy called Pat Flynn. [00:01:07] Leah: Oh, wow. Yeah, that's going way back.[00:01:09] Daniel: Yeah. OG, right? And that got me hooked, you know, so I, shortly after, launched the product and it did so well and it ran out of stock. But at that point I thought this was it, right? So I decided to leave my job and it was one of those situations where I had the golden handcuffs on and took me 10 minutes to write my resignation email, took me an hour to hit the same button, but eventually did. And started this journey. And it was very tough at the beginning because when I was able to restock that product, the ranking wasn't there anymore. But it still was selling. And , you might think I, I, I learned the lesson. Ran outta stock again. And reorder. And then the third time, the ranking was definitely not there anymore. Right? And I had already put a lot of time and, and effort and all of that and I had taken by that point, like courses after course, after course like crazy. I had learned a lot. And I hired a coach and joined a business mastermind down in San Diego. And they told me, look, you've got all this knowledge and you've done well, but obviously learning the lessons here, but you need cash flow now. So why don't you switch to an agency?Right. And that was almost eight years ago. I did that and never, never look back. Continue working one client as to the other and hiring people. And this brought me to China where I think we met the first time. [00:02:31] Chris: In Hong Kong ? [00:02:33] Leah: Oh wow. We are going way back. [00:02:35] Daniel: Yeah. Hong Kong and then recently moved back to the States, so here I am and what we do hasn't changed. We maybe added Walmart, obviously Amazon, and it's it's full management. We help brands grow. [00:02:58] Chris: So you got two or three dozen clients somewhere in that vicinity, I think you were telling me. They're mostly private label brands or do you help resellers as well? [00:03:07] Daniel: Yeah, I would say our ideal client, right? The brand that we help become the most successful is a private label brand. And there's a few more criteria, right? It's a brand that is basically in the business of growing their product line. So adding new products, very prolifically, and they are, they are also not just selling products, they're actually growing a brand. Maybe the brand already fits outside of Amazon and they wanna be able to leverage that inside Amazon while maintaining the brand recognition. And the customer basically, really identifies with it. [00:03:43] Chris: Are these people coming to you right at the beginning, you're helping them launch, or do they get their feet wet a little bit?They start some selling and then they need help once they know a little bit more about what they're doing, but they want to do it better, do you jump in at that point when they're still trying to get established, but they've already kind of opened things up? [00:03:59] Daniel: Yeah, we've done both. I would say maybe three Fourths are brands that already have proof of concepts.And maybe that the last one fourth is brands that we've even taken pre-revenue brands. And to be fair, I speak with a lot of brand owners and a lot of them are not a good fit, especially these ones that are pre-revenue. But the ones that we took on, we just saw something special.Usually just a product that was well differentiated. Or maybe it was similar, but the marketing was just well differentiated. So, no, me too products. That was a little bit what we looked for. [00:04:36] Leah: Which is awesome. Cause I think that as the way the marketplace is going now, we've kind of cycled back to that like brand recognition being important as opposed to whoever can hack the data quickly and as well to do well I think it's interesting to see, because you know we've all been in the industry for a while. It's sort of cyclical, right? Where you have like lots of brand differentiation and then just like trading in the same products. And now we're kind of heading back into the brand differentiation, which I find really interesting.[00:05:02] Daniel: Yeah. And I chat with a lot of D2C brands that they achieve success outside of Amazon already. So they're with social media, with pay media outside Amazon and Basically leaving money on the table, right? With these brands, like the biggest issue is they're being already searched on Amazon, right? And not being there, not having a presence is costing them tens, hundreds, millions of dollars. But not being there also correctly, it's also costing them, right? So that's a lot of what we see.[00:05:39] Leah: Yeah, it's kind of crazy when you look up like major brands on Amazon, how bad some of their Amazon listings are because it's not what they do. They're good at all the other sales channels, they don't have like dedicated Amazon people. Still surprisingly, you'd think they'd kind of like get around to it, but I tend to use major brands as my examples of like what not to do when I have to give a talk because they're so easy to find.[00:06:03] Daniel: So listing yesterday in the US that the images were all in Japanese.[00:06:09] Leah: Oh yeah. Nice. [00:06:10] Daniel: That's a brand, that's an example.[00:06:12] Chris: So that works for Japan. Not so well here. [00:06:14] Leah: Well maybe their demographic is Japanese speakers in the US. Yeah, very niche. [00:06:22] Chris: Yeah. . I think some people think it's going to be straightforward.It's going to be easier than it could be. What kinds of pain points do you see with some of the brands that you're managing? Is it just mostly costs, like rising costs of inventory, rising ads costs and so forth. Or are they just kind of unsure what their edge will be on competition and they haven't quite turned the corner on how to sell more units for their dollars?[00:06:47] Daniel: Yeah. A couple of things. So for, for D2C brands, one of the biggest pain points is attribution. Because these brands are spending a few million dollars on social media ads and influencer marketing and etc. So they have a lot of traffic that's being generated, a lot of brand aware traffic going on. Which obviously is ending up on Amazon. So how do we actually know what the real role is, right? Because there is efforts being done outside of Amazon. We feel a lot of brands that are little worried, right. How to scale profitably if I may say because there's many ways to do it wrong, right? So I think that's another. One Last is for these brands that maybe, are not D2C, maybe they've been selling to distributors and all of that, almost guaranteed there's gonna be resellers on Amazon. And that is a problem because, this Japanese listing I was mentioning, the issue is because there's a reseller and they don't care much. They made a mistake or the Amazon system or whatnot. But we see a lot of inconsistencies on catalogs on the brand when big brands are selling through distributors and a lot of them are, because of that, wanting to go D2C. Which creates a huge project. It's very difficult to iron everything out, but you know, when on it, it can pay off tremendously.[00:08:12] Chris: And in terms of this year versus last year versus the year before, did you start working with some brands that their first year was like the covid year and they saw a huge impact and revenue was growing and easier and now they have to work a little bit more for it because more sellers.Of course, in the last two years coming in, more sellers are coming in all the time. But it's not quite what it was a couple of years ago. Have you gone through pain points like that with some of your clients? [00:08:40] Daniel: Definitely. And you mentioned it something about cost per clicks going up. That's a real thing. And what we have seen is that because of the pandemic, it drove so much shopping activity to e-commerce. I mean, basically the whole retail sector switched to e-commerce, brands had a phenomenal year or couple of years. But as retail stores started to open back up, right? The traffic, retail traffic went back to normal somewhat. But then there is these sellers, these brands sitting on tons of stock because they bought, based on projecting that this craziness will continue. So one of the biggest challenges we see is, okay, how do we move product, oversupply of product profitably or somewhat efficiently, right?That's one of the challenges that we've been dealing with and also because there is this oversupply of stock and arguably demand on Amazon went down a little bit last Q4, right? I think the first year that Amazon just had like a little, like tip down. There are some solutions for that. [00:09:46] Leah: Yeah. I think also because Bloomberg yesterday published an article about how this is the first year that Amazon is essentially taking about 50% of sellers revenues by the time you calculate ad spend and all of the fees associated with it, you're only really getting 50% of your revenue on Amazon. So, if you have too much inventory and not rising costs that's a tough spot to be in. [00:10:06] Daniel: Yeah. So Amazon is love and hate, right?And there's brilliant people working there and they know what's going on and I think they've been very prolific with their advertising products. They've launched new ways of targeting customers. For example, right now, what we are doing a lot of is CPC is a common term, stands for cost per click.That's what advertising has been based off of for many years on Amazon. Recently they launched something called vCPM. Which basically means instead of paying per click, you're paying per thousand impressions. This is something that has been available on platforms like Facebook and whatnot.Yeah. We're noticing that we're getting cheaper clicks by adopting these new options from Amazon, and I think they're being so prolific to bring the cost per click down temporarily, right? Because when the avalanche of sellers come and adopt one of these new methods or targeting options, et cetera, obviously the clicks, become more expensive, right?My advice, what we're doing with clients is adopting these vCPM there's a new sponsored display video ads, which right now, also at the beginning, they tend to be cheaper. So few things to take advantage of. [00:11:22] Chris: And any other words of advice for brands out there that are new to Amazon or looking at the year ahead in terms of planning for Q3, Q4 planning for Prime Day?If you had to give one big piece of. To brands in 2023 for the rest of this year, what would it be? [00:11:44] Daniel: I would say to mind more the curation of what gets sent to Amazon. To really, really reserve Amazon to those hero SKUs. In the past, Amazon was very friendly with restock limits and we could pretty much send everything to Amazon.But going forward, Amazon has realized that their warehousing is a very expensive part of their business, so they want quick turnover. So I think this year, really the focus should be on the top 25 SKUs or top half SKUs via FBA.And I think FBM will probably make a little bit of a comeback.[00:12:21] Leah: I think it already is. [00:12:24] Daniel: It's trendy right? Right now? [00:12:25] Leah: Yeah. It's climbing. It's climbing again. Yeah. Because Amazon isn't building as many warehouses now. I mean, they were in manufacture or construction overdrive before the pandemic even started. And then they doubled down during the pandemic as well, and then they pulled it all in 2022. [00:12:41] Daniel: Yeah. So I would say don't overlook FBM would be the other piece of advice and the last one is Amazon is pay to play. Right? It's really allocating that budget, to be able to get exposure. The days of reliance simply on organic ranking is no longer there. Advertisement or paid media sales, and then organic sales. There should be a strategy that implements or applies both.[00:13:06] Chris: Great. Thanks. And I guess we might not see you at the Prosper show.Maybe we'll connect with you at one of the South Florida Wizards of Ecom events in the next few months. Where can people reach you if they have questions or wanna hear more about your agency? [00:13:20] Daniel: Yeah, definitely. And I hope to see you, here in south Florida. So my company is a AMZ Clever. We have a website, LinkedIn, everything. But really to anybody listening, I invite you to send me a direct email, at Daniel@amzclever.com. Great. Sounds good. We'll catch up with you next time. Thanks everybody for listening to Seller Performance Solutions. Thank you, Leah, and have a great day.

