Riverbend Consulting

Happy Hour, Nov. 20, 2024: Amazon fee relief, Amazon bundles, Walmart & more

• Riverbend Consulting • Season 2 • Episode 75

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Lesley & Kelly are back with a Thanksgiving season Happy Hour Ask Us Anything! 🦃✨ 

This episode is packed with the latest updates on everything Amazon as they help Amazon sellers gear up for the holidays. They'll dive into Amazon’s plans to launch a marketplace for generics from Chinese sellers, taking on big names like Shein and Temu. 

Don’t miss this festive and info-packed episode! 🎉 

#amazonsellers #HolidayPrep #amazonnews #eCommerceTips #SellingOnAmazon #AmazonUpdates #HolidaySeason #AmazonMarketplace #smallbusiness #entrepreneurlife #sellerscommunity #businessgrowth

Lesley Hensell [00:00:21] Hello everyone, and welcome to Amazon seller Happy Hour. I'm your hostess with the most as Lesley Hensell, co-founder of Riverbend Consulting. And here with the most important person in the organization, though, Kelly Johnston. Hey, Kelly. How you doing? 

Kelly Johnston [00:00:38] I'm good. How about yourself? 

Lesley Hensell [00:00:41] Doing okay? Thank you. Doing okay. You all know how this always happens. Like the second that this turns on, then, like, the Fedex man is here with something that requires signatures. I'm desperately texting the family. 

Kelly Johnston [00:00:58] Go do this for me? 

Lesley Hensell [00:00:59] Yeah. Go do the thing. Go do the thing. 

Kelly Johnston [00:01:01] Run interference, if you will. I know it's never ending. It's. It's always something. The dog barks, the Fedex shows up, whatever. Yeah. 

Lesley Hensell [00:01:10] Absolutely. And especially it's almost the holiday. Holiday season, y'all. Turkey five. It's almost upon us. And you know what that means. It's the most wonderful time of the year if you're a seller on Amazon. Or so we hope so. You know, I've actually been seeing from sellers talking to different people that they're seeing a little softness so far in the market this year, a little softness with sales. I have a few thoughts on that, though. I'm wondering if there is a little bit of market. Concern. I'm also wondering if there's like election hangover, like people were really caught up in election news and post election news and now they're kind of getting their heads straight that, yeah, it's almost Christmas. Yeah. 

Kelly Johnston [00:02:01] I think that's all very possible and probably varies from, you know, region to region of the country and different segments of buyers and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I absolutely could see that being the case. It seems like it's picking up a little bit because just even anecdotally, I see some some signs out there from people saying that their sales are increasing across multiple platforms, too. So that's kind of an interesting thing to see. And it's not just any one, you know, product areas either. So, yeah, I think you're right. 

Lesley Hensell [00:02:35] I hope so, because as everyone knows, we all depend on the fourth quarter in retail. That's when all the money is made. So. Hey, wanted to say hello to Ryan, one of our regular listeners. Ryan. Thanks for being here. And Alan, so glad that you all are online. I love having people here with us on the show. So before we jump into what we usually do, which is our Ask Us Anything format, we send out an email and say, Hey, got questions and people send questions back. Also, we love to answer any questions in the comments and we take questions live. But a couple of really big newsy things have happened recently that I thought we should talk about a little bit, the first of which is I called it I love it when I actually predict something correctly because it's very rare. Amazon made an announcement this week that they are not going to raise fees. 

Kelly Johnston [00:03:34] Yeah, that was a shocker to me because I really kind of just didn't see an end to the fee raising. So I'm super glad that you were right about that one. I'm happy to be wrong about something like that. 

Lesley Hensell [00:03:46] Yeah. You know, I was really feeling like. Sellers are already so anxious about Amazon and I think Amazon has heard so much complaining about these this year that perhaps after especially after putting these new fees in place, they have like the inbound placement. And you know, if you have too much inventory, if you have too little inventory, all the things. 

Kelly Johnston [00:04:14] Go to the left too fast. You've got to fee. I mean, it's just it felt like it was everything there for a minute, like things I didn't even know you could charge fees for. So, yeah, I can see why that might be just a tiny bit anxious for, for sellers. 

Lesley Hensell [00:04:28] Right. And it's just it's got to stop. Yeah. There's got to be an end or at least a some breathing room. I feel like this gives sellers some breathing room. The other thing is that Walmart came out with its earnings and when you look at Walmart's earnings, they are frickin killing it in online sales. And know we've talked before about the crazy stuff you could do with so if you don't buy on Walmart you should just for fun because example my teenage son is has switched from an electric razor. He wants to use an old school razor. Right. And so he shaved and then he got razor burn. So I said, I'll buy you some aftershave. So I go on the walmart.com and find a reasonably priced item. And it was here in like six hours and there was no minimum order. It wasn't part of a grocery order, but it was like from the grocery bucket, if you were from like the grocery and sundries bucket and it's and it just appears and it was like eight bucks. 

Kelly Johnston [00:05:34] Just not and yeah, I mean no wonder they're killing it. I, I know that some sellers are really ambivalent for valid reasons about selling on, on Wal mart, but I really think of if you're already doing multichannel fulfillment and what you're selling is a good fit when a lot of sellers sell across multiple platforms or not platforms, but product lines and things, you kind of might be missing the boat by not being on there. Because let's face it, if Walmart is is not in your portfolio, you're kind of putting leaving money on the table, especially with the way that they're filling things like that. Because I know you've said several times you've had things that showed up just lickety split and without that order minimum, that's a big deal. It makes buyers really happy. It makes them prone to come back. 

Lesley Hensell [00:06:24] Absolutely. And, you know, Walmart already has these giant distribution centers anywhere. Everywhere. Right. So they're essentially walling off a portion of their DC and having the vans and then the individual drivers who are picking up orders to deliver. And they're also allowing drivers to pick up from stores and deliver. It's fascinating how they're doing it and what they're trying. I know where I live is actually an area that we're seeing the whole mix of all the things. And you know what? I found the parking lot. Kelly I wish I had a photo to show if I don't actually go to the Walmart anymore because I hate shop. And so I just order everything online, have it delivered, you know, all the things I usually actually do grocery store. H-e-b now, but I, I had to go to the Walmart because I needed something I could only find there in a pinch really fast. And in the parking lot there's this big cage and it's got drones in it for drone delivery. 

