Riverbend Consulting

Happy Hour Feb. 12, 2025: Trump’s Tariffs, Fraud Suspensions, Valet & more

• Riverbend Consulting • Season 2 • Episode 76

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💖 Kick Off Valentine’s Week with Lesley & Kelly! 💖

Lesley & Kelly are BACK with the first Happy Hour / Ask Us Anything live event of the year! 🎉

🎙️Tune in as they break down the latest buzz on all things Amazon—from Trump’s tariffs, brand restrictions, fraud suspensions, Valet services, and much more.

Trust us, you’re gonna LOVE this episode! 💕

#HappyHour #AskUsAnything #RiverbendConsulting #LoveYourBusiness #AmazonFBA #AmazonSellers #EcommerceTips #BusinessGrowth #Networking  #ValentinesWeek #SuccessInTheAir #SellerCommunity 

Lesley Hensell [00:00:22] Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Amazon Sellers Happy hour. We are here for Riverbend Consulting. I am Lesley Hensell. Hello. And this is my bestest appeal buddy, Kelly Johnston. Hey. 

Kelly Johnston [00:00:43] It feels like it's been a long minute. I don't think it's been as long as it feels, though. 

Lesley Hensell [00:00:48] Yeah, well, you know, the end of the holiday season is not a time when you would try to get Amazon sellers to watch anything in real time because everyone is way too busy trying to make all that fourth quarter profit. So we hope that everyone out there had an excellent end of 2024. And now here we are bright and early in 2025, and we have some great questions that some of our friends and clients have sent us to answer. 

Kelly Johnston [00:01:18] Yeah. 

Lesley Hensell [00:01:19] So those of you who are new to our happy hour, we typically do this as an AMA format. We want it to be the most value just sellers. So we don't come in here with, you know, an ad for the newest software or to just talk about blah, blah. We try and answer the burning questions people are having about selling on Amazon enforcement issues, challenges with Amazon. And then on top of that, we throw in some of our own insights sometimes about what we've been seeing. So let's just hit it. Kelly with a really, really open ended question from Penny Camp. Hey, thanks, Penny. And anyone who's watching us live, feel free to if you've got a question, drop it in the comments. No matter where you're watching, if you're watching on LinkedIn or YouTube or Facebook. If you drop a question, it actually pops up live for us and we can answer it and say, hey, hey. So definitely did earlier. So our first question is what is the impact of Trump's tariff on sellers? 

Kelly Johnston [00:02:29] Wow. Great question. Timely question. Pertinent question for so many people. And I think that. The answer is still unclear. For some, I think it also depends greatly on where you get your products. I don't think anyone escapes some level of impact to their business and typically is probably going to be an increase in their cost of goods sold and all that good stuff. But it's it's challenging to prognosticate that way in a in a way that feels. I don't know.

Lesley Hensell [00:03:02] Not. Not made up. 

Kelly Johnston [00:03:04] Yeah. I was going to say, not not not accurate. But yeah. I don't I don't want to make things up because literally that would be what I was doing. If I started spouting figures, I would be lying to my teeth. But I do think that it's very likely that which. Tariff for talking about whichever one actually sticks. All that kind of stuff. Because I know there's a lot of flux in that. Even just the threat of it has probably increased prices. So, for example, I'm North Carolina, where I reside, has a very significant furniture business. Thriving huge part of the state economy has been for decades. I know people in that industry who have been experiencing increases in prices in anticipation of the tariffs for months, and some of them have seen as much as an 8 to 10% increase on the stuff that they're getting, which in some cases is significant. We're talking about taking an already $3,000 item of furniture and now adding 8 to 10% on it. So it can be big, I think, but it varies widely. 

Lesley Hensell [00:04:04] I think that's a great answer. Kelly It's kind of the we don't know yet, especially since I know it doesn't feel like it. But we're only three weeks into the Trump administration right now. And the reason I say it doesn't feel like it is so much has happened. I mean, clearly, the dude didn't take four years off to play golf. He took four years off to plan what he would do if he came into office. It was a four year brainstorming session and he came in with a plan and started implementing immediately instead of, you know, a lot of administrations. It seems like it's six months before they even show their intentions. So Kelly's right. One of the challenges is that when when tariffs are even an option, it makes people freak out a little unreasonable. Lower prices. One thing that there is one thing, though, that can be super positive for U.S.. Based sellers and this even has kind of gone on and off and on and off. And I don't think they figured out the policy yet. But for a long time, the direct Chinese sellers have been able to avoid tariffs on anything under $800. So when someone from Tamu or Sheen or even Amazon is shipping direct to the buyer and it's a package coming from Shenzhen or wherever, and it's less than the 800 bucks, there was no tariff applied to it and it wasn't ever examined or tested or anything else by Customs and Border Patrol. And so compare that to us. Sellers. So as a US seller, you're importing a whole container load of goods from China. You're having to actually pay the tariffs. Well, that's not fair market. If you're paying the tariff and the other people aren't. And then as to why those tariffs are even in place, I think we could we could talk for five hours about how trade with China isn't always fair because of slave labor issues and human rights issues and the materials they use. And there's all kinds of things we can talk about. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But what matters to me here is if if the tariffs actually start being applied equally, as long as there are going to be tariffs, if we're trying to make that trade relationship more even and fair because of intellectual property and all these other things, it should at least be applied the same to everybody. It shouldn't just be that an importer in the US is paying an extra 10%, 20%, 30% and then anyone shipping direct from Shenzhen is getting away with it and not paying anything. So I think the Postal Service is putting a plan in. They've actually temporarily ceased accepting packages. I think also I saw something about. E packets and I think E packet is going to be on the chopping block, which I am very excited about. You want to talk about like a Doe's target for fraud, waste and abuse. E packet is this crazy mailing program where someone can ship a package from China cheaper to your house than someone from the other side of the United States can ship it to your house. We're essentially subsidizing the mailing cost for these overseas sellers. And part of the subsidy comes from the Chinese government and part of it comes from the U.S. government. But again, this is not for trade. This is not even Stephen. And it really doesn't even make sense because you're taking tax dollars from U.S. based sellers and subsidizing their competitors in China who are paying less to ship. I mean, there is nothing about that that feels good if you're a U.S. seller. So I would love it if E Packet went away because if you take E packet plus no tariff, it makes it really difficult. So I think if they actually tackle both of those, there could be a little more pricing parity on the platform for people who are competing with factories in China. 

Kelly Johnston [00:08:11] That strikes me as a balanced way of looking at it. And again, you know, hard to know. But if those things happen, that definitely could create that parity you're talking about. 

Lesley Hensell [00:08:21] Or at least had that direction. It's sometimes you'd right now so yeah. 