[00:00:07] Chris: Hey everybody, this is Chris McCabe. We're back with Seller Performance Solutions, our wonderful podcast about brands and Amazon sellers. I'm here with Leah McHugh and today speaking with Daniel Fernandez of AMZ Clever, and you're based in Miami, right?  [00:00:26] Daniel: Very close. I'm in West Palm Beach. [00:00:27] Chris: And we're, we're speaking with him today about his past experiences as a seller and also now currently helping Sellers as an agency. So maybe we can start there. What were your first experiences with selling, and then at what point did you decide that you wanted to transition to an agency owner and help sellers that way? Did it grow organically from just your initial interest in e-commerce?  [00:00:50] Daniel: Yeah, absolutely. So I would say I've been in the industry for about eight years. That time I was living in San Francisco, working in tech, and somebody, just a random friend sent me one of the first FBA podcasts from a guy called Pat Flynn.  [00:01:07] Leah: Oh, wow. Yeah, that's going way back. [00:01:09] Daniel: Yeah. OG, right? And that got me hooked, you know, so I, shortly after, launched the product and it did so well and it ran out of stock. But at that point I thought this was it, right? So I decided to leave my job and it was one of those situations where I had the golden handcuffs on and took me 10 minutes to write my resignation email, took me an hour to hit the same button, but eventually did. And started this journey. And it was very tough at the beginning because when I was able to restock that product, the ranking wasn't there anymore.  But it still was selling. And , you might think I, I, I learned the lesson. Ran outta stock again. And reorder. And then the third time, the ranking was definitely not there anymore. Right? And I had already put a lot of time and, and effort and all of that and I had taken by that point, like courses after course, after course like crazy. I had learned a lot. And I hired a coach and joined a business mastermind down in San Diego. And they told me, look, you've got all this knowledge and you've done well, but obviously learning the lessons here, but you need cash flow now. So why don't you switch to an agency? Right. And that was almost eight years ago. I did that and never, never look back. Continue working one client as to the other and hiring people. And this brought me to China where I think we met the first time.  [00:02:31] Chris: In Hong Kong ?  [00:02:33] Leah: Oh wow. We are going way back.  [00:02:35] Daniel: Yeah. Hong Kong and then recently moved back to the States, so here I am and what we do hasn't changed. We maybe added Walmart, obviously Amazon, and it's it's full management. We help brands grow.  [00:02:58] Chris: So you got two or three dozen clients somewhere in that vicinity, I think you were telling me. They're mostly private label brands or do you help resellers as well?  [00:03:07] Daniel: Yeah, I would say our ideal client, right? The brand that we help become the most successful is a private label brand.  And there's a few more criteria, right? It's a brand that is basically in the business of growing their product line. So adding new products, very prolifically, and they are, they are also not just selling products, they're actually growing a brand. Maybe the brand already fits outside of Amazon and they wanna be able to leverage that inside Amazon while maintaining the brand recognition. And the customer basically, really identifies with it.  [00:03:43] Chris: Are these people coming to you right at the beginning, you're helping them launch, or do they get their feet wet a little bit? They start some selling and then they need help once they know a little bit more about what they're doing, but they want to do it better, do you jump in at that point when they're still trying to get established, but they've already kind of opened things up?  [00:03:59] Daniel: Yeah, we've done both. I would say maybe three Fourths are brands that already have proof of concepts. And maybe that the last one fourth is brands that we've even taken pre-revenue brands. And to be fair, I speak with a lot of brand owners and a lot of them are not a good fit, especially these ones that are pre-revenue. But the ones that we took on, we just saw something special. Usually just a product that was well differentiated. Or maybe it was similar, but the marketing was just well differentiated. So, no, me too products. That was a little bit what we looked for.  [00:04:36] Leah: Which is awesome. Cause I think that as the way the marketplace is going now, we've kind of cycled back to that like brand recognition being important as opposed to whoever can hack the data quickly and as well to do well I think it's interesting to see, because you know we've all been in the industry for a while. It's sort of cyclical, right? Where you have like lots of brand differentiation and then just like trading in the same products. And now we're kind of heading back into the brand differentiation, which I find really interesting. [00:05:02] Daniel: Yeah. And I chat with a lot of D2C brands that they achieve success outside of Amazon already. So they're with social media, with pay media outside Amazon and Basically leaving money on the table, right? With these brands, like the biggest issue is they're being already searched on Amazon, right? And not being there, not having a presence is costing them tens, hundreds, millions of dollars. But not being there also correctly, it's also costing them, right? So that's a lot of what we see. [00:05:39] Leah: Yeah, it's kind of crazy when you look up like major brands on Amazon, how bad some of their Amazon listings are because it's not what they do. They're good at all the other sales channels, they don't have like dedicated Amazon people. Still surprisingly, you'd think they'd kind of like get around to it, but I tend to use major brands as my examples of like what not to do when I have to give a talk because they're so easy to find. [00:06:03] Daniel: So listing yesterday in the US that the images were all in Japanese. [00:06:09] Leah: Oh yeah. Nice.  [00:06:10] Daniel: That's a brand, that's an example. [00:06:12] Chris: So that works for Japan. Not so well here.  [00:06:14] Leah: Well maybe their demographic is Japanese speakers in the US. Yeah, very niche.  [00:06:22] Chris: Yeah. . I think some people think it's going to be straightforward. It's going to be easier than it could be. What kinds of pain points do you see with some of the brands that you're managing? Is it just mostly costs, like rising costs of inventory, rising ads costs and so forth. Or are they just kind of unsure what their edge will be on competition and they haven't quite turned the corner on how to sell more units for their dollars? [00:06:47] Daniel: Yeah. A couple of things. So for, for D2C brands, one of the biggest pain points is attribution. Because these brands are spending a few million dollars on social media ads and influencer marketing and etc. So they have a lot of traffic that's being generated, a lot of brand aware traffic going on.  Which obviously is ending up on Amazon. So how do we actually know what the real role is, right? Because there is efforts being done outside of Amazon. We feel a lot of brands that are little worried, right. How to scale profitably if I may say because there's many ways to do it wrong, right? So I think that's another. One Last is for these brands that maybe, are not D2C, maybe they've been selling to distributors and all of that, almost guaranteed there's gonna be resellers on Amazon. And that is a problem because, this Japanese listing I was mentioning, the issue is because there's a reseller and they don't care much. They made a mistake or the Amazon system or whatnot. But we see a lot of inconsistencies on catalogs on the brand when big brands are selling through distributors and a lot of them are, because of that, wanting to go D2C. Which creates a huge project. It's very difficult to iron everything out, but you know, when on it, it can pay off tremendously. [00:08:12] Chris: And in terms of this year versus last year versus the year before, did you start working with some brands that their first year was like the covid year and they saw a huge impact and revenue was growing and easier and now they have to work a little bit more for it because more sellers. Of course, in the last two years coming in, more sellers are coming in all the time. But it's not quite what it was a couple of years ago. Have you gone through pain points like that with some of your clients?  [00:08:40] Daniel: Definitely. And you mentioned it something about cost per clicks going up. That's a real thing. And what we have seen is that because of the pandemic, it drove so much shopping activity to e-commerce. I mean, basically the whole retail sector switched to e-commerce, brands had a phenomenal year or couple of years. But as retail stores started to open back up, right?  The traffic, retail traffic went back to normal somewhat. But then there is these sellers, these brands sitting on tons of stock because they bought, based on projecting that this craziness will continue. So one of the biggest challenges we see is, okay, how do we move product, oversupply of product profitably or somewhat efficiently, right? That's one of the challenges that we've been dealing with and also because there is this oversupply of stock and arguably demand on Amazon went down a little bit last Q4, right? I think the first year that Amazon just had like a little, like tip down. There are some solutions for that.  [00:09:46] Leah: Yeah. I think also because Bloomberg yesterday published an article about how this is the first year that Amazon is essentially taking about 50% of sellers revenues by the time you calculate ad spend and all of the fees associated with it, you're only really getting 50% of your revenue on Amazon. So, if you have too much inventory and not rising costs that's a tough spot to be in.  [00:10:06] Daniel: Yeah. So Amazon is love and hate, right? And there's brilliant people working there and they know what's going on and I think they've been very prolific with their advertising products. They've launched new ways of targeting customers. For example, right now, what we are doing a lot of is CPC is a common term, stands for cost per click. That's what advertising has been based off of for many years on Amazon. Recently they launched something called vCPM. Which basically means instead of paying per click, you're paying per thousand impressions. This is something that has been available on platforms like Facebook and whatnot. Yeah. We're noticing that we're getting cheaper clicks by adopting these new options from Amazon, and I think they're being so prolific to bring the cost per click down temporarily, right? Because when the avalanche of sellers come and adopt one of these new methods or targeting options, et cetera, obviously the clicks, become more expensive, right? My advice, what we're doing with clients is adopting these vCPM there's a new sponsored display video ads, which right now, also at the beginning, they tend to be cheaper. So few things to take advantage of.  [00:11:22] Chris: And any other words of advice for brands out there that are new to Amazon or looking at the year ahead in terms of planning for Q3, Q4 planning for Prime Day? If you had to give one big piece of. To brands in 2023 for the rest of this year, what would it be?  [00:11:44] Daniel: I would say to mind more the curation of what gets sent to Amazon. To really, really reserve Amazon to those hero SKUs. In the past, Amazon was very friendly with restock limits and we could pretty much send everything to Amazon. But going forward, Amazon has realized that their warehousing is a very expensive part of their business, so they want quick turnover. So I think this year, really the focus should be on the top 25 SKUs or top half SKUs via FBA. And I think FBM will probably make a little bit of a comeback. [00:12:21] Leah: I think it already is.  [00:12:24] Daniel: It's trendy right? Right now?  [00:12:25] Leah: Yeah. It's climbing. It's climbing again. Yeah. Because Amazon isn't building as many warehouses now. I mean, they were in manufacture or construction overdrive before the pandemic even started. And then they doubled down during the pandemic as well, and then they pulled it all in 2022.  [00:12:41] Daniel: Yeah. So I would say don't overlook FBM would be the other piece of advice and the last one is Amazon is pay to play. Right? It's really allocating that budget, to be able to get exposure.  The days of reliance simply on organic ranking is no longer there. Advertisement or paid media sales, and then organic sales. There should be a strategy that implements or applies both. [00:13:06] Chris: Great. Thanks. And I guess we might not see you at the Prosper show. Maybe we'll connect with you at one of the South Florida Wizards of Ecom events in the next few months. Where can people reach you if they have questions or wanna hear more about your agency?  [00:13:20] Daniel: Yeah, definitely. And I hope to see you, here in south Florida. So my company is a AMZ Clever. We have a website, LinkedIn, everything. But really to anybody listening, I invite you to send me a direct email, at Daniel@amzclever.com.  Great. Sounds good. We'll catch up with you next time. Thanks everybody for listening to Seller Performance Solutions. Thank you, Leah, and have a great day.

Growing Your Brand on Amaozn with Daniel Fernandez

[00:00:07] Chris: Hello everybody, this is Chris McCabe. Welcome back to Seller Performance Solutions. I'm here once again with Leah McHugh, and today we are talking about something distressing we've seen happen very recently. There seems to be multiple pieces to it that Leah's going to unpack in a second.But we're hearing about people having inventory suddenly declared as defective and unsellable. They're trying to reach FBA teams, they're trying to reach account health teams. A lot of confusion, a lot of chaos. We're getting these contacts from Amazon brands almost every other day, or what is it every day now.So, some of it seems tied to product recalls that may be real or imaginary. I wanted to start with that piece first because I know we had talked in the past about abuse cases where there was no product recall. Somebody just made this complaint to Amazon. Amazon warned the seller, took their listing down. That was for invalid complaints about fake product recalls. So I wanna make sure that we clarify the real recalls from the fake ones. So can you start there in terms of the legitimate ones that you've seen so far?[00:01:14] Leah: Yeah. Well, so first I think we should probably start with what defective actually means in Amazon speak because I think that is where people get confused in terms of the recall thing.Defective within Amazon doesn't mean damaged. It means that there's something wrong with the product, making it unsellable such as a recall or if the product doesn't match the description that was given to customers. So I think the reason why sometimes people are getting messaging with the term recall in it is because the defective is the status that inventory goes into if there's a recall. And then recall doesn't necessarily mean government recall. It can also just mean a safety issue with Amazon and they've just put it in defective status to make sure nobody else gets those products. And so I think that's where people are getting confused because defective doesn't mean damaged, it's different. It's a different term, it's a different status. Both are unfillable, but one is like defective, doesn't mean damaged. And I think another reason that people are upset and it makes sense for them to be upset. Is that what we're seeing in a lot of the cases in the last week or so, is that all of their inventory for an ASIN gets moved to defective. So it's pretty standard that you'll get like one or two pieces moved to defective sometimes, but they're seeing whatever the amount of inventory there is for that ASIN being moved into defective status and so sometimes, you know, that might just be like 10 pieces if that's all you have left but we we're also seeing where it's like tens of thousands of units that have suddenly been moved into defective inventory. [00:02:44] Chris: And it's good that we're defining our terms. So we will never confuse defective with damaged because damaged inventory is, you know, people file reimbursement requests for that.[00:02:54] Leah: Or it gets damaged in the warehouse.[00:02:56] Chris: And this has nothing to do with that. A lot of people I've talked to, go in the voice of the customer, they go into return reasons. They look deep on ASIN level data, and they don't see any history of defective item complaints, and that really alarms them because it looks like they're being attacked by a competitor or it's a straight up, crazy mistake by Amazon. But a lot of people are trying to divine the origin of these. What are the cause? Of, like you said, having thousands of units quarantined in this unsellable status. I think the one I started working on last night was 9,000 units. I mean, this is not, like you said, this isn't 10 or 12 or 14 pieces.[00:03:38] Leah: Right. You're looking at potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of inventory that's suddenly been moved to defective. And another thing to also note, which is another reason why I think they maybe get confused with the recall, is that if the inventory is in defective status, FBA won't check that inventory for you. Where if it's damaged, you can request a bin check If it's defective and you call FBA and you're like, Hey, how come all of my inventory is moved into defective? They'll be like, we don't know. But the only way to get it out of defective is to remove it all from FBA, check it and then send it back in. So first of all, don't do that unless like you actually know that your inventory is defective. [00:04:18] Chris: We're assuming nobody would do that as their first option.[00:04:22] Leah: Right, but FBA won't check it for you. So you can't be like, Hey, this seems incorrect. Can you go physically look at that inventory?They won't do it. And they will also tell you that their tools cannot move it from defective back into sellable. Which I'm sure is true. I'm sure their tools won't let them do that. But their solution for you is to have all of the inventory returned to you, check it, and then send it back in.And like, obviously if you have hundreds of thousands of units or whatever, you're not going to want to do that. [00:04:52] Chris: Well, and you kept talking, this is a little bit different, but you kept talking to people and you did a lot of digging in research in terms of Amazon reps were calling different FBA warehouses because Amazon wouldn't remove the items, right? For legitimate recalls even.