Kelly Johnston [00:07:23] No way. Wow, man, they really have wasted no time. I think. I think that's what really differentiates them from anybody else who's try to dip their toes into the e-commerce market. They are not hesitating to match Amazon as closely as possible. Not quite step for step, but they're not far behind. 

Lesley Hensell [00:07:43] Well, and I don't even really understand how it works, to be honest. Like it had there was a shed in there and it was all branded, so it was all it all at Walmart branding and it had cutesy phrases about flying products on it, etc., and have big landing pads that they had painted onto the tarmac of the parking lot. And, you know, the parking lot there are enormous anyway. So it's kind of in the far reaches of the parking lot. So what I don't really understand is are they using it to fly like a product from the DC to the parking lot and then you pick up your product there at the Walmart because I can see that being tested before I can see them actually flying things out to your house. 

Kelly Johnston [00:08:32] Well, and I would imagine there's some FAA stuff going on there with how they want that tested. I follow some people on LinkedIn that I used to work with at Amazon who have had involvement in that area of logistics. And just based on what I remember seeing anecdotally over the last few years, I bet you money you're you're right that they're bringing it to, you know, that the customer is not quite in that loop yet. They probably have benchmarks about all kinds of things, safety and, you know, adhering to guidelines with distance and height and all that kind of stuff. And until they can prove with enough data that they can do it, I bet you it's going to stay in that limited capacity. Interesting stuff, though. 

Lesley Hensell [00:09:21] Yeah. You know, that makes me think I'm going to go so we can take some video and some pictures and put them on the riverbend. So look good on my profile. Yeah. So everyone can see it because I've. I drive by several other Walmarts and I haven't seen that before. Part of the limitation might be that we do have a giant parking lot at our at our Walmart. Like it's never even at Christmas all the way. So there's always some space. So it's, it's really interesting to see the branding all over it. I just want to see something fly in and out of there, y'all. 

Kelly Johnston [00:09:55] Drones are so interesting. I find them just like like a lot of technology. They have their ups and upsides and downsides, obviously. But when they're doing cool things, it's it's just it's amazing to watch. And the clarity on their cameras now is so much better than it was when they first debuted. It's hard to believe how fast they've improved as a technology, much like many other things that we love and rely on day to day. 

Lesley Hensell [00:10:22] Absolutely. So y'all seriously be sure and check our socials over the next week or so. I'm going to I'm going to get anything I can get, whether it's a video or still shots of that testing area they have at our Walmart. But as we were saying, so I think a lot of people are moving to a before I derail this. People are really moving to Walmart, Christian e commerce. We know a lot of our sellers are interested in Walmart. And so I think that also Temu however the heck you say it garbage. 

Kelly Johnston [00:10:57] Think it's pronounced garbage. 

Lesley Hensell [00:10:59] You're right. Okay. Garbage. Yeah. Temu. They don't they have announce. No, trying to pick and pack. There is some kind of fees that there's no fees for us. Sellers selling on. Move to move to move. And so that's that's a come on. You know, eventually that'll go away and they'll charge and fees. But Amazon's clearly feeling it on the competition from the Chinese sites. And so I think that's another reason that they're they're not going to raise fees and and they specified and no new fees. 

Kelly Johnston [00:11:38] Next yeah. And see that that really makes me think that what you said is probably the main driver. I'm sure they've lost some business and and or just seen a reduction in overall sales, especially in categories they really, really care about that are being, you know, picked up by by tamo and whatever else. And about the only way you're going to entice those people back is to reduce those fees because that was the main main complaint last year. And even in 2022, I can remember people really getting frustrated as those really they started to ramp so quickly. 

Lesley Hensell [00:12:15] Yeah, absolutely. So another interesting newsy thing about Amazon from the last couple of weeks is that Amazon launched its own garbage. So Amazon launched. Amazon a whole to compete with t machine shine, whatever you want to call them. And Amazon Hall. It's a piece of work, y'all. So Amazon hole here's the here's the magic of it is that it is by invitation only for the sellers, all of whom are in China. And as of yet, I've not heard of anyone from the U.S. being allowed. And in fact, the written guidance that was put out by Amazon was, hey, this is invitation only sellers in China. So if you're a U.S. seller and you're like, you know what, I'll make a lower cost version of my product and put it, No, can't do it, You're not welcome. Also, Everything on the Garp. Sorry, not garbage. Amazon at all is generic by design. They have decided that they can make this not risky for Amazon by saying no children's items, no topicals and no consumables because those are the things that you really, really don't want. Unsafe items. However, however, they still have jewelry. Made of God knows what. 

Kelly Johnston [00:13:56] And I'm sure it's pure cadmium. 

Lesley Hensell [00:13:59] It's okay. No, no. Listing. Hundred percent gold plated cadmium. And then they have a whole bunch of bizarro kitchen listings that are things that. Yeah. And and my favorite is there's all these listings all over and over as you're going through that, say, gold plated, gold plated, gold plated gold plate. And you know that there is not an iota for an atom of gold in any of those listings. There are pairs of shoes, you know, this beautiful pair of shoes and you're like, Those are really nice hiking boots. And then you click through and it's 299 for like $2.99. And it's for the shoe laces, right? 

Kelly Johnston [00:14:44] Well, you know, when it comes to the gold plating, you got to put the A.U. info somewhere. 

Lesley Hensell [00:14:53] Yes, you do. 

Kelly Johnston [00:14:55] I every time we talk about it, all I can think of is, you know, depending on how people pronounce whole, I hear whole. As it's going in a hole and it really kind of feels that way. I just the whole concept, as we've discussed, is just so baffling to me. And I'm old enough to remember when Amazon still had auctions. And I just the whole thing was so baffling to me, like, why are we trying to compete with eBay? This makes no sense. And they went away not long after I first started at Amazon. But it was just like that. It. If you're putting the flea in flea market. Why? I just I never understood the the logic behind it. And I don't know if it was kind of one of those things where somebody is like, hey, let's see if we can, you know, throw this particular spaghetti at the wall, make it stick, and then kind of refine it, which is probably what the thought was. And sometimes that's valid, right? But as established as Amazon is now to take this route and only caught these Chinese sellers that we know are selling very low quality, low cost. Questionable, potentially questionable stuff. What does that do for your overall brand reputation? To me, it just drags it down. It's kind of like that ad we discussed for Jaguar. If you haven't seen it, I do encourage you to go look at it because if you really, really need to feel like you took mushrooms and didn't, this ad is for you. And it makes no sense. Right? It has nothing to do with the brand. It totally detaches itself from the brand's underpinnings. And it would be like taking I don't know what's a really good heritage brand. I don't know. Something very I'm trying to think of something very English that, you know, is very stuffy and full of tweed and putting it in a rave. 

