March 7, 2024 • 37 mins
On this episode, Ben Smith from Seller Candy promises a treasure trove of strategies and insights as Ben unveils the less glamorous yet utterly essential aspects of thriving on Amazon. From the art of crafting winning appeals to the daily grind of managing listing issues and seller support tickets, the conversation is a must-listen for any brand aiming to conquer the digital shelves of the world's largest online retailer.
Ben dissects the nuanced approach to handling challenges like Amazon's cryptic notifications or being entangled in the web of feedback and returns. He also shares anecdotes and advice on how to avoid the 'bait and switch' scams, among other issues.
Whether you're contemplating the delegation of time-consuming tasks or conducting a gap analysis to streamline your operations, this episode is your guide to scaling success on Amazon and beyond. Join us for a conversation that's as informative as it is inspiring, and let's chart a course for your most successful year yet.
For more information about Seller Candy, please visit https://sellercandy.com/
Want to chat with us about this podcast? Send us a text message here
The Planet Amazon podcast, brought to you by Phelps United, addresses all things Amazon and other eCommerce marketplaces. In each episode, we talk with Brands, Agencies, and Sellers about Amazon news, new features, policies, brand policies, logistics, marketing, issues, and challenges, among other topics.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcement (00:00):
Welcome to the Planet Amazon podcast with Adam
Shaffer, where we explore theworld of Amazon and other
e-commerce Marketplaces.
Join us as we delve into thelatest strategies and tactics
for successful selling on theworld's largest online
marketplace.
Adam Shaffer (00:17):
Hello everybody and welcome to Planet Amazon,
where we talk about all thingsAmazon.
Today's gonna be an interestingPodcast session.
We have with us today Ben Smith, who's the head of partnerships
at seller candy, and he's beenworking with a company.
It's an Amazon agency, and I'lllet him tell you more about
that, but seller candy is anAmazon agency that helps brands
(00:42):
succeed on Amazon, and what'sinteresting is that you know our
company that we work for isalso an Amazon agency in a way,
and so it.
This is one where we competewith each other, but we actually
augment each other and helpeach other, and what you'll find
is the Amazon community isincredibly large and everybody
seems to always want to behelping everybody else, because
(01:06):
Nobody is the expert on allthings Amazon always and being
able to work with others thatare dealing with issues that are
On a daily basis.
You know, it's almost like abadge of honor to be able to
share that information with thecommunity and help each other
out, and that's something we dowith seller candy.
So, with that, ben, if youcould Maybe tell us a little bit
(01:28):
about yourself and your company, in any order you want, we'd
love to learn a little bit moreabout you and how awesome seller
candy is.
Ben Smith (01:35):
That's your thing.
First off, adam, thanks so muchfor having me on the show.
I really appreciate it.
And, well said, I think youknow that Amazon space is huge,
but it's important to alwayshave those connections and learn
from everyone out there because, honestly, it's with all the
Pace of changes I feel like it'skind of it's it's no one person
can stay on top of everythingand know all the best Tactics
and strategies and thingsthemselves, so it's really
(01:56):
important to connect with otherpeople and learn from one
another.
But anyway, a little backgroundabout me.
I've been in the Amazon spaceabout six or so years tough to
remember when I got started nowbut I've also, you know, I've
worked for two brands that soldon Amazon directly.
Then I also worked at an agencyprior to seller candy.
I've sold myself.
I still sell a little bitthrough KDP.
(02:18):
So I'm still it.
You know, keep my toes dippedin the water and make sure I
know what's going on.
Obviously, kdp is a differentworld, but today I am here on
behalf of the seller candy team.
I currently had a partnershipsfor seller candy and, if you,
for any of the listeners, aren'tfamiliar with, solar candy,
essentially we provide.
This is the way we like todescribe it, as we provide
outcome-driven support forAmazon sellers.
(02:38):
So we don't deal with theadvertising component.
We don't deal with likecreative necessarily.
We actually chose to pick thething no one wants to deal with,
which is all the other annoyingand challenging and sometimes
trivial things that come up whenyou are selling on Amazon.
So I'm talking about I'm havingproblems updating my listing,
my flat file is not goingthrough or opening seller
support tickets, dealing withaccount health issues.
(03:00):
So the less sexy side, I wouldsay, of kind of the Amazon
worlds.
Adam Shaffer (03:04):
And what's interesting is you know so we're
a full-service agency, butthere's definitely needs for
help in different specialties,like getting listings Listed
properly or optimized or gettingthem unsuspendent, if you want
to call it that and gettingcases put into Amazon and speak
the Amazon lingo.
But we also buy and sell theinventory, so we're selling on
(03:28):
behalf of Brands and and Ben isreally more helping them grow
their business and and fix a lotof the issues that they might
be having, because Fixing issueson Amazon is not always the
easiest thing in the world to do.
There's no one set rulebook onthis.
So, you know, tell us aboutsome of the cool things that you
(03:48):
guys have been doing for brandsWith regard to your services.
Ben Smith (03:54):
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, you hit the nail on thehead right like the reason that
companies like ours and manyothers in the space exist is
because Amazon has famously beenvery customer centric and With
sellers it's a little bit of adifferent relationship.
Certainly, they've made somechanges there and they're you
know they're making.
They're making an effort, I'dsay, to kind of appease to more
(04:16):
sellers.
However, then they go and addmore fees at the same time.
So we'll double-edge swordthere.
But you know we exist becausethere are a lot of challenges
that come up just when you aregrowing and scaling on Amazon.
And obviously PPC is one wholeside of the equation which I
won't get too much into today.
But Essentially, you know, sowe're getting.
So what, context wise, you knowwe've helped, I want to say now
(04:37):
around 500 or so brands.
We've got a team of about 50 orso agents.
A lot of them were previouslyat Amazon seller support.
We do try to recruit a lot ofthem out of that pool.
That being said, you know evenseller support staff members are
so siloed, as you can probablytell if you've gone through any
you know issue and open caseswith Amazon.
So we put them through rigoroustraining internally and then
(05:00):
you kind of hit the nail ahead.
We essentially lend them outand you can use them as an
extension of your team.
But our core services you knowwe call it seller candy
unlimited it's just for that, soit's essentially for a brand
can come and plug right into oursystem.
Today they have access to aticketing portal and essentially
anytime they have an issue orsomething that comes up they
don't want to deal with itthemselves or it's not, you know
, maybe not the best use oftheir time, which isn't often
(05:23):
there's something that's verycommon is they just drop it into
our ticketing portal and thenwe essentially will take it and
take it from there.
We were outcome driven, sowe'll we'll give them updates
every 24 hours on the progresswe made.
But it's a nice way, for I'dsay like a part of my big
motivation for joining theseller candy team about two
years ago was I've been a sellera bit.
I've also, you know, managedclients.
I knew that this was a big painpoint and I knew that.
(05:46):
So when I, when I John told me,our founder John told me about
what he is building, is like, oh, I need to join us team, like
this is gonna be.
This is gonna be a big thing.
So that's kind of our coreservice offering and I'm happy
to dive into like any componentthat there's certainly so.
Adam Shaffer (05:59):
so do you?
Do you go into the, thepartners of the brand's three
seller central accounts?
Ben Smith (06:06):
I yeah, so normally the so you're working in their
accounts right.
Yeah, exactly Like normally,when we're working with a brand
directly, they're addingsub-users to their account, so
they're adding us as sub-usersto the account.
We also do support someagencies as well and service
providers, so we do play onenterprise side, but just cater
(06:27):
a little bit more to the brandside, so they are adding us as
sub-users.
That's how we're essentiallyhaving access to do the things
that we need to do.
So essentially, again, think ofus as like an extension of your
team, right?
Adam Shaffer (06:38):
And can you I know one of the things that you care
about is the is the sellercentral account health, and so
how do you define it for us alittle bit and then tell us why
it's important and what you doto help keep the accounts
healthy?
Ben Smith (06:55):
Well, account health is everything right.
You have I've personally beenthrough a number of suspensions
or suspension, you know, plan ofaction cycles with various
brands over the years.
They're not fun.
But especially, you know, a lotof people either start their
journey selling online or starttheir brand's journey by looking
to Amazon first.
We get a lot of benefits out ofit, right, we get the customer
(07:16):
base and everything else.
A lot of people want to expandand do successfully off to other
platforms, but a lot of peopleI find end up not making it to
that point or just always kindof talking about it.
The risk there is obviouslyAmazon, you know, could shut you
down or shut a listing down atany time and there's that kind
of harkens back to the accounthealth issue.
(07:36):
You always want to know exactlywhat's going on in your account
and where your account kind ofstands.
It's easy when you have acouple of skews right and you
know maybe you've just launchedyour first two, three, four
product variations and maybethey're not even doing a lot of
volume.
As the volume picks up or asyour catalog grows, it's
inevitable that you are going tohave more and more issues,
whether that's a customer thatjust got like a broken unit and
(07:58):
they're complaining.
And now you're being told thatmaybe your listing is that
thread of getting taken down orsomething more serious than that
.
But obviously you need to havea pulse on what's going on with
your account health page.
I know, when I was personallystill selling or managing brands
, like you know, I had achecklist I did every single day
and it was I'm checking thelistings, I'm checking to see if
there's any messages, feedback,and then the next one is
(08:20):
account health.
Is there anything on there Ineed to address?
Because when you get somethingon there, you need to move
quickly to make sure that youknow every minute it is down,
you're, first of all, if you'vebeen throwing advertising
dollars at something, you'relosing your ranking like every
single minute, and so you'repretty much all those ad dollars
are now getting wasted, and youmight now you're, when you get
reinstated, let's say, on alisting that's been taken down,
(08:41):
you're going to have to fighttwice as hard or start all over
again to start getting thatproduct ranked again.