Kelly Johnston [00:08:26] I mean I think that's the slippery slope of of. Trying to develop these trade agreements to begin with is like there's concessions that at the time probably seemed fine. And then over time you start to see the real the real impact and cost. I'm sure like when E Packet came out, there was a valid reason for putting something like that in place that had the potential to increase things in a positive way. But over time it turns out that that's not actually the case. And I know many, many U.S. sellers, including myself, who sell on Etsy, have felt the pinch of the constant increasing cost to ship domestically, let alone internationally. I mean, it's so untenable for me to ship internationally that I don't do it anymore. So. 

Lesley Hensell [00:09:08] Right. And so imagine like you want to ship a beautiful piece of art from your house in North Carolina to my house in Texas. But if the same piece of art were being shipped from China that it cost half as much to ship. I mean, that's just maddening. 

Kelly Johnston [00:09:21] Yeah, and it doesn't. And if we're so invested in our small business culture, which we allegedly are. This needs to be fixed. I mean, there's a lot of things that need to be fixed for small businesses. And, you know, we could talk about that for hours because we have strong feelings about it. But yeah, I totally. No way. Not not happening. That so frustrating. So yeah, I hope that works out that way because if, like you said, even if it gets us on the path. Right, any progress forward. 

Lesley Hensell [00:09:47] So yeah and I really think of all of the potential tariffs the Chinese win will have the biggest impact on sellers Yeah. You know, Mexico seems like they're going to play ball on things and Canada, who knows? That's kind of going to go back and forth. We'll see how that goes. But really for sellers, I think sellers in the U.S. are really buying a lot more goods from manufacturers in Mexico than they are from any other trading partner, probably, except like India and China. 

Kelly Johnston [00:10:23] But Canada. I want to go back to that for a second because I have some I have a perspective on that that I don't know. I don't know yet how I feel entirely about it, but I do want to point it out. If you are a seller or a business that is importing into Canada, you may find yourself stymied because the Canadian public is rather pissed off by what's happened and they're refusing to to buy American. And in many industries I know it's impacted alcohol in other areas. So you may find yourself impacted by that depending on what you do. If you do not import, obviously that's not the not same. But something else to consider that could have an impact on the way your business runs. 

Lesley Hensell [00:11:05] Very true. They're already really difficult to deal with on the bat and all the other I mean, it's just it is unfun to sell on Canada. That's right. That's my personal opinion. I know that's a that's a lovely problem, but I'm fine. 

Kelly Johnston [00:11:19] That's a pain in the butt no matter. And I think it's I think it's even more pain and but in some ways for like really, really, really big sellers or really, really tiny sellers because you just don't have the infrastructure if you're really tiny, but if you're really big, the fees and the thing adds up so fast and it can change so fast. 

Lesley Hensell [00:11:40] Okay. Let's jump to a more concrete question, although I loved that question. Penny, thank you so much. That was awesome. I always love prognosticating, especially something so new that literally changes every five minutes. 

Kelly Johnston [00:11:54] Yeah. It's fun. 

Lesley Hensell [00:11:55] To watch. My store received a notification for intellectual property infringement for one item. A mistake happened. It was made by a team member when listing the item. I have no intention to sell it any more now that I know the issue. What are the consequences if I go ahead and delete that listing? Is there a better way? And that's from Charlotte. Thank you so much, Charlotte, for sending the question.

Kelly Johnston [00:12:21] Yeah. Well, how do I want to start this prognosticating? Okay. So I'm going to start with the assumption that your account is otherwise clean and you have no history of systemic IP problems and that this was a one off kind of deal because that sure as heck what it sounds like. And if that's the case, then really realistically deleting the listing is not a bad option. It is not what I would call the highest and best option, but it's not a bad option. Two reasons. Number one, if if you know there was a mistake, you've corrected it on your back end and you're confident that this is not going to repeat and this is not a hero, ason or anything like that for you, where, you know, you have invested so much money and you maybe have an opportunity to offload that inventory somewhere else or you don't have that much of it. So it's just kind of not that big of a deal in that regard. Yeah, you can do that. But something to consider that I preach and have always preached and I preached this when I was at Amazon and I still say it now. If you don't appeal something, you are allowing Amazon to make very unflattering assumptions about you, your account and your business practices that you may not want. And let's say for the sake of argument that even though this was an accident and not a systemic problem, something else just unavoidably weird happens. Now you've got this thing that you've left unaddressed that Amazon might be going, well, look, what do we have here? We've got a number two problem. Maybe we've got a pattern. And they start digging around and they find something that, well, we can enforce on that now. I don't like that for sellers because sometimes, you know, it's people that go looking for problems and they find one and now you're stuck. So even if you don't intend to sell it, even if it's not, again, a do or die for this particular listing, you may want to still go ahead and appeal it for two reasons. Number one, what I just said about not giving Amazon the room to assume about you, but also because what if something really cool happens down the road with that brand? They come to you and go, We want you to be our authorized distributor on Amazon. Now you've got a potential problem. Granted, one ason, but still you want to be able to do exactly what you are asked to do, especially if you have a partnership. So I just feel like in general, clean your house even when that cleaning is just getting down that one cobweb that I can see in the corner of my office right now that's driving me absolutely batty as we sit here to clean that cobweb up. Don't let it linger. 

Lesley Hensell [00:14:58] The perfect answer. As per usual from Kelly. I just have one thing to add. You totally did the correct thing when you said. You want to go ahead and delete the listing? Yes. So if you're going to appeal because you do intend or want to sell an item, again, you need to leave it in your inventory because Amazon is actually really weird sometimes about IP appeals and they're like, it's not in your inventory, so we're not going to look at your appeal. I mean, it's so stupid because it's not like they can't look and see who sold it or whatever. But if they reject your appeal or if you decide not to appeal for whatever reason, you need to delete it. Don't just put it zero units of inventory actually delete it because any time that you have something in your inventory, Amazon assumes that you intend to sell it again. That is why I always recommend that people, depending on the size of your account, either once a month, once a quarter or once a year, probably once a quarter is the least. Frequently you should do it. Delete everything that you're out of that you do not intend to re list and restock soon because things get recalled or IP issues come up or brands get gated and sometimes you'll end up with a violation in your account when you didn't do nothing. Man, you just sold the thing like two years ago and you'd be amazed at how many sellers we have. We've even had people suspended for listings in their account that they haven't sold on for more than a year. That now there's an IP issue or a counterfeit thing and you're like, What the heck? So delete, delete, delete. 