Lesley Hensell [00:16:49] Like Burberry? 

Kelly Johnston [00:16:50] Yeah, exactly. Good example. It's like that's exactly what that felt like to me. And to me with Amazon doing this, it feels like again, like they're trying to put the flea back in the market and I don't. No. 

Lesley Hensell [00:17:02] Yeah. So as a very long time seller and someone who works for sellers every day, one of the most important things to me about Amazon is buyer trust. And that is because if buyers feel like they can trust what they're purchasing online from Amazon, they will buy from me. If they don't feel like they can trust Amazon because of the actions of other sellers. They don't feel like they can buy from me, even though I try very hard to have great quality and be honest and do all the right things. And you know, the return policy on this abomination is anything over like three bucks or something like that, you can return. And, you know, I heard someone saying, well, where are the returns going to go? Is it going to go or are you going to have to take it to the UPS store? You know, it's a $5 item. Are you going to have to take it to the Cole or whatever? And I said they just need some way to ship it just directly to the landfill because that's where all of this belongs. It is landfill. It is our bodies. 

Kelly Johnston [00:18:02] And it just what what need are they trying to solve for the buyer? Because I don't think this is about the buyers. That's what that's what is so incredibly divorced from Amazon's overall ethos. Right. Is that they want to be the everything store and customer trust is paramount. Well, not with this. It's not. You cannot tell me that you are really and truly serving the need that the buyer has raised to you with this stupidity. You just I'm never going to be convinced of that argument. And it just makes me it makes me frustrated, feels it feels irresponsible to me, not just to the reputational hit that I feel like they're taking with it, but to just environmentally like, why are we allowing this level of dreck to be just mass produced and shipped in for what? What is it doing? I don't know. We already have enough of that. I mean, just go to any big lots or alleys or whatever. We got enough of that. I don't I don't think that this is a great idea, but I'm really curious to see how the markets think about it after the first year. 

Lesley Hensell [00:19:08] Kelly We need to keep the landfill operators employed. I e just you're not looking at this the right way. We need to just have more needless transportation of $2 items that the transportation actually cost more than the value of the item. And you know, I am no environmentalist. The disk drives me crazy from an environmental standpoint. And I'm like the last person preaching about greenhouse gas. And it just it makes no, it's coming all the way from frickin China is what it is. Crazy. And here's okay, So here's another here's another fun wrinkle. It's my understanding from just the blah blah of people who know people in Seattle was that this sucker wasn't supposed to launch until after the first of the year and this was going to be there. Get eyes on the platform after the first of the year after peak. But then the election happened. And when the election happened, now they're afraid that Trump might do the additional tariffs, which, you know, first of all, I just want to clarify for people what the news never tells you, which is the Trump tariffs on China are still there, like the Biden administration kept to them and actually increased some of them. So don't don't think that this isn't like a roller coaster where it went down and it's going back up. If it's the same as it's been for all this time. But Trump is proposing additional tariffs on China. And so that could make this cheap garbage cost $5 instead of $3. All right. No, no. So you'd have to pay $5 for shoelaces instead of $3. 

Kelly Johnston [00:20:53] Your gold related shoelaces? Yeah. I mean, I just. I don't think so. 

Lesley Hensell [00:20:59] So they're, like, afraid of that. So they're like, this could destroy the whole concept so quick, Let's launch it and make back some of our money just in case. And you know what? None of that matters. None of that Trump tariff or no tariff. Trump or no Trump. It does not make this a good idea. 

Kelly Johnston [00:21:17] No, I mean, you can't there is no putting lipstick on this porcine individual. It's just not going to happen. You look at it and go, this is a bad concept out of the gate. This should never have left the drawing board. How did this make it to the stage? I literally I mean, Amazon's done some things that I was just like, Well, that's an interesting experiment. Like their device. Farai You know, they had that success with the Kindle, which I love. The Kindle is a great machine. It's revolutionized reading for so many people made reading more accessible to so many people who struggle with print, love it, don't necessarily always love it for the authors, but I love what it's done for the public. And you can argue that that was a really great thing. Buyers loved it. It's it's made a whole new generations of readers. But when you look at this, I just can't see what it's trying to solve. And, you know, normally I would say you and I, I think we probably agree that doesn't matter what we're talking about with Amazon, when they roll something new out, we can usually. yeah, yeah. I totally see the genesis of this. This makes a lot of sense either because it's a new iteration of something from their legacy time or it's a new innovation based on what they are reacting to and seeing in the market with all of their amazing data analysis. And this is neither of those things. It feels like an misbegotten nightmare that an executive hadn't vomited on the paper. 

Lesley Hensell [00:22:49] Even things that we think are gross and would never buy, like the thing where you've got like ring doorbell or whatever and it somehow magically lets them come into your house. I mean, all that stuff. But we're like, No way. And the palm print I.D. at their stores and we're like, You're not getting my palm print. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff that we that we're not fans. But like Kelly said, we would say, I get it. Like, if you can get people to do that. Cool. Yeah. This to me seems like a total overreaction to the Chinese marketplaces. Which news Flash aren't doing that hot? They did really great at the outset and people were real excited about it. But then it kind of it kind of tailed off. And what they should be worried about is it tick tock shops because tick tock shop is wait for it U.S. dollars, U.S. based sellers with product here in warehouses here. Some of it may have been manufactured overseas, but it is here in a warehouse here. And we know a lot of U.S. sellers here, River Bean, who are jumping on the Tik-tok shop bandwagon and really pleased with their result. So if Amazon wants to get panicky about something, it should be that not right. 

Kelly Johnston [00:24:06] When I have a ticktalk shop story too, and I totally forgot about this. And so you said this just now. We in my household have developed a very strong fondness for a particular tik-tok shop, and in this case it is a product that do and say this indulges our inner 12 year olds. It's a they make cotton candy. It's all made here. And, you know, it's it's kind of a small family business and they make all these like super cool flavors and their stuff is amazeballs and they ship fast. They always send little things with it. It's just a really great experience. And then likewise, I've bought as a content creator, a canvas lamp. I don't know if you've seen those that holds your phone and it's got this really cool light and it's very, very mobile and it's just a really, really great product. Has a little remote with it. We got that from the tech talk shop and I've gotten a couple other small things, but the cotton candy is the thing that we've purchased regularly, but the experience buying that way is almost more seamless on Amazon and reliable. So yeah, that's the competition. To me, that is where sellers who have kind of an ability to be agile, that maybe they're not in like super heavy product lines or they're not, and things that are just really risky to ship. Tick Tock Shop's going to be the way to go. 