So you know, I mean you want tomove swiftly.
However, that being said, youcertainly want to be careful
when it comes to anything likethat, where it's like a listing
that's been taken down and needsa plan of action.
Amazon, you know, famously willgive you kind of the notice of
(09:01):
death at a certain point on manyof these types of issues of hey
, we might not reply to futurerequests to reinstate, reinstate
your account or reinstate yourlisting, and so you know you
should always thoughtfullysubmit those plans of action or
those appeals.
You just want to do it quickly,but make sure it's thorough and
addresses all the importantthings.
And that's where of course itdoes help to have someone on
(09:22):
your team, or whether it'sseller candy or someone else,
someone in-house, whether it'sanother agency, consultancy,
doesn't matter, but someonewho's been through that process
before or just spend a lot oftime yourself, you know,
learning about how to properlydo that.
Adam Shaffer (09:35):
So there's the product part of account health
where you could have some issuewith the product that people are
complaining about.
But then there's the speed likeeverything's on the clock.
Like you know, I used to watchthe account health.
If we didn't ship things by acertain time, we were going to
get danged on the account health.
You had to have, you know,almost a perfect score.
I mean, are you seeing that too?
(09:57):
Yeah, I mean 100%.
Ben Smith (10:00):
Especially, you know, I mean, if you're yeah, so just
to that point too, right, ifyou're doing a lot of FBM
fulfillment or if you're inseller fulfilled prime, I mean,
yeah, you got to be on the ballright, like I personally have
supported on a couple ofaccounts doing seller fulfilled
prime and you are, you've got toconstantly be shipping.
I know they've changed some oftheir policies, even since I was
(10:20):
more involved with that.
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, if you get too many ofthose order defect rate, you
know all those things yeah,that's going to come back to my
check.
Adam Shaffer (10:28):
So is that true?
I mean, that's the hamsterwheel we're on always is that we
do offer seller fulfilled primeto our customers.
You know we try to get as muchup to FBA as possible, but we do
do FBM and seller fulfilledprime, and that clock just
doesn't stop.
And you got to make sure that.
You know we have cruising overthe weekend making sure that
we're always shipping becauseyou can't miss the.
And it's the same for thedelivery guys.
(10:50):
I mean the people that deliverthe goods are also on the clock.
Everything at Amazon is ametric and everybody's got the
clock on them.
They have the defect rate andif you go below a certain level,
they're going to either giveyou less business, show you less
often and then potentially cutyou off, and so you just don't
want that.
So that's pretty cool that youguys help your customers with
(11:12):
that.
We do too, and it's prettyimportant.
Have you had any accounts thatyou were able to get back on
that were cut off?
Ben Smith (11:23):
Yeah, tons.
I mean we, you know we do get.
So I'd say kind of just to givesome context to like.
So I think in 2022, we hadmaybe something like 15,000
tickets submitted to our systemroughly.
I don't know the exact numberwas, but out of that I know that
the number one most commoncategory we were getting tickets
submitted to us for was helpwith something related to a
(11:43):
listing Could be hey, we want toupdate the listing suppression,
but a listing specific issue.
The second most common categoryis account health and in that
you know, obviously you have amyriad of different account
health issues, but we certainlydo get a lot of people that come
to us or have been clients fora while and either have a
listing that gets taken down orsome other kind of major issue
like that and account.
(12:04):
So account health is a bigcategory for us.
We will do everything fromdoing the research to figure out
what exactly happened, writingthat plan of action or that
appeal, submitting it, followingup on it, getting on phone with
seller support, all that kindof stuff.
So that is something that ourteam will assist with and
obviously every situation is alittle bit different, but yeah,
it's absolutely something we do.
Adam Shaffer (12:25):
Can you explain the importance of the write up,
like if it's not written the wayAmazon likes it to be written?
I know that's hard to explain,but if you can do your best to
say there's a certain way to goabout writing a case to Amazon,
you know.
So tell us more about that.
Ben Smith (12:44):
Yeah Well, so I would just say, and when it comes to
like anything with appeals orplans of action, generally
speaking you need to address,first of all, address the issue
overall, what you think causedthe issue.
Sometimes Amazon, famously, youknow, sometimes they've gotten,
in some cases they've gottenbetter at it, but famously
they're vague in many waysThey'll tell you oh, we have
deactivated your account because, or deactivated a product
(13:05):
because of this broad term andthis, and here it is in the
terms of service.
They might not always drilldown and tell you exactly what
caused that.
So, for example, you might haveto go through and identify,
let's say, the two or three orfour orders, maybe that we're
not shipped on time andtherefore cause this takedown,
just example.
So, but generally speaking, yougot to address what happens.
(13:28):
You got to then addressessentially how you have
rectified it, so how you haveactually gone in, maybe reached
out.
Hey, we reached out to the fourcustomers after identifying
these were the four issues, orfour orders that had issues.
So this is what we're doing toactually solve this.
And then what you're going todo or put in place for kind of
that long term hey, this won'thappen again, kind of thing.
That being said, just one thingI will call out.
(13:49):
You know I'm certainly notadvocating for sellers to always
admit fault.
I think there's definitely anddepending who you talk to you
have talked to a lot of otherpeople in the space that this is
all they do is a legal likeplans of action and appeals and
that kind of thing.
And there is certainly anargument, for there are times
where you need should kind oftake it to the next level and
(14:11):
get maybe a legal team orsomething like that involved and
not admit fault offered.
You got to remember to pickyour battles.
I would say, more often than notit's better to you're going to
get your.
You're fighting against Amazon.
It's going to be better, if youwant to get your listing or
counter reinstated, toessentially admit to something
or just tell them what they wantto hear essentially.
(14:32):
And I know that's not alwaysthe best advice and I know
sometimes, but sometimes youmight feel that you did not
necessarily do anything wrong.
I certainly worked with acouple clients like that, but
that is going to be the fastestway to kind of move forward.
So that is one call that I justwanted to make.
Adam Shaffer (14:49):
I always worried about getting the lawyers
involved was like Amazon shutsdown from that.
I don't know what yourexperience is with that.
Ben Smith (14:57):
Well, I've talked.
To be honest, I haven't everpersonally brought in any kind
of legal counsel or anythinglike that.
I just haven't worked on anaccount where that was necessary
.
I've talked to a couple otherpeople in the space you know
that have legal teams and I'vehad.
They've told me straight up,like you shouldn't always admit
fault, like even though you knowmost, a lot of times like
(15:17):
you're in an instance wheremaybe you didn't do anything
wrong, like I mean, a lot oftimes it's a hey, a seller
complaint.
Like let's be real, a sellergets something.
They're maybe upset or and wantto return it for free.
So they just said this thing,and maybe you have three or four
of those if you're doing highvolume.
Next thing, you know youraccount's been shut down.
You didn't violate terms ofservice necessary.
Maybe these sellers were justsaying that thing.
You know you can't control orstart.
The customers can't necessarilycontrol that.
(15:39):
If you want to get it resolvedthe fastest, it's probably going
to be easier for you to saywhat Amazon wants to hear, which
is hey, yeah, you know we takeownership, blah, blah, blah.
Here's what we're doing torectify the issue.
That being said, I've heardinstances where people will go
and fight the good fight and,you know, go against Amazon.
I just haven't personally gonethrough that.
Adam Shaffer (15:58):
Yeah, and I'm sorry I interrupted you.
We're about to recap on thepoint.
Ben Smith (16:02):
I was just going to say.
I mean, it's really just at avery high level.
It's addressing what happened,like hey, here's what happens.
Then addressing kind of what inhere's maybe any supporting
evidence of like oh yeah, againI'm going to use that, the same
example, like here are the fourorders we identified that were
shipped out late, giving off,and that that caused a negative
customer experience, blah, blah.
Here's what we've done torectify that.
(16:24):
You know, we've messaged allfour of these people and offer
them a refund or something likethat, or we've offered to reship
the item.
What happened, obviouslyspecific to the incident, and
then, essentially, what's ourplan to make sure that this
won't happen again.
And really laying that out likehey, we've implemented this new
quality quality plan at ourwarehouse we have.
You know, that's where you'regoing to need to spend some time
(16:45):
and really address how you'regoing to prevent it.
And that's again why it'simportant to go through it, and
thoroughly, and as thoroughly aspossible the first time,
because there's a good chanceyou might submit that whole
thing.
It gets kicked back and youmight have to then tweak it for
the second submission.
But you don't want to go andyou know I've seen a couple
clients who had not been onAmazon as long and didn't have
(17:07):
this.
I know there's one guy I talkedto maybe six months ago.
He had an account suspensionand he replied to the suspension
, which was by email at thatpoint, and just said, like, how
do I like, how do I submit anappeal, or something?
Well, amazon had counted thatas his first submission of an
appeal.
You know, and it's of coursethat's an extreme, extreme, you
(17:29):
know issue.
But you know my point is likebe careful when you're to start
this process.
You want to try to really beeffective with every submission
you make.
Adam Shaffer (17:37):
Cool, and tell me that number again how many
tickets did you guys do in 2022?
I mean, it sounded prettyextraordinary.
Ben Smith (17:43):
I want to say it was like it was around the 15,000
mark Wow.
And the clocks on all those too, so part of your account.
Adam Shaffer (17:51):
Health is responding right.
You got 24 hours or somethingto respond to every one of these
things and try to satisfy thecustomers.
So with seller candy, are youguys?
Do you guys try to takeownership of the store ratings
for your partners?
