September 19, 2025 • 10 mins
Episode summary
When shopping on Amazon, how do you decide what product to buy? If you're like most people, you look primarily at the cost and reviews, and maybe the brand.
What most people are missing out on is paying attention to the seller. You can find this just under the Buy Now button - each product has 2 sellers - the "Ships From" and the "Sold By".
Anytime you are buying something "Sold By" someone other than Amazon, click on the seller link. It takes you to their mini website on Amazon.
There you can find lots of useful information, the most important of which is their reviews. I personally avoid buying from sellers with anything less than 90% rating here, and seek for much higher than that. There's plenty that have 100% or close to it.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Super Simple Security Principles, where you learn how to think, not just what to do.
I'm Nick Jackson. Learn here with me from my good buddy and Master Guardian.
Here we go. We're going to dive in. Do you know what? This is episode 81.
(00:24):
Why should you, wait, why you should start checking the Amazon seller?
All right. So why should I check the Amazon seller?
So do you right now? Do you ever pay attention to that?
I haven't. No.
(00:45):
Okay. That's good. I mean, I statistically, I mean, I don't know. I haven't done a specific poll, but anecdotally, it feels like almost nobody does.
Right.
That I've talked to. Right. I'm guessing you could tell me if this matches with you, but normally you basically look at cost.
You might look at reviews, maybe brand, like we've talked about a bunch, and rarely, if ever, the seller.
(01:11):
Yep.
All right. I was like, I hardly ever check the seller. That said, I do have one person here that is very diligent at checking the seller, and that's my wife.
Yeah. Good.
Yeah.
Good. Because it's important. It's, and it's, yeah, especially when picking between options.
(01:32):
Yeah.
Like, you know, you see multiple products, you're like, they all look kind of similar. Which one should I pick? Because the price is really the same. They all look in okay reviews.
You know, seller is a good one. And actually, I mean, I use it anytime for me, anytime I'm buying anything that's not sold by Amazon themselves, I absolutely check the seller.
(01:55):
Okay.
It's also useful when the product doesn't have many reviews, which isn't the case for a lot of things, but every once in a while I have bought something with very few reviews where the seller themselves looked fine.
Okay.
Okay.
So, what I'm talking about here, though, is it's, because it's sort of hidden. I mean, it's at least not super prominent, but it's just below the add to cart and buy now buttons.
(02:22):
Okay.
And there's two little, there's actually two places a seller is listed because there's a ships from and a sold by. And both of these list a seller.
Okay.
So, we're going to walk through the cases. So, the first case is where it'll just say, ships from Amazon, sold by Amazon.
(02:43):
Yeah.
Okay. That's straightforward. Amazon is, they're putting their name all over it. They're stocking the product. They're certifying it. You have maximum protection from Amazon. Doesn't mean it's going to be a good product, but it's had Amazon putting their name behind it as much as they do anything on Amazon.
Yeah.
And then you have the case where both the ships from and sold by are an Amazon seller, something else besides Amazon. And that's the case where Amazon is saying the least about guaranteeing the quality. They still do quite a bit, actually, which is one of the reasons why Amazon thrives. But still, that's, they're not housing the product. They're not, they don't have extra certification. That's the minimal.
(03:29):
Yeah.
And then the most interesting case, though, I think, for this purpose, I mean, you still want to check the seller, but is when it says, ships from Amazon, but sold by a different seller, not Amazon.
Okay.
Because that's kind of middle of the road. Means that I don't know exactly what the, what they have to do and what the requirements are and ramifications are for the seller. I'm not an Amazon expert as far as that goes, just a, and purchaser, but it has some more additional level of guarantees from Amazon and things.
(04:09):
And like, it's a good sign for me as a buyer. If I see, I mean, as a buyer, if I see that it ships from Amazon, that's a strong sign that at least it's reputable, again, that Amazon stands behind it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So let's talk about though, when you're, when you're buying, anytime you're buying something that's sold by a seller, not Amazon, then my recommendation is you just click on that seller link and go to it.
