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Happy Hour, Aug. 28, 2024: Amazon Seller Challenges, Reimbursement Woes, and Policy Changes
Join the amazing Lesley Hensell and the wonderful Kelly Johnston for another episode of Ask Us Anything!
Tune in for expert insights on Amazon sellers' most vexing problems, and learn how to boost your Amazon business.
Get ready to take your success to the next level!
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Lesley Hensell [00:00:22] Hello everybody and welcome to Amazon Seller Happy Hour. We've missed you. It's been too long. It's been a month that I have with me the brilliant Kelly Johnston. Hello, Kelly. Hello. And I am Lesley Hensell. Hi. And I just did that opposite of our little labels. But you all know by now who we are. Most of you. So why are we here? We are here because we help Amazon sellers and vendors with their vexing problems on Amazon, of which there are so many and dare I say, more every day?
Kelly Johnston [00:01:00] Indeed.
Lesley Hensell [00:01:01] Yes, yes, yes. And this is one of our favorite happy hours. It is an hour ask us Anything format. We sent out a lovely email to you folks and got. And if you're not on our email list, go to our website and sign up. Got some of your burning questions. About Amazon and we are here to answer them.
Kelly Johnston [00:01:22] And I'm sure they will all be vexing because that is the theme.
Lesley Hensell [00:01:27] Vexing is the word of the day. It is. It is.
Kelly Johnston [00:01:31] Points in Scrabble is that.
Lesley Hensell [00:01:33] Oh my goodness, that would be the best Scrabble word ever. Gonna have to remember that.
Kelly Johnston [00:01:40] Any of those X words and Z weird words are usually pretty high in value. Of course remembering them because they have no context for day-to-day language. Impossible. So.
Lesley Hensell [00:01:53] Leave it to you to analyze that, Kelly.
Kelly Johnston [00:01:55] I know, I know.
Lesley Hensell [00:01:58] Okay, friends, we're going to hit our first question, which is from Edi. And it says Amazon FBA lost my merchandise in September 2023. So for those of you without a calendar handy or who are watching this on replay, that was that was a year ago. Pretty much. We're on month 12. Up to today, they keep postponing that. We can't collect payment for the lost shipment. We have sent many requests. What do we do next? Thank you.
Kelly Johnston [00:02:37] I, besides cry tears of frustration and beat your head against the wall and talk to your friends and drown your tears and a couple of beers. I think you need to talk to us honestly, because you're probably doing a lot of the right things to get moving in the right direction. But there's there's a I don't know how to say this without sounding like I'm being, denigrating towards your efforts because I am not. It's the bureaucracy that we're fighting against. And there are just there are ways to say these things that get people to act. And it has to do with, dare I say, exploiting the culture of Amazon and all of its buzzwords and jargon. That's a survivor of the cult. I think I can attest to that. That's my personal $0.02. But, Leslie, I'm sure you have even better thoughts.
Lesley Hensell [00:03:27] Okay, so first I have to just throw in because it is football season. It is almost football season, actually, week zero for college football last week. Scrimmages for high schools last week. And you say the Colts. So, good friend of mine is trying to get my child to go to a rival university in my state. And, that rival university has a lot of traditions, lots and lots of traditions. And my son finally said, I don't want to go there. It's cold. As you referenced, Amazon being a cult. And, and they said it's not a cult. What are you talking about? It's a family. And Jackson said that's exactly what they would say if it's a cult. So, you know, the Amazon family is giving us all a lot of problems these days because there is a little bit of culty culty stuff going on there. So when Amazon loses your stuff, it's very interesting, that they haven't reimbursed you because they're really supposed to. This has become like a legal matter at this point. Almost. It's that bad. Also, I wonder if you're getting the messages that say we've sent this to the concerned team. We afforded this to the concerned team, we've given this to the concerned team because that if you're you're probably in that doom loop. Because that's what you're usually seeing. If something is out 12 months now, I'm going to take this opportunity to talk to everybody about reimbursements. Some people call them refunds, some people call it auditing. But all that really means is Amazon loses your stuff, doesn't receive your stuff, steals your stuff, whatever you want to call it. It rolled under a bin somewhere and they find it in two years. You know, whatever you want to call it, they your stuff is not there and they are the custodian of your merchandise. They are essentially your three po. And so they are required to know where your stuff is and take care of it. And when they don't, they're supposed to reimburse you. Amazon recently put out this hilarious carrot and stick email. And also it's all over seller central, and I'm sure you've all seen something about it where Amazon is telling you, hey y'all, you don't need to do reimbursements anymore. It's just not necessary. We are your good friends here at Amazon. We love you. Good buddies are selling partners that you are. And since we're your partner, when your stuff gets lost or damaged, you know what happens? We automatically reimburse you. So you just stop all that silly stuff. Using companies like Getida and Riverbend and other places that do refunds and reimbursements. You don't need any of them, you crazy girl. All you need to do it. Just let us take care of it. Don't even bother. Don't hassle yourself. And then they said, by the way, instead of how you used to have 18 months to file these claims, now you've got 60 days. Oh, wait, you didn't understand me. I said 60 days. Yeah, yeah, that's all the time you've got. But we're doing it automatically.