Or, you know like, are youtrying to make sure that if
somebody puts a review in onyour store not the product but
(18:15):
the store are you trying tosolve that and rectify that?
Ben Smith (18:19):
Yeah, so we do.
It's within our scope, right,like, essentially, I like to say
anything.
Anything besides advertising inthe creative is something that
our team can tackle Like, and weand we and one of the other
cool things I think in this isanother argument, I think, why
you should just always kind ofit totally depends where you are
at with your Amazon journey.
But because there's so manycomplexities, because there are
(18:41):
nuances and you know theAmazon's I'll say it myself,
like I can't keep on top of,like, all of the changes, like
they're just announcing new feesevery week, you know, and then
there's so many things, thatbeing said, like having someone
that you pay to stay on top ofall of that stuff.
That hopefully has, you know, acollective team is a huge
benefit, especially as thingsget more complex.
(19:01):
And one of the things that we dointernally is we, because we
have, you know, 50 plus agents.
We have, you know, severalhundred client accounts.
We do get to see these weirdnuanced issues across accounts,
and we also listen to ourcustomers too.
Like, sometimes our clientswill come to us and say, hey, we
have this issue every singlemonth on our product, this type
of product.
Here's what we found it worksto get it resolved, and so we
(19:24):
will learn and try thatourselves and see if it works
out.
But those are the kind ofthings that, having a team, you
have that kind of collectiveknowledge as well, most things
are going to fall kind of in thesame category of like, hey,
everyone deals with these, youknow, even if you think yours is
a unique problem, most likelyprobably not.
But there are some weirdnuanced issues that do crop up
right when it's like okay,that's weird.
I've never heard of that before.
(19:44):
So anyway, sorry, I forgot yourquestion.
Can you just ask me?
Adam Shaffer (19:50):
No, it was it's.
You know, the ratings forstores are quite in the way.
Oh yeah, the better your rating,the better you show, the more
that customers will buy from you, the higher your conversion
rate.
And obviously the productreviews are really important.
So, like we would get you knowpeople that would complain that
the UPS guy dropped theirproduct in the mud and so
(20:10):
therefore they gave it a shittyreview.
And I'm like, come on, like sowe have to go put a case in and
fix the product review, but youdon't want to get a one star
because the UPS guy dropped it.
So usually you can solve that.
And then vice versa, on thestore side of it, somebody might
be complaining about theproduct and your host selling
the product.
You're selling other people'sbrands and your store is getting
(20:31):
a bad rating because theydidn't like either way that the
Nintendo was working or playing.
You know.
So you know there's this.
You know large host, butkeeping those ratings as high as
humanly possible definitelytakes some human intervention.
So I just was curious if thisis something that you guys, you
know, look at.
Ben Smith (20:51):
Yeah, two things there.
So I mean the short answer isyes, right, like we do.
But we look at both sellerfeedback and we look at product
ratings, reviews.
What have you Seller feedback?
You know?
So our service normally we sitas an extension of the team and
we're more on the reactive side.
We wait for you as a seller, orsomeone at that with the brand,
to tell us, hey, this is whatwe want done.
That being said, like we willdo a couple things proactively,
(21:13):
and one of those is we'relooking for at the reviews to
see what comes in Sellerfeedback.
You know so most peoplelistening or watching will
probably know this but you cango in from the dropdown and it's
pretty easy to hit requestremoval, which you should do on
pretty much all of the criticalones, and oftentimes that'll
automatically get that reviewremoved, right, I mean, that's a
pretty easy part of the process.
(21:34):
If it doesn't which I've seenthis happen sometimes it gets
rejected.
And if I would spend like 30seconds, if you're a brand owner
, just read what the policy ison those, because then you'll
know from here on out whichthings that you can actually
then fight and get removed.
And seller feedback is stillvery doable If you have, if it's
not auto removed, you can opena case.
(21:54):
Normally it's gonna take maybetwo, three back and forth and
then they'll remove it or strikeit through on your account,
which is obviously important.
So, yeah, that's number one andyes, it's something that the
seller candy team does.
Product ratings and reviews yeah, we know that every once in a
while, people well, maybe morefrequently than every once in a
while people do getnon-compliant reviews, whether
it's, you know, maybe you have ahunch it's a competitor leaving
(22:16):
a review, whether it's clearly,you know, someone leaves a
review and they accidentallywrote it about some other
products, clearly not aboutyours.
Or, as you mentioned, adam,like maybe it's about the
delivery or something, not again, not related to the product
itself.
Though there, that is anopportunity where you can fight
that and try to get Amazon toreview it and strike it through.
We do assist with it.
(22:37):
I will tell you just and thisis me being fully transparent
like Amazon is very challengingto get to over-turning those,
and oftentimes I find that it isa it's a volume game, even if
you've got, let's say, sayyou're listing as 10,000 reviews
and maybe you think 1% of thoseor 2% of those are
non-compliant ones that are oneor two stars, even if you go
(22:58):
through the process.
First of all, you're gonna haveto open separate cases for, I
think, each one at a time, if Iremember correctly.
But also a lot of them willjust get auto rejected and I'd
say it's more of a volume-basedgame.
They're still very strict andthey're very sticky issues, but
you can fight.
And some of the things we'll dois we will go look for as much
evidence as we can collect,which is it's tricky.
(23:20):
You can't always glean too much.
Obviously, if it's very clear,if someone says like, hey, my
UPS driver drops into Mod andit's nothing to do with the
product, okay, evidence is kindof right there.
It's very blank.
Or like, hey, this is clearlyabout another product, they're
mentioning this thing, this isnot my product, cool.
One other step we will do is wewill go look at the reviewer's
profile and see if this is aconsistent pattern.
(23:42):
For example, if you see thatall they do believe reviews or
one-star reviews, even on everyother competitor in your
category, kind of a clear signthat maybe there's some ulterior
motive there or something else.
Essentially, you're just tryingto get as much information as
you possibly can Now.
So my point is, yeah, we dohelp with it.
(24:02):
It is kind of a volume game butit is tricky.
So, yeah, I mean, if someoneelse has better solutions, I'd
love to hear about it, but Ithink that Amazon's gonna be
really restringing about thoseand I don't think that's gonna
change going forward.
The one thing they haveintroduced, as you probably know
, is obviously now they have theability to contact those
critical review, those peoplethat leave critical reviews.
(24:24):
I think one is it one, two andthree-star or just one and
two-star?
I can't remember.
Off the top of my head now Ithink it's one and two, yeah, so
, and I then reach out with,essentially you know, more or
less templated messages, and Iwould say that is something that
you should be doing or havethis someone on your team do is
Decide them to just go throughthat periodically and just maybe
add that to your weeklychecklist of going through, and
(24:44):
then I would say, focus the restof your time on the top of that
funnel of getting more reviews.
It's always going to be easierto get more reviews than it is
to probably get some of thosenon-compliance.
Adam Shaffer (24:53):
I mean the the more better reviews you get.
Obviously it's going to helpthe overall numbers for sure,
and so, yeah, what about?
What about returns?
How do you?
How do you do you and how doyou work with that?
I mean, my favorite story isthe, the, the company that was
selling Football cleats you know, football shoes on Amazon and
(25:14):
there are a couple hundred bucksa pair, and they sold three
brand new ones to get threereturns, with Used ones returned
back to them, and it took thema couple of months to get that
sorted out with Amazon.
Is this an area that you guysplan?
Ben Smith (25:30):
Yeah, the old, the old bait and switch still
switcheroo Yep.
Adam Shaffer (25:35):
I mean, there was another one.
They bought a computer and theytook out the video card and
they put some junky video cardin this under back and it's
horrible.
Ben Smith (25:45):
I've got a personal story about that, as I, you know
, I one of the brands that I'veworked with and I was in, in and
out of their warehouse all thetime.
So I sold very expensiveelectronic parts.
I'm talking like, let's justcall it, high-end servers or
networking switches.
It's kind of you know, thepricing is gonna be like $400
and up on these items and wewould.
We would process the removalorders when they came back to
(26:07):
the warehouse and, you know,check what's inside and whatnot.
And one of them I was expectingto get a, this one unit that
was gonna be like a.
It was a $400 item.
Open up the box of the removalorder, I got a.
You know it's a networkingswitch.
It's very like clear what itemI should be getting back.
The item I got back instead wasa set of four Tupperware like
plastic containers.
(26:27):
I was like what the heck, likehow could they make this mistake
?
So you know, obviously there'sthere's definitely a case to be
made there.
So this the long and short ofit is like we we do have a
Reimbursement piece of ourbusiness.
So what we will do thereimbursements that's primarily
gonna be for the FBAreimbursement side of the
(26:48):
equation, just FYI, so not asmuch on the FBM side we will to
help with those kind of things.
The one problem withspecifically as it relates to
removal orders and getting thosereturns, is they're not coming
back to our warehouse.
We need to know so we're notthe ones opening the box to know
, oh, this is the wrong item.
You know, but you know.
Just to give some someeducational stuff here, I mean
(27:08):
hundred percent.
If you're in a situation likethat, yes, you should open a
case.
Amazon's gonna ask you topretty much take pictures of all
the sides of that removal orderthe box and the contents, and
then the I believe the UPC orthe LPN like return label, and
then there's the little slip inthere.
If you send them all those,those are those pictures You're
gonna get you should get areimbursement.
(27:29):
I've had some that are rejectedand then you just open a new
case and it goes through.
But hundred percent you shouldbe doing that.
It's painstaking, but you know,if you've got it, especially
and it might not be worth it.
If you've got like a highvolume, low price products, I
mean to be honest, probably notgonna be worth it.
But anything like that, whereyou're probably in like the $50
plus per per item, hundredpercent you should be doing that
, or having your 3pL do it orsomeone else.