Lesley Hensell [00:25:37] Well, and they've started to develop a distribution network in warehouses. Right. So they can do fulfillment. Plus they can and do so. Lots of topicals, lots of ingestible. All of the things that Amazon is saying, frankly, we don't trust these Chinese sellers with because we're not because they're not branded. When it's all generic garbage. So we don't trust it. You know, all of this is U.S. based rah rah U.S. dollars, killin it on Tik Tok. It's very exciting to me. So I don't I don't get it. If I were going to be making some play, that would be it is. How do I compete with that? Not how do I compete with the dollar store? Or as I falsely said to a reporter last week, the dollar store that you put in the middle of the Neiman Marcus. 

Kelly Johnston [00:26:26] Right. It it really does seem like a strategic error to me because I understand on one hand how this new venture could feel on paper, at least like a really 1 to 1 comparison with to. But when you really, really analyze what is underneath that, it's not it just seems it's kind of it's like it's exactly like you said, the Dollar General and Neiman Marcus. It's like putting, you know, Dunkin Donuts in the middle of a Gucci store. It just doesn't make any sense. It's not aligned from a brand perspective. And whether. Buyers think that they pay attention to that or not? They do. And Amazon's been around long enough to have established a really specific brand persona. And when you try to shift away from that, it's a tricky business. I mean, look how many brands do that and fail. And some of them, it tanks the entire company or tanks them so bad that they get bought up by somebody else and they have to, you know, toil in obscurity for years before they come back into public consciousness in any meaningful way. And I don't see that being the case here. But I do see it being an abject failure where Amazon just kind of kicks it to the curb one day and very quietly and everybody acts like it didn't happen. What was Amazon? I remember that thing. 

Lesley Hensell [00:27:52] Yeah. Something at the next all hands in Seattle. They're just going to tap over that whole. Whole thing. 

Kelly Johnston [00:28:00] I'm sorry. We seem to have a missing slide in our presentation. I have no idea what was there. Moving on. 

Lesley Hensell [00:28:07] Well, and you know what? Even as a small business. So we're so if you're talking about like United States business in general, you call it a small business. If you compare us to Amazon, we're a micro business. We have 100 employees, right? So good sized, but still small. And, you know, the biggest mistakes we've ever made were chasing something that a competitor was doing that really wasn't in our wheelhouse. And we've done it and we've done it a few times. And it's always a mistake. 

Kelly Johnston [00:28:36] Yeah. And who said that's a bad idea? Jeff Freakin Bezos. Yeah, that was his thing. He really, really hated paying attention to what the competition was, was doing. He cared a lot more about what the buyers wanted. And that's why this feels so misaligned to me. And it's not to say that the general public always gets it 100% right, but by gosh, they're paying your bills, so you should be paying attention to what's, you know, going on in that sphere. And this is so not that. I just I mean, even with all the economic uncertainty that people may be feeling and have been feeling. This doesn't feel like the solution to me because it doesn't even feel like the right play to get those people. Does that make sense?

Lesley Hensell [00:29:18] Yeah. And see, Kelly and I, we feel really confident talking about this because we are the vaunted target market for almost all purchases. We're the right age. We're the right gender. We both have pets and I have kids. And so we are like the the the typical decision maker on purchases for a household is women our age with pets and with kids. Yeah. Because both. Yes. Because. Yeah, because both of. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. But but yeah. Because people spend a lot on those things. Women make make household or TV purchasing decisions. People with pets spend a lot of money. People. Kids spend a lot of money. So it just funny that they should have talk to us. What can I say? But I do want to throw something out there for all of our friends who are jumping onto Walmart. So I have a little secret I'm going to tell you. We have email marketing going out next week and the week after. But since I mean, y'all are our friends, that's why you're here, right? So your friends, I'm going to tell you, we are doing reimbursements for Walmart. We have a So just like over at Amazon, Walmart loses your inventory. They misplace your inventory, they damage your inventory. They don't credit you for returns. They don't credit you for all of your inbound shipments. They do all the bad things. And now I don't say Walmart stole your inventory like I do for Amazon because I don't have any evidence of that. But but I don't know. Walmart still seems more honest to me, but maybe maybe that will change with time. But we're doing we've been doing Walmart account reinstatement situation. They call them item reinstatement for some time and we would love it if you would trust us with your Walmart reimbursement. And as you know, if you sell on Walmart, the interface is terrible. It's really hard. You know that if you thought I always tell people, if you think that seller support is bad in the U.S., try it in Canada. I think it's bad there. Try the UK. If you think it's better, try the you okay. If you think Stella Central is antiquated and garbage, try Walmart because it's even worse. Which is crazy because it's newer. So don't have your team but waste tons of time on reimbursements for Walmart. Give us a call. We'd love to hear from you. Our phone number scroll in or you can go to Riverbend consulting.com. Fill out the form. We would love to get you on our program, get you back money you are owed. We have some client success stories already stacking up and if you ever have an enforcement problem over there in Walmart land, we can help with that too. Okay. This is a good Segway to point out that, you know, it's it's it's almost turkey five time. And you know what that means? It means that things are crazy. Right now for all of us on Amazon. Therefore, at happy hour this week, Kelly and I really are not just drinking. We've busted out the heavy liquor. 

Kelly Johnston [00:32:37] We did. 

Lesley Hensell [00:32:38] So I. I am enjoying a lovely Jefferson's ocean going. It was on a few rocks. They've all melted. It's a good thing they melted because I had two fingers in here. It's absolutely delicious. What do you have, Kelly Taylor? 

Kelly Johnston [00:32:55] Well, I have a couple of favorites, but I got some four roses. Bourbon this evening. Single barrel. Good stuff. And definitely much needed after a intense day because, you know, Wednesdays are never anything other than intense around here because things are starting to heat up and we have clients that need help and things are going this way and that way. So today was definitely a a Bourbon Wednesday for sure. 

Lesley Hensell [00:33:22] It was all a lot of times we're drinking water now During Covid and during Covid, we were drinking well, but lately it's been water or coke or a little quieter. Yeah, today was a special kind of day because Kelly and I are both hittin the bourbon, which is also known as the acceptable Southern woman's hard liquor. 