Lesley Hensell [00:06:36] Okay. So first I want to tell all of you they've always said they did it automatically. This is nothing new. They dressed this up. This is like the worst politician you've ever seen. They dressed this up and tried to make it look brand spanking new. That. Oh, now it's automatic. You don't have to do any work at all. They've always said that. It's always been the rule. It's always been the policy that if we lose your stuff, we reimburse you. And if you look in the past through your account, you've gotten automatic reimbursements, but they're probably between 10 and 30% of the automatic reimbursements you should have gotten. And they never do them on inbound. That never, ever happens on inbound shipments they don't receive. So I just want to make it really clear to everyone out there who might have believed them or wanted to believe them, just remember who Amazon is. And, so when I said carrot and stick, the carrot is we're going to do this for you. You don't have to worry your sweet little heads. And then the stick is you've got 60 days now to file claims, which is insane. So highly recommend if you're not using a reimbursement service right this minute that you hire someone right this minute. Because the effective date on this is coming up like in October. So you need time for someone to actually go through all your your 18 months and start filing for all those as fast as they can without setting off the trip wires at Amazon to get you stuff that you're owed. So this case where they lost your stuff in September 2023 and they're sending it to the concerned team, Kelly is absolutely right. It has to be escalated. No one is going to fix that for you at this point. Something is wrong in their system or it's going into a black hole. If you want to try an escalation on yourself first, you want to hit up Jeff at Amazon.com. It is not going to Jeff Bezos. It is going to the Amazon, executive seller relations team. So address it to executive seller relations from the free book address you use to log into your account and tell them you lost my inventory a year ago. I've been filing for reimbursement on case ID, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, all of them put all of them. And this is ridiculous. Help and see if they'll help you. And if they don't, if that doesn't work, then you need to call us, because then it's worth it to hire someone to get it done. The end of my rant and I hope you all love my. My very deep southern thing that I put on there. But it's that stuff I always think of for like the creepy person. He's like, oh sweetheart, really? It's fine. Bless your heart, you know that.
Kelly Johnston [00:09:21] I was like that "Bless your hearts", coming, I can feel it. Yeah. Know what you said, though? And and for those of you who are in a similar situation, hopefully not for a year. If you've been trying and trying and trying and you have not been able to get through, try Leslie's advice about the executive seller relations team. And if that doesn't work, then engage with somebody like us. That can help you, because I promise you, this is exactly the type of thing that we think of when we're when we use that phrase that this is a marathon, not a sprint, unfortunately, but it is a much lonelier road to do that on your own than with someone like us beside you, giving you, you know, the real talk about what's actually happening when you're getting responses. So let us help you if if you can't get it done yourself. But if you don't, if you don't want to start there, start with that advice. That's a great place to to at least try to get the wheels moving because it's right. She's right. It's stuck. It's absolutely stuck.
Lesley Hensell [00:10:17] Some system has broken.
Kelly Johnston [00:10:19] Indeed.
Lesley Hensell [00:10:21] Okay, the next question for today I really enjoy because it says how to get a free book. So I wrote a book called The Amazon Incubator. It came out earlier this year, and I would love to send you a book. Taylor. So first of all, we have your email address and I'll have someone reach out to you. But anyone else who is interested in a free book, feel free to drop me an email at lesley@riverbendconsulting.com. And I'll tell you what. The first ten people who send me an email of this podcast, we will send you a book free of charge. Snail mail, no shipping or anything. We'll just drop it to you. So thanks, Taylor, for the question and we will get that done for you. Okay. Love that. Now, next is a really hard question that we could talk on for like the rest of the time. So we're going to have to be careful that that doesn't happen.
Kelly Johnston [00:11:18] Okay.
Lesley Hensell [00:11:18] This question is from Michael and Michael. This is such a good question. So thank you in advance. This is great. Can you give a high level overview of changes you've seen from Amazon in 2024, in terms of what used to be acceptable versus what is now very risky, or the sellers need to be prepared for assume you're answering for sellers doing things by the book, not telegram wholesale, not buying third party or marketplace inventory, not selling expired product, etc.. So thinking specifically of white hat sellers, this is such a good question. White hat sellers who need to think about new risks to protect themselves, more specific and tactical. It seems seller support is putting up more resistance to a variety of account health issues. What are some tips you give arbitrage and wholesale sellers to be prepared and protect themselves from deactivation restrictions? The reason? This is a great question. So essentially what Michael saying is I'm a good guy. I've always followed the rules, but what I'm seeing is stuff that used to be okay doesn't seem to be. Now I'm seeing all these people in these groups getting suspended for stuff that I thought wasn't actually that risky, or they're getting suspended and not getting reinstated. That's how I'm interpreting this. So like, what do I do? What is it that they are being pickier about now? So I've got one thing to talk about right away, Kelly, while you're thinking because you have your thinking eyes on.
Kelly Johnston [00:12:41] I do go. Go ahead. I'm still pondering.