Kelly Johnston [00:16:41] No, I could not agree with that more. And thank you for emphasizing it. And Lesley brings up a problem that I think in 2025 and beyond, we may see more of this. And I'm concerned about it as a consumer, but I'm concerned about it as a, you know, espousal of advice and wonderful things in the space is that those recalls that Lesley mentioned, they're getting more frequent, they're getting more serious and they're getting more deadly to consumers. If you are selling consumable products especially. You should be on a regimented schedule to delete those listings. Whether it's this use case or something else that you know you just sold out, haven't relisted. Thought about it, haven't done anything with it. Get that crap out of your account because it does potentially add up to a list of bad things. If you don't if you don't do that. So I can't stress enough that I know how hard it is sometimes to schedule and stick to that kind of thing because it's really I don't want to say grunt work because that implies it requires no intelligence. That's not true, but it does require diligence even more. And if you have that diligence to stay on top of that, it can save you so many headaches down the road. 

Lesley Hensell [00:17:56] And there is no downside because if you relist a product, it actually pops up your same all the same data that you used before as though you'd never deleted it. So you're losing nothing and you can always run sales reports and such too. Yeah. I'm so. Kelly I'm sorry. Go ahead. 

Kelly Johnston [00:18:10] No, no, I just. I can't I can't overemphasize how many times we have answered this question individually to clients who have been like, I don't understand. And it was literally almost the exact same thing. Sorry, Go ahead. 

Lesley Hensell [00:18:22] No, I was just going to say that I felt the need this evening since this is happy hour. You mentioned that there could be some Canadians who are angry with our friends in Kentucky. So I have with me here my favorite, the Jefferson's bourbon, just to help out and do my part for those American brands. 

Kelly Johnston [00:18:41] I am doing something fun. But with Elijah Craig. Have you ever heard of Cherry Bounce? 

Lesley Hensell [00:18:47] No. 

Kelly Johnston [00:18:48] It's a sorry, we're going to divert for a second because I feel like a window into what I like to consume in my off hours. This is actually something that apparently is native or originated in Wisconsin because they grow some certain types of cherries and stuff. You take your favorite bourbon, whether it's Jefferson's or whatever else, and you put it in a mason jar with those cherries and you let it marinate in the dark for I can't remember what the time period. Yeah. And you just like shake it once in a while so that it doesn't, you know, get funky. And then whatever the predetermined time time frame is, you get the cherries out. Now you've got this infused bourbon. I cannot tell you how amazingly good it is and not overpoweringly sweet, and especially if you've got cherries that are not super like overripe when you use them. It kind of, you know, retains some of that tartness. 

Lesley Hensell [00:19:44] Yeah, That sounds like alcoholic to your wine. 

Kelly Johnston [00:19:46] Kind of. I have two very large mason jars in my my cabinet in the kitchen that are currently marinating Elijah Craig because we had a literal handle of it that had never. 

Lesley Hensell [00:20:00] Happened because I went to visit. Yeah. Come on. 

Kelly Johnston [00:20:03] Come on down. Because I don't think I want to ship that. I think that's hazmat. 

Lesley Hensell [00:20:06] I think it is. I'm down for some alcohol to your wine. So I had your wine for the very first time back in December. Took a road trip to Atlanta to go to the SEC championship game. Took another road trip to Atlanta for a college football playoff game. And one of those times we went to Bojangles. Yeah, which is our favorite, our favorite fast food place that we don't have where we live. And they had your wine. It was very exciting. So I just had to throw that out there because I know that is such a southern thing is. 

Kelly Johnston [00:20:40] Very North Carolina thing. Everybody loves it here. And also they make barbecue sauce with it, which I think is maybe a bridge too far for me because I like savory and vinegar based. Savory and or vinegar based, I should say, because I like all barbecue sources fairly equally, but I lean in that savory direction. But, you know, I'd give it a try. 

Lesley Hensell [00:21:02] Anything with the word barbecue works for me. Okay. So today, one of our colleagues, Brianna. Hey, Brianna. She is our partnerships manager. She's super awesome. And she found the most amazing Twitter post. It was fantastic and we have to share it with you x, Twitter, whatever you want to call it.

Kelly Johnston [00:21:23] Can I say what it is, though? 

Lesley Hensell [00:21:24] I got to say? Go for it. 

Kelly Johnston [00:21:25] Go for it is the most profound example of Sappho. I find out that I have seen Amazon do in a while and let me just say they deserved everything they got. 

Lesley Hensell [00:21:39] So it was posted by Amazon seller Help and it says Account issues need help with appeals. Seller support should be your first step. Need additional assistance. Connect with at Amazon Seller help. Don't engage with third party providers for Amazon related matters. Stay safe and secure in 2020 for. Okay. We're not in Covid anymore. That line doesn't work anymore. Stay safe and secure in 2025 by sticking to our official channels. So that kind of sounds okay until you see the replies, y'all. So here are some dramatic reason readings. I don't think support has ever fixed anyone's issues. I can't. Health gave me bad information that resulted in my not being able to reactivate my account. It's been nine months since Amazon destroyed my business. 

Kelly Johnston [00:22:44] That's the one that got me. I had the I had the hurt stomach feel after that one. 

Lesley Hensell [00:22:50] Well, and you'll know why. It's because we have clients. You've told us the exact same thing. This is a thing that count health or solar support gives you bad advice. You do what they tell you to, and then you can, like you permanently can't log into your account. Or like they've told people to delete the buyer account and then you permanently can't get into your seller account or to appeal the wrong way. Okay, here's another one. This post looks more like a joke. Your left arm doesn't know what the right arm is requesting. We are ten plus years old, made in USA brand with serious buyer satisfaction, history, dermatology tests, clinical case studies, etc. Recently, Amazon wiped out our accounts and our brand for bogus complaints. Is this a joke? So our support is so bad that they're not even worth reaching out to. It hasn't been good since 2016. That's a decade of absolute incompetence. Yeah. I'm sorry. I can't stop reading these. 

Kelly Johnston [00:23:54] They're all gold. I mean, really, literally. They handed whoever put this stupid post out there, but. And they deserved it. Because two things about this really, really struck me. One, it lumps. I'm sorry. I'm. Now I'm fired up. I have feelings about this. They've they lumped all third party providers, which obviously includes us in one giant unsafe and unsecure lump. That pisses me off because there are many, many good, aboveboard, very caring, very ethical places like Riverbend that do good work for sellers day in, day out. So whoever wrote that you don't know about? Second of all, Amazon has spent so much time and money in the last, I would say probably 18 months, maybe on their service provider network, which is literally a network of people like us doing exactly what they're telling their sellers not to do. And the thing about that that's so ironic is like, I'm sure that people in those orgs are all looking at sideways at like, Really? Did you just did you just undermine everything we've been freakin working on for two years? 

Lesley Hensell [00:25:02] Yeah, I went and recruited all these people for SBN and told them how happy we were to have them and put them through the wringer to approve them. Yes. And then, I mean, you know, it was not easy to get approved for spin, which it's it's kind of like the seal of approval. We have it on our website. People can ask us and we have a way to log into accounts. It's safer than creating an alias for some users. Yes. So it's a whole it's a whole thing like they want people like us and then they say this. If so, okay, what if I've connected with Amazon seller help but they aren't helpful. Who can I contact then? I have been trying to get an answer for over nine months with no help. 

