Happy Hour, May 29, 2024: Amazon's New Return Options, Stricter Policies, and Ethical Sourcing

Join the fabulous Lesley Hensell and the amazing Kelly Johnston for another episode of Ask Us Anything!

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Chapters

• 2:15 Sellers can now choose to destroy returned items or have them sent back
• 8:36 Amazon recyclable envelopes
• 14:18 Amazon's social responsibility program and labor compliance
• 30:22 Who violates variation policy more than anyone else?
• 34:52 Amazon's unexpected removal of a long-time seller for a major brand
• 41:40 Amazon Global Logistics for shipping from China
• 49:11 Resolving incorrect categorization of an apparel brand
• 58:02 Appealing a deactivated Amazon account without a clear explanation of the violation
• 1:13:20 Selling consumables safely to prevent Amazon account deactivation

Transcript

Lesley [00:00:27] Hello. Hello everybody and welcome to Amazon seller happy Hour with me. Lesley. Hi. oh. I started a little too early, I think. Welcome again to Amazon. Seller have to work with me Lesley Hensell, co-founder of Riverbend Consulting and the bestest podcast partner on Planet Earth Kelly Johnston. Hi. Yes, director of operations here at Riverbend. Hey, Kelly.

Kelly [00:00:58] Hey, hey. Welcome back to both of us. It feels like it's been a million years. 

Lesley [00:01:02] It is. It's so good to be here. And we have so many questions from people. And, you know, I just I just have to start by saying Amazon is making a lot of changes to things lately. And when Kelly and I first started doing this, where we would answer people's questions and do to ask us anything, it was way back during Covid when like everyone else was doing podcast too, because let's face it, we were all lonely and sad, trapped in our homes. And so we started this happy hour and we would drink. And I haven't been doing that for a while, but yeah, thanks to Amazon. Oh this is really on their. Thanks. Thanks to Amazon. Come on. China. 

Kelly [00:01:50] It says no. 

Lesley [00:01:51] I don't need a feel the need to have a little drink today.

Kelly [00:01:55] I would be drinking something other than water today if I didn't have to go get my own dinner after this was over, because, unfortunately, my my personal chef, has a dinner date elsewhere, so. Yeah. No drinking for me. 

Lesley [00:02:08] That's not allowed. 

Kelly [00:02:09] Well, I know, but, you know. 

Lesley [00:02:10] Here you are.

Kelly [00:02:12] Cheers. Cheers to you, if I will. Cheers you with my water. 

Lesley [00:02:15] This is one more way that y'all can tell that I'm from Texas. So, like I had mentioned, we have lots of questions to get to, but first I thought we could chat for a little bit about some of the changes going on at Amazon. So let's start with something that's good and happy, because I know we don't always have a lot of those, things that are good and happy. So this good and happy thing is that for years sellers have wanted the option that when they had returns, that those returns would not be greeted by Amazon, but rather, when they went back to the FBA warehouse, you had the option of either just destroying them or having them return to you. That's finally happened. 

Kelly [00:03:03] What year is it again? 1998. Wait. Sorry. 

Lesley [00:03:07] They promised to this functionality. Yeah. 

Kelly [00:03:13] Ages ago. I mean, I remember talking about this in 2019. Maybe 2018. It's been a minute.

Lesley [00:03:19] Yeah, I think it's been longer than that. But they actually said that. They said they had some pilot program that then never happened. Like they invited people and then they didn't do it. And all kinds of things have happened. But here's why. This is a big deal. Amazon's so when you sell something FBA and then the customer turns, returns it to Amazon. Someone at the warehouse has to look at it and see if they can resell it or not. And in a perfect world, they would take some time, and they would look and make sure all the parts were there and it was still in good shape and the boxes still sealed and all those things. Well, y'all know everyone at Amazon has all these, like. Quotas. And so they have to, you know, flip through however many of these boxes every minute or every hour or whatever it and they don't know what your product looks like. They don't know if it was just in a bag, a poly bag, which I get stuff all the time. It's just in a poly bag. Or if it had a nice printed box or what they don't know. Why would they? So this. So they do really lousy job at returns grading, some of which is carelessness and rushing and some of which is just not their fault. So very exciting for sellers that now you can go in and you can even set it at an 81 level. So if there's some stuff you sell that it does just go in a poly bag. And so you're not worried cool at Amazon grade that for you. But if it's something with a lot of parts or it's something that Okay, so my favorite story for this, Kelly, is the clients. We've had people hair tools. 

Kelly [00:04:56] Yeah. 

Lesley [00:04:57] Yeah. So so people who sell, curling irons and hair straighteners, people will return those goods to Amazon. And they tried them out, didn't like them, and they put it back in the box. And then Amazon resells it with hair in it. Yep, yep. Which is just gross. And so then the next person who gets it, they write really nasty, reviews. They write really nasty things in feedback, which you can blame them because that's disgusting. But it was really the fault of the FBA return creating. It wasn't their fault. The seller. So this will prevent sellers from having to do quite so much work, having to clean that junk out of the warehouse. 

Kelly [00:05:36] Yeah, I think that's a it's a great innovation that, you know, it's a little past its prime in some ways, but still it's going to help people. I mean, it's better, better late than never, right? That's kind of the way I think of these things. I mean, we could argue all day long how how long that should have been in process, but the fact that it's here now. Good. 

Lesley [00:05:55] Yeah. I wonder if it'll actually happen. 

Kelly [00:05:58] Yeah. I mean, you never know. I mean. 

Lesley [00:06:01] That's the implementation seems very difficult. So that means when they scan it in, when they get it back, they have to look at the screen and it would tell them what to do with it. So you still got a lot of potential human error with people throwing stuff back into sellable or saying it's not sellable when it's supposed to be sellable. So there's still going to be errors, but but it'll still be better than it was. 

Kelly [00:06:26] Yeah. I mean, I think it's one of those things where I feel like having the option to do it, even if there, you know, there's never a guarantee of perfection anyway. But just having it is better than not having it. So. 

Lesley [00:06:40] So then, now we can talk about the bad parts. And good things. Well, and let's not downplay the good thing, because, I mean, there are people in certain categories who have long before this, like if you sell a supplement, yeah, you need it's not even supposed to be return and then it does return. And yeah, and if same for food, it gets returned. And so Amazon grants the return authorization. Right. And so you want that to just get destroyed when it goes back to Amazon. Because that will freak people out if you send them food that's been opened. And you know companies that have been open that's. 

Kelly [00:07:19] That's a nightmare. I mean, I buy stuff on Amazon is consumable all the time. And I'm of course, the first thing I think it's like when I open this box, what am I going to see? And lately what I've been seeing is a remarkable lack of dunnage. Oh, like they've just stopped putting anything in the places you've gotten anything with.

Lesley [00:07:34] Then it's because I haven't in a long time. 

Kelly [00:07:38] Okay, so yes, technically. I mean, if you want to say, like, you know, this paper.

Lesley [00:07:45] Right? It's not like that. 

Kelly [00:07:47] It's not like that. No, it's like literally like a piece of, like craft paper. That's it. No more inflatable baggies. Nothing. And I'm like, it's a no. It's no wonder that boxes are coming crushed and they're putting weird things together. But yeah. So anyway. 

Lesley [00:08:03] We actually got something was done yesterday. It was the little er pillows, but it was hilarious because the item was like this big and it was in a box for the big. And so they put. Yeah, it's like, why didn't you put it in a small box? I got it. 