Lesley Hensell [00:12:44] Kelly and I know each other so well for so long now that we can tell. I mean, she'll even say, oh, it's your thinking face. It's okay. I'll wait. We know each other's thinking face. So the first thing I want to talk about is unsuitable goods or unsuitable inventory. And this is like a code word, because if I say to you, unsuitable goods or unsuitable inventory, that means everything. And nothing like that could mean this stuff you talked about, Michael. It could mean, stuff that's expired, right? That's unsuitable. But that's not what they mean. Of course, they won't define it anywhere, because that would be too useful for all of us. What? They're really okay. My opinion. So we're going into totally Lesley's opinions zone because they have not announced anything. Amazon last year, 2023, especially in the summer, did a big stolen goods crackdown. And there's a lot of reasons for that. Some of it is because of specifically in the state of California, and I'm sure it happens elsewhere. But in California, a lot of the people that you see that do those like storm CVS and steal everything. They are literally taking the product back to a warehouse, sorting it and selling it on Amazon. They're not doing anything so crazy. Used to like go to a flea market or sell it to their buddies. They're actually taking it to a warehouse and listing it. So there's that kind of stolen goods, and then there's stolen goods where, frankly, some of the wholesalers didn't even know it was stolen. So wholesalers and distributors sold stolen goods. And then there's all of this stuff where it's knockoffs. Right? There's so many knockoffs in the world, especially right now. So Amazon did this big stolen goods thing. Huge crackdown. Pretty effective, actually, and really targeted. And most of the people we saw affected by it. There was a reason for it. I'm not saying they were guilty, but there were there were things that happened. We had people who bought stolen goods from suppliers who then admitted, oh my lord, we sold you stolen stuff. And they literally didn't know. They didn't know until after the fact. Which is really sad for everybody involved. So now they've like, move past that because they can't call everything stolen or investigated as stolen. They've put together a bunch of data, and they have found wholesalers and resellers who they believe are selling either stolen goods or knockoffs. And I think a lot of it's knockoffs. And I've actually seen instances where when we get supply chain invoices, there will be invoices that in one version, like from the wholesaler to our client, it says a brand name, so it says Kleenex. And but from there where the wholesaler got it, it's a tissue. And so they're selling it as, branded and it's not. Well how does this turn into this problem you might ask. Well because the sellers. Are trusting these wholesalers to ship direct to the Amazon warehouse. So they ship direct to the fulfillment center. And when they do that, they're never actually touching or seeing the inventory. And so Amazon is saying that that is knockoff or stolen. It's unsuitable. It is not correct.
Lesley Hensell [00:16:00] What you're selling it as is not the right thing. And we've had a lot of clients who've been caught up in this. And some of them, it was they were just finding their own sources. Some of them were coming from courses that were selling them like a list of wholesalers and resellers and distributors, or of sending them to their bodies, which is upsetting. So so my number one, my number one tip, and you'll get Kelly is in a minute. But my number one tip is especially you said wholesale. If you are buying any kind of wholesale, you need to actually have it shipped to you. At least for the first several orders. And it really depends on when you do the very best fit when you shift over to trusting your supplier. Because if you're selling, like, I've sold wholesale beauty stuff. And after like 2 or 3 orders. I trust the supplier because they are carrying these brands. They're repping the brand. I always get the same thing. It's in the same shape. It's in the cartons, I trust it. But if you're picking different cases every time, then you have to have more skepticism and really, you know, have to be able to develop trust that you're they're shipping what they said they're going to. And that can really take some time. So be super careful. And some of the wholesalers, y'all that we've seen get caught up in this. They are big names for people you might have heard of. And the way Amazon is catching it is the inbound shipping address. So it's the warehouses that belong to those wholesale suppliers. It's their shipping address going to the FBA warehouse. And Amazon is flagging it by that address. So that's how the seller's getting caught. And I've gathered enough. Kelly, it's your turn. I'm going to drink.
Kelly Johnston [00:17:46] Drink. It's this is the worst drinking game ever. I will not lie and say that my first thought was not what Leslie said it was, but I kind of intuited that that was the direction she was going to go. So I put my thinking face on as we discussed and went in another direction. And one of the things that seems to have. Stopped getting grace from Amazon. And this has been most of this year, but I feel as though it has gotten more. prevalent towards the end of the year is second chances on people who have been using any kind of third party service to do things on their behalf. Wherein that third party service did in fact do bad things in your name or in a client's name. Which was not the deal, like the client was expecting completely legitimate, compliant actions and whatever that third party, service was, did not do the thing. Where they did the thing in the way that got them in trouble. We have seen, I would say, a significant resistance from Amazon to allowing people back on the platform. Because of those folks, even when they're fully transparent about who the firm was, how long they worked with that firm, what they did with that firm or did not do, and what that firm did in their name, that was bad. Even with that level of transparency and being honest about the failings, Amazon is saying no, thank you. Next. And I believe that is rooted in a concern that buyer excuse me, the sellers are turning over too much day to day control to these 3rd party services, especially through 3PL logistics that are shipping on their behalf, because those clients are basically doing a what we call a set it and forget it. And that's really dangerous. As we like to say, trust but verify, which is kind of what Leslie's message was about the unsuitable goods, which is very, very good advice regarding any and all sourcing types that you're going to do, whether you're partnering with a manufacturing firm for your brand or you're doing something with a wholesaler or a distributor. You cannot create a relationship with these entities and just always trust it. If you're not keeping your fingers on the pulse of it. You could miss some warning signs that something has changed. One of the classic things that I think gets people in trouble with either the third party logistics firms or other third party providers and suppliers. This to me is is endemic across the whole industry. Is if those entities you're working with get into financial distress and you don't know it, you are not likely to catch any whiff or inkling that something is wrong until it is too late and has impacted you. So do your due diligence and check up on these firms. What are other people saying about them before you start working with them? What's their reputation online? Does their reputation seem real? Is their reputation nonexistent? Are you taking a flier on somebody who's new to the space? There are a lot of questions that you should be asking before you engage with any supplier, any third party logistics, or any third party. We will help you sell thing. And do not even get me started on the courses and gurus because. Him a fool and his money are soon parted. So. But that's that's the thing I think I see as the big, big change, or at least the trend for this year when it comes to the way Amazon is treating sellers. And that's fairly, universal across violation types and enforcement types.
