Chris McCabe, Founder of eCommerce Chris  – Former Amazon Insider. He knows Amazon from the inside out. After several years evaluating seller account performance and enforcing Amazon’s policies, he became a consultant and launched ecommerceChris.com. Now, he teaches his clients how to think like Amazon. His insider knowledge helps sellers to protect their accounts and appeal listing restrictions.

> Here’s a glimpse of what you would learn….

• Understanding Amazon’s perspective and strategies for account protection
• Misconceptions and enforcement trends related to influencer marketing and product giveaways on Amazon
• Challenges and strategies for brand owners dealing with abuse and intellectual property (IP) violations on Amazon
• Crackdown on listing optimization attempts and the challenges related to compliance flags
• Insert cards and product packaging strategies
• Importance of adhering to Amazon’s guidelines and avoiding practices that could be perceived as incentivizing biased reviews
• Power imbalance between sellers and the marketplace
• Recommendations for influential books, productivity tools, and individuals in the e-commerce space
• Details about the upcoming seller Velocity conference
• Encouragement to seek expert help when facing challenges in the e-commerce space
• Details about the Seller Velocity conference, including a discount code, and how to reach out to Chris McCabe for conference inquiries or services.

In this episode of the Ecomm Breakthrough podcast, host Josh Hadley interviews Chris McCabe, an ex-Amazon insider and founder of ecommerceChris. They discuss the intricacies of Amazon’s suspension system, the importance of understanding Amazon’s perspective on account protection, and the trends in enforcement for 2024. Chris advises sellers to avoid competitor abuse and ensure that any intellectual property claims are substantiated. They also touch on the crackdown on competitor abuse and the need for compliance with Amazon’s policies. The conversation includes strategies for dealing with influencer marketing, product giveaways, and the significance of white hat practices. Chris recommends resources and shares information about the Seller Velocity conference.

Here are the 3 action items that Josh identified from this episode:

Action item #1: Chris stressed the need for sellers to align with Amazon’s guidelines and avoid practices that could be perceived as incentivizing biased reviews.

Action item #2:  A common misconception among sellers is that giving away products without asking for a review is acceptable. However, Chris pointed out that Amazon is suspending accounts for such giveaways because they can still result in biased positive reviews. He urged sellers to understand Amazon’s perspective and strategize accordingly.

Action item #3: Chris highlighted the importance of having a rainy day fund to prepare for potential account issues and the need to decide upfront whether to dispute a suspension. He also recommended seeking expert help when facing suspensions or warnings.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Josh Hadley on LinkedIn
• eComm Breakthrough Consulting
• eComm Breakthrough Podcast
• ecommerceChris
• Prosper Show
• Seller Velocity Conference use SVC24NYC when you register to get 25 % off
• Amazon Brand Registry
• Amazon Unbound Book by Brad Stone
  
  Special Mention(s):
• Adam “Heist” Runquist on LinkedIn
• Kevin King on LinkedIn
• Matt Clark on LinkedIn

Related Episode(s):

• “Cracking the Amazon Code: Learn From Adam Heist’s Brand Scaling Secrets” on the eComm Breakthrough Podcast
• “Kevin King’s Wicked-Smart Tips for Building an Audience of Raving Fans” on the eComm Breakthrough Podcast
• “You’ve been doing Shopify wrong—Matt Clark’s top 1% strategy for Shopify a game-changer.” on the eComm Breakthrough Podcast

This episode is brought to you by eComm Breakthrough Consulting where I help seven-figure e-commerce owners grow to eight figures. I started my business in 2015 and grew it to an eight-figure brand in seven years. I made mistakes along the way that made the path to eight figures longer. At times I doubted whether our business could even survive and become a real brand. I wish I would have had a guide to help me grow faster and avoid the stumbling blocks. If you’ve hit a plateau and want to know the next steps to take your business to the next level, then email me at josh@ecommbreakthrough.com and in your subject line say “strategy audit” for the chance to win a $10,000 comprehensive business strategy audit at no cost!

Transcript Area

Josh (00:00:00) – Welcome to the Ecomm Breakthrough Podcast. I’m your host, Josh Hadley, where I interview the top business leaders in e-commerce. Past guests include Kevin King, Michael Gerber, author of The E-myth, and Matt Clark from ASM. Today I am speaking with Chris McCabe. He is the founder of eCommerce, Chris, and he’s going to be sharing how to think like Amazon, how to protect your account and appeal any restrictions or suspensions that might come your way. He’s also going to be sharing what he sees happening and what Amazon is focused on in 2024. This episode is brought to you by Ecomm Breakthrough Consulting, where I help seven figure companies grow to eight figures and beyond. Listen, Chris, I started my business back in 2015 and I grew it to an eight figure brand in seven years. I made a lot of mistakes along the way. That made the path of getting to eight figures take a lot longer than it needed to. At times, I made bad hiring decisions. I had to take money out of my personal bank account in order to fund payroll because of cash flow constraints, and I stressed about whether our brand could survive during Covid when we saw a 90% decrease in sales.