[00:05:10] Leah: Well, yeah. I mean that is where there is an actual recall present and the inventory should be in defective status. So that's a little bit different than what we're talking about here. We are kind of talking about and what we've seen in the last few weeks is really inventory that isn't defective being marked as defective.And I've seen that come in one of two ways. One way is when an ASIN has been suspended, the inventory goes into stranded and then we've seen it quite a few times in the last week where once the ASIN gets reinstated, the inventory gets stuck in defective, even though the ASIN has been fully reinstated.And you talk to account health and account health are like, there's nothing on your account that says that those units should have been moved to defective. But we can't talk to FBA. But, so we saw that quite a few times where the ASIN was reinstated, but then the inventory was stuck in defective and nobody could tell you why and nobody could get it fixed.We did get it fixed. If you have a SAM that's probably like the quickest kind of route to get it resolved. But, and then with the other way that we've been seeing it is just totally normal active ASINs, just suddenly having all inventory removed into defective unfillable status.And I think with the reinstatement ones, I was like, oh, well this just seems like a glitch with the tools. But when it's just kind of happening outta nowhere based on nothing, then it's like, okay, well now this is probably an abuse tactic, unfortunately. [00:06:31] Chris: Well, so what are people doing wrong, so opening cases with support, We've seen examples of what kind of messaging they get back calling into account health reps. I mean, what are people going to try initially before trying to fix it the proper way? [00:06:45] Leah: Yeah. So it's Account health and FBA, Account health can't access FBA and will refuse to help you because according to them, this has nothing to do with your account health and they just can't talk to the FBA team.And then the FBA team, like I said, are just going to tell you that they can't check the inventory and they can't change the status and you have to remove the inventory and send it back in. So really the only way that we've found to get this resolved is to escalate it. [00:07:07] Chris: So there's escalating with internal cases, obviously there's, from my way of thinking, you're treating this like you would almost an account suspension. Or I mean maybe not doing reinstatement appeals per se, but you are sending email escalations, right? [00:07:22] Leah: Yeah, because it's one of those things which Amazon doesn't really excel at, where multiple teams are required to fix it.So just contacting FBA, they can't do anything. Account health can't do anything. You need to get it to somebody within an escalation queue because they have the ability to communicate with multiple teams. [00:07:43] Chris: And keep in mind we say this a lot on the podcast take with a grain of salt, what you hear from account health reps when you call them, which inevitably people will, or seller support. If you're directed to seller support about this. I've heard that somebody called, somebody that I talked to called Account Health and they said, well, I think this product is the subject of a recall, but there's nothing annotated on the account that says who initiated the recall, or you better contact the manufacturer to find out if there's a product recall.[00:08:12] Leah: And of course, this particular person said, we are the manufacturer, so we know there's no recall. Right. And I can kind of understand where account health could be thinking that, because again, if defective means potentially subject to a recall and all of their inventory has been marked as defective. It would make sense to think that, oh, this must be subject to a recall. I mean, the fact that they are actually saying that there aren't any notes is helpful because if it isn't actually subject to a recall, because recall can also mean a recall by Amazon. And we have seen that in the past where a government recall isn't required, but part of the reinstatement process is that Amazon requires you to remove all of the current inventory from their warehouses before reinstatement. A good way to test whether your product is subject to a recall or not with an Amazon system, is open up a merchant fulfilled offer on that ASIN and if you're allowed to do merchant fulfilled, probably not subject to a recall.[00:09:04] Chris: Any, any last thoughts on this particular topic in terms of info you can scrape together people or questions you can be asking. [00:09:15] Leah: Yeah. The main thing is just you need to push, you need to push for an escalation if you have the strategic account manager, that's a very easy way to raise an internal escalation. If you're working with someone like me or Chris, we can obviously help with the escalations. If you have absolutely no idea how to escalate to anybody..[00:09:31] Chris: Ask, before you start escalating.[00:09:33] Leah: Well, but I mean, even just within the FBA requesting that that team escalates it for you, can actually work. It'll probably be a little bit slower than if you had a different sort of escalation, but I actually usually will do that simultaneous to another escalation. So you kind of have it being escalated from multiple angles to potentially get it looked at a little bit faster.And also you know, one team just sometimes is less busy than the other team and so you get a quicker response. So I like to do both. I like to push the FBA team for an internal escalation. If there's a SAM, push a SAM for an internal escalation and then escalate it to whoever escalating to in that particular week that we're dealing with the issue.[00:10:14] Chris: Well said, the reason I asked was because inevitably people will write to the Jeff Amazon email and start barking at executive seller relations.[00:10:22] Leah: I mean, it does still sometimes work. [00:10:23] Chris: Saying but not as much as it used to. Not nearly as often.  Is that just enough to get the ball rolling and then you handle it differently elsewhere?Because I think the expectation when people write to Jeff nowadays is it goes to executive seller relations and it gets fixed by that team without many more escalations, many more follow ups. They expect that to be the result that they're looking for. Is that hopeless?[00:10:48] Leah: It depends on the issue. I mean, I think in my experience recently, executive seller relations certainly doesn't have the access and the ability that it had, say, 12 months ago. But I mean, for issues like this, executive seller relations should be equipped enough to assist. The only thing is like everybody's emailing Jeff, right?So you're probably gonna be waiting longer for action via that channel than any of the other channels. So, I mean, yeah, it does still work sometimes, but it is what it is. It's there and it's well known and a lot of garbage gets sent to it.[00:11:19] Chris: That's the thing. You're at the back of a long line. It doesn't necessarily get prioritized and many of the people we're hearing from have thousands and thousands of units pushed into unsellable. [00:11:28] Leah: And a lot of times it's their best selling ASIN. So you don't really wanna be rating around weeks for resolution on that.[00:11:34] Chris: Oh, for sure. The one I'm working on right now is their top selling ASIN. [00:11:38] Leah: Isn't it interesting how when it's potentially abuse, it's always the best selling ASIN? [00:11:42] Chris: Not a coincidence. So I should probably wrap this up and get back to working on that particular case.But in the meantime, any questions about randomly assigned defective units or unsellable inventory? Ask Leah because as she's demonstrated this podcast episode, she knows all about this and I'm still catching up. Thanks again for listening, everybody.

[00:00:07] Chris: Hello everybody, this is Chris McCabe. Welcome back to Seller Performance Solutions. I'm here once again with Leah McHugh, and today we are talking about something distressing we've seen happen very recently. There seems to be multiple pieces to it that Leah's going to unpack in a second. But we're hearing about people having inventory suddenly declared as defective and unsellable. They're trying to reach FBA teams, they're trying to reach account health teams. A lot of confusion, a lot of chaos. We're getting these contacts from Amazon brands almost every other day, or what is it every day now. So, some of it seems tied to product recalls that may be real or imaginary. I wanted to start with that piece first because I know we had talked in the past about abuse cases where there was no product recall. Somebody just made this complaint to Amazon. Amazon warned the seller, took their listing down. That was for invalid complaints about fake product recalls. So I wanna make sure that we clarify the real recalls from the fake ones. So can you start there in terms of the legitimate ones that you've seen so far? [00:01:14] Leah: Yeah. Well, so first I think we should probably start with what defective actually means in Amazon speak because I think that is where people get confused in terms of the recall thing. Defective within Amazon doesn't mean damaged. It means that there's something wrong with the product, making it unsellable such as a recall or if the product doesn't match the description that was given to customers. So I think the reason why sometimes people are getting messaging with the term recall in it is because the defective is the status that inventory goes into if there's a recall. And then recall doesn't necessarily mean government recall. It can also just mean a safety issue with Amazon and they've just put it in defective status to make sure nobody else gets those products. And so I think that's where people are getting confused because defective doesn't mean damaged, it's different. It's a different term, it's a different status. Both are unfillable, but one is like defective, doesn't mean damaged. And I think another reason that people are upset and it makes sense for them to be upset. Is that what we're seeing in a lot of the cases in the last week or so, is that all of their inventory for an ASIN gets moved to defective. So it's pretty standard that you'll get like one or two pieces moved to defective sometimes, but they're seeing whatever the amount of inventory there is for that ASIN being moved into defective status and so sometimes, you know, that might just be like 10 pieces if that's all you have left but we we're also seeing where it's like tens of thousands of units that have suddenly been moved into defective inventory.  [00:02:44] Chris: And it's good that we're defining our terms. So we will never confuse defective with damaged because damaged inventory is, you know, people file reimbursement requests for that. [00:02:54] Leah: Or it gets damaged in the warehouse. [00:02:56] Chris: And this has nothing to do with that. A lot of people I've talked to, go in the voice of the customer, they go into return reasons. They look deep on ASIN level data, and they don't see any history of defective item complaints, and that really alarms them because it looks like they're being attacked by a competitor or it's a straight up, crazy mistake by Amazon. But a lot of people are trying to divine the origin of these. What are the cause? Of, like you said, having thousands of units quarantined in this unsellable status. I think the one I started working on last night was 9,000 units. I mean, this is not, like you said, this isn't 10 or 12 or 14 pieces. [00:03:38] Leah: Right. You're looking at potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of inventory that's suddenly been moved to defective. And another thing to also note, which is another reason why I think they maybe get confused with the recall, is that if the inventory is in defective status, FBA won't check that inventory for you. Where if it's damaged, you can request a bin check If it's defective and you call FBA and you're like, Hey, how come all of my inventory is moved into defective? They'll be like, we don't know. But the only way to get it out of defective is to remove it all from FBA, check it and then send it back in.  So first of all, don't do that unless like you actually know that your inventory is defective.  [00:04:18] Chris: We're assuming nobody would do that as their first option. [00:04:22] Leah: Right, but FBA won't check it for you. So you can't be like, Hey, this seems incorrect. Can you go physically look at that inventory? They won't do it. And they will also tell you that their tools cannot move it from defective back into sellable. Which I'm sure is true. I'm sure their tools won't let them do that. But their solution for you is to have all of the inventory returned to you, check it, and then send it back in. And like, obviously if you have hundreds of thousands of units or whatever, you're not going to want to do that.  [00:04:52] Chris: Well, and you kept talking, this is a little bit different, but you kept talking to people and you did a lot of digging in research in terms of Amazon reps were calling different FBA warehouses because Amazon wouldn't remove the items, right? For legitimate recalls even. [00:05:10] Leah: Well, yeah. I mean that is where there is an actual recall present and the inventory should be in defective status. So that's a little bit different than what we're talking about here. We are kind of talking about and what we've seen in the last few weeks is really inventory that isn't defective being marked as defective. And I've seen that come in one of two ways. One way is when an ASIN has been suspended, the inventory goes into stranded and then we've seen it quite a few times in the last week where once the ASIN gets reinstated, the inventory gets stuck in defective, even though the ASIN has been fully reinstated. And you talk to account health and account health are like, there's nothing on your account that says that those units should have been moved to defective. But we can't talk to FBA. But, so we saw that quite a few times where the ASIN was reinstated, but then the inventory was stuck in defective and nobody could tell you why and nobody could get it fixed. We did get it fixed. If you have a SAM that's probably like the quickest kind of route to get it resolved. But, and then with the other way that we've been seeing it is just totally normal active ASINs, just suddenly having all inventory removed into defective unfillable status. And I think with the reinstatement ones, I was like, oh, well this just seems like a glitch with the tools. But when it's just kind of happening outta nowhere based on nothing, then it's like, okay, well now this is probably an abuse tactic, unfortunately.  [00:06:31] Chris: Well, so what are people doing wrong, so opening cases with support, We've seen examples of what kind of messaging they get back calling into account health reps. I mean, what are people going to try initially before trying to fix it the proper way?  [00:06:45] Leah: Yeah. So it's Account health and FBA, Account health can't access FBA and will refuse to help you because according to them, this has nothing to do with your account health and they just can't talk to the FBA team. And then the FBA team, like I said, are just going to tell you that they can't check the inventory and they can't change the status and you have to remove the inventory and send it back in. So really the only way that we've found to get this resolved is to escalate it.  [00:07:07] Chris: So there's escalating with internal cases, obviously there's, from my way of thinking, you're treating this like you would almost an account suspension. Or I mean maybe not doing reinstatement appeals per se, but you are sending email escalations, right?  [00:07:22] Leah: Yeah, because it's one of those things which Amazon doesn't really excel at, where multiple teams are required to fix it. So just contacting FBA, they can't do anything. Account health can't do anything. You need to get it to somebody within an escalation queue because they have the ability to communicate with multiple teams.  [00:07:43] Chris: And keep in mind we say this a lot on the podcast take with a grain of salt, what you hear from account health reps when you call them, which inevitably people will, or seller support.  If you're directed to seller support about this. I've heard that somebody called, somebody that I talked to called Account Health and they said, well, I think this product is the subject of a recall, but there's nothing annotated on the account that says who initiated the recall, or you better contact the manufacturer to find out if there's a product recall. [00:08:12] Leah: And of course, this particular person said, we are the manufacturer, so we know there's no recall. Right. And I can kind of understand where account health could be thinking that, because again, if defective means potentially subject to a recall and all of their inventory has been marked as defective.  It would make sense to think that, oh, this must be subject to a recall. I mean, the fact that they are actually saying that there aren't any notes is helpful because if it isn't actually subject to a recall, because recall can also mean a recall by Amazon. And we have seen that in the past where a government recall isn't required, but part of the reinstatement process is that Amazon requires you to remove all of the current inventory from their warehouses before reinstatement. A good way to test whether your product is subject to a recall or not with an Amazon system, is open up a merchant fulfilled offer on that ASIN and if you're allowed to do merchant fulfilled, probably not subject to a recall. [00:09:04] Chris: Any, any last thoughts on this particular topic in terms of info you can scrape together people or questions you can be asking.  [00:09:15] Leah: Yeah. The main thing is just you need to push, you need to push for an escalation if you have the strategic account manager, that's a very easy way to raise an internal escalation. If you're working with someone like me or Chris, we can obviously help with the escalations. If you have absolutely no idea how to escalate to anybody.. [00:09:31] Chris: Ask, before you start escalating. [00:09:33] Leah: Well, but I mean, even just within the FBA requesting that that team escalates it for you, can actually work. It'll probably be a little bit slower than if you had a different sort of escalation, but I actually usually will do that simultaneous to another escalation. So you kind of have it being escalated from multiple angles to potentially get it looked at a little bit faster. And also you know, one team just sometimes is less busy than the other team and so you get a quicker response. So I like to do both. I like to push the FBA team for an internal escalation. If there's a SAM, push a SAM for an internal escalation and then escalate it to whoever escalating to in that particular week that we're dealing with the issue. [00:10:14] Chris: Well said, the reason I asked was because inevitably people will write to the Jeff Amazon email and start barking at executive seller relations. [00:10:22] Leah: I mean, it does still sometimes work.  [00:10:23] Chris: Saying but not as much as it used to. Not nearly as often.   Is that just enough to get the ball rolling and then you handle it differently elsewhere? Because I think the expectation when people write to Jeff nowadays is it goes to executive seller relations and it gets fixed by that team without many more escalations, many more follow ups. They expect that to be the result that they're looking for. Is that hopeless? [00:10:48] Leah: It depends on the issue. I mean, I think in my experience recently, executive seller relations certainly doesn't have the access and the ability that it had, say, 12 months ago. But I mean, for issues like this, executive seller relations should be equipped enough to assist. The only thing is like everybody's emailing Jeff, right? So you're probably gonna be waiting longer for action via that channel than any of the other channels. So, I mean, yeah, it does still work sometimes, but it is what it is. It's there and it's well known and a lot of garbage gets sent to it. [00:11:19] Chris: That's the thing. You're at the back of a long line. It doesn't necessarily get prioritized and many of the people we're hearing from have thousands and thousands of units pushed into unsellable.  [00:11:28] Leah: And a lot of times it's their best selling ASIN. So you don't really wanna be rating around weeks for resolution on that. [00:11:34] Chris: Oh, for sure. The one I'm working on right now is their top selling ASIN.  [00:11:38] Leah: Isn't it interesting how when it's potentially abuse, it's always the best selling ASIN?  [00:11:42] Chris: Not a coincidence. So I should probably wrap this up and get back to working on that particular case. But in the meantime, any questions about randomly assigned defective units or unsellable inventory? Ask Leah because as she's demonstrated this podcast episode, she knows all about this and I'm still catching up. Thanks again for listening, everybody.

Is All Your Inventory Defective?