Lesley Hensell [00:21:54] All right, Kelly, you don't like courses and gurus. You're making me think you don't want a Lamborghini with a woman draped across it wearing a really awesome Rolex watch.
Kelly Johnston [00:22:03] Yeah. No, I can't say that. That is. Anyway.
Lesley Hensell [00:22:10] Any other.
Kelly Johnston [00:22:12] Thank you. Thank you for recognizing that that's not who I am. No, that's such a fabulously deep question. And we could literally do a probably a three part series on multiple aspects of that question. But at first blush, that's those two things I think are probably the number one. We could also talk extensively about how they've changed their policy on restricted products account appeals. But I it basically is the same stuff we've just talked about. But applied to that specific issue, Amazon is not playing around anymore. If you get caught again there is no third chance. So. You know, do with that what you will.
Lesley Hensell [00:22:48] And so Kelly that. Yeah. So I wanted to give one more quickie that's actually related to exactly what you just said. And this is in regards to restricted products and review manipulation. So first I have to say I know you said your white hat, Michael. People make mistakes with restricted products. Sometimes it can be that there are medical claims that are not allowed, and that can be very subtle. You can really be trying to do the right thing and have something suspended for medical claims on, or some other disallowed claim on a restricted product. EPA regulations change all the time. Anything with California changes all the time. There's all of this stuff. So I just wanna make it clear that, like, good guys get caught up in this all the time on restricted products and also on, review manipulation because there are so many people out there telling you it's okay to, you know, to, to send to have inserts and ask people for reviews, you know, and to say things like, if you love us, give us five stars. If you don't love us, email customer service, which that's cherry picking. You can't do it. And Amazon is really enforcing on a lot of that. So what I want to say about both of those is. It's not to go on and on about the causes of either of them, but to say, if you get a warning on either of those, consider it like you're you are at the precipice. In the in the past you would get a warning and you might get another warning or you'd have a nation suspended, you might have another one and another one, another one suspended. And then your account might get suspended. And then you can appeal and you can get back up. Well now they are considering the warnings that are on an ace and level to be like an account level warning or suspension, like they're seeing if they've shifted that internally, where that is just as important. So if we suspended you in restricted products, I'm just going to use the most ludicrous example because no one can do this anymore. You put up a grinder and no, it's not a spice grinder. You can call it an oregano grinder all you want. You can call a stash jar. Just a dirt jar. All you want. We know it's for drugs, okay? They're off drugs. So you put up a grinder and Amazon. Actually, you put up five grinders, and Amazon says this one with the American flag on it. You can't have that one. They expect you to take down the one with the eagle, the one with the marijuana leaf and the one with the Playboy bunny on it. Right. They they want you to take down. Can you tell I've spent time looking at grinders? No. They want you to take down all the grinders. Right. And and if they come back to you a second time, they might just take down your account for restricted products and never reinstate no matter what you do, because they warned you. They told you this is a grinder. You can't have it. They expect you to go through your inventory and find the other grinders. And we're this applies to a good seller. Who isn't selling grinders which we all know is paraphernalia that is not allowed. then and when I said that, can you tell I spent time looking at grinders. I must clarify in the course of my job at Riverbend. Disclaimer just just to be clear.
Kelly Johnston [00:26:07] This research was for work purposes only.
Lesley Hensell [00:26:10] Yeah, y'all. We also have to look sometimes in the, adult section. I've learned way too much that I didn't want to know there either. So, yeah, I've learned so many things on this job, but, they expect you to, like, comb through your inventory and find the other things that have the same characteristic. And so, to give an example, I have a client who sells snacks, and they sell a multi-pack of their snacks in a box, that they were shipping to the Amazon warehouse. Various flavors. Right. So each item was a flavor or a flavor combo, and Amazon cut them. Putting in a card, asking for a review and saying, if you give us a review, you get 50% discount and told them, they are to appeal that essence specifically, and they were told they had to remove that item from the warehouse, all of it, to get those cards out. Well, they know good and well that they had 3 or 4 other options at the warehouse with the same card, and they did not take them out. And so then Amazon suspended the entire account for those cards and would not reinstate. And so in the past it was two account suspensions. And you're out two strikes and you're out. But full account suspensions for review manipulation platform manipulation. Now it is any kind of warning twice and you're done. So the way Amazon is looking at it is now like that was a whole account thing. They're saying we told you. And so you should have removed all your inventory. We're not going to look through your inventory for you. We told you the rule. You should have done it. And they have a point. So you know, the where I don't where I get upset about this policy is a there's false positives and it's really hard to fight them right now. And B, there's honest mistakes. And so if you had something taken down for an honest mistake or, you know, a policy change or governmental change or whatever, and then they want a two strikes and that's that's ridiculous. And, you know, go to the mat on that sucker. But, yeah, you you do. If the best of sellers, if you have these warnings, you've really got to address them and act like the your life of your account depends on it, because it might. And a year ago I would have called that fear mongering. And I would have never said that to y'all.