Josh (00:00:53) – I remember wishing for a mentor who could guide me through that maze of scaling up. Somebody who had been there, done that, and could share all the secrets to helping me overcome those obstacles. And that’s why I’ve decided to offer one on one coaching and consulting, where I share the nitty gritty cash flow frameworks, the sales strategies, and the operating systems that have helped me scale my own brand. And because I believe in giving each entrepreneur my undivided attention. I only work with three clients at a time. But first, I want to make sure that we’re a perfect match. So I am offering a completely free, no strings attached business strategy audit session., for free. It’s valued at normally $10,000 just to make sure that we’re the right fit. And this is my audit,, and a way of showing you just how committed I am to your success. So, to our listeners, if this sounds like something you’re up for, drop me an email at Josh at Ecomm breakthrough.com with the subject line, I want to pick your brain.

Josh (00:01:38) – And then let’s chat about how we can take your brand to the next level. Today I am super excited to introduce you all to Chris McCabe. He is the founder of eCommerce, Chris. He’s a former Amazon insider and he knows Amazon from the inside out. After several years of evaluating seller account performance and enforcing Amazon’s policies, he became a consultant and launched e-commerce. chris.com. Now he teaches his clients how to think like Amazon, and his insider knowledge helps sellers to protect their accounts and appeal listing restrictions. So with that introduction, welcome to the show, Chris.

Chris (00:02:07) – Yeah, thanks for having me. Josh.

Josh (00:02:09) – Chris, I’m super excited to have you on because I know if I go all the way back to when I first started out on Amazon fall of 2016, this has been a long time ago, but I remember my biggest fear even in 2017, once we started doing a million in revenue, was getting my account suspended and I wasn’t doing anything. Blackhat wasn’t doing anything wrong. But the fear around that, I just continued to hear I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

Josh (00:02:33) – And the next morning I woke up and I don’t have my account and all my money is locked away. And I was like, oh my goodness. And I personally made a lot of mistakes trying to like, diversify myself off of Amazon prematurely, trying to run away because I was concerned about this listing suspension,, or whatever could come my way, even though, knock on wood,, you know, I haven’t had Amazon suspend our account, but a lot of people have experienced that, and I’m happy to be talking to an expert. You are the best at what you do, and I know that you come with raving reviews from clients that have worked with you and you know your stuff. So, Chris, what do you see going on in 2024?

Chris (00:03:10) – Maybe that’s where we can begin, though. Your original conception of what a suspension was and what where it comes from, what the causes are, doesn’t it? You don’t start by asking the question, you know, did I do something wrong or not? If you are deliberately doing things wrong, you could be suspended any time.

Chris (00:03:23) – But you probably know that if you’re maliciously violating policies or ignoring guidelines, account suspensions happen for a variety of reasons. Sometimes you’re considered at fault, quote unquote., other times Amazon thinks you might be doing something. They want to suspend you until they know more about, let’s say, the quality of the products you’re selling or the quality of your supply chain invoices and so forth., other times it’s just a flat out mistake, which is why at the end of the suspension message toward the bottom, it usually says, if you think this is an error, you want to dispute this, follow a different track. Here’s how you do that., so suspensions can come from out of the woodwork from a lot of different places. You could be slowly performing worse over time, and that eventually comes up as a suspension. Or it could be rather sudden. So,, I think the erroneous impression that some sellers had back in the day at least, was I’m only going to be suspended if I’m actively doing something wrong.

Chris (00:04:14) – Suspensions can come from just Amazon being interested in protecting their buyers themselves, or protecting other sellers from you if they think that you might be harming other sellers, which blends into your first question., there’s a huge increase of Amazon suspending sellers as punishment for having done something to another seller. That’s a huge trend in Q1 of 2020 for.

Josh (00:04:33) – Fascinating. Tell me more. Give me some case studies. Like what type of scenarios are you seeing Amazon suspending other people? Like what are they doing to other sellers or what are they allegedly doing to other sellers?

Chris (00:04:43) – And the good news within the bad news is that I can be very specific for you., sellers are buying from each other to tie up their inventory or to later cancel the orders. That’s considered abusive and harmful towards another seller., sellers are assuming that just because a seller pops up on their listing, they’re assuming they don’t actually have a genuine item of that brand. They consider all resellers counterfeiters right out of the gate, and they’ll refer, I’m sorry, to report them to abuse prevention teams for counterfeit sales, even if they haven’t done a test buy or they don’t have proof that the items are counterfeit.

Chris (00:05:12) – , sometimes if you try to buy from that party and they cancel the order, you can still report them for saying, hey, this is, you know,, a different item or differently than described, but it’s not necessarily a counterfeit complaint that you can make. So sellers are getting suspended for over reporting or abusively reporting intellectual property complaints that can’t be substantiated. Some of them don’t even have their trademark fully registered. The trademark is pending and they’re reporting other people for counterfeit. That’s another mistake they’re making. But very, very specific interactions between you as a brand owner or you as a reseller versus another seller, very specific code of conduct violations. And the worst part of that is that if you’re suspended for that and you can’t dispute it, you start admitting things and saying, well, we did do that, but we’re sorry. We won’t do it again. It’s not the same as 2023 or even back in two years. Amazon tends to say you need to appeal this, proving to us that we were wrong in suspending you for this.