(27:51):
We can do it in that, in in thesense that if you are one of
our clients and you send us,like you know, the pictures and
that content, great, we'll goand fight the case for you.
We do have some clients thatask us to do that, but you can
do it yourself, you know, orwith us, but you don't need us
to do it.
Adam Shaffer (28:08):
You're gonna have to take the pictures yourself
anyway.
That's definitely the ugly partof the biz.
I don't really love that part.
Ben Smith (28:13):
You guys deal with that a lot.
Adam Shaffer (28:15):
Oh yeah, I mean, we're always dealing with it.
You know some some productshave More issues than others,
but when it's, like you said,pretty inexpensive, you know you
let it ride.
But there's some items that arefour or five, six.
You know we sell things thatare a few thousand dollars and
you got to deal with that.
This is some professionalscammers out there and you got
to get it sorted because youjust can't take all those hits.
(28:38):
It's not a high enough margingame with all the fees that
you're paying Amazon.
So they'll work with you, butthere is definitely a lot of
back-and-forth and it's not anovernight solution.
So you got to be persistent,you know.
And then let's go back to the,the mainstay the listings issues
.
So, when it comes to listings,what are you actually doing?
(28:59):
Are you taking listings andauditing listings and trying to
make them better, or are youdealing with listings once
there's an issue?
How does your listing servicework?
Ben Smith (29:07):
Yeah, well, I would say just as like a blanket
statement, you know and is, Italked to a lot of sellers and
most of the time, like, people,people, a lot of times people
will come to us when they haveExisting issues right, like, and
I would always, I always caveatthat like or just say you know,
business owners, you got a lotof stuff on your plate and
whether you've hired anyone orhow, or maybe it's just you by
(29:30):
yourself, like, don't wait tillit's too late, till to come or
to get, whether it's us oranyone Like, you should get help
and bake it into your team,hopefully sooner rather than
later.
So it's one thing I just wantedto reiterate there.
When it comes to the listingsthemselves, I mean, essentially
we're helping with just aboutanything related to two listings
right Aside from again tocreate a piece.
(29:51):
But you know that could, thatcould be.
Hey, we have these five newproducts variations coming out
here, the UPC's.
Here's the bullet points topictures.
Can you guys go upload them andmake sure they're properly set
up?
Cool, we'll deal with that.
More often than not, aside fromthat, it's gonna be dealing with
problems on the listings, andI'm talking, like you know, we
get a lot of people that havesuppressed listings.
(30:12):
We are a lot of people that arejust trying to push an update
through and it's get it.
It's very sticky.
We've got people, obviouslythat have.
You know, paul.
Let's say, a product policyviolation, suspected IP
complaints those things comethrough all the time.
Obviously, a lot of this stuffis gonna depend on the type of
products You're selling, butGenerally speaking, you know,
it's gotten harder to make these, to make updates, the listings,
(30:32):
to deal with things.
I mean, when I Adam you probablyremember these days, but like
even six years ago, when I firststarted on Amazon, you could
hit the edit button on, you know, on your product catalog page
and put a tight new title in andClick submit and it was
normally gonna go through in 15minutes and that was that.
It was not a Challenging thing,you know.
Then they've added brandregistry and they've added kind
(30:52):
of these other measures that Ithink, in good, in good faith,
are there to protect this hour.
However, they've, on the backend, also made a lot more
challenging to deal with, really, anything related to listings.
I Would say the one thing is,if you're gonna do this yourself
, you should probably get verywell versed with flat files.
Flat files, I would say, areprobably how I don't know 80
(31:16):
percent, 90 percent of updates,issue resolution, anything
related to catalog is nowhandled like we have to Push
everything through, like a flatfile essentially, which, for
anyone listening is you knowthat doesn't, maybe is not
familiar with this it'sessentially an Excel file where
you're telling Amazon all thevarious fields.
I think, and I've always been astrong believer of this you
(31:38):
should try to fill in as manyfields on there as humanly
possible.
I do think that Amazon, whetheror not they tell us that you
know there's certain requiredfields, there's certain ones
that are not required.
I do think, for the more youcan give them, the better.
It's gonna help you show upsomehow in search.
You know, and I know there's allkinds of filters that Amazon
adds in any product search, butthat's just one high-level
(31:59):
recommendation.
Then, if you've got issues, Imean it really is gonna just
depend on what the issue is andkind of that'll dictate really
what your next steps need to be.
But yeah, I'd say we get a lotof requests for just like hey,
my listing suppressed, can youguys get it sorted out?
Hey, we're trying to make thisupdate.
It won't go through.
Can you guys help?
Adam Shaffer (32:19):
So people, so people are coming to you when
they, for the most part, whenthey already have an issue,
they're not coming in to say,hey, we need to load like 50 new
asins.
Could you make the asins for us?
Ben Smith (32:29):
They.
They do like if they've got aproject.
But you know, one of the thingslike I often will talk about
when on webinars or otherpodcasts is, just like you know,
the a lot of times, businessowners who might maybe have
started their Amazon businesswhether it's just them or
they've got one, two, threeperson team it's really easy to
kind of get lulled into thisnext stage, after the initial
launch, where You're the onestill working in your business
(32:53):
and doing and in the trenchesand doing everything and at a
certain point you know there isvalue to that.
Right, like I mean, that's howI learned how to do a lot of
things that I've done on Amazon.
However, if you are thebusiness owner and you have,
your skill set is maybe onsourcing the best products or on
Managing your team andexpanding to new marketplace.
So these there's probably a lotof other things you should be
focused on Rather than you knowthe flat files, the seller
(33:14):
support cases, etc.
And I see this a lot is justthat business owners can get
lulled into that stage whereit's like they want to be
involved in all those pieces,and so I would.
I would just say that is likeyou should start thinking, and
now it's kind of the new year,you know here, um 2024
approaching, like that's reallygood time to do it.
But do a little like sit downjust a you know Half, half, half
(33:35):
a day or even an hour and justkind of plot out like, hey,
here's how the last year went,here, the areas I think have the
biggest impact and things thatreally, whether it's like
advertising, whether it'sgetting new products large, and
then you can identify kind oflike essentially you're doing
like a gap analysis of yourbusiness, like what are the
things that I have and and where, where should I focus my own
time, but also what are thethings that are sucking my time?
(33:56):
I need to get off my plate.
You know, that's what I wouldsay.
It's like you should do.
You should step back from yourbusiness because you shouldn't
always be the one working inyour business you want to be.
You started to your Amazonbrands and business to work on
your business, to grow it, tobuild it, maybe to sell it, and
that does take kind of thatreflection moment.
So, yeah, we have a lot ofpeople that come just when it's
just like I have this immediateissue I need help with or this
(34:18):
immediate project and I thinkthat's one thing I would just
call out to anyone who might belistening or watching is yeah,
think about what you need,because you might be slowing
yourself down.
That's good advice, man, andand so seller can't seller candy
.
Adam Shaffer (34:33):
It basically, if we want to recap, is really, you
know, seller candy does the,the, the stuff that's not so
glamorous, call it the dirtystuff for their brand partners,
and you know, these are thethings that basic blocking and
taping that has to be done onAmazon to be successful, but
it's not necessarily the mostglamorous.
A lot of it is repetitive.
A lot of it is a lot of backand forth with Amazon, a lot of
(34:55):
it speaking the Amazon lingo andand so when it comes to the
nuances of Listings, support,account, health, you really are
the biggest problem.
You really are there to helpyour brands.
That's like your forte and youdo a bunch of other stuff too,
but that's like the big killer.
But it's you're the extensionof, of the team at the at the
(35:19):
brand house.
Fair enough.
Ben Smith (35:22):
Yep 100%.
Adam Shaffer (35:26):
So any any final words for the plan and Amazon
audience today.
I mean, you kind of left uswith some good stuff, but any
other thoughts and then we'llwrap, yeah.
Ben Smith (35:35):
I mean, I guess I would just say like it, you know
I'm excited for what the newyear brings.
I've talked a lot of sellersand agencies and you know all
kinds of people that are alsoexcited.
There's obviously some new feesand new challenges that are
gonna come about in 2024.
I'm sure you've heard aboutthem, but I just say you know,
if there's anyone out there thatdoes, is either looking to kind
of take that next step andmaybe build out their team a
(35:56):
little bit more, just exploresome options, or, if you have a
specific issue, feel free toreach out to our team.
Just go to our website sellercandy comm or sales at seller
candy comm.
Certainly reach out, but yeah,I don't know.
I think, besides that, you know,I think it's I've been saying
this on a lot of podcasts andtalking to a lot of people it's
really just the fundamentals,right.
It's like we there's a lot ofdistractions in the Amazon space
(36:18):
now and I think that Really thesuccess is oftentimes the
fundamentals have a really goodproduct, you know, have
understand the fundamentals ofadvertising, or find a partner
you know to do that, you know,or you know work with someone
like you guys, adam, and thenreally other than that.
It's like you got to getsomeone on your team and have an
expert whether it's gonna beyou yourself or you're gonna
(36:38):
have someone on standby that cansupport you and these weird
things come up or these thingsare just gonna suck your time,
but you, if you're listening tothis, probably shouldn't be the
one doing seller support casesand flat files anymore.
So, yeah, I think that's prettymuch it on my side.
Adam Shaffer (36:53):
So I mean, and so for all you sellers, slash
brands that are out thereListening and and working on the
Amazon marketplace or lookingto work on the Amazon
marketplace, getting a partner,having a partner like a seller
candy, like a Phelps Unitedagain, everybody's got their
niche.
You know we try to be fullservice and buy and sell.