Kelly Johnston [00:28:30] But we've seen too many examples. I can think of at least, I don't know, 3 or 4, restrictive account appeals that we've worked on where a client had gotten a product taken down, justifiably, they admitted that it should not have been should not have been listed either with the language that it had or whatever. And then it accidentally got relisted, because technology doesn't always behave and people can make mistakes, especially with ill behaving technology, you have a maelstrom of problems that can arise. In that. But Amazon does not care. They're not reinstating these people. And it's based on and predicated on what Leslie said a minute ago that we've told you. And yeah, they did. And if you look specifically at restricted products, this is where I will put my Amazon police hat back on for a second. They have been warning sellers for years, stop doing this stuff. And sellers have continued to list and part part of that is because they knew that the consequences weren't really all that. And the the spacing could totally, you know, give you some buffer between enforcement actions. Well not anymore. If Amazon continues to nail you for the same issue, whether it's medical claims, EPA claims, we've been seeing an absolute ton of, Clean Air Act things and helmets, the NTSB regulations around helmets. If they continue to ding you for that, they're going to assume that you are willfully listing these things and you don't care about what you've been told and that you're not doing your due diligence, which is not going to be true for every client that we talk to or every seller out there. So it's pretty draconian, and I am not surprised to see that they have arrived at this place. But it's partly their own fault because they have not pushed for better. Measures to help prevent some of this stuff sooner. And so now sellers are going to pay the price of that.
Lesley Hensell [00:30:28] I'm very confused. Are you saying that there are problems in the song? Yes.
Kelly Johnston [00:30:35] Why, yes I am. Wow. Multitudinous problems in fact. Yeah, but that one. That one is a big one to me. And, you know, enforcement actions will ebb and flow, but governmental regulation tends to be very long lived. And the threat of that is enough to motivate. Even the company is motivated by profit. And, you know, things the other way, to, to do things that they might not have otherwise done. And I do think that that is driving some of this, whether it's the CPSC decision that was recent or the looming potential showdown with the FDA that might be coming, in the next year. So. I know, and I gotta give note.
Lesley Hensell [00:31:23] I'm trying to think of something hopeful, to say something hopeful and wonderful and fantastic to say, I can say. I can say we do work with a lot of sellers who have had a really great experience on Amazon over time. And, I think it's really important to talk about ebb and flow here. We have seen periods at Amazon where it frankly appeared as though anyone insane enough to sell on Amazon should quit. And then then it swings the other way and things are kind of cooking along for a while. And you know there's always problems of competition and there's always problems with black hat and all the things. But you know, there are times where it feels better and times where it feels worse. I think right now we're in a worse. There are a lot of people very discouraged and frustrated with Amazon's enforcement, with competition from China, lots of lots of things putting pressure on us right now. However, you know, if you say what what horse are you going to bet on? People who are saying they're betting on Amazon is going to. Yeah, I've actually seen people online who are like, Amazon's going to implode now. It won't even exist in five years. Come on, man. I mean, the infrastructure they've built, the number of sellers there, there's, there is still money to be made and success to be had. We're just in one of those shakeout periods where it's it's hard. So just know, sellers that you're not alone. If you feel like things are really hard right now, like family feel like things are hard. He's not wrong. You know.
Kelly Johnston [00:33:00] I think that's a very. Yeah, that's a very accurate thing, though, what you're saying. Because think about how a lot of people felt last year with Archer. That was another period, which is about the same time is now. That felt really, really ugly and very frustrating because the. The enforcement then in particular. And even in early 2023 felt very, haphazard and arbitrary, like some like we would see people with 700 defects and then the next person would be one critical defect in their age. Zero. And I understand that this is all tied to, you know, order, volume and stuff, but these sellers were actually not that far apart, which made it totally confusing. Now, I will say, I think that they have since calibrated H.R. better, and it seems like things are making sense and lining up better. And I think that may be starting to happen with unsuitable goods. And I say that because we're starting to see ace and level investigations on unsuitable goods, which could be a sign that Amazon is recognizing that maybe we need to be looking at this in a smaller, more narrow capacity first before we take action.
Lesley Hensell [00:34:22] Right. Like you're not completely evil, but you might have have relied on one supplier for a small number of assets that you need to stop it.
Kelly Johnston [00:34:29] Yes. And you know what else I wonder? Going back to unsuitable goods for just a second, because this occurred to me way late, and I apologize. But I wonder, in addition to that huge lawsuit and all the nonsense that happened with the legal investigations, with the, those five, 4 or 5 suppliers that were in the stolen goods thing that I think did kick off a lot of this. I wonder if Amazon is trying to subtly. Investigate on behalf of brands about distribution. Because we have seen some examples where these people's products, if they were not legitimate, I would eat the hat I am not wearing right now. They had everything that would tell me on based on what I could see on the screen. Again, I don't have stuff in hand that these products were legitimate. Where is this coming from? It's not coming from buyer data. This is too big. So the conspiracy cynic in me is thinking that this is also tied to some very serious brand pressure about distribution. But why are they not going after the suppliers and distributors? That's what really makes me angry about this stuff is like, you cannot blame one without the other. Yes, sellers should know. But even the best person is going to get taken. Just like the suppliers have gotten taken. So either we're all fallible or we're not. Which is it? I mean, make up your mind. Amazon.
Lesley Hensell [00:36:02] Well, and there have been some cases where large distributors right sell good stuff.
Kelly Johnston [00:36:09] Have gotten had.