Kelly Johnston [00:25:44] I have a future idea for another happy hour is where we find something like this. And then we read it as though we are southern while we are well, but really southern people as though it is Shakespeare. I will definitely have bourbon for that. 

Lesley Hensell [00:26:01] Support needs to be better. Most support seems to have next to no training and just relies on Paragon to give them a script. This is someone who knows stuff. Tarragon is one of the tools at Amazon, right? 

Kelly Johnston [00:26:14] And you know what's also really sad is that this also throws the hardworking associates in support under the bus, because I guarantee you, they are undertrained and underfunded and under supported. They are not your enemy. Amazon's corporate bureaucracy and stupid leadership is your enemy because they're the ones that are making support, effectively neutered and castrated and not able to help you. So, yeah, they deserve all the hate that they're getting, I think. Well, how many? There were like four screenshots and it was all the way to the end before somebody started trotting out the expletives, which I thought was an admirable show of restraint. 

Lesley Hensell [00:26:49] Yes, we have. The average long time seller understands how things work at Amazon better than support does. That is 100% true. 100% true. Because I. I am the one on our team who never worked at Amazon. I'm a long time seller, so there's a lot I know about the seller side because a lot of our employees come from solar support account health seller performance. So there's like seller side stuff that I know that's not their bailiwick and then vice versa. Right. And and between all of us, yes, absolutely. My account has been suspended since late December. Yeah. I'm sorry. Jay Richard. 99% of the time you guys just say follow up with seller support. Laughing my ass off. Stella. Support is beyond useless. Literally told two different things by two different people. Stop outsourcing or train better. And then we complete the thread with the very simple F-you Amazon. Yes. We are really finished that way. I'm sure there are probably more since then, but that was how our three dots ended with a few inches long. 

Kelly Johnston [00:28:04] I wonder if an intern put that post out because I'm sorry. That's one of the most tone deaf. It feels unpolished. It feels unvetted, like somebody went off the reservation somewhere and did the thing that they weren't supposed to do. And it just doesn't match up with anything else that I really see from their various, their various EA handles. So I hope somebody's got their, their a. There, but handed to them later for that because why did they open up a bunch of dumb? 

Lesley Hensell [00:28:35] So there's a super great story that the the brilliant Kelly told me once upon a time. And it was about when she worked at Amazon in Seattle and they had an all hands meeting and at the all hands meeting, someone got this brilliant idea. They handed out Jeff Bezos heads on a stick. So they were like fans, like funeral fans, where it's a a Jeff Bezos head mounted on a on the handle thing, like a like a funeral fan. And they handed them out to all the employees. Okay. Like if you thought that through. There's two problems. One, you know, three problems. One is really obscene. Things can be done with this. And it's the CEO of the company. Two is it can be used for all kinds of distractions and shenanigans that can go on for months and months. I mean, it's like giving someone endless Plato credits or bubble machines in the office. It's, you know, why would you do this? And then number three, they could actually probably have use them for like things that would be seen outside, like doing little skits and videoing things. And I'm sure there's even more reasons. But like anyone with a brain would have said, no, no. Well, let's not let's not have that be the hand out because people are going to do all these things with them. And yet they did it. This is the same category like anyone with a brain would have been like, no, no, no, don't you know what happens when we put posts like this out there? They're mass. And they did. 

Kelly Johnston [00:30:16] Yeah. And I'm sure they still are deservedly so. And you know, you'll hear me on these if you if you've listened at all before in the past to us. You've heard me say this before. So I'm going to say it again. The people that work at Amazon, by and large, take great pride in what they're doing about their jobs, and they do the best they can with very, very limited resources, training and support. And that does not make the experience that sellers have. Right? Correct. Good in any way, shape or form. But you have to remember who your enemy is here. It's not those people. And it's really frustrating for them as it is for you. So I am so glad to see them get flamed because wow, was that. And that was a total earned. What was that tennis term? Not unearned fault. You know what I'm talking about. I mean, there's a name that, like forced error. That's the first error. That's what I was going for. 

Lesley Hensell [00:31:15] Well, okay, So also, just to throw it out there, y'all, it's just not true that seller support is helpful. Account health is occasionally helpful, but they're not going to do the work for you and get the thing reinstated. There is a reason our business exists and that we've been around for coming up on eight years. Unfortunately, Amazon is not useful and helpful, especially in difficult suspensions. Whether it is for accounts or reasons or literally, we wouldn't be here. Like if you could just work with Amazon account holder. You know, I wouldn't have thousands of clients. 

Kelly Johnston [00:31:51] So literally any team, I mean, any of the teams, none of them have anything that resembles ease of use. It's ridiculous. 

Lesley Hensell [00:31:59] Well, Sellers and Seller Central looks almost the exact same as it did 15 years ago. So so with that being said, we have had a beginning of year. Get your house, your account, healthy and clean, special going on for $350 off any decent or account appeal. It actually officially ended yesterday. But if you're watching this happy hour and you give us a call by the end of the week, which is Valentine's Day, February 14th, 2025. Just say, hey, Lesley told me I watch the podcast or listen to the podcast. Lesley told me I can get the 350 off through the end of this week and they will honor it for you. So we would love to help you with account and Eastern issues because golly no one at Amazon is actually going to help you. That's like. 

Kelly Johnston [00:32:49] Yeah so what great bars on on Valentine's. 

Lesley Hensell [00:32:55] I'm sorry, what? 

Kelly Johnston [00:32:56] It's a big year on Valentine's. 

Lesley Hensell [00:33:00] Yeah. What's hearing? That is letter B, Letter R, and I was like appreciation.

Kelly Johnston [00:33:06] I am not doing tech speak in real time now.

Lesley Hensell [00:33:08] Because, you know, Amazon is like nothing but abbreviations for things. So I was like, got its brand registry brand registry on Valentine's Day. 

Kelly Johnston [00:33:18] What I can I don't know sign language that was going to be really bad be ours be our. Yeah exactly. Know what Lesley said If you are an especially if you are one of the people that was in that thread that we just read. If nothing else, give us a call so we can see if there's anything else that we can do. Because sometimes when you spend nine months trying to appeal your own account, you don't know that you are so far off target that you're just out in the hinterlands. We might be able to pull you back into civilization and get you get you back on the selling track. So, you know, give us a call. We really, really would love to help you if there's a way we can. 

Lesley Hensell [00:33:53] We want to give you 350 off because you made us laugh so hard that two. Okay, I have a new question for you. It's kind of long. 

Kelly Johnston [00:34:01] No. 