You got seller candy thatreally tries to support more
(37:15):
from an agency aspect and as anextension of your team aspect,
and they're trying to also keepyou out of the doghouse with
Amazon.
So there's lots of places youcan go.
You know, reach out to Ben,reach out to myself, but you
know you got a great communityof Service providers out there
that really do support theAmazon ecosystem.
So check us out and thanks forlistening today.
Announcement (37:40):
Thank you for watching another episode of the
Planet Amazon podcast, where wetalk all things Amazon.
If you want to learn about howto accelerate your sales on
Amazon, visit Phelps United'swebsite at PhelpsUnitedcom.
Welcome to the Planet Amazon podcast with Adam
Shaffer, where we explore theworld of Amazon and other
e-commerce Marketplaces.
Join us as we delve into thelatest strategies and tactics
for successful selling on theworld's largest online
marketplace.
Adam Shaffer (00:17):
Hello everybody and welcome to Planet Amazon,
where we talk about all thingsAmazon.
Today's gonna be an interestingPodcast session.
We have with us today Ben Smith, who's the head of partnerships
at seller candy, and he's beenworking with a company.
It's an Amazon agency, and I'lllet him tell you more about
that, but seller candy is anAmazon agency that helps brands
(00:42):
succeed on Amazon, and what'sinteresting is that you know our
company that we work for isalso an Amazon agency in a way,
and so it.
This is one where we competewith each other, but we actually
augment each other and helpeach other, and what you'll find
is the Amazon community isincredibly large and everybody
seems to always want to behelping everybody else, because
(01:06):
Nobody is the expert on allthings Amazon always and being
able to work with others thatare dealing with issues that are
On a daily basis.
You know, it's almost like abadge of honor to be able to
share that information with thecommunity and help each other
out, and that's something we dowith seller candy.
So, with that, ben, if youcould Maybe tell us a little bit
(01:28):
about yourself and your company, in any order you want, we'd
love to learn a little bit moreabout you and how awesome seller
candy is.
Ben Smith (01:35):
That's your thing.
First off, adam, thanks so muchfor having me on the show.
I really appreciate it.
And, well said, I think youknow that Amazon space is huge,
but it's important to alwayshave those connections and learn
from everyone out there because, honestly, it's with all the
Pace of changes I feel like it'skind of it's it's no one person
can stay on top of everythingand know all the best Tactics
and strategies and thingsthemselves, so it's really
(01:56):
important to connect with otherpeople and learn from one
another.
But anyway, a little backgroundabout me.
I've been in the Amazon spaceabout six or so years tough to
remember when I got started nowbut I've also, you know, I've
worked for two brands that soldon Amazon directly.
Then I also worked at an agencyprior to seller candy.
I've sold myself.
I still sell a little bitthrough KDP.
(02:18):
So I'm still it.
You know, keep my toes dippedin the water and make sure I
know what's going on.
Obviously, kdp is a differentworld, but today I am here on
behalf of the seller candy team.
I currently had a partnershipsfor seller candy and, if you,
for any of the listeners, aren'tfamiliar with, solar candy,
essentially we provide.
This is the way we like todescribe it, as we provide
outcome-driven support forAmazon sellers.
(02:38):
So we don't deal with theadvertising component.
We don't deal with likecreative necessarily.
We actually chose to pick thething no one wants to deal with,
which is all the other annoyingand challenging and sometimes
trivial things that come up whenyou are selling on Amazon.
So I'm talking about I'm havingproblems updating my listing,
my flat file is not goingthrough or opening seller
support tickets, dealing withaccount health issues.
(03:00):
So the less sexy side, I wouldsay, of kind of the Amazon
worlds.
Adam Shaffer (03:04):
And what's interesting is you know so we're
a full-service agency, butthere's definitely needs for
help in different specialties,like getting listings Listed
properly or optimized or gettingthem unsuspendent, if you want
to call it that and gettingcases put into Amazon and speak
the Amazon lingo.
But we also buy and sell theinventory, so we're selling on
(03:28):
behalf of Brands and and Ben isreally more helping them grow
their business and and fix a lotof the issues that they might
be having, because Fixing issueson Amazon is not always the
easiest thing in the world to do.
There's no one set rulebook onthis.
So, you know, tell us aboutsome of the cool things that you
(03:48):
guys have been doing for brandsWith regard to your services.
Ben Smith (03:54):
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, you hit the nail on thehead right like the reason that
companies like ours and manyothers in the space exist is
because Amazon has famously beenvery customer centric and With
sellers it's a little bit of adifferent relationship.
Certainly, they've made somechanges there and they're you
know they're making.
They're making an effort, I'dsay, to kind of appease to more
(04:16):
sellers.
However, then they go and addmore fees at the same time.
So we'll double-edge swordthere.
But you know we exist becausethere are a lot of challenges
that come up just when you aregrowing and scaling on Amazon.
And obviously PPC is one wholeside of the equation which I
won't get too much into today.
But Essentially, you know, sowe're getting.
So what, context wise, you knowwe've helped, I want to say now
(04:37):
around 500 or so brands.
We've got a team of about 50 orso agents.
A lot of them were previouslyat Amazon seller support.
We do try to recruit a lot ofthem out of that pool.
That being said, you know evenseller support staff members are
so siloed, as you can probablytell if you've gone through any
you know issue and open caseswith Amazon.
So we put them through rigoroustraining internally and then
(05:00):
you kind of hit the nail ahead.
We essentially lend them outand you can use them as an
extension of your team.
But our core services you knowwe call it seller candy
unlimited it's just for that, soit's essentially for a brand
can come and plug right into oursystem.
Today they have access to aticketing portal and essentially
anytime they have an issue orsomething that comes up they
don't want to deal with itthemselves or it's not, you know
, maybe not the best use oftheir time, which isn't often
(05:23):
there's something that's verycommon is they just drop it into
our ticketing portal and thenwe essentially will take it and
take it from there.
We were outcome driven, sowe'll we'll give them updates
every 24 hours on the progresswe made.
But it's a nice way, for I'dsay like a part of my big
motivation for joining theseller candy team about two
years ago was I've been a sellera bit.
I've also, you know, managedclients.
I knew that this was a big painpoint and I knew that.
(05:46):
So when I, when I John told me,our founder John told me about
what he is building, is like, oh, I need to join us team, like
this is gonna be.
This is gonna be a big thing.
So that's kind of our coreservice offering and I'm happy
to dive into like any componentthat there's certainly so.
Adam Shaffer (05:59):
so do you?
Do you go into the, thepartners of the brand's three
seller central accounts?
Ben Smith (06:06):
I yeah, so normally the so you're working in their
accounts right.
Yeah, exactly Like normally,when we're working with a brand
directly, they're addingsub-users to their account, so
they're adding us as sub-usersto the account.
We also do support someagencies as well and service
providers, so we do play onenterprise side, but just cater
(06:27):
a little bit more to the brandside, so they are adding us as
sub-users.
That's how we're essentiallyhaving access to do the things
that we need to do.
So essentially, again, think ofus as like an extension of your
team, right?
Adam Shaffer (06:38):
And can you I know one of the things that you care
about is the is the sellercentral account health, and so
how do you define it for us alittle bit and then tell us why
it's important and what you doto help keep the accounts
healthy?
Ben Smith (06:55):
Well, account health is everything right.
You have I've personally beenthrough a number of suspensions
or suspension, you know, plan ofaction cycles with various
brands over the years.
They're not fun.
But especially, you know, a lotof people either start their
journey selling online or starttheir brand's journey by looking
to Amazon first.
We get a lot of benefits out ofit, right, we get the customer
(07:16):
base and everything else.
A lot of people want to expandand do successfully off to other
platforms, but a lot of peopleI find end up not making it to
that point or just always kindof talking about it.
The risk there is obviouslyAmazon, you know, could shut you
down or shut a listing down atany time and there's that kind
of harkens back to the accounthealth issue.
(07:36):
You always want to know exactlywhat's going on in your account
and where your account kind ofstands.
It's easy when you have acouple of skews right and you
know maybe you've just launchedyour first two, three, four
product variations and maybethey're not even doing a lot of
volume.
As the volume picks up or asyour catalog grows, it's
inevitable that you are going tohave more and more issues,
whether that's a customer thatjust got like a broken unit and
(07:58):
they're complaining.
And now you're being told thatmaybe your listing is that
thread of getting taken down orsomething more serious than that
.
But obviously you need to havea pulse on what's going on with
your account health page.
I know, when I was personallystill selling or managing brands
, like you know, I had achecklist I did every single day
and it was I'm checking thelistings, I'm checking to see if
there's any messages, feedback,and then the next one is
(08:20):
account health.
Is there anything on there Ineed to address?
Because when you get somethingon there, you need to move
quickly to make sure that youknow every minute it is down,
you're, first of all, if you'vebeen throwing advertising
dollars at something, you'relosing your ranking like every
single minute, and so you'repretty much all those ad dollars
are now getting wasted, and youmight now you're, when you get
reinstated, let's say, on alisting that's been taken down,
(08:41):
you're going to have to fighttwice as hard or start all over
again to start getting thatproduct ranked again.
So you know, I mean you want tomove swiftly.
However, that being said, youcertainly want to be careful
when it comes to anything likethat, where it's like a listing
that's been taken down and needsa plan of action.
Amazon, you know, famously willgive you kind of the notice of
(09:01):
death at a certain point on manyof these types of issues of hey
, we might not reply to futurerequests to reinstate, reinstate
your account or reinstate yourlisting, and so you know you
should always thoughtfullysubmit those plans of action or
those appeals.
You just want to do it quickly,but make sure it's thorough and
addresses all the importantthings.