Kelly Johnston [00:33:44] Yes, And it's funny because I. I never knew that that much about bourbon. And I think the first time I met you, actually, you had four roses. And I was like, ooh, I got to try that. It sounds amazing. And it was. And that's what really started me on my my bourbon journey. And now I have plenty that I love, including one that is amazing called Angel's Envy. Do you do you ever get a chance to try? It's comes in the most beautiful bottle. I have my art teacher to thank for that. He recommended it and it is so good. It's not cheap, but it lasts and it's wonderful. With all the variations you can make. The Jefferson's is also a favorite of mine. I can't. Can't say I don't love it because it is good. It's good stuff. 

Lesley Hensell [00:34:25] I can and will drink it straight. But because we're actually trying to be coherent, I watered it down a little, but it is actually totally drinkable. Straight. It is my Christmas morning. Presents. Drink. Yeah. 

Kelly Johnston [00:34:40] Yeah. No, I mean, it's good to say that. I know it's good to have those. It's good to have those things which we like, you know, And I being a Bourbon fan, I will try just about anything, but I have a few that I really like. As for roses is definitely on the in that top three along with the Angels envy and probably probably Woodford's. I enjoy a good Woodford, but I do a Jefferson's is just so I don't know there's something about it. It's got a got a very unique caliber and flavor to it and. 

Lesley Hensell [00:35:09] Buttery it's butter. 

Kelly Johnston [00:35:10] Yeah. Is buttery without being caramelly. Because I mean and I don't get me wrong I like that. But anyway we, we definitely decided today was the day and you know, responsibility can be set aside for a moment while we unwind from the craziness. 

Lesley Hensell [00:35:28] And we talk about all the important things here. We talk about Amazon Hall, we talk about fee increases, we talk about liquor. 

Kelly Johnston [00:35:35] Yeah. And, you know, priorities. That's absolutely. And people join this happy hour purely for the intellectual, you know, discourse here. Clearly, I like to think that they like the humor and the reality of people who actually talk like humans because, you know, we are that. 

Lesley Hensell [00:35:56] Well, I have been told that they like that. We just say our opinions out loud, which is something that doesn't happen a whole lot in the Amazon consulting community. And speaking of, I have multiple questions that I can put in kind of one bucket that I think you will enjoy. Kelly especially since this is something we've been working on internally. 

Kelly Johnston [00:36:19] Okay? I'm I'm all ears. 

Lesley Hensell [00:36:21] I need to change my listening. It's out of date. There are tweaks that will clarify issues for my customers. Okay. I like how this is starting. This is a seller saying, Hey. This is actually a buyer happiness issue. I believe too many changes at one time can cause the listing to be suspended because it's happened to me before. What is the best approach to making that changes and protect the listings at the same time? And then I've got another thing where it says catalog team. This is a person who has the kind of like team internally is making changes a human but is getting rejected by Amazon. Is there a way to disable algorithmic decisions on an agent? So I think what they're saying there is they believe that the changes they're trying to make sounds like once you choose the changes via Seller Central are being rejected by Amazon automatically. And so they're assuming this is an algorithm, which it may be. I am not sure. Sometimes it can be. Sometimes it's just that things don't. 

Kelly Johnston [00:37:28] It's just. It's just broken. Wow. Okay. Well, I'll start with the first question, I guess. Kudos to you for looking at it that way, because I do think that another thing that Jeff Bezos was right about is that if you maintain good catalog hygiene, your buyers are going to come back and they're going to buy from you again and again. And that is the secret of being successful and competitive on Amazon, is that. But if if you're not sure what the best way to go about it is and you and you're leery, understandably, of making too many changes at once and getting your listing kind of gummed up, which we don't want, especially right now, I would probably focus on what is the number one complaint. So let's say, for example, you have something that has a sizing issue or comes in, you know, small, medium, large or whatever. And there's a problem with that data. And, you know, it's a big pain point. Fix that. Start with that. I don't know that you won't have issues if you make, say, three changes at once versus two, but I would always start with the highest priority thing that is going to have the most impact on that buyer experience and in turn reduce your returns, reduce your your customer contacts, complaints, voice the customer problems, all that kind of stuff. Because if you've got 1 or 2 things that are really driving that, then those are the does it the high notes hit those. You could try spacing your changes out over like, you know, on Monday I make this change on Friday I make this change on you know following Friday and make the next one whatever. Alternatively, and I don't know what you think about this, Lesley, because I know we've had really mixed mixed success with this kind of stuff. But you could reach out proactively to support, say, Hey, I need to make some changes to my ason just to make sure that it's up to date and current with the current product specs. I don't need a new Asian, you know, it's not a new product. You know, I'm going to be making some changes. Please don't lock my down because then you are putting down on paper that you're trying to do the right thing for the right reasons. And if it fails, then you can point to that case and say, You guys, I warned you and you still decided to throw my ass in the trash and lock it down. What the heck. Your mileage with that may vary, but those are the two things that occur to me for that. 

Lesley Hensell [00:39:55] So I love everything Kelly just said on her first point. One of my favorite phrases in all of life is do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. In other words, if you've got three changes, you need to make sure you're listening. And one of them is by far the most important. Just do that if that's all you can get to take. Do that. And just because the listing isn't perfect, it doesn't mean it's not better and that it's a good thing. And like and honestly, be happy and proud of yourself that you attacked that one thing instead of beating on yourself. You can get them all three done. Because this is the evil machine that you're battling sometimes to get your listings updated. I agree with Kelly wholeheartedly that there is no downside at all to opening a case of Seller Central and telling them you're making these changes. So it's on their record and they know it's you. It is also not a bad idea to do the same thing on brand registry. Yep. So that way everyone sees it. They all know if you have a history of getting your lists and listings taken down when you make changes, tell them, Hey, hey, this is me. I've got a buyer on these accounts. There's no reason to shut them down. These changes need to be made. All that being said, there are more and more problems these days with getting anyone's easy to see changes to take that you're doing through the seller central interface. They just aren't sticking. I don't know if that's on purpose. I don't know if it's an error. I don't know anything. I can't explain it. It makes no sense to me. If you can do a flat file, create a flat file to make changes, you're far better off. Now, there is a magical thing that you can do that will help you in your journey of flat filing. And that is how you reach out to Sellers Control and they're going to hate you for doing this. So just know you have to ask 2 or 3 times. You reach out and you ask for a reverse feed them. Say, I need to make some changes to my listings. I want to make sure my flat file is is up to date, possible as possible. Could you please send me a reverse feed? So what they can and will do if you ask enough times persistently and kindly, is they essentially download a file for you that you can then create an Excel file from. I'm not remembering right now if it comes as a text file or some other kind of file. It's not an Excel, it's something else. 