Lesley Hensell [00:34:02] You got to really focus on this one. We are a wholesale fulfillment distribution company. One of our dealers has been restricted from Amazon to sell a particular brand. We've seen an all the necessary documents, invoices, letters from the brand authorizing them to sell. Get still. The answer is no. They keep asking for the same information over and over again. We never speak with the same person twice. It's as if no one is even looking at the documentation provided. And I'll tell you what, Peter, that's probably because they're not there is no direct contact to the department that has placed this hold up. You're right. And customer service can only message them, which they probably aren't even doing. The product is original, authentic invoices from us as well as our invoices from the brand. The dealer went as far as opening an account directly with the brand. Those invoices were provided as well. Still not able to sell. It helped to reinstate the seller with that particular brand, which they've been selling on Amazon. For over ten years. It's not FBA, it's seller fulfilled. This dealer has multiple other brands they sell without a problem. It's just the one that's been restricted and it's not restricted by the brand or the factory. Okay, Peter, first I have to tell you, these make me want to pull my hair out. We have had so many clients who have come to us who have sold a particular brand, particular line of product even or Ason and been restricted from it even after a very long history of selling that item or that brand, which is super frustrating. So. If they're asking you for the same information over and over again, it makes me wonder if there's a performance issue in the account that the seller isn't telling you about or doesn't understand is actually the reason this is happening. So the first step is really to evaluate and see if there are any other problems in the account with this brand or anything similar or even other brands. Because if it's considered luxury or high end, that can get you gated out of because it's luxury and high end letters from the brand authorizing them to sell. I would like to see those letters. Sometimes what's written in that letter matters, too. It helps if they actually say that it's really important to them as a brand that this seller be able to sell the item and why that can be really key instead of just we give them permission to sell that. It's really important for them to sell for some particular reason. What else do you got, Kelly? Besides, these are really hard. 

Kelly Johnston [00:36:48] Okay, so a year ago I had a very different perspective on these because we were having successes. But something has changed in that year where we have seen a lot more people getting shut down. Not with like ten years necessarily of of rigor behind them with a brand, but sometimes multiple years. And they just suddenly figured it out. So it's important to understand that the teams that make this decision are different. And there is one team that holds the power and it's not solid performance. Select performance in this case is only executing the request of the category because it's being driven by category people. So the reasons people can get get it out often start with what Lesley said about performance. So that would be the first thing I would look at is, is there an unresolved performance issue with this brand? Because if there is, that can be the driver. Two, for someone to lose privileges to sell it. I'm also going to be honest that it just seems that they've changed their policies and have tightened up who and what they want to be able to sell things with no real clarity around why. So that makes this kind of situation even more frustrating for you. But the good news, if I can paint you a silver silver lining picture here, you have literally every single piece of information that you need to make this successful. The other thing I would add that could be tripping things up, does all of the information match across the documents? Because many businesses run with a DBA and a lot of times their DBA is, you know, Willy Wonka's magical wickets over here, but their storefront name is, you know, got to sell or got to close because I don't know why Glengarry Glen Ross just came to me, but you know what I mean. The things don't match. And if the information in the documents seems to be talking about somebody else completely, well, of course you're going to reject it. There can also be other things that don't line up and don't add up, but Amazon's going to tell you that. So this is where we come in as the Amazon translators and we can go, okay, let's look at the totality of the information. You've got the logs, you've got the invoices, you've got the invoices that the dealer went and got himself directly with the brand. You've got the ten years of history. What does that account say on top of that? Like the performance we were talking about, looking at all of those things together, we can usually figure out what the root causes and then help you address it, because without that, you are not going to get the attention of somebody who cares. 

Lesley Hensell [00:39:21] Yeah, we also like in these cases to essentially build a business case. Yeah. Which is which is why I mentioned in the why the the letter from the manufacturer actually helping to build that business case of why this particular seller is important for them. So, you know, there's a lot of things you can do around selection or that you always you're going to always keep 15 days of inventory available. There's there's all kinds of different ways you can build that business case. I will tell you that these are this is not going to get solved at this point. If you've already submitted all this, this is not going to get solved any more through seller support account, whatever path they are sending you through, it's probably one of those two. But like Kelly said, it's going to category. It's not going to get solved that way at this point. It's got to be an executive team escalation. So call us and let us help you give it give it a shot or help your seller give it a shot, because that's probably where you are right now, unfortunately.

Kelly Johnston [00:40:25] Yeah, but but again, the good news is you have literally every single piece of the puzzle that we would want to see in a scenario like this. And even though you've appealed before, which doesn't always help and sometimes can hurt depending on how appeals are constructed, all that kind of stuff. You have everything where your dealer has everything. And between the two of you with the information that you have plus the desire you have to get this fixed. I think we could craft an extremely compelling business case to be like, Yo, Amazon, What? Why did you do this? Why are you kicking out a seller with ten years experience? Who's strategically important to this brand? So let us help you. 

Lesley Hensell [00:41:01] Absolutely. Okay. I got another good one. 

Kelly Johnston [00:41:04] Okay. 

Lesley Hensell [00:41:06] It's short and sweet. Okay. I like things that are short and sweet. Bob asks, what qualifies you to answer questions on so many subjects?

Kelly Johnston [00:41:18] Wow. Why do I feel like I wouldn't get asked that question if I were a dude? Bob? 

Lesley Hensell [00:41:22] No, I can't decide if Bob is like my friend and he's throwing me a softball or if Bob is challenging me or if Bob is genuinely like, Seriously, man, I don't get it because we cover the widest range of things. 

Kelly Johnston [00:41:37] I know. 

Lesley Hensell [00:41:37] I know we cover a super wide range of things. Yeah. So but. 

Kelly Johnston [00:41:41] But seriously, at the heart of that question is it's funny to me because, you know, there's this thing called Google. You can look us up, you can look at what our bona fides are, you can look and see what we've done. But the bottom line is we have two things, I think that make us qualified to do this. Number one, we care about the people that are in our sphere, those clients, VARs that are sellers, distributors, logistics partners, whoever it is that have sellers on Amazon having problems, we care about that. And because we care about that, that means we've put in the work, we've done the research. We have literally analyze hundreds of hours of data that comes into our company to figure out what's happening to our clients and why and crafting solutions and strategies for them so that they have at least a fighting chance of getting their business back on track. I don't have any special background beyond the fact that I worked at Amazon directly, and I've spent almost as long in the consulting field. So if that's not enough to make me qualified to speak on these things, I don't know what is. But, you know, the other thing is I am a generalist. I research all the things. That's one reason we can cover so many wide ranging areas. And Lesley has a similar background, although far more impressive and degreed, which is true. Don't start. But her background lends itself to. Plus, she's spent time as a seller over a decade as a seller, and probably even longer or almost as long in the consulting space. So literally the combined the Voltron of our powers comes from those experiences and they combine into making a really compelling way to find out how to solve your problems on Amazon at least. 