And that's where of course itdoes help to have someone on
(09:22):
your team, or whether it'sseller candy or someone else,
someone in-house, whether it'sanother agency, consultancy,
doesn't matter, but someonewho's been through that process
before or just spend a lot oftime yourself, you know,
learning about how to properlydo that.
Adam Shaffer (09:35):
So there's the product part of account health
where you could have some issuewith the product that people are
complaining about.
But then there's the speed likeeverything's on the clock.
Like you know, I used to watchthe account health.
If we didn't ship things by acertain time, we were going to
get danged on the account health.
You had to have, you know,almost a perfect score.
I mean, are you seeing that too?
(09:57):
Yeah, I mean 100%.
Ben Smith (10:00):
Especially, you know, I mean, if you're yeah, so just
to that point too, right, ifyou're doing a lot of FBM
fulfillment or if you're inseller fulfilled prime, I mean,
yeah, you got to be on the ballright, like I personally have
supported on a couple ofaccounts doing seller fulfilled
prime and you are, you've got toconstantly be shipping.
I know they've changed some oftheir policies, even since I was
(10:20):
more involved with that.
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, if you get too many ofthose order defect rate, you
know all those things yeah,that's going to come back to my
check.
Adam Shaffer (10:28):
So is that true?
I mean, that's the hamsterwheel we're on always is that we
do offer seller fulfilled primeto our customers.
You know we try to get as muchup to FBA as possible, but we do
do FBM and seller fulfilledprime, and that clock just
doesn't stop.
And you got to make sure that.
You know we have cruising overthe weekend making sure that
we're always shipping becauseyou can't miss the.
And it's the same for thedelivery guys.
(10:50):
I mean the people that deliverthe goods are also on the clock.
Everything at Amazon is ametric and everybody's got the
clock on them.
They have the defect rate andif you go below a certain level,
they're going to either giveyou less business, show you less
often and then potentially cutyou off, and so you just don't
want that.
So that's pretty cool that youguys help your customers with
(11:12):
that.
We do too, and it's prettyimportant.
Have you had any accounts thatyou were able to get back on
that were cut off?
Ben Smith (11:23):
Yeah, tons.
I mean we, you know we do get.
So I'd say kind of just to givesome context to like.
So I think in 2022, we hadmaybe something like 15,000
tickets submitted to our systemroughly.
I don't know the exact numberwas, but out of that I know that
the number one most commoncategory we were getting tickets
submitted to us for was helpwith something related to a
(11:43):
listing Could be hey, we want toupdate the listing suppression,
but a listing specific issue.
The second most common categoryis account health and in that
you know, obviously you have amyriad of different account
health issues, but we certainlydo get a lot of people that come
to us or have been clients fora while and either have a
listing that gets taken down orsome other kind of major issue
like that and account.
(12:04):
So account health is a bigcategory for us.
We will do everything fromdoing the research to figure out
what exactly happened, writingthat plan of action or that
appeal, submitting it, followingup on it, getting on phone with
seller support, all that kindof stuff.
So that is something that ourteam will assist with and
obviously every situation is alittle bit different, but yeah,
it's absolutely something we do.
Adam Shaffer (12:25):
Can you explain the importance of the write up,
like if it's not written the wayAmazon likes it to be written?
I know that's hard to explain,but if you can do your best to
say there's a certain way to goabout writing a case to Amazon,
you know.
So tell us more about that.
Ben Smith (12:44):
Yeah Well, so I would just say, and when it comes to
like anything with appeals orplans of action, generally
speaking you need to address,first of all, address the issue
overall, what you think causedthe issue.
Sometimes Amazon, famously, youknow, sometimes they've gotten,
in some cases they've gottenbetter at it, but famously
they're vague in many waysThey'll tell you oh, we have
deactivated your account because, or deactivated a product
(13:05):
because of this broad term andthis, and here it is in the
terms of service.
They might not always drilldown and tell you exactly what
caused that.
So, for example, you might haveto go through and identify,
let's say, the two or three orfour orders, maybe that we're
not shipped on time andtherefore cause this takedown,
just example.
So, but generally speaking, yougot to address what happens.
(13:28):
You got to then addressessentially how you have
rectified it, so how you haveactually gone in, maybe reached
out.
Hey, we reached out to the fourcustomers after identifying
these were the four issues, orfour orders that had issues.
So this is what we're doing toactually solve this.
And then what you're going todo or put in place for kind of
that long term hey, this won'thappen again, kind of thing.
That being said, just one thingI will call out.
(13:49):
You know I'm certainly notadvocating for sellers to always
admit fault.
I think there's definitely anddepending who you talk to you
have talked to a lot of otherpeople in the space that this is
all they do is a legal likeplans of action and appeals and
that kind of thing.
And there is certainly anargument, for there are times
where you need should kind oftake it to the next level and
(14:11):
get maybe a legal team orsomething like that involved and
not admit fault offered.
You got to remember to pickyour battles.
I would say, more often than notit's better to you're going to
get your.
You're fighting against Amazon.
It's going to be better, if youwant to get your listing or
counter reinstated, toessentially admit to something
or just tell them what they wantto hear essentially.
(14:32):
And I know that's not alwaysthe best advice and I know
sometimes, but sometimes youmight feel that you did not
necessarily do anything wrong.
I certainly worked with acouple clients like that, but
that is going to be the fastestway to kind of move forward.
So that is one call that I justwanted to make.
Adam Shaffer (14:49):
I always worried about getting the lawyers
involved was like Amazon shutsdown from that.
I don't know what yourexperience is with that.
Ben Smith (14:57):
Well, I've talked.
To be honest, I haven't everpersonally brought in any kind
of legal counsel or anythinglike that.
I just haven't worked on anaccount where that was necessary
.
I've talked to a couple otherpeople in the space you know
that have legal teams and I'vehad.
They've told me straight up,like you shouldn't always admit
fault, like even though you knowmost, a lot of times like
(15:17):
you're in an instance wheremaybe you didn't do anything
wrong, like I mean, a lot oftimes it's a hey, a seller
complaint.
Like let's be real, a sellergets something.
They're maybe upset or and wantto return it for free.
So they just said this thing,and maybe you have three or four
of those if you're doing highvolume.
Next thing, you know youraccount's been shut down.
You didn't violate terms ofservice necessary.
Maybe these sellers were justsaying that thing.
You know you can't control orstart.
The customers can't necessarilycontrol that.
(15:39):
If you want to get it resolvedthe fastest, it's probably going
to be easier for you to saywhat Amazon wants to hear, which
is hey, yeah, you know we takeownership, blah, blah, blah.
Here's what we're doing torectify the issue.
That being said, I've heardinstances where people will go
and fight the good fight and,you know, go against Amazon.
I just haven't personally gonethrough that.
Adam Shaffer (15:58):
Yeah, and I'm sorry I interrupted you.
We're about to recap on thepoint.
Ben Smith (16:02):
I was just going to say.
I mean, it's really just at avery high level.
It's addressing what happened,like hey, here's what happens.
Then addressing kind of what inhere's maybe any supporting
evidence of like oh yeah, againI'm going to use that, the same
example, like here are the fourorders we identified that were
shipped out late, giving off,and that that caused a negative
customer experience, blah, blah.
Here's what we've done torectify that.
(16:24):
You know, we've messaged allfour of these people and offer
them a refund or something likethat, or we've offered to reship
the item.
What happened, obviouslyspecific to the incident, and
then, essentially, what's ourplan to make sure that this
won't happen again.
And really laying that out likehey, we've implemented this new
quality quality plan at ourwarehouse we have.
You know, that's where you'regoing to need to spend some time
(16:45):
and really address how you'regoing to prevent it.
And that's again why it'simportant to go through it, and
thoroughly, and as thoroughly aspossible the first time,
because there's a good chanceyou might submit that whole
thing.
It gets kicked back and youmight have to then tweak it for
the second submission.
But you don't want to go andyou know I've seen a couple
clients who had not been onAmazon as long and didn't have
(17:07):
this.
I know there's one guy I talkedto maybe six months ago.
He had an account suspensionand he replied to the suspension
, which was by email at thatpoint, and just said, like, how
do I like, how do I submit anappeal, or something?
Well, amazon had counted thatas his first submission of an
appeal.
You know, and it's of coursethat's an extreme, extreme, you
(17:29):
know issue.
But you know my point is likebe careful when you're to start
this process.
You want to try to really beeffective with every submission
you make.
Adam Shaffer (17:37):
Cool, and tell me that number again how many
tickets did you guys do in 2022?
I mean, it sounded prettyextraordinary.
Ben Smith (17:43):
I want to say it was like it was around the 15,000
mark Wow.
And the clocks on all those too, so part of your account.
Adam Shaffer (17:51):
Health is responding right.
You got 24 hours or somethingto respond to every one of these
things and try to satisfy thecustomers.
So with seller candy, are youguys?
Do you guys try to takeownership of the store ratings
for your partners?
Or, you know like, are youtrying to make sure that if
somebody puts a review in onyour store not the product but
(18:15):
the store are you trying tosolve that and rectify that?
Ben Smith (18:19):
Yeah, so we do.
It's within our scope, right,like, essentially, I like to say
anything.
Anything besides advertising inthe creative is something that
our team can tackle Like, and weand we and one of the other
cool things I think in this isanother argument, I think, why
you should just always kind ofit totally depends where you are
at with your Amazon journey.
But because there's so manycomplexities, because there are
(18:41):
nuances and you know theAmazon's I'll say it myself,
like I can't keep on top of,like, all of the changes, like
they're just announcing new feesevery week, you know, and then
there's so many things, thatbeing said, like having someone
that you pay to stay on top ofall of that stuff.