[00:00:07] Leah: Hello Amazon Sellers, welcome to this episode of Seller Performance Solutions. I am Leah McHugh, and I am here as always with the ecommercechris, Chris McCabe, and today we are also speaking with Laura McCaul of Sponsored Profit. Hi Laura. [00:00:25] Laura: Hi. [00:00:25] Chris: Hey Laura.[00:00:26] Laura: Happy New Year. [00:00:27] Leah: Happy New Year. Thanks for joining us. So we had had a really interesting conversation. I wanna say like a while ago now, a few months ago about, you know, Chris and I are always harping on people kind of wasting money on black hat tactics to get reviews or to rank as quickly as possible using some maybe not so great tactics to trick Amazon into thinking that their pro products are popular and you had said they could easily spend that same money on ads and one get a better result. And two, it's a result that Amazon's never going to penalize you for or take away from you. [00:01:04] Laura: Correct. [00:01:05] Chris: And I had a second part to that comment, which is just when did this change? Amazon made more data available, I wanna say six months ago.You would know the month better than I would, but that seems to have been the impetus and the driving point forward with the host strategy that you were talking about. So when was the fundamental shift or change in your view? [00:01:27] Laura: Yeah, good question. And yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me. So we that we can talk about this because I think it's really important just to kind of backtrack a little bit just on what Leah said first in terms of, you know, how sellers, how do they now launch products in a compliant way. Because, number one, as a PPC agency, we've always used PPP C to launch products and to rank products. Right?  That's always been the compliant way to launch products. It's just in years gone by there were other methods that you've just mentioned that kind of gamed the system a little bit, that kind of tricked the algorithm. And so, to part answer your question, Chris, around, I think it was October 2021, when those really big changes in terms of service, came down the line in respect to rebates and search, find, buy and all that kind of stuff. I think that's when the fear and the panic kind of set in for sellers in terms of, well, how do we launch products now going forward? And so, again, as a PPC agency, PPC has always been our go-to launch strategy.It's just perhaps the appetite or the openness of sellers to kind of embrace that has taken a little bit of time to catch up. And it's always bemused us a little bit that when it comes to launching products, sellers wouldn't give a second thought to spending a bunch of money on giveaways and essentially giving away thousands of units of inventory, but have a conversation with a ppc agency and talk about investing in ads. And it's like, Ooh, no, I don't want to do that. It's just like, but there is another way you can do this. And it's totally legit. But in terms of when I guess our launch strategy and essentially now it's become our growth strategy sort of really took a further kind of leap forward, was your right Chris, sort of towards the backend of last year when Amazon started making a bunch of new reports and data available to us in brand metrics, in brand analytics, search query performance. And so what that has kind of given us is it's given us more granular level data that really allows us to see where does a fit in terms of its true position in a category from a brand perspective and then we have reports that in search query performance that shows us, how do products convert on specific search terms compared to competing ASINs. There's the search term impression report that shows well what percentage share of impressions does a particular product have for a particular search term. So all of a sudden now you can see are we leaving money on the table or have we kind of maxed out our ad sales with these search terms, we convert great, we sell a premium product. Well, let's look at the data.The data would suggest actually, you know, on certain search terms, you don't compete or you don't rather convert that well, we've always had unit session percentage as a metric. But we know that that's not really kind of true conversion. It's based on the number of sessions. So again, there's more data available now that really kind of gives us a more accurate reflection on conversion.And then as I said, even on the brand side of things, we can kind of see, well, you know, what percentage of the market does a brand have or what percentage or that it's the purchase percentile, where do you sit in terms of, paid and organic sales? You're in the bottom 10 percentile or the top 90th percentile so all of a sudden now we've got all this data that just gives us some very objective data to kind of really pinpoint, okay, where do we sit and more importantly, where can we compete? [00:05:42] Chris: Where can you go? I mean, we are seeing more contacts from sellers. I have noticed more queries coming through our site about this in the last couple of months and it just made me think how many people are aware of it. You see all kinds of things posted on LinkedIn about this topic, but how much of it is real for lack of a better word. Do you think there's a lot of noise out there ever since they provided more data?And some of it's accurate and some of it's not, some of it's a service trying to capitalize on it and some of it is isn't? And do you think sellers are confused about what the opportunities really are? [00:06:28] Laura: Oh gosh. A lot to unpack there. I think ultimately, yes. I think there is a lot of talk around how accurate is that data. So obviously I I watch and listen to all the podcasts in and around Amazon PPC and the Amazon space in general. I would still go with some data is better than no data and we still have to test stuff, like nothing is bulletproof.But in terms of sellers, I still think the majority of sellers are unaware that this amount of data and information is available. I think that the clue is definitely in the names of these reports and the names of the dashboards. They have brand in them.  So this is really now Amazon again, pushing forward to become a platform of brands to offer customers the best possible customer experience, it's a branded experience and Amazon's still giving brands, private label brands, an opportunity to really set up their store on the platform and they're making all of this data available to help you level up your sales. I know Amazon PPC can kind of be the villain of the piece and I know sellers like to hate on PPC agencies and probably for good reason in some respects. But I mean, ultimately, and I'd like to get your take on this, Amazon has now become a paid to play platform.[00:07:55] Chris: We don't hear a lot of hatred of PPC. I think people understand that ads spend, I mean, call it whatever you want, necessary evil. Call it the rules of the game. I mean, this is a key function of being a seller and being a business owner.So we haven't heard too much complaining. I don't know Leah can speak to that, [00:08:21] Leah: If you hire the wrong person for anything to do with your business, there are gonna be complaints. I think in general, people are fine with spending money on ads.[00:08:29] Laura: Yeah. Maybe you're right. I mean, at this point, we got thick skin and we take the rough with the smooth, but I mean, I think yeah, of course it's a cost of doing business and if we just kind of pull back a little bit and look at what's happening on Amazon, Amazon is simply maturing as an advertising platform just like Facebook. They're just like Google did, right? And what happens, these platforms start out with great organic reach, more people come onto the platform. Competition starts to increase though, the platform starts to kind of pull back on that organic reach and all of a sudden now we have paid placements and then it becomes an advertising platform, first and foremost.I think, in terms of what this means for, for Amazon PPC, there's still a lot of opportunity for Amazon PPC I know that there does seem to be like a bit of a mad scramble to do all sorts of stuff off Amazon and I've got nothing against off Amazon traffic.But, Amazon still Has so much built in demand it's just how do we tap into it? It's just the rules of the game have changed a little bit. It's gotten more complex, it's gotten more expensive and so what that means, again, to kind of come back to the whole branding piece, perhaps, whereas before sellers didn't have to pay too much attention to their profit margins or to their reviews or to these kind of things. This stuff now makes you viable or not viable. And so because of that, how we see Amazon PPC changing is really now it's moved from just a means to drive pay traffic. But also now as a means to drive rank so you can grow your overall business.  And advertising isn't, and it's never been about just advertising one product. It's about growing your business in a profitable way. It's just as Amazon has become or rather, ads have become more expensive and the platform has become more competitive. It's just become a little bit more difficult to do, but it's not impossible. But it just means the strategies that worked, six months ago, 12 months ago, and certainly anything beyond that. They just don't work or certainly don't work as well, and so we just have to, I think look at Amazon PPC a little bit differently.We have to adjust our strategy accordingly, but we also need to start making the most that we can of all this additional data, because this is really, there's two things I think that are really critical, making the most of this additional data to make even better decisions because you need to spend those ad dollars wisely and so you need to make sure spending them on the right things in the right places at the right time. So that's one part. The other part which is equally important and again, is something that came out of last year, is Amazon experiments and the ability to split test and to always be kind of cranking up the conversion, because again, when clicks were really cheap, conversion was maybe something that, again, sellers and brand owners didn't pay a lot of attention to it. It's always been the low hanging fruit. It's always been the one thing that every 1% improvement in iteration you can make means that's an extra percentage of traffic that you weren't getting before, but now you're getting for the same spend. So I think now with Amazon experiments, always be testing, always be trying to improve your click through rate and to improve your conversion because, again that just means you're gonna get more out of your ad dollars and ultimately get more for your money. [00:12:14] Chris: We're always preaching about don't just marry yourself to one approach without paying attention to how times change. I mean this is a frequent subject on this podcast whether it's about appealed strategy for reinstating from a suspension or what you're talking about or many other things. [00:12:30] Leah: I had a quick question. Or actually two questions about using your host strategy as a launch strategy. Question number one, is a lot of, I would say one of the more prevalent launch strategies that we see sellers talking about is having to lower your price to basically less than cost in order to get your rank up there in the first place, and then you can slowly raise your prices. Is that something that you are doing as part of the host strategy or this that isn't necessary to do ? [00:12:57] Laura: I think it depends. I think certainly with new products, getting that initial visibility is really key. The conversion it is a key way to achieve that and so of course, launching with a price that is, it's like lost leaders, isn't it? It's like when you go to the pharmacy or something and you see the new products at the end of the aisle, right? I mean, they're launching them at a super competitive price because they kind of just wanna get some sales and to get some feedback from the market.So with new products, obviously if we can be super competitive on price or if we can use coupons or promotions to help. That obviously kind of gives the product a little bit more juice. And again, amazon isn't gonna have an issue with that in terms of, kind of ongoing, like how do we rank for keywords for existing products?You know, again, depending on the keyword, depending on the strategy, it shouldn't always be required because what we're doing is we're being very targeted on those search terms, based on the fact that we now have the data that says, we know we can convert better than the competition on this search term , which means we're gonna pay a lower cost per click. We're gonna convert and stick and therefore, price adjustment doesn't necessarily even come into that conversation. But certainly for new products to kind of get that initial love from the algorithm. Sure, it won't harm. But it's not a long-term strategy. You gotta make money. [00:14:26] Leah: Well, yeah. You can't have it below cost forever. And that actually leads very well into my second question. In terms of launching a product with this strategy, how long does it take to get that necessary data on the new product to then start ranking on the first page?