(04:39):
Okay.
Okay.
And what it does, it'll take you to basically a little, like a mini webpage on Amazon itself. It doesn't take you off site. It's on Amazon, but it has a lot of useful information about the seller.
Nice.
So the first thing is that has reviews and it defaults to the last 12 months. But if you actually look, you can click in there and change it to a lifetime. And for the really big sellers, like there's one in particular,
(05:09):
that I use that has lifetime of like over a million reviews or not a hundred, maybe a hundred thousand camera. Anyway, it's a lot of reviews and they're done in terms of positive percentage because you just say, yes, this was a good seller or bad.
So it's not a, like, it's not a one to five stars. And so my personal kind of general rule, because I found the seller rating to be very predictive. Like it's,
(05:39):
it means a lot.
Pretty happy for it.
Yeah, exactly. Like if a seller doesn't have 90% or higher, I don't buy from them.
Okay.
It's kind of my rough cutout.
Yeah.
Also on there, you can read a bit of the story there, like the story about their origin or whatever they want to tell you about themselves.
(06:00):
Yeah.
There's a customer service phone, like we've talked about. It's always great if you're interested in finding out more about them, giving it a call.
There's an address.
And this one I find particularly interesting too, because you can see where they're located and tons of them, you will see, like we've talked about on the funky brands episode, that they, they are, they are Chinese sellers.
(06:27):
They have Chinese addresses and you can't read it because it's all in Chinese script or whatever.
And which is fine. I mean, I've, I've bought from plenty of Chinese sellers. It's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. It's just good to know.
Right.
Because sometimes they try to feign like they're American made.
(06:49):
Right.
And when, in that case, I do avoid them. Like they're, I mean, most of them are trying to seem flavor, flavored and, you know, targeted towards Americans, which is fine.
But if they actually, and I've had a few cases where they claim like they're really trying to say we're made in America and then they have a Chinese address, you know, I, I avoid those.
(07:12):
So, but yeah.
So, because one of the reasons why seller is so useful is the reviews, product reviews are, they feel like they're a lot easier to exploit than the seller reviews for whatever reason.
(07:32):
I don't know if it's verified. I'm not sure what the process looks like differently with Amazon.
But at least, anyway, I just, I really trust them. I trust the seller thing a lot. And I've avoided a lot of sellers with a low rating.
So, that's been my experience.
The other, oh, the last thing, tip I want to share is related to multiple sellers because, so for items like books and DVDs where you'll have multiple sellers, looking at the sellers there,
(08:09):
I also recommend besides, you know, not just, again, looking at price, just picking the cheapest, but looking at the sellers.
Yeah.
Because there are actually, I don't know how long they survive, but I've had plenty of times where I pulled up a seller and their review was like 75% or something even lower.
(08:29):
And I'm not touching that.
Yeah.
So, right.
Anyway, that's, that's my sales pitch for starting to pay attention from, to your seller anytime you're not just buying from Amazon directly.
(08:49):
Did I convince you?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was like, that's super, that's super simple.
I was going to say my recap of that would just be, make sure you're aware of the seller and the information.
Like, again, that's an easy rule to follow.
Hey, above 90.
Yeah.
You know, below.
Yeah.
(09:10):
And you can even have whatever threshold, you know, you're comfortable with, your caution level.
But, and I would say too, just as a reminder, like, just as a kind of a trigger, they're right by the purchase buttons.
So, those add cart and buy now button, they're literally right below it, either on, if you're on a laptop, it's right below them.
If you're on, I checked the Amazon app on your phone, they're right below them there.
(09:35):
So, just kind of, you don't even have to hunt around for them.
Just when you're going to think about that, all you have to do is scan just a little bit below with your eyes.
Oh, is that Amazon or not?
Okay.
If it's not, let's just take a quick peek.
Yeah.
So, that's the easy kind of habit adjustment to make, is it's right there.
Perfect.
(09:57):
Awesome.
That's it.
That's it.
That was a good episode, man.
I liked it.
Are you ready to take action and wondering where to start?