Lesley Hensell [00:36:10] Right. And they sold a small amount of bad inventory and then the sellers buying from them, who did do the due diligence on them as a distributor, they wouldn't have uncovered anything that said, don't buy from these people. And but then it's like off with their heads to the sellers. That's very frustrating. So I hope you're right. It does make sense also. So for for some history for people, back in the day, like way back when I first started writing appeals for people 150 years ago. Oh, wow. It was only account level. There were no suspensions. It was just account level suspension. So if there was inauthentic, your account went down. It wasn't your Asian that went down. It was your account that went down. And and then Keller's right. Then they added ace and suspensions, which was a huge relief to sellers because they could slap your hand for a quality problem with an ace and or a brand instead of like your whole account is garbage. And and it's also happened in, review manipulation. There was a some level enforcement now on review manipulation same way.
Kelly Johnston [00:37:26] Yeah. It's and that's got an interesting a more rare which I don't understand unless again it's a calibration issue. They're trying to make sure that those investigations are accurate. but yeah there's, there's just a lot happening in that area of the industry that I really wonder about. And you know, talking we talk about invoices a lot. And one of the things that gets people in trouble with invoices is the fact that there's no standard. There's not even a standard within a specific industry like supplements doesn't have a certain standard in electronics as an Amazon standard. So you end up with these things that look wildly different, and then asking people who have no specific expertise to just, you know, on the investigation side for Amazon to, like, know that this is how things like this look like or whatever is, is really hard. And it makes me wonder if they're trying to force some standardization through just brute force and just word of mouth, you know, because how many clients do we know are telling companies we need your stuff to look like this? Because this is what Amazon's looking for. They're literally like kind of changing the framework of things by being so big in the marketplace and having so much pull, even though they're not the only option. I mean, there's the Walmart's out there. There's target's out there. There's there's other big players in the space, but they really exert a ton of influence. It's just fascinating to watch because through those kinds of actions which are not really big, they can still have a huge ripple impact on the way things where things go. So yeah, never, never underestimate that stuff. They always do calibrate to. So I'm hopeful that even though right now things kind of suck that we're going to have a good Q4. Our clients are going to have a good Q4 and people are going to do, do well. But on that note to remember, after Q4 comes to clean up. So I hope you're ready. Hope you're ready to do that in January and February and get your stuff, you know, tidied up and cut up some loose ends and get those out your way and make sure that things look good and that your processes still matter for what you're doing, because that is really what you should do after.
Lesley Hensell [00:39:36] Q4.
Kelly Johnston [00:39:37] To stay safe.
Lesley Hensell [00:39:39] Now, Kelly, you know, here's a crazy idea. It's crazy. Think what if Amazon wanted standardization for invoices. So they, like, went to the Chamber of Commerce and the American Association of CPAs or whatever that's called. And like the American Association of Finance Professionals or whatever that's called, I'm sure it's something similar to what if they went to like these organizations and universities and other groups and said, we think it would help with counterfeit? I mean, let's all like, let's set standards. And I.
Kelly Johnston [00:40:23] Can't think it doesn't.
Lesley Hensell [00:40:24] Happen. What if they want to quicken and, you know, QuickBooks and and Peachtree and all the peoples and and they could and like I bet the whole all the industry groups would be like.
Kelly Johnston [00:40:37] And they belong to industry groups where this kind of conversation would be appropriate. And literally any of the e-commerce platforms eBay, Walmart, Etsy, target, anybody who's anybody really should be having that conversation and should be united around how can we make things safer on our platform? Because making it safer will make it better for all the participants, whether they're buyers or sellers or both. Yeah. I don't understand why that hasn't happened. I've wondered for years why that has not been part of their, their stuff, but I guess, you know, it's much more fun to put out fire phones and stupid things like that than, you know, focus on the biggest part of your business, because realistically, making some power moves that way with your fellow, I don't know, I don't want to say protagonist necessarily, but the other people in your space that.
Lesley Hensell [00:41:34] Walmart, Wayfair, yeah.
Kelly Johnston [00:41:36] All these people, whether they are direct competitors or not, you all have the same goal and it would make sense to work together on some of these things. So I don't know, I just I was thinking about this also the other day in context to, something else with, with retail, but I can't remember now what the thing was, but it was one of those things where I was like, wow, you know, if they all got together, could use their powers for good. We could have the Justice League of America practically with this stuff, and things would be better because there would be a concerted action to try to improve a lot of things that are impacting both buyers and sellers. I mean, it's not like e-commerce is going to go away, and I feel like we're hopelessly behind the curve in some ways, both from a governmental standpoint and from a, I don't know, the companies themselves understanding that there's still room for everybody to do the thing and have, you know, space to grow and change and all of that. I don't know, it just it's frustrating to watch these things happen and go, wow, that's happening in a vacuum for absolutely no reason at all. Like. Why? So anyway. I know, okay, I know.
Lesley Hensell [00:42:49] I have another interesting and exciting question from Joshua, right?
Kelly Johnston [00:42:53] Okay, Joshua hit me.
Lesley Hensell [00:42:55] No, I have a Hong Kong limited company. I have an office lease, but I don't have any utility bills because the office is small and the utilities are covered by the landlord. What can I do about the utility bills requirement needed to open my seller account.
Kelly Johnston [00:43:08] See if the landlord would be willing to put on their letterhead with names, dates, times and blah blah blah. What they cover for you and have it notarized. That would be my recommendation because that is a super common thing. A lot of businesses are in small office parks or or whatever where they have this arrangement and they don't have a utility bill. So yeah, that would be the first thing I would think of, because a lot of these, a lot of these places probably have to ask or answered this question in other contexts for people. So I don't know why a landlord wouldn't, but if you explain to them what you're trying to do, I'm sure they would.