Kelly [00:08:17] I got one of those big nice recyclable paper envelopes like this for AirPod knock knock, knock off that, you know, like offering this freaking big that. But really why did you do this? I mean, I can recycle those, and I use them in other things, but that's just dumb. 

Lesley [00:08:36] Okay. Can we talk about the Amazon recyclable envelopes though? Yeah. That you try and tear the strip off and then and then the strip breaks them. And so then when you tear it open, it's got all that stuff in it that goes everywhere. Y'all know what I'm talking about. It's almost like, it's like teeny wood chips or something. And they do all the. 

Kelly [00:08:56] I call them griddles. 

Lesley [00:08:58] It's so gross. So that's I so I, I will admit, I've been Amazon's best customer the last couple of months. Anyone who's watched our podcast, some video before might notice my office is a different color. Because we repainted our house and we, you know, we've been changing out light fixtures and buying lots of stuff that you use to repair things. We're trying to just do all that stuff and my goodness, the packaging. So in contrast, I bought some, decorative items from Williams-Sonoma. They actually pack things like they're supposed to arrive without being broken. Right. Isn't it beautifully in there? They they franken box everything so that it fits perfectly. 

Kelly [00:09:49] Like fashion. 

Lesley [00:09:49] Goals, which I appreciate because it's like fits perfectly. So I'm not into like bouncing around in the boxes. So any who. It's just the contrast of things that are like carefully nested. Yeah. So onto the bad Amazon news that that no one wants to hear, but you need to know about. So thing number one is very subtle, and that is, any of you who have fought in a, an authentic counterfeit or, unsuitable goods, claim from Amazon in the past six months, 12 months, Amazon may have asked you for chain of custody documents. So they might have said, okay, so nice of you to give us your supplier's invoice. That's not good enough. We want their suppliers invoice and their suppliers invoice, and we want it to go all the way back to the factory. And we all know how realistic this is. Even if you're buying from, like. Really? So. So I want to know how this works for like RA. So you buy something from Walmart and they don't trust Walmart, I guess. 

Kelly [00:10:57] Or I don't know. I mean, you know, there's always that argument from from people that you and I regularly go, no, no, but you could argue that in that scenario, that's sure seems like a way to start tamping down on people doing wrong, even if it's not an outright prohibition. It's certainly pushing people away from doing that. Because if the answer is always and forever going to be no, or you're more open to an uncertain answer, what goods, infraction, then yeah, I think it will force seller behavior to change. 

Lesley [00:11:29] So here's where this is popped up. Yeah. They added it to the help. Where they where they put the rules or sometimes hide the rules. 

Kelly [00:11:39] But not the rules. 

Lesley [00:11:40] And I'm, I'm scrolling to find it. They did not put this under like invoices or sourcing or suppliers. They put it under something called responsible sourcing documentation. Request requirement. So they're making it sound like it's related to human trafficking or slavery. And when I say that I'm being very serious, they're making it sound like where there have been these big scandals, like, is it, what's that tool company, Milwaukee tool. Right. That had the big scandal where some of their stuff was being made by slave labor. Right? And Amazon has been making attempts just like Apple has been making attempts. They've been going to these factories overseas and actually doing inspections for their own goods that they're purchasing and making sure there's not slave labor. You may have seen that sheen and tamer if I'm finally saying them correctly. Apparently I said them wrong for like ten years. they're. 

Kelly [00:12:45] Trash. We don't care. 

Lesley [00:12:46] That. Yeah that's true that they actually both are using, slave labor because they're using prisoner labor. They are making people work 18 hours a day. They're giving you one day off a month. So this is, you know, really close to slave labor. They're not paying them a living wage in China. Which really? Think about what that means for what they're getting paid for. The number of hours are working. So Amazon has been really pushing on this social responsibility stuff. Meaning not using slave labor, not using child labor, not using prisoner labor, not using, religious minority who is in a camp labor. Right. And so that awesome. I just think it's really weird that this thing saying we may ask you for, supply chain documentation, it's not under something that says, like, just generally we're authenticating what's on the platform and making goods. They're putting it here as though it's about, like, wiggers or something. 

Kelly [00:13:54] Right? You remember when it was when you said religious minority? I was like the Uighurs. 

Lesley [00:13:58] Yes. This is not about weavers. And but they're they're putting it out there. So are they just going to start? I don't know, I just find this very strange. I've never I don't really got into their whole supply chain thing. But if you're going to do it, don't pretend you're doing something else. This isn't about responsible sourcing. 

Kelly [00:14:18] Well, it seems to me. I think if I had to guess, my feeling is that this language is going to show up somewhere else and or should have alongside that and didn't, or we just haven't found it yet. I haven't had a chance to go digging for it, because when that came up, I was like, oh, I would like to see if there's something else somewhere. I mean, Amazon has long had a social responsibility program. I worked on some of that stuff when I was at Amazon and the, reports from Bureau Veritas, which was the agency that they used at the time. Probably not now, but hard to say. The types of infractions that you, you mentioned, I mean, and there's also the whole all the fire exits are blocked and people are locked into the factory, and they fire people who are pregnant, and they fire people who are ill. And I mean, just tons and tons of potential violations by these manufacturers that Amazon is on the lookout for, and Apple and all the others. So it's good that they're doing that. But I do find this particular update a little bit strange, and I wonder if there isn't more that should have already gone live or will soon go live that phrases a little bit differently, but basically echoes the same message. Hard to say that would make sense, but that might make too much sense, I don't know. 

Lesley [00:15:35] Yeah, I agree with you. It seems like responsible sourcing instead should say something like, anti theft or CI counterfeiting because they're on a huge anti, right. Because we have a big problem with going to. 

Kelly [00:15:51] Maybe and speculating here again, maybe this is a matter of nuance and language in that responsible sourcing is the new buzz word for having legitimate sourcing, regardless of the angle from which you examine this problem. Because obviously there's the angle of make sure that you're not using slave labor to manufacture your widgets. But there's also the angle of make sure that you're using legitimate sources that aren't fencing stolen goods or counterfeit goods when you're, you know, getting your stuff. So maybe we're seeing an evolution in how they want to speak to that particular angle as being a good seller. In the community kind of thing. I'm not sure. It could go either way, but yeah, I see I see exactly why you think that. It is really odd. 

Lesley [00:16:41] And then dovetailing with this. The biggest problem that we are facing with clients at Riverbend right now is Amazon. Okay, so we had this amazing employee named Pat and she retired. But Cathy used to work at Amazon and she was the first seller performance investigator at Amazon. She built out a lot of the processes and systems and stellar performance. Brilliant woman. And she used to joke about how Amazon would roll out these programs that she would roll. Right. They hired a new MBA. Yeah. And so she would talk about how, you know, some fresh out of school, wet behind the ears MBA person would come in with this great idea on paper, and then they would roll it out to meet some goal, and then it would just blow up on impact. It would absolutely explode when they put that program into place. And then Amazon eventually rolled it back. And over time, Kelly and I, Kelly, I didn't have to work at it as much as I have had to work on it. But over the many years we've helped sellers. You know, we see changes in how Amazon enforces stuff, and there's always this kneejerk people want to freak out and be like, oh, it's all over. We can't shut down the platform. They don't want third party sellers. They don't want this or that. They don't want to blah, blah, blah. And and you know, we've really learned that it all goes away. 