Kelly Johnston [00:42:31] I think it's a CSP. 

Lesley Hensell [00:42:33] Okay. Thank you. It's a CSP, and you can turn that into an Excel spreadsheet and then like magic, whatever is actually on Amazon at that moment is what is in that reverse feed. So reverse feed are the key words there. So then you make edits to that file and you can be super confident that whatever changes you're making or to what is on there right now, it's not seven versions ago before other people made changes to your listings when you have that flat file, right? So if if slower support would do it, you just need to keep pushing. They will eventually start there. And like Kelly said, then pick a field and push that file. Pick another field, push that file another day. Do remember that sometimes when you push a file, you won't actually see those changes until the next day. Some updates are made overnight. I think there's reasons that they queue those and they don't want them all happening during the day. They would rather them happen at midnight. Seattle time, I think, which is who I am, where I am, and you'll see them all come through. 

Kelly Johnston [00:43:40] Well, it's overload, you know, if everybody in their brother is trying to make a heavy duty change at the same frickin time and they're doing it across 50,000 listens and yeah, you're going to have some some issues. So they do queue up those changes and they pass them out. So some of them will be faster, some of them will be slower. 

Lesley Hensell [00:43:56] And a lot of them do purposefully queue up to go overnight. Just like anyone who manages software. You know, you don't do an update at 2:00 on a Tuesday afternoon. You do the software update at midnight on Friday or some, you know, Sunday morning at 2 a.m. so that the minimum number of people will be harmed if Amazon goes down. So I hope that is helpful for you. We are also helping some clients with flat files. If this continues to be an issue, please reach out to us. Let's see if we can give you any help. And actually, Kelly, that reminded me. So random. Yeah. You know, the one thing I do enjoy about a drink occasionally is that my mind, like, does all of the connections. 

Kelly Johnston [00:44:41] And the free association flows. 

Lesley Hensell [00:44:45] So this year we have to remember to do this. Please take a note. Kelly is so great about in meetings, she takes notes and make sure we all do what we're supposed to. We need to have a Riverbend pool this year of when Amazon goes down. So every year for the last three years, Amazon has gone down during peak and sometimes it's been on the front end. Like you couldn't place an order, but every time it's been on the back end where Seller Central, you couldn't load your sales, everyone freaks out. We need to have an Amazon, a Riverbend Amazon pool of When does Amazon go down this year? I would encourage all of our listeners as well. Are you in a mastermind group? Do you have an office, one of those dark pools? Because last year I want to say it was on the 13th or the 14th, but I can't remember. 

Kelly Johnston [00:45:35] Yeah, it seems right. And I seem I want to say sometime in the last couple of years, there was one on the 17th as well, like right around the shipping cut off, you know. 

Lesley Hensell [00:45:44] Yes. So I just want to remind all of our friends out there, Amazon will go down sometime in early December. If they don't this year. I'll I'll give them props and say that they, you know, learn from our our friends at Netflix with Mike Tyson and they said we don't want to look like that video game of the boxers. Mike Tyson boxing from back 150 years ago. We don't want to look like that. We don't want to look like someone told me it looked like scrambled porn from late 1992. 

Kelly Johnston [00:46:17] Great. That's so funny, kid. 

Lesley Hensell [00:46:19] I actually did. 

Kelly Johnston [00:46:19] See, We don't want you to see. We're going to scream. Yeah, right. 

Lesley Hensell [00:46:24] So maybe so Amazon will say we don't want to be Netflix with with Jake, Paul and Mike Tyson. We don't want to go down this year. But if history is the lesson and I'm thinking the last 4 or 5 years in a row, they will go down. So I just want to reassure everyone that y'all don't need to panic. You don't need to go on your Facebook group and ask our your order stop. It's going to come back. It usually takes less than 12 hours. Most of the time, less than eight, sometimes eight. But most of the time less than eight. And they will come back. So just your friendly reminder to not freak out when Amazon goes down the second week of December. About ish, maybe the third. 

Kelly Johnston [00:47:05] Did I have a dumb question? Did we fail to answer the second question? Because I feel like we focus on the first. 

Lesley Hensell [00:47:12] no, it was all of it because we were concerned about like an algorithm issue. You hit that because this is the Bourbon Party. No, no, no, no. I'm just kidding. Just kidding. 

Kelly Johnston [00:47:24] I just want to make sure because to me, that's a little bit of a separate issue. And I totally will say that is entirely possible, that there is some kind of weird algorithmic thing happening that could be blocking you. Can you turn that off? No. Can you ask for it to be turned off? Sure. Will they do it? No. As I would encourage everyone to adopt this mindset, even though it sucks. A.I. is here to stay and whatever they're using to leverage. Both enforcement and catalog taxonomy and in general changes. It's probably going to be not so great for a little while. It'll get better. But it's it's it's definitely not perfect. So just know that, you know, you can ask for anything you want. It doesn't mean that Amazon's going to listen. So just keep that in mind. But, you know, why not ask? See what happens. 

Lesley Hensell [00:48:20] So, Kelly, we have time for one last question, because we had so much fun talking about things like drones at Walmart. 

Kelly Johnston [00:48:29] And. 

Lesley Hensell [00:48:30] Whatever others. 

Kelly Johnston [00:48:31] Three minutes to answer this. We have a problem and it's not the bourbon, but go ahead. 

Lesley Hensell [00:48:39] Okay, well, we can go longer because it's actually about a holding policy change where we're creating bundles. 

Kelly Johnston [00:48:47] Now. 

Lesley Hensell [00:48:48] See? So rather than. 

Kelly Johnston [00:48:51] The watered down played real hard there. Yeah. 

Lesley Hensell [00:48:54] We're creating bundles of branded wholesale items with our private label, complimentary items like a Gatorade drink with our brand shaker. The branded wholesale items are being procured from authorized distributors with the permission to sell as bundles under our own private label brand. They keep getting suspected intellectual property violations, a whole bunch of them. Some have been logo misuse. Some have been copyright. All kinds of different things. So I think it's it's good to talk about bundle policy, like what they just did, but then also what they might do. And of course, this isn't food which makes it. 