Lesley Hensell [00:43:14] Yeah. So Kelly is just really smart, like IQ wise, she's one of the smartest people you would ever talk to and that really helps. And she has a very unique mind where she thinks about things differently than other people. And like she said, I've been a seller for 15 years, which is crazy long time. And I started selling when the FBA program was only a couple of years old and there weren't that many people in it. 

Kelly Johnston [00:43:36] So easy to think about how much it's changed. 

Lesley Hensell [00:43:38] I've been around and I've also been an eBay seller and still am on both Amazon and eBay because, you know, you got to pay for these stupid kids somehow. I mean, lovely children somehow. And yeah, I used to be an old school consultant, like working at an accounting firm, old school consultant. And like Kelly, I've, I've been in the appeal space for specifically for Amazon for like 12 years now. 

Kelly Johnston [00:44:09] Yeah. 

Lesley Hensell [00:44:09] That's a really long time. 

Kelly Johnston [00:44:10] I think next year will officially be the ten years since I entered the consulting space. I'm pretty sure I'd have to. 

Lesley Hensell [00:44:16] Yeah, I mean, that's nuts. That's just a lot. So. So, Bob, one of the things that I've done that I think actually makes me good at my job is I've spent thousands of hours on the phone with sellers. We've had thousands of clients, and many of them I work on their ticket personally and have like when we started this business, there were four of us. It was me and Kelly and our wonderful admin, Leah, who is now our h.R. Person. Leah and then my business partner, Joe, who's over on the sales side. And so Kelly and I worked on every single client case that came in for a very long time. And yeah, when you spent thousands of hours not exaggerating, you know, if you spend like 2000 hours on something, it's supposed to help you be more of an expert. When you spend thousands and thousands of hours talking to clients, I would have days where I would have a consultant called the client at eight, nine, ten, 11, 12. One, two, three, four. So I'd have all day long and then I would write appeals well into the night. In our early days, you do get good at it and you learn a lot of stuff. 

Kelly Johnston [00:45:18] So yeah, it is that what it is, that repetition. Plus I think we have we have unique skill sets mentally, like you said, that lets us look at things, you know, because not everybody has the ability to look at risk management and risk management through the lens of Amazon is a unique beast. It just is because they were first. 

Lesley Hensell [00:45:38] Speaking of risk management and softballs, since I was Bob was so kind and gave us a softball. I love I love a good softball. Is a let's talk a little bit about valet. 

Kelly Johnston [00:45:55] Yes, yes, yes, yes. No. I lost Lesley. I'm not sure if anyone can still hear me, but I seem to have lost my partner in crime just as she was about to talk about our service fella. There you are. 

Lesley Hensell [00:46:12] It just dropped like this. 

Kelly Johnston [00:46:13] Like now I have to improvise. This is bad. I'm just kidding. 

Lesley Hensell [00:46:17] Yeah. Yeah, it's. We've both had to do that before. One time, I actually did a whole happy hour with a wooden spoon with Kelly's face drawn on it. Where? That was Kelly. Yeah. So sorry about that, Kel. 

Kelly Johnston [00:46:30] L.A.. We're good. I was introducing that, you know, we were about to talk about. Okay, so let's talk about it. 

Lesley Hensell [00:46:35] Valet is awesome, and let us tell you why. So everyone is looking to outsource things, especially right now. A lot of Amazon sellers and accounts, they have either gone through consolidation or they're selling on multiple platforms. Makes it really difficult to do all the things you need to do. And in the past, I think everyone felt like solo performance was like the one thing they couldn't let go of anything that was enforcement oriented, account, health oriented, anything with an appeal. Even the owner of the business, even with large sellers, you know, the owner is still the one doing ace and appeals and all that is just not sustainable. It will eat your whole life and it's upsetting. And so when you're doing things that are upsetting and you're getting these ridiculous responses. It is not conducive to growing your business. So here is something super exciting we have had for a while. A service we call a SAP seller account protection where we can handle all of your Ason reinstatement for you or anything that needs an appeal that is on the account health page short of a full account suspension. And we've been doing that for a while. Well, recently we developed new systems. We have the lovely ESPN network log in, all the good things. And we even now have a way to write escalations for clients and submit them where before they had to submit them themselves. So if you're a valet client for SAP account, health is off your plate. We get access to a file folder somewhere out there on the interwebs that is a shared drive where we can see your invoices. If we need to give Amazon invoices for you when they ask for them. But besides that, we're logging into your account each day. We're looking to see if they're asking for appeals and we're just submitting the appeals if we have questions. You know, we do a lot of prep with you and we find out about your business, how you source the product, what your common issues are. The appeals are all legit. We make sure we know what your problems are and if things are repetitive, we're going to come to you and say you really need to fix your whatever your prep. You have a manufacturing issue, whatever it is. But it takes all of the day to day drudgery out of it for you. We will even call account health on your behalf to get more information if that is something that is needed. So I wanted to talk about this because we're very excited. We have clients on Valet now and it has been so successful. The success rate of our Valet clients on the appeals, it's actually higher than the excess rate success rate on SAP. And it is all down to one thing. Some of our SRP clients, they run out of time. They don't have time to find us that one invoice. They don't have time to call us when it's needed. They don't have time to send the escalation, whatever it is, because we're all super busy. But when we do it all for you, it all gets done and it's almost always fixed. So I'm, I'm really excited about this service because this is something clients have wanted. They wanted it to be totally hands off. And now we can do it for you. So anyone out there who would love to completely outsource your account health, give us a shout because we would love to talk to you. Make a deal. Try it out for a few months, see how you like it. And I think you'll find that not having to think about that anymore is like, the best thing ever happened to your Amazon account. 

Kelly Johnston [00:50:08] Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like that axiom where they talk about where in your personal life, you know, should I hire a cleaner or should I do this or I should do that? And, you know, look at how much you make an hour. And if it's, you know, less than 50% or some of the numbers, it's worth it for you to have that expense to do the thing because you get that time back, you know, whether it's having groceries delivered or having a personal assistant that does specific tasks or using TaskRabbit on a regular basis to accomplish the specific goals of that, you're not as deeply involved in the trenches. Those things can really add up. And what I know, I know what some of you are probably thinking, because Lesley did mention that, you know, we go through this really extensive process at the beginning and you're like, I gotta have time. I go meetings, I made eggs. Okay, these are not meetings for the sake of meetings, right? This is we're like learning you. We're Vulcan mind melding with your business to understand how it works, what your needs are, and making sure that we can execute on those. And if you will, invest that time with us, the beginning, you can walk away and do this and go do your other stuff that much faster while we handle the drudgery of the day to day and bother you very rarely. So I think it's a win win, especially right now when you probably have things to focus on to grow your business that make it more stable and recession proof that you really want to focus on. Well, let us take these things off your hands. 

Lesley Hensell [00:51:30] And we get your sense. Backups, your inventories, sitting and stranded, collecting dust and costing you money. 