Kelly [00:18:09] Well, right. I mean, and let's be real here we are talking about the internet age. Does anything last more than a microsecond most of the time, no. I mean, it's so easy to look at this stuff and just have that knee jerk reaction and think, the sky is falling and, you know, I'm didn't you fell off the wall twice. Whatever. This kind of stuff is now so incredibly common that when you and I in the team see something like that, it's not exactly old hat, but I just kind of go, okay, well, we'll roll with this and see what happens because you just have to, but I can't even imagine what it's like inside Amazon watching this stuff unfold, because it probably is just not even controlled chaos anymore. It was barely controlled chaos in 2013 when I left. I cannot imagine what it is now. So all of my friends who are still there, my hats are off to you.

Lesley [00:18:58] I wish I had cameras would be hilarious. So the latest ridiculousness that they have rolled out is, they decided that for certain, both ason and account level appeals, that there would be no Poha plan of action where you're explaining what happened and how it won't happen again. No, no. Instead, your only option is to tell them how you didn't break the rule or policy. All right. So it's essentially a zero tolerance. Like you made a mistake. You're out. And what's particularly ridiculous is a lot of this is in highly technical areas where there's a lot of gray area. There's difficulty in understanding the rules. Even people inside of Amazon don't always agree on the enforcement. So some examples of this would be like variation policy, bundle policy which you talk about disagreement Amazon. They've got three different policies written three different ways and help and then restricted products which if you want to talk about like claims for restricted products I mean that a ton of that is gray area, difficult to understand, easy to mess up or the law changes. And so they want you to say, you know, well, I never listed a product with that ingredient that is now banned when you did. And if you can't say you never did it, they won't accept any appeal. They're pulling the same garbage with variation. Abuse which I hate the word abuse of variations. That should be like if you have a whole catalog where you're really trying to affect the rank and do all kinds of really bad things. I mean, they're calling it variation abuse. Some people are literally just, oh, I didn't understand that part of the policy. 

Kelly [00:20:47] Variations are stupid. They're a bag of hammers. They've always been that way, and they're really hard to do, right? I mean, I struggle to remember sometimes how things are supposed to be set up. And every time I have a problem with that, I have to go look at the help pages and remind myself. So, oh yeah, I totally agree. That calling that abuse, and in particular, unless they are specifically alleging which I have seen this a few times, but not consistently, unless they are alleging the seller was creating bad variations for the purpose of, manipulating a platform, which we've seen that language a few times, but not consistently. That's one thing, but it's an and it's another thing. If you tell a seller, hey, you can't create, I'm trying to think of a really good example, or you can't create, a color variation that says for 40 and up, I have actually seen that. And you keep doing it after you have been told, don't do that. That's different as well. But at the same time, it's just seems like a misnomer to me. And it's weird to me that we're seeing this pop up with certain other workflows, but not all of them. Like, what's the criteria here? 

Lesley [00:21:56] Right. Some things are zero tolerance, some things aren't right. And some of the things that they're calling this zero tolerance on to me are ridiculous. And Kelly and I, we have seen when people do all the bad things, we've seen lots of things that were really bad done on the platform. That should not have been. I've seen sellers that I think should not be reinstated. I'm not one of those people who's like, oh, fillers can do no wrong. And, you know, top. 

Kelly [00:22:26] Sellers are angels. 

Lesley [00:22:27] Yeah, it's not that at all. But it's so and so. Believe me, if both of us are telling you, wow, this is over enforcement and ridiculous. Especially if you're a very large seller or you're a brand where other people get on and change your listings and Amazon will punish the wrong people sometimes for variation abuse. Yeah. So so they're going to take it out on you and someone else changed your listing. I mean, there's just there's all kinds of stupid here, but, so two things to know. One is this is something you've got to escalate. You cannot just let seller performance tell you. No, it's got to be escalated probably multiple times. So just know that if you're stuck in this ridiculousness of. 

Kelly [00:23:11] Disput only. 

Lesley [00:23:12] Dispute only. And we've had clients where dispute only like wasn't appropriate like Amazon. Oh here's one. It was a restricted products and Amazon was asking for the wrong testing. And and I can't dispute only on that because you're telling me the wrong thing. You know, you have to give this testing or else I can't give you that testing. Well, too bad, you know, that doesn't work. And then the other thing is. And I hate even saying this out loud because it doesn't help anyone who's in this situation. You also have to exert some patience because this is going to work itself out, because some big sellers are going to get caught up in this garbage, and they're going to have some juice, and the policies are going to change, and there's going to be enough hollering from people like us. We're going to go to extra governmental agencies and such, and it's going to get fixed. But right now it's really up well. 

Kelly [00:24:06] And so as the as the risky, the risky person, the, that was not what I meant to say. I don't know where that came from. Seriously. 

Lesley [00:24:16] As you know, Kelly. 

Kelly [00:24:19] As the person who, lives and breathes the risk management portion of things in this program and others. I have two really big issues with the way that Amazon is doing this that you've touched on partly. And one of those is. Amazon's enforcement teams still seem to lack accurate tools that would let them know conclusively which customer made, which edit in which way, and how many times that they did it. If I felt confident that those teams had the tools that they need to do their job and to do it well, which they're trying to do, I would have a lot less problem with this, because I would feel more confident that they are, in fact, getting people who are repeat bad actors off the platform. But I don't have any trust in that. It's impossible for me to look at the data and even be certain that when I think I'm looking at somebody who may have violated the rules more than once, that they actually did for the contribution issue, for the risk assessment issue, the way that they validate other sellers contributions against each other and retail and everything else. Not to mention the fact that you pointed out the other biggie. And I think this will be the thing that moves the needle. Both of these things will. But the one you mentioned Will, and that's the. Human error that seems to have been introduced into some of these investigations where they're like, oh, please give us ISO 900, 7000, Z, whatever. Testing and it's not applicable has nothing to do with, you know, here's some supplement testing, but my item is an electronics item. How make it makes sense. The math just doesn't math. And it will. I think there will be a mutiny from catalog people, from category managers, from buyers and biz dev and all these people who are really invested in sellers being successful. There's going to be an internal and external, and hopefully that Godzilla that will turn into a giant kaiju that would eat this problem because it's dumb and it's going to hurt a lot of people. 

Lesley [00:26:27] So quick story time. We have a client. They are good. Thanks. They so bundled items. They pay for, fast. So SAS is a paid service strategic account services and you pay like five grand a month and they are supposed to help you to improve your sales and all this jazz. And then if you get a need to be taken down or your account taken down, they're supposed to escalate it for you. And. Blah, blah. And sometimes you're useful. So, I had a client with a bundled product. And South Korea. Went through they have a catalog team within that. And so they went through their catalog and they optimized all of their listings and they said, hey, hey, some of your stuff is not following bundle policy perfectly, because as I mentioned before, bundle policy is really hard. There's disagreement with an Amazon about what the policy is. So, you know, good luck following it as an outsider. So they said some of your stuff, it didn't follow policy. So we've updated all your listings with optimize them. They're going to search better. And they're all compliant now 100% compliant. And so they were taking like batches like 250 listings and then another 250 listings. And they sent it to the client. The client would look through the flat file, approve it, they would upload it. All of this was done by Amazon. And then he was suspended for bundle policy violations. 

Kelly [00:28:04] If ever there was an audit trail for how this happened. Yeah. But again, that's what I was saying about tools, though. 