Kelly Johnston [00:49:36] Yeah. You can't. Yeah. Yeah. And, I have some thoughts. Yeah. Unfortunately. Anything. What was it? Was grocery, ABC and topicals. Was that the other one? 

Lesley Hensell [00:49:54] It is health and personal care. 

Kelly Johnston [00:49:56] Right. Sorry. So sorry. Jargon baked in. Brain damage. So health and personal care grocery And wasn't there a third category where this was enacted? I swear there was a third one. 

Lesley Hensell [00:50:09] Yes. I will look while you. 

Kelly Johnston [00:50:10] Talk, I apologize anyway because of. Amazon limiting this very important change to these very high value and high traffic product lines slash categories. Yeah, you can't do that. I have feelings about this that are very mixed because Amazon clearly has known for a long time that their bundle policy is broken. There were a lot of very, very low value, not particularly great bundles put out in those categories, especially that did not bring value to the consumer and created a lot of confusion because the only reason people created the bundles was to have their own listing so that no one else could list it to basically just limit competition. And while that may have been working in and helpful to some sellers, it really wasn't a good buyer experience and it certainly wasn't a very good catalog move. It cluttered the catalog really badly. So yeah, if you're doing that, that's no longer permitted for those categories. Now, it remains to be seen what they're going to do with the other ones. But Lesley, I know you were looking up clarification there. Please help. 

Lesley Hensell [00:51:24] Yes, I just got there because, you know. Yeah, because you could see me, like getting my one time package. You're like next to me. 

Kelly Johnston [00:51:31] That darn two ID. 

Lesley Hensell [00:51:35] That's right. Thanks to Amazon, a consumable product in grocery, pet baby health and beauty. So that's a lot of bang. 

Kelly Johnston [00:51:43] That's a lot of things, but it's all basically consumables. But for, you know, our four legged friends and ourselves. So yeah, no, no, no more of that. And it sucks because you had permission. The brands were like, Yeah, man, go rock on. But those brands are not offering those things in the wild. So. 

Lesley Hensell [00:52:04] Well, and it also sucks because going back to our very original topic, it reduces selection on the platform. And one reason people love Amazon is because of bundle bundles are awesome. People usually create a bundle because, you know, someone like you created that bundle, right? Someone who wanted the things that you wanted created that bundle. And none of us are so unique that if you create a bundle, there's no one else in the United States who thinks that's an awesome idea of important to note. So we are seeing some really weird stuff with bundles that don't violate this particular bundle policy. Even people who have their own private label brands are getting bizarro warnings and having listings taken down for their own branded bundle. And I don't even know what to say about that. It's just really bad enforcement. 

Kelly Johnston [00:53:07] Well, remember, if you will, I'm going to take you back to a not halcyon time, but do you remember when suspected IP launched? 

Lesley Hensell [00:53:18] Yeah, that was a few years back. 

Kelly Johnston [00:53:20] It was. And do you remember that we had a client who had a product and I cannot remember. I want to say that there's something, something in automotive or in scientific that had the abbreviation HP for horsepower. 

Lesley Hensell [00:53:37] Yes, I do. 

Kelly Johnston [00:53:38] And we saw a ton of that because there are so many common abbreviations for some type of measurement like that that were very akin to, you know, Hewlett Packard or whatever else. And so we saw so many false positives. I wonder that in an effort to police those categories that have now had this prohibition added, if Amazon has begun to lean on that existing technology and it's not correct. So it's maybe it's focusing on on parts of a brand that resemble, you know, I don't know, trying to take a short brand name, but I can't. 

Lesley Hensell [00:54:16] But my God, this is like facemasks. So during Covid, they wanted to take down all the face masks that were, you know, to protect you from Covid, which they didn't do. But that's another point. And then they wanted to take all of those down because a lot of them made claims that they were like in 95 or whatever. They actually were. 

Kelly Johnston [00:54:37] The K five. 

Lesley Hensell [00:54:39] Right. And so you had to prove that it was actually that and not just like some piece of trash, you know, some leaves from the front yard with something to hold it over your face. And so they they took them all down. But then while they were doing that, they also took down things like, you know, the face mask that you put, like beauty masks. They took all those down. They took down all face masks that like did to choose. They devolve those out. They took everything down that that face mask. And so you're right, Kelly, I can totally see that being, it's a bundle, it's evil and taking it down, even though. So if you're a brand owner and you have your very own bundle of your very own private label products, what do you do when Amazon you write? 

Kelly Johnston [00:55:25] Right. What's that? That's the question. And I think some of that hinges on whether or not you're in brand registry. You know, that changes your changes your calculus a little bit in your path. But I mean, if I was a brand owner, regardless of whether I was on there or not. As soon as that happened to me, I'd be screaming at them and showing my my trademark certification going, What the heck are you doing this? You know, I'm not Hewlett-Packard. I'm not, you know, Toshiba or whoever you think I am. What are you doing? I'm compliant and I'm not breaking your rule about creating this bundle for Gatorade that they don't themselves make. This is all my stuff in a bundle. And I think that's about the only thing you can do because they don't seem to be paying attention from a human perspective until you do complain. 

Lesley Hensell [00:56:10] Well, and Kelly said something really important there, which is if you are a brand owner, you can make whatever frickin bundle you want. And I don't care what the category is because you're the brand owner. So the most important thing is that you assign a just one market to it. As long as you assign a guest one bar code to that specific bundle, even if it's food, even if it's a topical, you can do that. So if they came after you and said randomly, you need to make sure that you listed that. Yep. And that's exactly what they sound like. As opposed to the Charlie Brown of what they sound like. 

Kelly Johnston [00:56:48] Yeah. 

Lesley Hensell [00:56:49] If you if you have that happen to you, it's very important that you have actually included that in your brand registry where you can list all of the issues that are associated with your brand and that you have that GSM barcode. So if you do that magical thing, it will make it go away. Also, if you are selling for someone like, say, the Gatorade bundle that you mentioned, an authorized distributor can't help you. The brand can't. And we have clients who have sold for years bundles that were approved by major food brands. So there a little bit of negotiating to be done here. But I have known several sellers who have gone to major brands and convinced them to assign one of their GSM barcodes to a specific brand, that they then given away a letter of authorization to that third party seller and say, you can sell this bundle, this bundle, this bundle, this bundle. Those would then be approved by the brand and have their own GSM barcode. You may have to do some battle with Amazon to convince them. But what you have to avoid that I think isn't going to fly anymore is the mixed brand bundles in these categories. That's the ones that I don't see any way around it now. 