[00:14:42] Laura: Yeah, It's always how long's a piece of string because it depends on the product and it depends on the category. So, at the moment, most of the testing that we've done has been with established products. And we're getting established products to page one in as little as three days.[00:14:59] Leah: Okay. Wow, that's awesome. [00:15:00] Chris: The three days is what caught my attention when Leah and I first talked about talking with you today.[00:15:06] Leah: It's hard to catch Chris's attention with ads talk. [00:15:09] Chris: Because I'm not a natural fit for an ads conversation. Usually we're talking with people about their listing gets suspended and how much they have to spend on ads to recover sales rank because sometimes they appealed it a few times before they approach us and like they lost time and money that way. And then the more time goes on they have to recoup sales rank by upping their ad spend, which is a wonderful conversation for another day. But when I heard the three days.I was like, I guess my first thought was does everyone know this? Or only a couple of us.[00:15:41] Laura: Sometimes it's easy to kind of operate your business in a little bit of a kind of bubble in a vacuum. So we started out, obviously with out existing clients and we always start out in a very kind of small way when we start testing and, and this is going back, I think the keywords that are as far back as like page seven. That's where we've got that in three days. And if it's page two, three or four, it can be faster. So yeah. But here's the the challenge with all the new data. So it's a little bit of a double edged sword as Amazon can be.So we've got all this data, but it's all in disparate places. So pulling the data and analyzing the data and then ultimately making the decisions. because the data we're looking at is, we're looking at conversion, we're looking at cost per clicks, we're looking at sales volume to to rank.So we're pulling together all this different data. We've built our own tech, we have done from day one and the advantage is, is that when we see opportunities like this, we're like, okay, what do we need to do to kind of update the tool to be able to help us with this specific task or strategy?And so, perhaps that's what's allowed us at least to kind of take a little bit of a jump on this IS that we've made some adjustments to our tool to be able to pull all this data together so then we can very quickly identify our high opportunity search terms and then it's just a matter of reallocating budget. But it's finding those search terms, cutting through that data. That's kind of the tricky part. But then as soon as we've got the, the search terms, and here's the interesting thing, it's taken that kind of 80-20 approach to what we do and when you've got those search terms that you can convert on, that you are profitable on, that is driving volume.It works very quickly and the difference it can make to your overall revenue, it moves the needle quite quickly. But it's pulling all that data together. So initially it was done manually and then we made some updates to our tool to help us do that. And that's what's given us a bit of a lead on it. [00:17:49] Leah: Awesome. That's amazing. So if people wanna reach out to you, what is the best way to reach you, Laura?Probably the best way to reach me is on LinkedIn or alternatively sponsoredprofit.com. You can schedule a call with me on the website.So yeah, the website or LinkedIn. Okay, great. And we'll put both of those links in the show notes. [00:18:08] Chris: Thanks again, Laura, for joining us. Thanks everyone for listening to Seller Performance Solutions, throughout this year into next, we're going to have other guests with other wonderful tips and strategies like this. stay tuned. We'll talk to you next time.

[00:00:07] Leah: Hello Amazon Sellers, welcome to this episode of Seller Performance Solutions. I am Leah McHugh, and I am here as always with the ecommercechris, Chris McCabe, and today we are also speaking with Laura McCaul of Sponsored Profit. Hi Laura.  [00:00:25] Laura: Hi.  [00:00:25] Chris: Hey Laura. [00:00:26] Laura: Happy New Year.  [00:00:27] Leah: Happy New Year. Thanks for joining us. So we had had a really interesting conversation. I wanna say like a while ago now, a few months ago about, you know, Chris and I are always harping on people kind of wasting money on black hat tactics to get reviews or to rank as quickly as possible using some maybe not so great tactics to trick Amazon into thinking that their pro products are popular and you had said they could easily spend that same money on ads and one get a better result. And two, it's a result that Amazon's never going to penalize you for or take away from you.  [00:01:04] Laura: Correct.  [00:01:05] Chris: And I had a second part to that comment, which is just when did this change? Amazon made more data available, I wanna say six months ago. You would know the month better than I would, but that seems to have been the impetus and the driving point forward with the host strategy that you were talking about. So when was the fundamental shift or change in your view?  [00:01:27] Laura: Yeah, good question. And yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me.  So we that we can talk about this because I think it's really important just to kind of backtrack a little bit just on what Leah said first in terms of, you know, how sellers, how do they now launch products in a compliant way. Because, number one, as a PPC agency, we've always used PPP C to launch products and to rank products. Right?   That's always been the compliant way to launch products. It's just in years gone by there were other methods that you've just mentioned that kind of gamed the system a little bit, that kind of tricked the algorithm. And so, to part answer your question, Chris, around, I think it was October 2021, when those really big changes in terms of service, came down the line in respect to rebates and search, find, buy and all that kind of stuff. I think that's when the fear and the panic kind of set in for sellers in terms of, well, how do we launch products now going forward? And so, again, as a PPC agency, PPC has always been our go-to launch strategy. It's just perhaps the appetite or the openness of sellers to kind of embrace that has taken a little bit of time to catch up. And it's always bemused us a little bit that when it comes to launching products, sellers wouldn't give a second thought to spending a bunch of money on giveaways and essentially giving away thousands of units of inventory, but have a conversation with a ppc agency and talk about investing in ads. And it's like, Ooh, no, I don't want to do that. It's just like, but there is another way you can do this. And it's totally legit. But in terms of when I guess our launch strategy and essentially now it's become our growth strategy sort of really took a further kind of leap forward, was your right Chris, sort of towards the backend of last year when Amazon started making a bunch of new reports and data available to us in brand metrics, in brand analytics, search query performance. And so what that has kind of given us is it's given us more granular level data that really allows us to see where does a fit in terms of its true position in a category from a brand perspective and then we have reports that in search query performance that shows us, how do products convert on specific search terms compared to competing ASINs. There's the search term impression report that shows well what percentage share of impressions does a particular product have for a particular search term. So all of a sudden now you can see are we leaving money on the table or have we kind of maxed out our ad sales with these search terms, we convert great, we sell a premium product. Well, let's look at the data. The data would suggest actually, you know, on certain search terms, you don't compete or you don't rather convert that well, we've always had unit session percentage as a metric. But we know that that's not really kind of true conversion. It's based on the number of sessions. So again, there's more data available now that really kind of gives us a more accurate reflection on conversion. And then as I said, even on the brand side of things, we can kind of see, well, you know, what percentage of the market does a brand have or what percentage or that it's the purchase percentile, where do you sit in terms of, paid and organic sales? You're in the bottom 10 percentile or the top 90th percentile so all of a sudden now we've got all this data that just gives us some very objective data to kind of really pinpoint, okay, where do we sit and more importantly, where can we compete?  [00:05:42] Chris: Where can you go? I mean, we are seeing more contacts from sellers. I have noticed more queries coming through our site about this in the last couple of months and it just made me think how many people are aware of it. You see all kinds of things posted on LinkedIn about this topic, but how much of it is real for lack of a better word. Do you think there's a lot of noise out there ever since they provided more data? And some of it's accurate and some of it's not, some of it's a service trying to capitalize on it and some of it is isn't? And do you think sellers are confused about what the opportunities really are?  [00:06:28] Laura: Oh gosh. A lot to unpack there. I think ultimately, yes. I think there is a lot of talk around how accurate is that data. So obviously I I watch and listen to all the podcasts in and around Amazon PPC and the Amazon space in general. I would still go with some data is better than no data and we still have to test stuff, like nothing is bulletproof. But in terms of sellers, I still think the majority of sellers are unaware that this amount of data and information is available. I think that the clue is definitely in the names of these reports and the names of the dashboards. They have brand in them.   