Get my Bulletproof My Identity Starter Kit for free.
The seven most vital layers of protection everyone needs.
I'll send you one step at a time and help you if you get stuck.
(10:20):
Just go to bulletproofmyid.com and enter your name and email and I will send you the first step.
Again, that's bulletproofmyid.com.
Welcome to Super Simple Security Principles, where you learn how to think, not just what to do.
I'm Nick Jackson. Learn here with me from my good buddy and Master Guardian.
Here we go. We're going to dive in. Do you know what? This is episode 81.
(00:24):
Why should you, wait, why you should start checking the Amazon seller?
All right. So why should I check the Amazon seller?
So do you right now? Do you ever pay attention to that?
I haven't. No.
(00:45):
Okay. That's good. I mean, I statistically, I mean, I don't know. I haven't done a specific poll, but anecdotally, it feels like almost nobody does.
Right.
That I've talked to. Right. I'm guessing you could tell me if this matches with you, but normally you basically look at cost.
You might look at reviews, maybe brand, like we've talked about a bunch, and rarely, if ever, the seller.
(01:11):
Yep.
All right. I was like, I hardly ever check the seller. That said, I do have one person here that is very diligent at checking the seller, and that's my wife.
Yeah. Good.
Yeah.
Good. Because it's important. It's, and it's, yeah, especially when picking between options.
(01:32):
Yeah.
Like, you know, you see multiple products, you're like, they all look kind of similar. Which one should I pick? Because the price is really the same. They all look in okay reviews.
You know, seller is a good one. And actually, I mean, I use it anytime for me, anytime I'm buying anything that's not sold by Amazon themselves, I absolutely check the seller.
(01:55):
Okay.
It's also useful when the product doesn't have many reviews, which isn't the case for a lot of things, but every once in a while I have bought something with very few reviews where the seller themselves looked fine.
Okay.
Okay.
So, what I'm talking about here, though, is it's, because it's sort of hidden. I mean, it's at least not super prominent, but it's just below the add to cart and buy now buttons.
(02:22):
Okay.
And there's two little, there's actually two places a seller is listed because there's a ships from and a sold by. And both of these list a seller.
Okay.
So, we're going to walk through the cases. So, the first case is where it'll just say, ships from Amazon, sold by Amazon.
(02:43):
Yeah.
Okay. That's straightforward. Amazon is, they're putting their name all over it. They're stocking the product. They're certifying it. You have maximum protection from Amazon. Doesn't mean it's going to be a good product, but it's had Amazon putting their name behind it as much as they do anything on Amazon.
Yeah.
And then you have the case where both the ships from and sold by are an Amazon seller, something else besides Amazon. And that's the case where Amazon is saying the least about guaranteeing the quality. They still do quite a bit, actually, which is one of the reasons why Amazon thrives. But still, that's, they're not housing the product. They're not, they don't have extra certification. That's the minimal.
(03:29):
Yeah.
And then the most interesting case, though, I think, for this purpose, I mean, you still want to check the seller, but is when it says, ships from Amazon, but sold by a different seller, not Amazon.
Okay.
Because that's kind of middle of the road. Means that I don't know exactly what the, what they have to do and what the requirements are and ramifications are for the seller. I'm not an Amazon expert as far as that goes, just a, and purchaser, but it has some more additional level of guarantees from Amazon and things.
(04:09):
And like, it's a good sign for me as a buyer. If I see, I mean, as a buyer, if I see that it ships from Amazon, that's a strong sign that at least it's reputable, again, that Amazon stands behind it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So let's talk about though, when you're, when you're buying, anytime you're buying something that's sold by a seller, not Amazon, then my recommendation is you just click on that seller link and go to it.
(04:39):
Okay.
Okay.
And what it does, it'll take you to basically a little, like a mini webpage on Amazon itself. It doesn't take you off site. It's on Amazon, but it has a lot of useful information about the seller.
Nice.