Kelly Johnston [00:58:08] Yeah, because unfortunately, so many people put out bundles that were, again, not high value. They didn't have just one barcodes, they had no tie to the brand. The brands don't like them because they look bad, they look trashy or whatever. Those rotten apples burned it for everybody else who were doing good things because there are a lot of good bundles on on Amazon. I'm a big fan of the camera bundles. I mean, you can get some really great stuff with, you know, whatever your canon item is, blends, cleaners and cloths and all that kind of stuff that go with that all stuff that's really high value and people love that regardless of category. It's it's across the board because it saves the buyer a lot of time. If they don't have to go hunt down those five individual items and save some money a lot of times. So, yeah, it's worth fighting for under the circumstances that Lesley just laid out for you. 

Lesley Hensell [00:58:56] I'm very hopeful that Amazon will not attack bundles in other categories. They may. If you actually rely on bundles for your business, start thinking now about contingencies, start thinking about talking to suppliers or people who are IP owners. 

Kelly Johnston [00:59:17] For example. Have your docs in order? 

Lesley Hensell [00:59:20] Yes, you need all of your documents available and all the ducks in a row because if they were to expand this to other categories, that could be problematic. But if you think competitively now, it could save you, not only save you problems later, but put you ahead of the competition. 

Kelly Johnston [00:59:37] Absolutely. And I do think this is not the last change that we will see. I'm predicting, though I'll say it now, I'll go on record and say it now that I think that whatever changes come next probably will not be in hard goods yet. They'll probably be in something else similar or adjacent to these existing ones they've already targeted. But it won't be the same. It'll be different because I don't think you can apply the same logic that had been applied to Pat Baby and the others that you listed earlier to some of these other categories. They're just not the same. And I'm curious to see if particularly in the categories that they have started with, if brands that have had a lot of success and exposure on Amazon in these bundles that are now no longer allowed complain. Did they say to their category people that they have connections with? Like, hey, man, you know, our sales have gone down like 30% on Amazon month over month because these bundles are no longer allowed. And, you know, they may give the advice that you gave and say, well, go do this and that or not. I don't know. But I'm wondering if any any brand pressure might revise. I'm sure there's a lot of brands that are happy about this decision and cheering it. But I bet there's some that aren't. 

Lesley Hensell [01:01:01] Well, from your lips to God's ears, because I don't love it because of the reduction in selection on the platform, which you all know that I say that all the time. And I know you're all tired of hearing it. However, some bad apples have really spoiled the barrel here because we see all the time cellars that have gotten popped with like counterfeit because they're on a listing someone created that was garbage. So we had one recently. It was a food product, common pantry item that someone, instead of putting it under the brand of the pantry item, put it under their own private label brand and added a frickin sticker. 

Kelly Johnston [01:01:45] yeah, I remember that one. 

Lesley Hensell [01:01:47] With their own brand. Like, do you want a sticker for some random company? And believe it or not, Amazon enforced against people who got on that listing went insane, absolutely insane, and said, you know, you're selling counterfeit products because it's not from this brand. And the brand was putting their brand name on the listing instead of the brand of the pantry item that you all know the brand name of. It's almost like if you put Hershey's. Yeah, pretend it's Hershey's Cocoa, which it wasn't in this case, but pretend I said it was Lesley's Pantry. And here's Hershey's Cocoa and a Lesley's pantry sticker. 

Kelly Johnston [01:02:25] Yeah. I don't want my Cento tomatoes to come with a sticker for, you know, whatever so-and-so's hot sauce. I don't. I don't want that. I don't need it. That does not add value to me as a consumer. Now, if you put those tomatoes with, say, I don't know, some spices or something else that, you know, helps me make my salsa. Sure. Let's go to town on that. But that's and that's the problem is that so many but so many sellers in the absolute you know, drive to create their own listings that nobody else can touch because they're so scared of trying to compete on these other listings that they create these things that are not of value to the consumer. And really, you're probably not getting an ROI on that that you think you are. You're setting yourself up to get yourself in trouble. And now that that bill has come due because Amazon has said if you're in those categories and you're listing those bundles, they're going to give you a slight grace. And that was actually something that surprised me as the original messaging for that had a surprising amount of grace built into it. Instead of just, look, 4 million Asians went down on Amazon today and no one knows why It they they actually said, Hey, we're going to give you an opportunity to stop listing these things and then we're going to yank them out of the catalog instead of just doing it without telling people. That's an unusual departure that I approve of. 

Lesley Hensell [01:03:48] We won't start enforcing the updated policy on our existing bundles until late Q4 2024, and we'll give you 30 days notice through email and the account health dashboard when we identify non-compliant bundles that are scheduled to be suppressed. 

Kelly Johnston [01:04:03] Yep. That suggests to me if I am reading between the lines a little bit that any any defect that is driven by this action is either going to have zero impact on you or is going to have low impact on you where that might not be true. We're the exception and asterisk might pop into this conversation would be if your entire catalog is that and one or more brands keeps popping up as a problem because I guarantee you they're going to be looking at high value brands that may have been angry about these to begin with and don't want these bundles. Those might become high, high intensity defects, critical defects, which could bring your age down a lot. So don't sleep on these just because that messaging is kind of touchy feely for Amazon and a little bit softer around the edges than usual. Do pay attention. Stay on top of it and let us know if you have questions about what to do next because we can give you some solid advice to keep you safe. 

Lesley Hensell [01:05:04] Awesome answer, Kelly. Okay. Well, that brings us to an end of the Amazon seller Happy Hour. Thank you, everyone, for listening. We really appreciate you being here. As we mentioned earlier, if you're interested in any services, we've got your back. We're here to help with account reinstatement, Aids and reinstatement and now Walmart reimbursement to Anthem flat assistance as well, if you have challenges in that area. So please feel free to give us a call. You can go to Riverbend consulting.com. And here's the crazy thing. And the top right, there's a phone number. If you're on mobile, you can click that number. It'll dial us up. A human answered the phone during business hours. And we would love to hear from you. Talk to you about your problem and tell us tell you if we can email. And then you can always also go to our website and fill out a lovely form or email sales at Riverbend consulting.com. So thank you, everyone, for joining us. And as always, Kelly, thank you for all your brilliance. I appreciate it. 

Kelly Johnston [01:06:08] I appreciate being here, as always. 

Lesley Hensell [01:06:10] And I hope you all have a wonderful turkey five. Until next time. Happy selling.