Lesley Hensell [00:43:48] Awesome. Okay. I have bonus content. Now. That is not based on a question, Kelly.
Kelly Johnston [00:43:55] Oh, come on, what?
Lesley Hensell [00:43:57] For? The people who have stuck through 42 minutes and 47 seconds of this podcast thus far. I have something that was brought up to me today by my business partner, Joe's Alter.
Kelly Johnston [00:44:09] Hey Joe.
Lesley Hensell [00:44:11] Who is a sizable seller on Amazon and something bizarro that they accidentally discovered. That's the thing about Amazon. You accidentally discover things all the time.
Kelly Johnston [00:44:22] And sometimes it makes you cry and sometimes it doesn't. So I am ready. What? What did Joe discover?
Lesley Hensell [00:44:29] This is definitely in the correct category. So Joe sells a super popular item, very, very popular item, and he shares a brand registry with another seller that also sells said popular item. But he is. Joe is the owner of the buy box. And he is the one who sells the the vast majority of this item on the platform. And he went in to set up deals. Because, you know, holidays are coming and the deals deadlines are coming up soon. They're like in a week or two. Crazy. So he went in to set up deals. And because this other seller on the same ason set up deals and by the way, the other seller on the Asian does not probably have the inventory to fill because they're not shipping to Amazon in the quantities like Joe does. He doesn't have deals. I. So. So right now, they're like, you know, talking to Amazon and trying to figure out how to, and he's going to talk to the other seller and like, he's wondering if they need to remove their deal, but would that cancel the deal? And then he can't put up a deal because the system is so old and creaky that it's possible it could totally screw things up. And how can he get a deal instead of them? So moral of the story my friend's out there, and the reason I told you this very frustrating story. And please understand that when I laugh, it is out of being baffled. Yeah. Because we got to solve this one for my buddy Joe. The. If you sell on any ace and we're. You aren't the sole owner of the buy box. Get your deals up now. Put them in for approval. Now. Ask for them now. Do not wait. Don't say. Oh, we'll do that the day before the deadline. And. And another thought I had is, if you have like a schedule of deals and you're planning on some of them being later and they're things where you share, buy box, move up anything that's buy box to getting approved sooner or sooner, sooner or even doing it sooner. Because apparently this is a glitch and it's that.
Kelly Johnston [00:46:55] Was going to be my question. So obviously sometimes Amazon makes changes that are not glitches, and it's meant to be that way. But this really definitely does not seem like one of those. So Amazon has in fact confirmed that that is not supposed to happen that way.
Lesley Hensell [00:47:12] Oh no, nothing has been figured out yet. Okay. I mean, can you figure out how to even figure it out? Because the first people they talked to, of course, I have no idea.
Kelly Johnston [00:47:19] Because here's the thing that makes me stand up. The thing that stands out for me about this and I. Full disclosure. I don't know nothing about how this stuff works in general, because my entire career at Amazon and everything I have done since is risk based. So take what I am about to say with a grain of salt. If risk if deals are ason based, which it sounds like that's the case at least with one or more of them. And Amazon suddenly is not allowing more than one deal per ason. Something. Something's wrong. I and I can't tell you exactly what, but that really strikes me as. Either. Another NBA has entered the chat with a program that nobody knows anything about. Sorry, MBAs out there. I love to hate. I hate on you because you come to Amazon and do stupid things because they let you, even though you really smart people. It's not your fault. It strikes me as something that was not rolled out properly, or there's some kind of weird glitch because I don't. How would you. How do. I don't know, can you even have more than one deal on an ace? Because are you talking about lightning deals? Are you talking about the thing where it has, like, the coupon, like right underneath the price?
Lesley Hensell [00:48:41] So, like daily deals, lightning deals?
Kelly Johnston [00:48:43] Okay, that seems really bonkers to me that they would restrict that. Now could this be a brand registry problem?
Lesley Hensell [00:48:53] I mean, there's so many things it could be. Yeah.
Kelly Johnston [00:48:55] And I'm just positing that for those who are also noodling on this now, I'm very intrigued. But what a mess. And I'm so sorry for any seller that's finding that. But, yes, what Leslie said. Do your deals now. Don't wait.
Lesley Hensell [00:49:07] Don't wait to get that. You got to get them submitted if you want turkey five deals. They've got to be submitted by like the cash early September 4th. Just like I'm like, that's super crazy here.
Kelly Johnston [00:49:21] There's something.
Lesley Hensell [00:49:22] They keep moving it up. Yeah.
Kelly Johnston [00:49:24] Or there's something like this where either they move something really early and you're like, you know, when people are caught off guard or something stops working or is not working as expected, or they make a change and don't tell anybody, and then you're supposed to live with it.
Lesley Hensell [00:49:37] Yuck. Yeah. Good times.
Kelly Johnston [00:49:40] Not really. Okay. Please. And better. Can we end on a better note? There's got to be something you can ask me that won't make me feel like I want to cry.
Lesley Hensell [00:49:49] Everything is depressing in here. Man. Okay. I've got a really confusing one.
Kelly Johnston [00:50:01] oh. All right, well, confusion might be better than than rage and crying. So let's try.