That hopefully has, you know, acollective team is a huge
benefit, especially as thingsget more complex.
(19:01):
And one of the things that we dointernally is we, because we
have, you know, 50 plus agents.
We have, you know, severalhundred client accounts.
We do get to see these weirdnuanced issues across accounts,
and we also listen to ourcustomers too.
Like, sometimes our clientswill come to us and say, hey, we
have this issue every singlemonth on our product, this type
of product.
Here's what we found it worksto get it resolved, and so we
(19:24):
will learn and try thatourselves and see if it works
out.
But those are the kind ofthings that, having a team, you
have that kind of collectiveknowledge as well, most things
are going to fall kind of in thesame category of like, hey,
everyone deals with these, youknow, even if you think yours is
a unique problem, most likelyprobably not.
But there are some weirdnuanced issues that do crop up
right when it's like okay,that's weird.
I've never heard of that before.
(19:44):
So anyway, sorry, I forgot yourquestion.
Can you just ask me?
Adam Shaffer (19:50):
No, it was it's.
You know, the ratings forstores are quite in the way.
Oh yeah, the better your rating,the better you show, the more
that customers will buy from you, the higher your conversion
rate.
And obviously the productreviews are really important.
So, like we would get you knowpeople that would complain that
the UPS guy dropped theirproduct in the mud and so
(20:10):
therefore they gave it a shittyreview.
And I'm like, come on, like sowe have to go put a case in and
fix the product review, but youdon't want to get a one star
because the UPS guy dropped it.
So usually you can solve that.
And then vice versa, on thestore side of it, somebody might
be complaining about theproduct and your host selling
the product.
You're selling other people'sbrands and your store is getting
(20:31):
a bad rating because theydidn't like either way that the
Nintendo was working or playing.
You know.
So you know there's this.
You know large host, butkeeping those ratings as high as
humanly possible definitelytakes some human intervention.
So I just was curious if thisis something that you guys, you
know, look at.
Ben Smith (20:51):
Yeah, two things there.
So I mean the short answer isyes, right, like we do.
But we look at both sellerfeedback and we look at product
ratings, reviews.
What have you Seller feedback?
You know?
So our service normally we sitas an extension of the team and
we're more on the reactive side.
We wait for you as a seller, orsomeone at that with the brand,
to tell us, hey, this is whatwe want done.
That being said, like we willdo a couple things proactively,
(21:13):
and one of those is we'relooking for at the reviews to
see what comes in Sellerfeedback.
You know so most peoplelistening or watching will
probably know this but you cango in from the dropdown and it's
pretty easy to hit requestremoval, which you should do on
pretty much all of the criticalones, and oftentimes that'll
automatically get that reviewremoved, right, I mean, that's a
pretty easy part of the process.
(21:34):
If it doesn't which I've seenthis happen sometimes it gets
rejected.
And if I would spend like 30seconds, if you're a brand owner
, just read what the policy ison those, because then you'll
know from here on out whichthings that you can actually
then fight and get removed.
And seller feedback is stillvery doable If you have, if it's
not auto removed, you can opena case.
(21:54):
Normally it's gonna take maybetwo, three back and forth and
then they'll remove it or strikeit through on your account,
which is obviously important.
So, yeah, that's number one andyes, it's something that the
seller candy team does.
Product ratings and reviews yeah, we know that every once in a
while, people well, maybe morefrequently than every once in a
while people do getnon-compliant reviews, whether
it's, you know, maybe you have ahunch it's a competitor leaving
(22:16):
a review, whether it's clearly,you know, someone leaves a
review and they accidentallywrote it about some other
products, clearly not aboutyours.
Or, as you mentioned, adam,like maybe it's about the
delivery or something, not again, not related to the product
itself.
Though there, that is anopportunity where you can fight
that and try to get Amazon toreview it and strike it through.
We do assist with it.
(22:37):
I will tell you just and thisis me being fully transparent
like Amazon is very challengingto get to over-turning those,
and oftentimes I find that it isa it's a volume game, even if
you've got, let's say, sayyou're listing as 10,000 reviews
and maybe you think 1% of thoseor 2% of those are
non-compliant ones that are oneor two stars, even if you go
(22:58):
through the process.
First of all, you're gonna haveto open separate cases for, I
think, each one at a time, if Iremember correctly.
But also a lot of them willjust get auto rejected and I'd
say it's more of a volume-basedgame.
They're still very strict andthey're very sticky issues, but
you can fight.
And some of the things we'll dois we will go look for as much
evidence as we can collect,which is it's tricky.
(23:20):
You can't always glean too much.
Obviously, if it's very clear,if someone says like, hey, my
UPS driver drops into Mod andit's nothing to do with the
product, okay, evidence is kindof right there.
It's very blank.
Or like, hey, this is clearlyabout another product, they're
mentioning this thing, this isnot my product, cool.
One other step we will do is wewill go look at the reviewer's
profile and see if this is aconsistent pattern.
(23:42):
For example, if you see thatall they do believe reviews or
one-star reviews, even on everyother competitor in your
category, kind of a clear signthat maybe there's some ulterior
motive there or something else.
Essentially, you're just tryingto get as much information as
you possibly can Now.
So my point is, yeah, we dohelp with it.
(24:02):
It is kind of a volume game butit is tricky.
So, yeah, I mean, if someoneelse has better solutions, I'd
love to hear about it, but Ithink that Amazon's gonna be
really restringing about thoseand I don't think that's gonna
change going forward.
The one thing they haveintroduced, as you probably know
, is obviously now they have theability to contact those
critical review, those peoplethat leave critical reviews.
(24:24):
I think one is it one, two andthree-star or just one and
two-star?
I can't remember.
Off the top of my head now Ithink it's one and two, yeah, so
, and I then reach out with,essentially you know, more or
less templated messages, and Iwould say that is something that
you should be doing or havethis someone on your team do is
Decide them to just go throughthat periodically and just maybe
add that to your weeklychecklist of going through, and
(24:44):
then I would say, focus the restof your time on the top of that
funnel of getting more reviews.
It's always going to be easierto get more reviews than it is
to probably get some of thosenon-compliance.
Adam Shaffer (24:53):
I mean the the more better reviews you get.
Obviously it's going to helpthe overall numbers for sure,
and so, yeah, what about?
What about returns?
How do you?
How do you do you and how doyou work with that?
I mean, my favorite story isthe, the, the company that was
selling Football cleats you know, football shoes on Amazon and
(25:14):
there are a couple hundred bucksa pair, and they sold three
brand new ones to get threereturns, with Used ones returned
back to them, and it took thema couple of months to get that
sorted out with Amazon.
Is this an area that you guysplan?
Ben Smith (25:30):
Yeah, the old, the old bait and switch still
switcheroo Yep.
Adam Shaffer (25:35):
I mean, there was another one.
They bought a computer and theytook out the video card and
they put some junky video cardin this under back and it's
horrible.
Ben Smith (25:45):
I've got a personal story about that, as I, you know
, I one of the brands that I'veworked with and I was in, in and
out of their warehouse all thetime.
So I sold very expensiveelectronic parts.
I'm talking like, let's justcall it, high-end servers or
networking switches.
It's kind of you know, thepricing is gonna be like $400
and up on these items and wewould.
We would process the removalorders when they came back to
(26:07):
the warehouse and, you know,check what's inside and whatnot.
And one of them I was expectingto get a, this one unit that
was gonna be like a.
It was a $400 item.
Open up the box of the removalorder, I got a.
You know it's a networkingswitch.
It's very like clear what itemI should be getting back.
The item I got back instead wasa set of four Tupperware like
plastic containers.
(26:27):
I was like what the heck, likehow could they make this mistake
?
So you know, obviously there'sthere's definitely a case to be
made there.
So this the long and short ofit is like we we do have a
Reimbursement piece of ourbusiness.
So what we will do thereimbursements that's primarily
gonna be for the FBAreimbursement side of the
(26:48):
equation, just FYI, so not asmuch on the FBM side we will to
help with those kind of things.
The one problem withspecifically as it relates to
removal orders and getting thosereturns, is they're not coming
back to our warehouse.
We need to know so we're notthe ones opening the box to know
, oh, this is the wrong item.
You know, but you know.
Just to give some someeducational stuff here, I mean
(27:08):
hundred percent.
If you're in a situation likethat, yes, you should open a
case.
Amazon's gonna ask you topretty much take pictures of all
the sides of that removal orderthe box and the contents, and
then the I believe the UPC orthe LPN like return label, and
then there's the little slip inthere.
If you send them all those,those are those pictures You're
gonna get you should get areimbursement.
(27:29):
I've had some that are rejectedand then you just open a new
case and it goes through.
But hundred percent you shouldbe doing that.
It's painstaking, but you know,if you've got it, especially
and it might not be worth it.
If you've got like a highvolume, low price products, I
mean to be honest, probably notgonna be worth it.
But anything like that, whereyou're probably in like the $50
plus per per item, hundredpercent you should be doing that
, or having your 3pL do it orsomeone else.
(27:51):
We can do it in that, in in thesense that if you are one of
our clients and you send us,like you know, the pictures and
that content, great, we'll goand fight the case for you.
We do have some clients thatask us to do that, but you can
do it yourself, you know, orwith us, but you don't need us
to do it.
Adam Shaffer (28:08):
You're gonna have to take the pictures yourself
anyway.
That's definitely the ugly partof the biz.
I don't really love that part.
Ben Smith (28:13):
You guys deal with that a lot.
Adam Shaffer (28:15):
Oh yeah, I mean, we're always dealing with it.