So this is really now Amazon again, pushing forward to become a platform of brands to offer customers the best possible customer experience, it's a branded experience and Amazon's still giving brands, private label brands, an opportunity to really set up their store on the platform and they're making all of this data available to help you level up your sales. I know Amazon PPC can kind of be the villain of the piece and I know sellers like to hate on PPC agencies and probably for good reason in some respects. But I mean, ultimately, and I'd like to get your take on this, Amazon has now become a paid to play platform. [00:07:55] Chris: We don't hear a lot of hatred of PPC. I think people understand that ads spend, I mean, call it whatever you want, necessary evil. Call it the rules of the game. I mean, this is a key function of being a seller and being a business owner. So we haven't heard too much complaining. I don't know Leah can speak to that,  [00:08:21] Leah: If you hire the wrong person for anything to do with your business, there are gonna be complaints. I think in general, people are fine with spending money on ads. [00:08:29] Laura: Yeah. Maybe you're right. I mean, at this point, we got thick skin and we take the rough with the smooth, but I mean, I think yeah, of course it's a cost of doing business and if we just kind of pull back a little bit and look at what's happening on Amazon, Amazon is simply maturing as an advertising platform just like Facebook. They're just like Google did, right? And what happens, these platforms start out with great organic reach, more people come onto the platform. Competition starts to increase though, the platform starts to kind of pull back on that organic reach and all of a sudden now we have paid placements and then it becomes an advertising platform, first and foremost. I think, in terms of what this means for, for Amazon PPC, there's still a lot of opportunity for Amazon PPC I know that there does seem to be like a bit of a mad scramble to do all sorts of stuff off Amazon and I've got nothing against off Amazon traffic. But, Amazon still Has so much built in demand it's just how do we tap into it? It's just the rules of the game have changed a little bit. It's gotten more complex, it's gotten more expensive and so what that means, again, to kind of come back to the whole branding piece, perhaps, whereas before sellers didn't have to pay too much attention to their profit margins or to their reviews or to these kind of things. This stuff now makes you viable or not viable. And so because of that, how we see Amazon PPC changing is really now it's moved from just a means to drive pay traffic. But also now as a means to drive rank so you can grow your overall business.   And advertising isn't, and it's never been about just advertising one product. It's about growing your business in a profitable way. It's just as Amazon has become or rather, ads have become more expensive and the platform has become more competitive. It's just become a little bit more difficult to do, but it's not impossible.  But it just means the strategies that worked, six months ago, 12 months ago, and certainly anything beyond that. They just don't work or certainly don't work as well, and so we just have to, I think look at Amazon PPC a little bit differently. We have to adjust our strategy accordingly, but we also need to start making the most that we can of all this additional data, because this is really, there's two things I think that are really critical, making the most of this additional data to make even better decisions because you need to spend those ad dollars wisely and so you need to make sure spending them on the right things in the right places at the right time. So that's one part. The other part which is equally important and again, is something that came out of last year, is Amazon experiments and the ability to split test and to always be kind of cranking up the conversion, because again, when clicks were really cheap, conversion was maybe something that, again, sellers and brand owners didn't pay a lot of attention to it. It's always been the low hanging fruit. It's always been the one thing that every 1% improvement in iteration you can make means that's an extra percentage of traffic that you weren't getting before, but now you're getting for the same spend. So I think now with Amazon experiments, always be testing, always be trying to improve your click through rate and to improve your conversion because, again that just means you're gonna get more out of your ad dollars and ultimately get more for your money.  [00:12:14] Chris: We're always preaching about don't just marry yourself to one approach without paying attention to how times change. I mean this is a frequent subject on this podcast whether it's about appealed strategy for reinstating from a suspension or what you're talking about or many other things.  [00:12:30] Leah: I had a quick question. Or actually two questions about using your host strategy as a launch strategy. Question number one, is a lot of, I would say one of the more prevalent launch strategies that we see sellers talking about is having to lower your price to basically less than cost in order to get your rank up there in the first place, and then you can slowly raise your prices. Is that something that you are doing as part of the host strategy or this that isn't necessary to do ?  [00:12:57] Laura: I think it depends. I think certainly with new products, getting that initial visibility is really key. The conversion it is a key way to achieve that and so of course, launching with a price that is, it's like lost leaders, isn't it? It's like when you go to the pharmacy or something and you see the new products at the end of the aisle, right? I mean, they're launching them at a super competitive price because they kind of just wanna get some sales and to get some feedback from the market. So with new products, obviously if we can be super competitive on price or if we can use coupons or promotions to help. That obviously kind of gives the product a little bit more juice. And again, amazon isn't gonna have an issue with that in terms of, kind of ongoing, like how do we rank for keywords for existing products? You know, again, depending on the keyword, depending on the strategy, it shouldn't always be required because what we're doing is we're being very targeted on those search terms, based on the fact that we now have the data that says, we know we can convert better than the competition on this search term , which means we're gonna pay a lower cost per click. We're gonna convert and stick and therefore, price adjustment doesn't necessarily even come into that conversation. But certainly for new products to kind of get that initial love from the algorithm. Sure, it won't harm. But it's not a long-term strategy. You gotta make money.  [00:14:26] Leah: Well, yeah. You can't have it below cost forever. And that actually leads very well into my second question. In terms of launching a product with this strategy, how long does it take to get that necessary data on the new product to then start ranking on the first page? [00:14:42] Laura: Yeah, It's always how long's a piece of string because it depends on the product and it depends on the category. So, at the moment, most of the testing that we've done has been with established products. And we're getting established products to page one in as little as three days. [00:14:59] Leah: Okay. Wow, that's awesome.  [00:15:00] Chris: The three days is what caught my attention when Leah and I first talked about talking with you today. [00:15:06] Leah: It's hard to catch Chris's attention with ads talk.  [00:15:09] Chris: Because I'm not a natural fit for an ads conversation. Usually we're talking with people about their listing gets suspended and how much they have to spend on ads to recover sales rank because sometimes they appealed it a few times before they approach us and like they lost time and money that way. And then the more time goes on they have to recoup sales rank by upping their ad spend, which is a wonderful conversation for another day. But when I heard the three days. I was like, I guess my first thought was does everyone know this? Or only a couple of us. [00:15:41] Laura: Sometimes it's easy to kind of operate your business in a little bit of a kind of bubble in a vacuum. So we started out, obviously with out existing clients and we always start out in a very kind of small way when we start testing and, and this is going back, I think the keywords that are as far back as like page seven. That's where we've got that in three days. And if it's page two, three or four, it can be faster. So yeah. But here's the the challenge with all the new data. So it's a little bit of a double edged sword as Amazon can be. So we've got all this data, but it's all in disparate places. So pulling the data and analyzing the data and then ultimately making the decisions. because the data we're looking at is, we're looking at conversion, we're looking at cost per clicks, we're looking at sales volume to to rank. So we're pulling together all this different data. We've built our own tech, we have done from day one and the advantage is, is that when we see opportunities like this, we're like, okay, what do we need to do to kind of update the tool to be able to help us with this specific task or strategy? And so, perhaps that's what's allowed us at least to kind of take a little bit of a jump on this IS that we've made some adjustments to our tool to be able to pull all this data together so then we can very quickly identify our high opportunity search terms and then it's just a matter of reallocating budget.  But it's finding those search terms, cutting through that data. That's kind of the tricky part. But then as soon as we've got the, the search terms, and here's the interesting thing, it's taken that kind of 80-20 approach to what we do and when you've got those search terms that you can convert on, that you are profitable on, that is driving volume. It works very quickly and the difference it can make to your overall revenue, it moves the needle quite quickly. But it's pulling all that data together. So initially it was done manually and then we made some updates to our tool to help us do that. And that's what's given us a bit of a lead on it.  [00:17:49] Leah: Awesome. That's amazing. So if people wanna reach out to you, what is the best way to reach you, Laura? Probably the best way to reach me is on LinkedIn or alternatively <a href="http://sponsoredprofit.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sponsoredprofit.com</a>. You can schedule a call with me on the website. So yeah, the website or LinkedIn.  Okay, great. And we'll put both of those links in the show notes.  [00:18:08] Chris: Thanks again, Laura, for joining us. Thanks everyone for listening to Seller Performance Solutions, throughout this year into next, we're going to have other guests with other wonderful tips and strategies like this. stay tuned. We'll talk to you next time.

The Best Amazon Ads Launch Strategy with Laura McCaul

This is the definitive podcast that covers performance and policy teams from the perspective of a former Seller Performance team member, and former Amazon employee Chris McCabe. Leah McHugh nails down analysis of listing compliance violations and presents viable solutions to troubleshoot product takedowns. We created Seller Performance Solutions to help sellers better understand the inner workings of the team I worked on at Amazon, and to help 3rd party marketplace sellers cope with account and listing suspensions. We answer questions around things like, How does Seller Performance investigate a seller before taking them down? What do they need to see in an appeal, to reactivate the account for future selling? What are common mistakes that sellers make trying to get reinstated on Amazon?

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