So the first thing is that has reviews and it defaults to the last 12 months. But if you actually look, you can click in there and change it to a lifetime. And for the really big sellers, like there's one in particular,
(05:09):
that I use that has lifetime of like over a million reviews or not a hundred, maybe a hundred thousand camera. Anyway, it's a lot of reviews and they're done in terms of positive percentage because you just say, yes, this was a good seller or bad.
So it's not a, like, it's not a one to five stars. And so my personal kind of general rule, because I found the seller rating to be very predictive. Like it's,
(05:39):
it means a lot.
Pretty happy for it.
Yeah, exactly. Like if a seller doesn't have 90% or higher, I don't buy from them.
Okay.
It's kind of my rough cutout.
Yeah.
Also on there, you can read a bit of the story there, like the story about their origin or whatever they want to tell you about themselves.
(06:00):
Yeah.
There's a customer service phone, like we've talked about. It's always great if you're interested in finding out more about them, giving it a call.
There's an address.
And this one I find particularly interesting too, because you can see where they're located and tons of them, you will see, like we've talked about on the funky brands episode, that they, they are, they are Chinese sellers.
(06:27):
They have Chinese addresses and you can't read it because it's all in Chinese script or whatever.
And which is fine. I mean, I've, I've bought from plenty of Chinese sellers. It's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. It's just good to know.
Right.
Because sometimes they try to feign like they're American made.
(06:49):
Right.
And when, in that case, I do avoid them. Like they're, I mean, most of them are trying to seem flavor, flavored and, you know, targeted towards Americans, which is fine.
But if they actually, and I've had a few cases where they claim like they're really trying to say we're made in America and then they have a Chinese address, you know, I, I avoid those.
(07:12):
So, but yeah.
So, because one of the reasons why seller is so useful is the reviews, product reviews are, they feel like they're a lot easier to exploit than the seller reviews for whatever reason.
(07:32):
I don't know if it's verified. I'm not sure what the process looks like differently with Amazon.
But at least, anyway, I just, I really trust them. I trust the seller thing a lot. And I've avoided a lot of sellers with a low rating.
So, that's been my experience.
The other, oh, the last thing, tip I want to share is related to multiple sellers because, so for items like books and DVDs where you'll have multiple sellers, looking at the sellers there,
(08:09):
I also recommend besides, you know, not just, again, looking at price, just picking the cheapest, but looking at the sellers.
Yeah.
Because there are actually, I don't know how long they survive, but I've had plenty of times where I pulled up a seller and their review was like 75% or something even lower.
(08:29):
And I'm not touching that.
Yeah.
So, right.
Anyway, that's, that's my sales pitch for starting to pay attention from, to your seller anytime you're not just buying from Amazon directly.
(08:49):
Did I convince you?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was like, that's super, that's super simple.
I was going to say my recap of that would just be, make sure you're aware of the seller and the information.
Like, again, that's an easy rule to follow.
Hey, above 90.
Yeah.
You know, below.
Yeah.
(09:10):
And you can even have whatever threshold, you know, you're comfortable with, your caution level.
But, and I would say too, just as a reminder, like, just as a kind of a trigger, they're right by the purchase buttons.
So, those add cart and buy now button, they're literally right below it, either on, if you're on a laptop, it's right below them.
If you're on, I checked the Amazon app on your phone, they're right below them there.
(09:35):
So, just kind of, you don't even have to hunt around for them.
Just when you're going to think about that, all you have to do is scan just a little bit below with your eyes.
Oh, is that Amazon or not?
Okay.
If it's not, let's just take a quick peek.
Yeah.
So, that's the easy kind of habit adjustment to make, is it's right there.
Perfect.
(09:57):
Awesome.
That's it.
That's it.
That was a good episode, man.
I liked it.
Are you ready to take action and wondering where to start?
Get my Bulletproof My Identity Starter Kit for free.
The seven most vital layers of protection everyone needs.
I'll send you one step at a time and help you if you get stuck.
(10:20):
Just go to bulletproofmyid.com and enter your name and email and I will send you the first step.
Again, that's bulletproofmyid.com.
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