Lesley [00:28:12] Well, but tell me why it's okay to have zero tolerance on anything when an Amazon team is literally trying to help the seller, help the sellers being paid to help the seller. And obviously, is it just disagreement with another team? So how is a third party sellers supposed to understand like variation policy or bundle policy and never make an error? You can make an error by fat fingering in a flat file. Flat files are like the 1972 way. It's like just one step up and cards. It's just that far past punch cards to use a flat file to frickin update your catalog on Amazon. I mean, where is Wysiwyg when you need it, right? Come on. I know, and they're using this old tech, and then they want to punish people because they did it wrong. Come on. 

Kelly [00:29:04] Right. No, no, you're not wrong. And the thing that really bugs me about it, again, it comes down to their own. Data integrity. So you asked like, you know, you said something about teams disagreeing. I wonder if even the risk management teams told category in other places that they were doing dispute only things with certain stuff. One of the problems that we've seen, you know, flipping the script for a second, what do we hear from a lot of our clients that are upset with Amazon when something's happened to them? Well, 4000 other sellers are doing it. And while that is not a defense, if they in fact did commit the violation, it doesn't mean they're not right. Two things can be right at the same time. The fact that Amazon still seems to continuously just hemorrhage all these violations without meaningful enforcement makes dispute only draconian and hollow. It has. It has really no meaning in that way because it's so baseless to begin with. I just I, like you said philosophically, I cannot get behind this because there's literally no way that we can trust that what they're doing is accurate. 

Lesley [00:30:22] Do you know who violates variation policy more than anyone else? 

Kelly [00:30:25] Amazon and probably warehouse deals. 

Lesley [00:30:29] Absolutely. And then so last week I was talking to a very well-known brand in the general vicinity of clothing. And all of you would know who they are. And they had these weird variation things happening. So they they were fixing they work with a, a company that does field, right, manages their feet. And so they would fix the variation and then everything would be cool, and then they would all go to bed, and then they would get up the next morning and they're all broken again. And, and I told them straight up, these could actually get you suspended. Right. These could have your catalog taken down. And it's ridiculous. That is absolutely true. And and they're doing the work. And so either Amazon has a technical error where for some reason something isn't sticking. It is reverting to old data. Right. Or there is someone who has contribution authority on their brands using a vendor account or some such that has where they're uploading feed constantly and they're uploading it constantly and changing it back to the old thing your way. This is this is a huge multi-billion dollar brand and it's happening to them. So you explain to me how Bob the seller out of his basement. Yeah, should be expected to do all of the feeds perfectly and never have a variation violation, right? 

Kelly [00:31:59] I mean, there's no perfect answer, right? I think that we can argue that the top of their head, all of these things. Okay. Red Queen, all of these things are, on a spectrum, right? And we know that on one end of that spectrum, we have chronic, chronic repeat offenders on the platforms that are harming other sellers. They're harming buyers, and yet they continue to seem to get away with bloody murder. And then we've got on this other end, these people who are making legitimate mistakes. And even if some of those mistakes are the same periodically or the same type, you can show me where the intent is to truly harm the platform. And and that is a level of nuance that no one is ever going to get 100% right. And I would never expect any enforcement team to get every single decision correct. But there's this point where I feel Amazon has abandoned all hope of trying to humanize efficiently. And so now they're just like throwing tech at it and hoping for the best and pretending that the bad press isn't there and that people aren't being harmed. And this is where I get so frustrated, too, about their agreement forcing arbitration. It's like, how are the selling community ever going to be able to overcome some of these severe inequities and, and abuses of power when they are stuck with this arbitration thing? I don't know what the answer is, but, you know, rise up and rebel people. But good gosh, I agree with you 100%. These things are so broken and they are going to harm so many small businesses in a time when people need these and they need to be able to grow these businesses in order to survive. 

Lesley [00:33:43] And Amazon is selection in the catalog. 

Kelly [00:33:46] And right, the way. 

Lesley [00:33:47] People that they peel off for the stupid reasons. The left question, someone I'm working with right now who's had the the Red Queen treatment on variations sells, stuff that's compatible with. So y'all know when you need replacement parts for things. And sometimes the manufacturer doesn't really make them anymore or they never made them. And you could get them from some third party who has replacement parts. So if his replacement parts go away, people will be very sad because they're really. They start with this little, tiny little category, but it's definable, he says, letting everyone. 

Kelly [00:34:20] Yeah, I know. Well, as as, James let me know in the background he considered what I said about Amazon weaponized automation. I would almost go too far to say it's weaponized, incompetent automation. But yes, I, I have to agree with him on that. 

Lesley [00:34:35] We need to use that in an appeal. 

Kelly [00:34:37] I think we should. 

Lesley [00:34:39] This is weaponized automation I love that. Okay. So we should actually get to some questions now that I'm done ranting. Sorry. 

Kelly [00:34:44] No no no this was an anger thing we've been holding on to. So thank you for letting us vent to you about how frustrated we are. But yes, let us take your questions. 

Lesley [00:34:52] Yes, that's a good updates too. Okay, so Mike is asking Kelly, how is it that Amazon decided to get a seller from a certain major brand completely out of the blue, despite that seller having an extensive history of selling products from that brand? 

Kelly [00:35:11] And Mike, I feel you for that because wow, have we seen that this year? So I will preface this by saying, and you may you may already know this about me, but you may not. Is that I was responsible. So sorry for many of the gating actions that were performed by seller performance. I was not, however, responsible for the decisions to gate those sellers. I simply created the action because the messaging had to come from solid performance. However. I have seen that process evolve remarkably little in the last decade because I left Amazon in 2013. And it was rare for us to see sellers who were gated out appeal and be reinstated because the decisioning that we used, at least then, was really accurate for putting people outside the brand. These were sellers that did have documented quality issues and or sourcing that was not verifiable. So if I had to guess now what has changed? I suspect that Amazon remains really susceptible to pressure from some brands, especially big multinational brands. They're probably demanding a higher grading of sellers on their listings, meaning, if the bar was here, the bar is now up here, and even someone with a long and established history with a with a brand, or at least buying from a distributor that is recognized by that brand, doesn't necessarily mean that they're safe. Now, there's a ton of little variables in there that could play into how somebody is judged, but please know that you are not the only person that has experienced this, and there are a lot of these decisions happening that seem to be happening on relatively small numbers of defects. Which makes me think that, again, the grade has moved up and it's harder. And they're looking for sellers who are like nearly flawless, which, come on, you know, like we were just talking about it kind of dovetails off of the dispute. Only it's not phrased that way, certainly in any way. But the behavior is very similar. So why there could be a lot of reasons I suspect. Again, brand pressure on category, and retail, because I think that those are some of the people that are supplying retail, that gives us brand some unique leverage to say to Amazon, well, you can't sell our stuff anymore, or we're going to stop letting you sell certain things that are big moneymakers for you because, but yeah, it's been really problematic. We've had some really good success getting sellers like that back. By arguing, you need to look at this data. But yeah, I, I could speculate for days as to all of the reasons, but I think that's probably one of the big ones is that category pressure. 

Lesley [00:37:58] So I can think of two of these, Mike, that I've worked on myself. One of them, the seller had like a normal number of complaints for their volume, because they sold a lot of this product over many, many years. And like what you're talking about. I think you've built this brand for 7 or 8 years, a long time. Yeah, it was. 

Kelly [00:38:21] A long time. 

Lesley [00:38:22] Yes. I think you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. And, however, however, comma, we started looking through, they asked him for invoices and, like, they gated him out, and then he applied, and they asked him for invoices, but they asked him for specific Asian invoices instead of the usual two. 