Kelly Johnston [00:51:35] Yeah, that's. 

Lesley Hensell [00:51:37] Because we've had clients who have literally just abandoned or not paid attention to basins that they've got units in the Amazon warehouse that are just sitting there racking up storage fees because the owner or whoever is responsible for account health don't have time. And hey, I'm not dissin them. I'm the business owner. I get I own two businesses. I get it. It's really hard to make time. And especially with you've got a list of things to do. What is the one thing you're not going to do? It's the thing you dread or the thing that you're like. For me, it's the thing you're afraid of failing. 

Kelly Johnston [00:52:13] Get ready to eat the frog. You're just not going to do it right?

Lesley Hensell [00:52:16] I mean, if you like little things and one of them, you think you have a 90% chance of failing, then why are you going to spend your. Well, let us do it for you because we're not going to feel we're going to be able to fix it almost all the time. And and that's what we want to do. So we have a lot of these clients that our success rate with them on Valet is over 90%. So the issues are getting solved and some of the ones that aren't solved are things that can't be. But at least we've submitted the appeal. The acknowledgment is there are Amazon knows that your you care and you've done the right thing. 

Kelly Johnston [00:52:48] And we're in there watching things and watching for trends so that we can say like Lesley said earlier, Hey, you are really getting a lot of research, your products issues, and they all seem to be this kind of product. Do you are you have you changed sourcing? What's going on? We can help you highlight trends that could save you a lot of pain down the road because the last thing we want to see happen is an account gets suspended because a trend is going unchecked. So we're right in there to be able to give you really specific information about what we're seeing so that you can take actions to protect yourself and make your business better. I mean, who doesn't want that? I mean, literally, it's it's like taking some of the worst tasks that you have to manage on a day to day basis with the obsessiveness that comes with them and handing them to somebody who's more than willing to don the armor and, you know, go once more into the breach every day for 400 days in a row practically. You know, it's just it's something we can do to take a lot of worry off your plate. 

Lesley Hensell [00:53:39] Yeah. It's like if I get say, Kelly, I want you to go to the gym for me, get in my 10,000 steps, eat all the food that I don't like, and I'm going to lose 5 pounds. I mean, who wouldn't say yes, right? 

Kelly Johnston [00:53:53] I mean, that's not it. 

Lesley Hensell [00:53:54] Not. And that's what this is. Yeah. 

Kelly Johnston [00:53:57] It's totally you know, I think there's always some nervousness. I want to I want to also reassure anybody who's got concerns about security. 

Lesley Hensell [00:54:08] Because Amazon said. Right. For safety and security in 2025. 

Kelly Johnston [00:54:13] We take we take that very seriously. We work really hard to maintain a very, very high degree of trust and sanctity around those credentials. Plus, we are going in through ESPN, which automatically makes us a safer bet than if we were creating like a random account number or some user account on your account. So we already have some distance with with that that makes us a better candidate for doing these things than other people. And we have almost eight years of experience of very carefully accessing and controlling access to client accounts. Very, very high track record of success and care for all of our clients, past and present. So you really I don't think you're going to find many people that take it as seriously as we do. 

Lesley Hensell [00:54:58] Okay, so for the crazy people who've stuck around for 55 minutes, we're going to finish with a wild question that I actually love because it is very similar to a nutty reinstatement I'm working on right now with someone who was fraud it and Kelly will know who this is because I literally was talking to them today and the same thing happened to them, which is nuts. 

Kelly Johnston [00:55:20] Okay. 

Lesley Hensell [00:55:20] So this is a question from Liana. Amazon deactivated both my buyer and seller accounts. After three weeks, the seller app required billing information to verify recent buyer account purchases, which I submitted and resulted in reinstatement of the buyer account and partial seller central account log in allowing only the European marketplace but missing the U.S. marketplace. When trying to log into the U.S. marketplace, the message says not authorized. You do not have access to the merchant. Is there a good chance of reinstating the U.S. marketplaces since there was some access allowed for Seller Central? yeah. In the beginning, both buyer and seller accounts were closed when trying to log in. It gave password incorrect errors if the accounts never existed. Also, our seller account has. Okay. Brace yourself. 

Kelly Johnston [00:56:13] no. 

Lesley Hensell [00:56:13] For teen year high volume selling history on Amazon. So friendly on your my new friend because I want to hug you. I just want to hug you. This is so horrifying what they did to you because essentially defrauded your account to begin with. So freighted inside of Amazon is also known as dot F and so sounds like nothing. We're going to dot f that. So when you fraud an account, the difference between fraud in an account and disclosing or suspending an account is you can't log in. And that's really upsetting because you can't get your account health page, you can't submit appeals or like the client I'm working with right now. I had asked them, Do you have any late shipping issues or any filming issues? They can't look and see. They're relying on the memory of their warehouse guy. I mean, why would he remembered what date the last shipping issue was? So it's really upsetting when they fraud you fraud and you're supposed to really and I'm not exaggerating be limited to like criminals. Fraud is when you set up an account and you collect a lot of of purchases and you don't ship anything. And then Amazon does a disbursement, you try and take the money and run. I mean it's, it's literally for like money launderers and schemers and scammers and brushing guys and all that stuff. It is not for someone with a 14 year high volume selling history on shouldn't be. 

Kelly Johnston [00:57:53] I mean Amazon, it shouldn't be. I mean the fact of the matter is, is that it is really uncommon for somebody with a 14 year selling history to suddenly decide that they're going to do something truly fraudulent and like deserve to get their butt wiped off Amazon as if they never existed, which is what happened to you. And I am so very sorry because I know that's hard. But there is good news because you have been able to get partial reinstatement. So I'm going to be really honest with you that this is a slog to reverse some time. Sometimes the error or the enforcement is. So once once it is seen in the disinfecting sunlight of day by someone who cares at Amazon, they'll go, yeah, that's not that's not cool. We're going to fix it. And it can be a very swift like reversal. But a lot of times it's a slog because you've got to get in front of the right people because there are now multiple teams that can take action to put you in this state. And figuring out when you do not have access, what you may have accidentally done. Or what they think that you did becomes very, very difficult. Like Lesley said, you're relying on memory, maybe some email trails, maybe some shipping records, maybe whatever, just to be able to try to piece that, like what were the last things we did right before we lost access? It's really hard to do, but it is possible we have a high success rate with people. Getting them back from these situations does require patience. It does require a lot of transparency and us asking you a million questions, but I promise you it is all worthwhile because when we get to the real reason why this happened, it becomes that much easier. It's like putting a key in a lock that you didn't have before. 