Lesley Hensell [00:50:07] Okay. Person. Tried to register selling account. They had a selling account, apparently at some point. And it was suspended, but not all the way. Okay. Which you all. That's the thing that happens where they don't turn off everything the way they're supposed to, and it's kind of working, you know? So they tried to set up a new account.
Kelly Johnston [00:50:37] So this is number three. Right.
Lesley Hensell [00:50:39] Sorry. Now we're on number two. Sorry. Okay.
Kelly Johnston [00:50:41] So this is two. All right. Got it.
Lesley Hensell [00:50:43] And. Amazon didn't complete the verification, like they didn't accept their physical location and their documents and stuff. And so they they closed that. And now they can't access the first one.
Kelly Johnston [00:51:05] Oh, no.
Lesley Hensell [00:51:06] And so now they don't really know what to do. And they're also really concerned about like. Okay. This this is, Azlan, which is an awesome name. They're also really concerned about, like, what do they do now? And they've got all of these losses, like inventory and money that's gone. And so. And what do they do? So it sounds like if it was incomplete take down that they weren't able to get their money and their stuff.
Kelly Johnston [00:51:38] Yeah. Yeah. Something there. There can be a lot of things that go all sideways with these types of things, especially if there's an older, Amazon account that has been suspended or shut down for some kind of reason. The number of times I have seen people who sold books in college and then forgot that they ever sold those, and then the account comes back to bite them later. Is this stupid? Regardless of the scenario here, whether that first account should have been shut down or not, or just went dormant or whatever happened. There's lots and lots and lots of possibilities. Where we see and we see stuff like this all the time. Unfortunately, the success in getting those back comes down to two things in my, in my opinion, is the client being very transparent about what happened in when and why, and then being able to relate to Amazon those same things with the impacts in your case as one, you have both money and inventory, and there's numbers around both of those that can be really compelling to somebody to understand how Amazon's action has impacted you and helps drive them towards making the right decision, whether that's reinstatement, whether that's releasing your money in your inventory, whatever it might be, or some combination of those things. But the only way to get that to happen a lot of times is to create a really cohesive narrative about that and being very, very transparent, which can feel really vulnerable and hard to do.
Kelly Johnston [00:53:13] And I swear to God, I'm not channeling Brené Brown right now, but it's one of those things I feel like I knew that was gonna make you laugh. Sorry, Dave, you're out there. I'm not trying to slag you in any way. Mad respect. It's vulnerable, and it's hard because you feel like you're in trouble. Like, you know, dad's shaking his finger at you. But the thing is, the only way forward many times is that radical honesty of saying, hey, I screwed up, and I screwed up at this date, in this date. And here's what happened. But now, Amazon, you're compounding that misery by doing these things. Please help me. It's it's really, really hard to get somebody to pay attention. But taking the facts of your case and putting it into a compelling story about, hey, this is what happened and why that's the way forward, because something is probably broken. And if nobody knows that it's broken, it's hard to get them to pay attention. So that's a tough one. That's a really tough one. But we do see a lot of similar stories consistently.
Lesley Hensell [00:54:10] Yeah. And as I would throw in there, don't try and open another account.
Kelly Johnston [00:54:14] Yes please.
Lesley Hensell [00:54:14] The more you do that, the more you you look shady. Even if that was never your intent. Right. I don't think that was your intent, or you wouldn't even be asking us the question. Right. But but Amazon will assume it was your intent, so no more of that. And, yeah, I would I would love it if you would call in to our Riverbend number, fill out a form, let someone talk it through with you because it is super complex. I had to read it multiple times to get it, and it's not because you weren't clear. It's because the situation is that hard. Yeah. And we. And like Kelly said, we have lots of these where we have to ask even more clarifying questions of the client to make sure we understand timelines, because sometimes it really matters. If this little detail happened before this little detail.
Kelly Johnston [00:54:57] Yes.
Lesley Hensell [00:54:57] And I'm so sorry you're going through this. It's very frustrating. Amazon is you know. Your best buddy all the time. Yeah.
Kelly Johnston [00:55:06] What's your heart?
Lesley Hensell [00:55:10] Bless your heart Amazon. We love you so.
Kelly Johnston [00:55:14] We love you.
Lesley Hensell [00:55:19] Oh my goodness. I think that is all the time we have for questions today. Miss Kelly Johnston.
Kelly Johnston [00:55:26] Unless you have something that's so easy I can answer it in less than four minutes. Yeah, I think we're. I think we're pretty well, to the gamut, but those are some great questions. And as always, I know Leslie and I are always appreciative of the time and effort you all spend in putting together some of these brainteasers, because some of the things you bring to this podcast, they're challenging. They're they're not simple questions. So thank you for being so awesome and involved in giving us things to, expound upon and hopefully help you or someone else with, because that's the whole goal of why we're here.
Lesley Hensell [00:56:00] Absolutely. And throwing it out there again, you're welcome to email me at lesley@riverbendconsulting.com To get a free book sent to you. The first ten people will get a free ebook. We'd love to hear more questions, and some of you folks are going to reach out to because you specifically said, reach out to me and I'll make sure that gets done as well. So thank you so much. The only thing we can do in the remaining five minutes, Kelly, is football picks. Not think anyone wants to hear that. So I will just have to say, if we can be of assistance to anyone, visit us at Riverbend consulting.com. We're on all the social medias, too, so you can just search us there at Riverbend Consulting. Reach out to us on on LinkedIn, Facebook, any of the places were streaming. And until the next time, happy selling everyone.