Kelly [00:38:43] Yeah. Just give us something. 

Lesley [00:38:45] Yeah. And some of the Asians, he wasn't matching. Right. So it's something like. Like there's a six pack and he's sending three, two packs or his invoices were for three, two packs or whatever. We did get him engaged in the brand, and we showed all the volume of sales. And, you know, we escalated. It took multiple escalations. It wasn't pretty, or fun. And it was during Christmas. But he did get engaged. So that important thing, and then I'm thinking of another guy who sells things that aren't luxury beauty, but they're really close, expensive beauty products that aren't in luxury beauty. And he made a tremendous mistake. He was not appealing a suspensions in that brand. So he had had 3 or 4 Asians that were suspended for complaints of inauthentic that easily could have been appealed and probably won because his invoices were generally decent, not amazing, but decent. If he had appealed those as he'd gone along and not gotten not had all of those be takedowns permanently and let the time pass. Then he wouldn't have invited that extra scrutiny on to the quality of his invoices and such. And and had the problem of actually getting dated. But like Kelly said, the good news is, unless you have some terrible performance issue, this is something I consider appealable. And two years ago, we didn't really consider this appealable. We do now. If you are someone who has sold the brand and you have a history with the brand, it's very different from being turned down from an, getting a request if it's something you've never sold. 

Kelly [00:40:31] Yeah, absolutely. And and again, thinking about big picture here for all the things we've talked about, what is the underlying underpinning concept of this is that Amazon is really cracking down on what it perceives as, pathways to their platform that funnel goods that aren't what they say they are or have some other kind of problem. And so they are going to change the guidelines. Not that you might necessarily see that you just get the end result and go, what the heck happened? But I think we are going to see things that have traditionally either been not a, not, not, not a big deal, but have been handled in a less permanent solution kind of way, are going to have more of this, like, oh, you're kicked out. Oh, you've lost this privilege. Oh too bad. So sad. I think we're going to see some more of that. And like we talked about with dispute only I think that's going to come back to bite Amazon in ways they don't anticipate. 

Lesley [00:41:28] Agreed, and then it'll all slip back the other way. But they're open damage and pain for yes. 

Kelly [00:41:34] And tears of blood to. 

Lesley [00:41:35] You and to all the sellers. But yeah. Yeah. 

Kelly [00:41:38] Thanks very much, Mike. Appreciate that. 

Lesley [00:41:40] Yeah. Yeah. So it's a great question and a frustrating one. Okay. I've got another great question. Okay. So something totally outside of our usual bailiwick okay. But because of a disaster that we've seen with this I have to comment. Yvette asks, what are your thoughts on Amazon Global Logistics? Is it worth using them when shipping from China? This is event. I love that you're asking the question and let me tell you why there are so so AGL, Amazon Global Logistics. They have this huge Salesforce apparently. And they've been super aggressive going after private label sellers and saying, you know, we solve all your problems. We handle it all for you. And they are pretty price competitive. Now, if you're someone who's good at logistics, you have a good logistics provider. And there's, you know, really shopping the rates for you on shipping and doing an awesome job, you can probably beat the AGL prices, but it's a lot of work. It's like load by load. You're having to go out there and fight for the best deals. And also, you know, AGL, they're really big. So are they getting a little bit more favorable treatment with customers pushing stuff through? Probably. I mean, you know, it's just like you would expect DHL and Fedex shipments to go through or to same kind of thing. Now the flip side. So I think when agile works, it's probably pretty cool. Just like SBA, when SBA works, it's awesome. Yeah, it's expensive, but it's awesome. You can be a really small company, and they can do all your storage and they can do your fulfillment, and they get better shipping rates. And you can they can ship for one day, two day better than you can. You don't have all that stuff that you have to manage. Especially if you can ship directly to their warehouse and never touch it if it's your own brand that it's all super cool. Yeah, but when things go wrong at SBA, what recourse do you have? Yep. Almost none. You open cases and ignore them. The open cases that tell you you're wrong. You have to pay money to hire me or someone like me to chase it for you and escalate. And we might win. We might not. We do most of the time, but not every time. You have to pay us. Yeah, to fix this issue, which is obscene. And you still may not get, you know, full recourse. So we had a client who, makes a, an item in the. What is it? Crafts. Children's crafts. Yeah. This is important for this story. And and so she, she decided to start using AGD again for the sales pitch that Uber a super great deal. And so she invested a tremendous amount of money for her, for her very small brand. Invested a huge amount of money in a big shipment that was supposed to hit in October right before peak, and she was going all in because she tested these aces and they were doing awesome. And she was like, I can feel it at Christmas. We're really going to get things going. This is going to be my full time job. So excited. And she did everything right. She really did. So she hired AGL and AGL. When they got the stuff to custom, they did not understand what the appropriate testing standard was for these items, and she had done so. It was. Okay, so it's children's item, but it's actually under crafts and under the law it is under crafts. And so she didn't have to have CPSC because she had the craft stuff, which was actually a higher standard than the CPSC because it was paint and things like that. So she had already had multiple loads that she and the logistics provider had gotten through customs, through Amazon, with no problems with the correct testing and all that stuff. Well, someone at customs told Amazon, no, no, you have to have CPSC, which is children's testing. She didn't have it. Right. Because because it's. 

Kelly [00:45:47] Not the standard. It's not the standard for the product class. 

Lesley [00:45:50] And so what did Amazon do? Nothing. Nothing. They let it sit there. They didn't contact her. They didn't help her. She had to keep asking where is it? Where is it, where is it? And then finally she finds out this is the problem. So she's sending them all the proof and they're like zero aggressive trying to solve it for her. So her stuff finally hits court in January. So then it finally gets unloaded into the warehouse. What was it? February? It was forever. 

Kelly [00:46:22] Yeah. 

Lesley [00:46:24] And then they don't. They? Oh. Oh, I know what it is. They had dropped her inventory limit because she hadn't been in stock. So when all of her stuff arrived, they wanted to charge her more money. Right? 

Kelly [00:46:39] Oh, jeez. For their problem. Because they caused us for storage.

Lesley [00:46:43] Yeah. Even though she created the shipment way back in, like, you know, September, whenever that. She actually created it until her ago. 

Kelly [00:46:51] It just. 

Lesley [00:46:52] And then they. And they charged your money. They they charged her $15,000 for the privilege of all this happening to her. And she was peak. So what do I think of Amazon Global Logistics? I bet if you're really big and you've got some juice, it could probably work for you. If you're a small guy, just know if something goes wrong, you're not getting any freaking help. She even managed to get in contact with a very high up executive at AGL who dropped the ball and didn't do anything to help her at all. Didn't solve the problem. It was obscene. And they don't even. They're relatively new, so they don't seem to have a place to pass Bill. Or if they do, they just don't care because they're just all about volume. So it's just know that if you are small and of shipment gets hung up somewhere, you're screwed and you have almost no recourse and they're still going to charge you when it finally hits court. You know, like after your when your grandchildren are graduating from high school or whenever that happens. Yeah. 

Kelly [00:47:56] This is how businesses die. You know, I mean, that story is so horrifying on so many levels. But the thing that really sticks out to me makes me angry is that if she were if this was any other company, like if she had contracted with another logistics firm. She could sue them into oblivion for this. And, but because again when you choose to go with AGL, if you don't have the wherewithal and you've put all your eggs in the one Amazon basket, you are asking for this problem. I have a sidebar I'd like to talk about that has nothing to do with Amazon, but we can wait a minute because I know we've got more questions, and I want to make sure that we get some people heard. So. 