Lesley Hensell [00:59:37] So the best piece of advice for everyone who's not way onto who I still want to hug is never, ever, ever, never, ever use the fire account that is associated with your seller account. Never buy a stick of gum with that account. Use it for nothing. Ever. Never. If you need a corporate account to buy stuff, set up a different login with a different email address. Because when your seller account or your buyer account is and the other one goes down to ship and there's no way to separate that. And sometimes let's say someone in your, in your company does something hinky over. They buy something with a gift card over on the buyer side that Amazon thinks that that gift card isn't kosher. They will shut down your seller side account and your business is gone. And it's really hard to solve these. Now I'm with Kelly. I'm very excited that you got partial login ability. That is a fantastic that is the right step. The thing that you're still not authorized on U.S. accounts is bad because it means you're still weirdly freighted only on the seller side for us, which is weird, which could actually be a technical issue. Unfortunately, the likelihood of you getting this fixed on your own is extremely low because unlike what the people said, that the Amazon people over on X are trying to tell you about how useful they are, you can't even get a message to them right now on this particular account. So you need to go through various escalation channels to get this solved. So Leona, I really, really hope you will call us or message us. You can go to our website, there's form fill out, you can click to call during business hours. We actually answer the phone. We love to talk to people. This is what we specialize in and can help you with because you do not deserve for this to happen. And we want to help you get this account back. And I literally have another seller. I'm working on this exact same thing right now that today they okay, they didn't even get that form. They were just completely defrauded. We sent an escalation and they got the form to fill out that you're talking about where they're asking you to fill out certain stuff and they just submitted that. So it is like Kelly said, it's like a piece by piece. First you fix this part, then you fix that part because when Amazon forgot it, it they did it wrong. So there's like your okay over here, but not over here. You're okay over here, but not over here. So you have to get the all the teams to go fix their little thing turn. You'd agree. You know, it's fair to all work. So seriously, we would love to help you with this. And. And you all out there never, ever use your by your account ever. I just can't stress that enough. 

Kelly Johnston [01:02:25] And to clarify, what Lesley saying is that when you register your selling account, it automatically creates the ability for you to buy inside that login. It doesn't advertise it necessarily, but if you start using it like let's say you log into your selling account and you are in seller center, but you open up an A.S. on Amazon, it's going to log, it's going to keep that log in from session to session. Suddenly you're like, I'm perusing, you know, all the books. So I don't have a copy of Catcher in the Rye. I should go get that you're able to do that. And if you've got a credit card on file, it'll just say, Do you want to use this one? And you're like, Yeah. So now suddenly you're using one customer, 81 log in to do both things, which is bad. And it's just Amazon makes it so easy to do that. They want you to kind of they want you to stack service on service, on service, on one customer today because then they've got you further and further in their ecosystem and you're spending more money and you're doing more things and you're, you know, signing up for more services. But there's a severe danger in that. And if I have to ever, ever give people like the one piece of advice of the thing not to do, it's that it's what Lesley just said. Because the the number of times I have seen ridiculous situations turn intractable and painful for sellers because of that one thing I could retire on that money. It's it's so insanely bad. The total games of those people is is enough to fund my retirement three times over. 

Lesley Hensell [01:03:53] Well and if you so on. No different. Log in for Kindle. If you sell in a vendor account, a different email for that. I know you've got the different vendor codes, but different email address for your log in. If you have various accounts, you want them to be different enough that you never accidentally use them. But like your home account, like for your house, like I use my personal email address for my log in on my buyer account for Amazon for the $9 million we spend a year from our house on Amazon. My email address for my log in for my seller account is completely different. So you don't want to ever accidentally. No cross those because you never want to buy on your side. If you do accidentally once or something, the world is not going to end. But using that log in regularly and then someone uses a gift card, you'll have no idea how problematic that can be. Or someone they buy merchandise that is shipped to you by prime and flip it. That's not allowed. It's against policy. These are all things that could get you prodded because on the on the buyer side, that's what they do. Like if you're an abusive buyer, they don't close your account, but you can still scroll on Amazon and mess around. Know they like fraud. You know, you're done on the on the seller side, you only get fraud where you can't access Seller Central if you're like a criminal or they make a mistake, which they do make mistakes. So believe me, I'm not saying that people have defrauded or criminals. Believe me, I've helped enough of them get back. They're great people. But but that's not the that's not the policy, but it is definitely the policy over on the buyer side that if they detect or if you violate the sugar index, which is where you have too many returns and you look creepy, you're just locked out. So we don't want you to ever be just locked out. We had a seller. Who is the seller with the hot tub? We had a seller who bought a hot tub on Amazon. And it was it was the what's that called? The white glove delivery program. 

Kelly Johnston [01:06:11] For. 

Lesley Hensell [01:06:11] Like high end purchases of appliances and home. 

Kelly Johnston [01:06:17] Goods and stuff like you can. 

Lesley Hensell [01:06:18] Buy refrigerators and stuff. And so he bought like this $4,000 hot tub on Amazon. And when it when it came to his house for the late delivery, it was like all marked up and. Gross And he didn't want it. And so he initiated a return. And they prodded his seller account because it was on the same log and it was a high dollar return. So he had violated what they call the sugar index, which to me that's like, how much does my son love me today as the mommy? A ten on the sugar index. So I get three kisses or is he a one on the sugar index so I get no cashews? No. The sugar index is not like how much people love you or how much Valentine's candy you've eaten. 

 

Kelly Johnston [01:07:06] It is concessions and refunds. It's concessions and concessions as defined by I got this bottle of paint that didn't seal and is all over the place. Amazon, I'm looking at you. I want a refund or a partial refund and they give you a couple of bucks back because of your troubles. Yeah, that actually did happen to me recently. I am still using the paint because I can't friggin return it. That kind of stuff will get you. But yeah, that's, I mean, there's plenty of examples where something on the, you know, there are going off risk models that look on paper or on screen. Risky. They're not saying that you're a 14 year seller. They're not seeing any of this other stuff behind. They're looking at that and they're looking at that only. And that's why, in part, you need someone like us to help you navigate and get you in front of the right people. And we do this. This is one of the things I think that we are absolutely the best in this business and we are so determined to get people back up and running. You will not find anybody who is more dedicated to resolving these kinds of questions. So please come to us for free hugs, but also for help because we got you. 

Lesley Hensell [01:08:12] Okay. Well, I think we have tortured everyone with these horror stories. Enough. I think the hot tub is enough to scare anybody. 

Kelly Johnston [01:08:19] Time machine. 

Lesley Hensell [01:08:20] Yes, absolutely. You know, Kelly just threw me into Saturday Night Live, old school Eddie Murphy to the world. So thank you, everyone. And if you haven't ever seen that SNL sketch right now, you need to Google Eddie Murphy, hot tub, SNL. Watch it. You'll thank me later. Thank you all for watching us today or listening whatever you're doing. And again, if you need any help with your Amazon issues, give us a call or send us a message. The Riverbend consulting.com and we would love to help you out and until next time thank you Kelly and happy selling.