You know some some productshave More issues than others,
but when it's, like you said,pretty inexpensive, you know you
let it ride.
But there's some items that arefour or five, six.
You know we sell things thatare a few thousand dollars and
you got to deal with that.
This is some professionalscammers out there and you got
to get it sorted because youjust can't take all those hits.
(28:38):
It's not a high enough margingame with all the fees that
you're paying Amazon.
So they'll work with you, butthere is definitely a lot of
back-and-forth and it's not anovernight solution.
So you got to be persistent,you know.
And then let's go back to the,the mainstay the listings issues
.
So, when it comes to listings,what are you actually doing?
(28:59):
Are you taking listings andauditing listings and trying to
make them better, or are youdealing with listings once
there's an issue?
How does your listing servicework?
Ben Smith (29:07):
Yeah, well, I would say just as like a blanket
statement, you know and is, Italked to a lot of sellers and
most of the time, like, people,people, a lot of times people
will come to us when they haveExisting issues right, like, and
I would always, I always caveatthat like or just say you know,
business owners, you got a lotof stuff on your plate and
whether you've hired anyone orhow, or maybe it's just you by
(29:30):
yourself, like, don't wait tillit's too late, till to come or
to get, whether it's us oranyone Like, you should get help
and bake it into your team,hopefully sooner rather than
later.
So it's one thing I just wantedto reiterate there.
When it comes to the listingsthemselves, I mean, essentially
we're helping with just aboutanything related to two listings
right Aside from again tocreate a piece.
(29:51):
But you know that could, thatcould be.
Hey, we have these five newproducts variations coming out
here, the UPC's.
Here's the bullet points topictures.
Can you guys go upload them andmake sure they're properly set
up?
Cool, we'll deal with that.
More often than not, aside fromthat, it's gonna be dealing with
problems on the listings, andI'm talking, like you know, we
get a lot of people that havesuppressed listings.
(30:12):
We are a lot of people that arejust trying to push an update
through and it's get it.
It's very sticky.
We've got people, obviouslythat have.
You know, paul.
Let's say, a product policyviolation, suspected IP
complaints those things comethrough all the time.
Obviously, a lot of this stuffis gonna depend on the type of
products You're selling, butGenerally speaking, you know,
it's gotten harder to make these, to make updates, the listings,
(30:32):
to deal with things.
I mean, when I Adam you probablyremember these days, but like
even six years ago, when I firststarted on Amazon, you could
hit the edit button on, you know, on your product catalog page
and put a tight new title in andClick submit and it was
normally gonna go through in 15minutes and that was that.
It was not a Challenging thing,you know.
Then they've added brandregistry and they've added kind
(30:52):
of these other measures that Ithink, in good, in good faith,
are there to protect this hour.
However, they've, on the backend, also made a lot more
challenging to deal with, really, anything related to listings.
I Would say the one thing is,if you're gonna do this yourself
, you should probably get verywell versed with flat files.
Flat files, I would say, areprobably how I don't know 80
(31:16):
percent, 90 percent of updates,issue resolution, anything
related to catalog is nowhandled like we have to Push
everything through, like a flatfile essentially, which, for
anyone listening is you knowthat doesn't, maybe is not
familiar with this it'sessentially an Excel file where
you're telling Amazon all thevarious fields.
I think, and I've always been astrong believer of this you
(31:38):
should try to fill in as manyfields on there as humanly
possible.
I do think that Amazon, whetheror not they tell us that you
know there's certain requiredfields, there's certain ones
that are not required.
I do think, for the more youcan give them, the better.
It's gonna help you show upsomehow in search.
You know, and I know there's allkinds of filters that Amazon
adds in any product search, butthat's just one high-level
(31:59):
recommendation.
Then, if you've got issues, Imean it really is gonna just
depend on what the issue is andkind of that'll dictate really
what your next steps need to be.
But yeah, I'd say we get a lotof requests for just like hey,
my listing suppressed, can youguys get it sorted out?
Hey, we're trying to make thisupdate.
It won't go through.
Can you guys help?
Adam Shaffer (32:19):
So people, so people are coming to you when
they, for the most part, whenthey already have an issue,
they're not coming in to say,hey, we need to load like 50 new
asins.
Could you make the asins for us?
Ben Smith (32:29):
They.
They do like if they've got aproject.
But you know, one of the thingslike I often will talk about
when on webinars or otherpodcasts is, just like you know,
the a lot of times, businessowners who might maybe have
started their Amazon businesswhether it's just them or
they've got one, two, threeperson team it's really easy to
kind of get lulled into thisnext stage, after the initial
launch, where You're the onestill working in your business
(32:53):
and doing and in the trenchesand doing everything and at a
certain point you know there isvalue to that.
Right, like I mean, that's howI learned how to do a lot of
things that I've done on Amazon.
However, if you are thebusiness owner and you have,
your skill set is maybe onsourcing the best products or on
Managing your team andexpanding to new marketplace.
So these there's probably a lotof other things you should be
focused on Rather than you knowthe flat files, the seller
(33:14):
support cases, etc.
And I see this a lot is justthat business owners can get
lulled into that stage whereit's like they want to be
involved in all those pieces,and so I would.
I would just say that is likeyou should start thinking, and
now it's kind of the new year,you know here, um 2024
approaching, like that's reallygood time to do it.
But do a little like sit downjust a you know Half, half, half
(33:35):
a day or even an hour and justkind of plot out like, hey,
here's how the last year went,here, the areas I think have the
biggest impact and things thatreally, whether it's like
advertising, whether it'sgetting new products large, and
then you can identify kind oflike essentially you're doing
like a gap analysis of yourbusiness, like what are the
things that I have and and where, where should I focus my own
time, but also what are thethings that are sucking my time?
(33:56):
I need to get off my plate.
You know, that's what I wouldsay.
It's like you should do.
You should step back from yourbusiness because you shouldn't
always be the one working inyour business you want to be.
You started to your Amazonbrands and business to work on
your business, to grow it, tobuild it, maybe to sell it, and
that does take kind of thatreflection moment.
So, yeah, we have a lot ofpeople that come just when it's
just like I have this immediateissue I need help with or this
(34:18):
immediate project and I thinkthat's one thing I would just
call out to anyone who might belistening or watching is yeah,
think about what you need,because you might be slowing
yourself down.
That's good advice, man, andand so seller can't seller candy
.
Adam Shaffer (34:33):
It basically, if we want to recap, is really, you
know, seller candy does the,the, the stuff that's not so
glamorous, call it the dirtystuff for their brand partners,
and you know, these are thethings that basic blocking and
taping that has to be done onAmazon to be successful, but
it's not necessarily the mostglamorous.
A lot of it is repetitive.
A lot of it is a lot of backand forth with Amazon, a lot of
(34:55):
it speaking the Amazon lingo andand so when it comes to the
nuances of Listings, support,account, health, you really are
the biggest problem.
You really are there to helpyour brands.
That's like your forte and youdo a bunch of other stuff too,
but that's like the big killer.
But it's you're the extensionof, of the team at the at the
(35:19):
brand house.
Fair enough.
Ben Smith (35:22):
Yep 100%.
Adam Shaffer (35:26):
So any any final words for the plan and Amazon
audience today.
I mean, you kind of left uswith some good stuff, but any
other thoughts and then we'llwrap, yeah.
Ben Smith (35:35):
I mean, I guess I would just say like it, you know
I'm excited for what the newyear brings.
I've talked a lot of sellersand agencies and you know all
kinds of people that are alsoexcited.
There's obviously some new feesand new challenges that are
gonna come about in 2024.
I'm sure you've heard aboutthem, but I just say you know,
if there's anyone out there thatdoes, is either looking to kind
of take that next step andmaybe build out their team a
(35:56):
little bit more, just exploresome options, or, if you have a
specific issue, feel free toreach out to our team.
Just go to our website sellercandy comm or sales at seller
candy comm.
Certainly reach out, but yeah,I don't know.
I think, besides that, you know,I think it's I've been saying
this on a lot of podcasts andtalking to a lot of people it's
really just the fundamentals,right.
It's like we there's a lot ofdistractions in the Amazon space
(36:18):
now and I think that Really thesuccess is oftentimes the
fundamentals have a really goodproduct, you know, have
understand the fundamentals ofadvertising, or find a partner
you know to do that, you know,or you know work with someone
like you guys, adam, and thenreally other than that.
It's like you got to getsomeone on your team and have an
expert whether it's gonna beyou yourself or you're gonna
(36:38):
have someone on standby that cansupport you and these weird
things come up or these thingsare just gonna suck your time,
but you, if you're listening tothis, probably shouldn't be the
one doing seller support casesand flat files anymore.
So, yeah, I think that's prettymuch it on my side.
Adam Shaffer (36:53):
So I mean, and so for all you sellers, slash
brands that are out thereListening and and working on the
Amazon marketplace or lookingto work on the Amazon
marketplace, getting a partner,having a partner like a seller
candy, like a Phelps Unitedagain, everybody's got their
niche.
You know we try to be fullservice and buy and sell.
You got seller candy thatreally tries to support more
(37:15):
from an agency aspect and as anextension of your team aspect,
and they're trying to also keepyou out of the doghouse with
Amazon.
So there's lots of places youcan go.
You know, reach out to Ben,reach out to myself, but you
know you got a great communityof Service providers out there
that really do support theAmazon ecosystem.
So check us out and thanks forlistening today.
Announcement (37:40):
Thank you for watching another episode of the
Planet Amazon podcast, where wetalk all things Amazon.
If you want to learn about howto accelerate your sales on
Amazon, visit Phelps United'swebsite at PhelpsUnitedcom.
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