Lesley [00:48:42] Sorry.

Kelly [00:48:43] No you're not. 

Lesley [00:48:43] You're just so funny. 

Kelly [00:48:45] I'm so angry right now. 

Lesley [00:48:47] Just like. I know we start talking about this. We got all wound up. That's why I have to have the beer. 

Kelly [00:48:52] I wish I could have, but I got some shandygaff, shiner Shandygaff this weekend. Well, guess that I didn't get to have any of it yet. 

Lesley [00:49:01] Okay. So here's one from Jason. Hey. Oh. 

Kelly [00:49:08] I don't know. 

Lesley [00:49:11] This is a tough one. Thanks for doing this live event. It was great seeing you guys at camp become great seeing you, Jason. I have a tricky one on my hands. I have an apparel brand. It's been incorrectly tagged as novelty and exotic. Which is placing my products in the wrong category. 

Kelly [00:49:31] Fees. Right? 

Lesley [00:49:32] Despite having cases open with seller Central Vermont, the issue remains unresolved. What even went into the solar since rogue satellite team tries to change the category? It doesn't take effect. Flat files haven't worked. The category listings show the correct category. Item type. My products are clearly not novelty items, and both the front end and back end have been thoroughly checked to ensure the. I am brand registered and the winning contributor on all the. What are my options to resolve this categorization categorization issue? 

Kelly [00:50:09] I'm going to be sarcastic for a second, and I'm going to be very nice and professional, but become an ultra marathon runner because that is the training level that it is going to take to solve this. I'm so sorry, Jason. 

Lesley [00:50:23] I don't even I don't even know we're through. This just sounds like the people earlier the giant brand I was talking about that it reverts every night. 

Kelly [00:50:30] I really and truly believe that something. Either has been added. To the catalog or they changed. Maybe they deprecated the system, because you have to understand that the catalog systems that are the underpinnings of the platform as you know it from the consumer side, is held together by bubble gum, duct tape and dreams and probably not a few tears as well. It is a patchwork system at best, because you've got, you know, things that run inventory and things that run sales and things that do this and things that do that. And they're not all the same systems and different teams own them. And there's just like 8000 hands. It's like I always talk about Amazon is decentralized. The Freemasons have no you have no central lodge. Well hello, there's Amazon. The same freaking thing catalog. No more than any other department at Amazon. Okay. 

Lesley [00:51:28] So there's no Freemasons. We can do a lot with this in the future. 

Kelly [00:51:31] I know, I know, we can. But I think something very technical has changed because we have seen that we have seen this the other the exact same issue. With slight flavor variations amongst so many clients, some who are in brand registry, some who are vendor only, some who are vendor, and £0.03 some that have had brand registry for years, others that have only had it for six months. The but the issue is the same. Changes don't take effect, changes are taking effect and are overridden. Everything looks right but isn't. And you find out when you're getting the category fees and things like that where you test or categorization and it shows up in the wrong place. My only advice here, and I know Lesley will have more to add, is you have got to be prepared to dig a very deep foxhole. Get your gun all and load up and prepare for a very, very long winter and battle. Because it is not easy to get these fixed. There does not seem to be one silver bullet issue that we can solve that with, or path that we can solve that with. Are these things solvable? Yes. But the guarantee that they will stay solved is less and less likely lately, just because whatever technical problem is happening seems to be really both impeding progress and undoing it, unfortunately. 

Lesley [00:53:02] So, Jason, I feel like this needs an escalation to a very specific team. Yep. That we take these things to that we don't tell everyone because if we did, everyone would take stuff to them and then they would never fix anything. So. I would. I would definitely try executive seller relations first if you haven't. We talk about them all the time. That's where you send something to Jeff at Amazon. You address it, dear Executive Seller Relations and you start out by saying what the problem is, I need help. I am a brand. My items are in the wrong category. I need help from engineering keyword. So you and I are going to say things like the IT departments and you're going to say catalog because we all know that. But actually this sounds like an engineering issue, which engineering at Amazon just means the IT department. But they don't call it that. It's the it's the nerds, the programmers. You need a programmer. And so then you say I need an escalation to engineering. Please see, case I, the bullet bullet bullet bullet so that they know you've tried multiple times and see if anyone helps you. If not, give us a call because we need to escalate this to this other team. Yep. Also, you need to have one sentence in there explaining why Amazon should care. So it's, about that, fire experience because they're not finding the item. Or it's it's making it look like Amazon has limited selection in your category, or it's making it impossible to find your items or it's screwing up the essentially the the SEO, it's screwing up the nine. It's not accurate anymore. It's not searchable. Anything like that matters to them. So we have to say why it matters to them. Not just why it matters to you. Now, if you are being harmed because of fees. Throw that in there. But that's last. That's not first. And then, you know, of course, Searchability is hurting you too, but that does hurt them. They see that it's hurting them, but I would I would try the Jeff thing. You have to make it very bullet point to include those case IDs, because they know that you've done things. Before you go to them and be sure to tell them how long this has been going on. Did you say for months. So say, you know, in this case, this from the state. This case is from this state. Let them see how bad this is. Because because. Wow. And then if if none of that works, then seriously give us a shout, because we go to people who care about, like, brands and catalog with brands and things like that. That's how we try and get these things fixed. 

Kelly [00:55:52] Yep. 

Lesley [00:55:53] Oh my lord. I don't understand, especially when you say that you're the winning contributor. Although sometimes the brand registry tells you that's a lie. 

Kelly [00:56:03] That's what I was actually going to say, is that I wonder if that's actually true, in the sense that you may be the top third party contributor, but that doesn't preclude Amazon's internal systems for, say, warehouse steals and vendor from somehow screwing up what you're doing. And we've seen a lot more of that lately where there has been an intersection between the two that is not supposed to be intersecting. And then you know who's losing the third party seller. So, it's it's possible that you aren't, actually. But it's really difficult to know because they're not going to tell you that. 

Lesley [00:56:40] So and then if you are able to fix it or we're able to fix it through one of these ways, then I suggest what we internally we call something in s w so you know how people say, in s f w not for work. But we have NSW. It's nonstandard work. In other words, it's stuff where it is, really difficult, really challenging. But we have a strategy. Yeah, it is possible sometimes. Sometimes not all the time. To get some of your listings locked down from other contributions or your brand markdown contributions is rare. It is hard. But with proof, it can happen. But here's the catch. It's kind of like if you have your identity stolen and you lock down your credit report and you lock down your identity. The problem is that later, if you need to make a change to something. Yeah, it's really hard for you to even make a change. But you can get listings locked down if you can prove that there's, like, a bad actor or it's hurting sales or that Amazon has something broken. That's it. That's a of just sort of just throw out there. Okay, I've got one last question for you, Kelly. 

Kelly [00:57:54] I'm ready. 

Lesley [00:57:55] Where'd it go? You have tell. I'm reading my list here. Hello? 

Kelly [00:58:00] What, you didn't memorize everything? 

Lesley [00:58:02] Come on. Tony asks Tony with that, I. Asks what is the best way to appeal a deactivated account that is violated section three, but without an explanation. In other words, probably didn't say what kind of section three. But section three can mean everything. He thinks it can mean anything. But without an explanation. And when no products have been listed or sold from the account. 

Kelly [00:58:34] Okay, so I have a couple questions here that, you know, feel free to ponder and come back to us with. But, do you have access to this account even though you got a notification? Have they locked you out of it completely? If the answer to that question is no, we will go to item two. Item two suggests that something went wrong not long after registration, where Amazon may think that you are some sort of bad actor or have misrepresented yourself because, as I mentioned earlier, section three is not a thing. It's just an overarching umbrella that covers all the things you can possibly do wrong. It speaks specifically now to the code of conduct saying which Amazon has, you know, defaulted to kind of using as you violate the code of conduct. And it could be for everything from, you know, you did one thing wrong, you dummy, because you don't know our stupid policy to wow, you really did commit fraud. So it covers literally all the spectrum. But if you have access to the account and the messaging you got just says nothing other than they've used section three to justify closing your account. I'm going to guess that there's probably a problem with your identity information that was entered, even though they didn't specifically ask you to verify, because they will occasionally make decisions post registration that are basically thinking that they've got somebody on the site that shouldn't be there. But they can't conclusively say, you've been on our platform before, and you have you failed before, and because you failed before, we're not letting you back on. That's linked. That's different. The lack of explanation usually means it's a risk based decision and probably not anything that you did intentionally. So we would have to really dig in with you to figure out what might have gone wrong. This is something that I would not recommend trying to fix yourself. It's really hard without an understanding of what kind of risk management Amazon is doing and why. You would literally just be, you know, lobbing spaghetti at the wall and hoping things would stick. And I promise a lot of it wouldn't stick. So we really can help you with that, though. So please give us a call and we'd be happy to figure it out. 

Lesley [01:00:38] You know, if if I had to guess, I would say that my goal on that would be to get a verification. Right? Or. 

Kelly [01:00:46] At least get an explanation to know what your next step is. But I do think it's probably something verification. 

Lesley [01:00:52] Where you think they should, like, say, more than just section three. Bad person by and Tony, please understand that when we laugh about these things, we're not laughing at you. Yeah, we we empathize more than just about anyone on planet Earth, with your issues. Yeah. If we don't laugh, we will. We will cry or we will drink up way too much. Yes. 

Kelly [01:01:15] It's you. It's a defense mechanism. We have to make fun of them because so much of what they do is so dumb. But that doesn't mean your situation is dumb. It means that it is something that you need some help with. And that's okay. That's what we're here for. 

Lesley [01:01:26] And I am I am thrilled to say that Jason, who of the, previous with you. Yes. Is actually listening live and said thank you for help on the novelty issue. I'll try the engineering escalation. I appreciate you. So we appreciate you listening, Jason. So happy. 

Kelly [01:01:43] Yeah. Let us know what happens. We hope we hope we can help you. But maybe that maybe that will be the first step for the dominoes falling and you get somewhere. 

Lesley [01:01:49] Yeah, I want to know. So, speaking of verification, since we. That's where we landed on the last one real quick before we run away. It's, it's we're already over time. Excuse me, I just I want to tell a quick little story, a fun little story for everyone. So I had a seller, and the seller was a good seller and a nice seller and a long time seller, a good person, and had a pretty good big company going and a seller, Amazon decided to put them in verification. And so Amazon said, we think you might be a bad seller. So we want you to show us invoices for these four products. These for instance. And so answer, answer our, our questions about these operations and do this verification call. And so the, the, the seller who's a very nice seller, got on the verification call with the Amazon agent. And the Amazon agent, of course, was not visible. And, I think isn't actually from Amazon. And they proceeded to, treat him like a prisoner of war or a really, really evil mass murderer. I'm not sure which. And asked. All of these questions about company ownership and all these things and just lean and really demanding and clearly doesn't understand some things about US law and other stuff and then said, okay, share your screen with me. I want to see your invoices. So Ethan's number one. And so he shows the invoices. Station number two shows the invoices. Issue number three shows the invoices. And then he says for the 30 minute. Think it's the call. 30 minutes later, they got a notice that they've been deactivated because they failed verification. So they called Account Health an account health said, well, you didn't provide invoices for a certain number for. So then. Wait. There's more. Oh, God. So our goal was to get them a new verification goal. And we did. Through an Amazon we escalated and Amazon was like, oh, that's really bad. And so they said here, choose from these three dates or 2 or 3 dates I'm sorry, I'm supposed to choose three dates for call. And so they went click click. And they chose three dates. And the date number one power and date number two power. And then the night before date number three, they got an email about signing on for their verification call on Memorial Day at 5 a.m.. And so they were like, that's weird. I wonder if you're actually doing them then that's kind of strange, but okay. And then I got a note saying the last email was sent to you in error. And they went, So they messaged me the day before Memorial Day and they're like, hey, Lesley, so what do we do? I said I'd show up for that call. And they did. And the reviewer showed up for the call to and said this was a mistake. You weren't supposed to have this call. 

Kelly [01:05:09] I just. 

Lesley [01:05:10] Words fail. So. So that's fun. That's that's really fun. Actually, I bet I have a super quickie question here because again, again pinged and said, hey, hey, can you answer my question? So let's do it if that's okay. Yeah. I have an existing Amazon seller account for over ten years specializing in women's supplements and body care products. I'd like to open another Amazon seller account selling children's multivitamins and eventually expand into adult vitamins. I live in the same household as my husband, who manages the current Amazon account. What are the steps to set up the new Amazon seller account in a legit and safe way? And first, can I just tell you how happy I am to have a question that is not mind blowing and that we can answer with certainty and alacrity? 

Kelly [01:06:05] Yeah. I'm still stuck. I'm sorry. I'm just imagining showing up at 5 a.m. for a call and being told this was a mistake. Sorry. Anyway. 

Lesley [01:06:13] Holiday. 

Kelly [01:06:15] Going home and. Great question. And you are thinking about this the right way. So, first and foremost, I want to say the, the number one thing that you need to consider when contemplating this is not being worried about your internet or things like that, because that is not the thing that people think gets them connected. It's all of the other location data and financial data. So my recommendation is do not rush this, do your your due diligence and get all the pieces parts together before you even get to the point where you're going to log onto a computer and try to set this up. And what I mean by that is when you're ready, like, maybe you've done your product development and you've got your stuff for your your children's vitamins that you're thinking about doing in the future and all that stuff. You got to have your LLC, you got to have your your business set up, getting a licensing that you need, any insurance that you need, you need to have an address for those documents and everything for your business to live in. That is not the same one that you have on your other account. Do you see where I'm going with this? This needs to be separate now. There's only so much you can do to separate that. Like you're still going to have proximity, right? Like even if your house is here and you're using a little warehouse five miles down the road, Amazon still going to look at that kind of stuff. Okay. So because you don't you. Geo things are. You know, Google is a thing, right? So just make sure that you're setting up everything with separate information from from the little thing to the biggest thing as much as you possibly can. If it's not feasible for you to get another computer right away, make sure that you're just using a VPN to not completely mix up your your IPS for your stuff. But that's like low on the totem pole. It's the business licensing, the name, the financials and all of that stuff that needs to be, set up, correct matching. Because that's what gets people hung up. I mean, you move right thing, you know, you're a random person that's doing your thing. You move. Maybe you are with roommates and you don't have utilities in your name. There's all kinds of things that are not malicious and are not really harmful, but that Amazon views is a disconnect because they are. If I like, I don't I have what I don't know what to say. One utility in my name in this house. If I needed to provide do, I would have a problem because I do not have them. So that's something that you want to consider. So, it might be best to make a checklist of all these documents that you would be using to set up and making sure you have them and have a place to access copies of them, because you may need to provide them upon registration of your account. 

Lesley [01:08:48] Also just want to point out, Yanni, that technically, it is okay to have multiple accounts. Multiple seller accounts. Yeah. The problem is Amazon, will enforce against people because of false positives, right? And so that's what we really want to avoid is any kind of a false positive. So where people get really messed up like Kelley said. And they'll take down both the accounts, including the existing one is if you mess up and use the same credit card on your accounts, or if you mess up and you use the same bank account for the direct deposit. So really, they each need to be their own LLC and they need to each have their own business bank account with a debit card credit card. And that way it says on the card underneath your name or your husband's name if you're both authorized. Underneath that, it says Children's Supplements, LLC versus Women's Products LLC. Right. So that you don't accidentally cross over. That is super, super important. And then sometimes I still do this. I still recommend this. People roll their eyes at me, even people in my own company. But I still do it. I tell people, before you do the thing and, you know, go through the registration process, then open a case, just document it and say, hey, I just wanted to let you know, very excited about opening a new business. This is why, get to have a second seller account. It is for legitimate business reasons. Those are the keywords legitimate for business reasons, because we're selling in two completely different categories or developing two different brands, and they're operating separately. This LLC and this LLC. Soon you'll be seeing the verification and the registration for my new LLC. All right. But just want to let you know, and that way, if for some reason you fail verification because they're linking you, you can point to that case ID that you opened on the other account and say, if you'll check out on my other account case, I blah, blah, blah, you'll see that I told you I was going to do this. In other words, you're shining a light on everything. Bright light. You're operating in the sunlight. You're not doing anything. Yeah, exactly. Bad. Yeah. And then so you she mentioned in the comment someone from your office that I can use something called Mirage IP or something like that to mask. I think it's Mirage ID. But yeah. So it's it's like a VPN. Yep. And Mirage razor these cool because it prevents you from forgetting. Yep. It prevents you from forgetting which account you're logging into. It makes sure that it's like a different IP when you. Yeah. And and again, it's not like you don't have to do that because you're not doing anything wrong. Right? I would still do it just for living questions and yeah, for safety and just just to prevent them from coming along and accusing you of something you're not doing. 

Kelly [01:11:44] Right. Because remember, Amazon was not set up with the idea 20 odd years ago that people were going to have more than one business. Like Amazon didn't think that far ahead. They didn't think about businesses having subsidiaries or having the need to have these other things. And they certainly have not really adapted to the reality that businesses are bought and sold either, which is a whole other can of worms. But related to your question, which is why I bring it up, and that's why we are suggesting what probably sounds like a whole freaking lot of homework. But there's a reason for it that homework will save you so much time and aggravation and energy because you will be prepared to defend your life, is if they will. It's because Amazon has a duty, both fiduciary and moral, to its platform, to make sure that it's not letting bad actors on the platform. And so they have to do a whole bunch of things. There's federal laws that require them to do that. There's their own policies that require them. So they may be asking you these questions. And if you are set up with all of this information very nicely, neatly packaged, that matches and shows who you are, and you do what Lesley suggested about forewarning. You know, forewarning is forearmed kind of thing. You have a much better chance of solving any snags that might happen, because you could get hung up in registration and not actually even complete it. Or you could get post registration. The accounts live, everything's there. And then they, they hit you with the verification or some other concern about your, your identity. So all of that pre-work, as much as it sounds like drudgery and it is, could still just make life so much better. So I highly recommend following that formula. 

Lesley [01:13:20] Yeah. She says her husband's afraid of the original account being taken down, and it's totally reasonable to have that fear. And so, since you are one last thing, I'll throw her out and then we'll, we'll, we'll stop belaboring on this one because there's some can talk for hours on this topic. Is because you sell in consumables, supplements and body care, which is topical. Make sure you have good testing. From a GMP certified and using a GMP, certified manufacturer for your goods. And that you are doing regular testing of all your products and the appropriate testing. Because, that is, if you're following all the rules, you're doing all the things, and these are your private label brands, you're not going to get taken down for counterfeit or IP issues, intellectual property issues. So what can take you down? Well, what can take you down to safety issues with your product and testing? So you really need to make sure you have all of your testing in line for all of your products before they're listed and for all your existing products. That's probably your best insurance policy. And to not get caught up in the the really that black hat kind of things that some supplement sellers do. That could get either of the accounts taken down and the takedown, the others just. Yes. Can I walk into the new account from the same IP? You can. Yeah, but but we would recommend that you use Mirage ID or something similar, a VPN, and not just to lower the chances that Amazon gets confused. 

Kelly [01:14:52] Because keep in mind, your IP is really not that important. What is important is what you do on it. Amazon. You keep this in mind. Anything you put into the Amazon site, under your original account, or this new one that you're going to create. They can see what you're doing. If they can link patterns between of behavior and action between those two accounts and those things are bad, then they yes, they're going to take action. But your IP is not the thing that you need to worry about. Your your clarity of who you are and your business and your your separation of church and state, if you will, to make sure that you've got one business over here and one business over here, and never the twain shall meet, because you cannot sell items across those accounts. You can't buy from each other. There's a whole bunch of things you can't do to have those interact. They need to be separate. Your IP is the least of your concerns, I promise. But I agree with Lesley that just out of an abundance of caution, keep everything as separate as you can. But don't stress it if you do accidentally sign in on one day, because that's literally not going to be the thing that causes you a problem. It's going to be that lack of testing. It's going to be condition complaints about things having mold growing in them or whatever, or no seals. Those are the things Amazon's going to care about in that category. They're not going to be so worried about all this other stuff. 

Lesley [01:16:08] And yes, we've we've seen all those things. 

Kelly [01:16:10] Yes we have. 

Lesley [01:16:11] It's not me.

Kelly [01:16:11] I know, I know, do I look this is Facebook. Like they make things up. No I might we're dressed like a 12 year old, make stupid jokes. But I know I don't joke about this stuff. It happens, things do happen. And those are the risks that you need to worry about. Don't be daunted. Don't be deterred if this is something you really, really want to do and you believe in. Go for it. Just be prepared and all those I's and cross all those t's. And if you are and all unsure about your next step, that is why we do consult calls. Please set one up with our sales team, and they'll put you with a consultant that can speak to these things really clearly. Give you time to take notes. Anything that you have concerns about, especially like your husband's concern about losing the original account, there's more we can say about those things. So there's a lot of here, a lot here we could talk about. And like Lesley said, for four days, but if you have more questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. A consultant will absolutely talk to you about these things. 

Lesley [01:17:04] Well, Yanni is not my favorite person ever because she says, thank you ladies so much. Lesley, I have your book very useful and informative. And, you know, because she said that now I can say, buy your copy of the Amazon Incubator now on Amazon and all of the other places that sell books. Oh, she was prepared. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a it's a book about how to sell on Amazon in simple steps that anyone can follow. And if you work your way through the book, you have a whole business plan waiting for you to have. But thank you, everyone, for joining us. Thank you, Kelly, as usual, for sharing your brain, your giant brain. And, if we can help you at all, if you have something you want to talk about, if we didn't get to your question, we'll reach out to you about that. But if we can ever be of service, just run on over to Riverbend consulting.com. We have forms you can fill out to get a contact, but we also have a phone number you can call where someone will actually answer the phone and talk to you about your issue. So thanks again for listening to us and being with us here on the Amazon Seller Happy Hour, and we will see you again next time. Until then, happy selling!