Chris (00:06:04) – And if you kick it back, often they keep your final funds and then it becomes an arbitration question or trying to get your money back. You might not even get the account back at that point, but they shut down the account, keep the money, and they’re very, very strict on how you can get back on via appeal.

Josh (00:06:20) – Fascinating. You know, Chris, with everything that you just shared. Are there any of those? You gave us a good laundry list of things that you see Amazon cracking down on?, are there any of those items that you see Amazon more focused on than others, like more scenarios that you see popping up?

Chris (00:06:35) – They definitely don’t want you unless you’re doing a valid test to confirm if an item is counterfeit or not. Do not be messing with another seller’s listings or buying from them and canceling orders later.. They also are getting confused with some sellers doing Amazon based arbitrage and their. If you start sourcing products from sellers who sell the same types of things as you, they might misunderstand that and think that you’re buying from another seller because they’re a competitor.

Chris (00:06:57) – So if you want to put this all under the umbrella of competitor abuse,, don’t attack. It will be viewed as an attack in a lot of contexts. Don’t attack a competitor or don’t even make it look like you’re attacking a competitor by buying from them., if you report a competitor, make sure it’s a complaint anybody could make. You could hire somebody to make the complaint for you. You can submit it anonymously. Perhaps you don’t have to submit it through Seller Central, but make sure it’s valid. If you’re accusing them of faking their positive reviews or inflating the reviews, make sure that’s valid. If you’re accusing them of doing something to you, have proof of it. Don’t just make the accusation because Amazon is tired of being caught in the middle between two competitors. Obviously, if somebody’s breaking the rules and you have proof, of course you can still report it. Obviously, if somebody’s counterfeiting your products, you have the legal right, not just the Amazon policy, right? You have the legal right to report it.

Chris (00:07:43) – Yeah. What’s going wrong? And we can go into this in a bit more detail., this is my impression. This isn’t something I always witness in person. People go to events, people go to conferences. People attend summits and webinars and whatnot. Where there are hacks, I guess would be the word, but just kind of tricks in terms of this is how to outmaneuver, outsmart your competition. And there’s never any discussion of what the consequences are. There’s never any discussion of whether this is compliant with Amazon’s policies? If you go to the websites of some of these service providers, and I use that term loosely, they’ll put some sort of mention on there. This is 100% TLS compliant. All that means is they’re telling you something. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t fact check it. It doesn’t mean it’s believable.. Sometimes they’re even an Amazon service provider network, so Amazon doesn’t necessarily vet them from what I can see, for compliance in their claims. But also Amazon doesn’t necessarily vet sellers for compliance in their claims on detail pages.

Chris (00:08:34) – So that’s not that hard to believe, right?, they are getting better. I mean, the next trend that I’m seeing is restricted products and and listing compliance issues, because 2024 has been a very different year from last year in terms of unsubstantiated claims on detailed pages,, illicit use of back end keywords to try to direct traffic your way from listings that have nothing to do with your product. Amazon has upped their game. Whether it’s automation, AI, we can debate the source of it, but they’re flagging way, way more listings. And a lot of sellers, I think are kind of caught off guard because they’ve been kind of, you know, boosting their sales by massaging their detailed page content with lots of little tricks that they gathered over the years, or, like I said, little hacks they pick up at conferences and stuff. But if you’re going to embrace some of these marketing trends or sales strategies, make sure you do kind of a foolproof check or a due diligence check on what are the potential downsides? If I try to boost my sales with XYZ strategy because I know there’s a lot of these floating around out there, but your sales cease to matter if you get suspended, right?

Josh (00:09:35) – Real quick.

Josh (00:09:36) – Yeah, real quick that that hack becomes less interesting overnight., and.

Chris (00:09:40) – Word gets out quickly. Like you’re not the only one doing it unless it’s something custom that you came up with that you fly under the radar with. Amazon’s not good at finding it.. Any of that, you know, any of the ideas around I’m the only one doing this are probably unfounded. There’s likely many people, I mean, any kind of new hack or sales trick that people come up with,, they’re going to be pushing it out to their channels, to a lot of different people. But what does that mean? It means it’s got a low shelf life, short term shelf life. And Amazon’s going to pick up on it quickly. If it involves abuse or any kind of anti-competitive behavior that could result in a suspension. In today’s climate, sellers are much better at reporting abuse. I mean, valid reports of abuse, not, you know, unsubstantiated claims. I mean, that people accuse each other and stuff all the time.

Chris (00:10:23) – But sellers are better at reporting abuse. They’re more concise about it. They know the channels better, and Amazon’s better at understanding abuse and taking action on it. It might take two or 3 or 4 tries, but it’s not the same as like in 2021 where all this crazy stuff was going on. Maybe Amazon understood it, maybe they didn’t. Maybe you knew how to present it, maybe you don’t., I mean, that’s just old news. So if you’re going to try to employ these things, you know, if you’re that desperate for sales, that you’re willing to suspend the account, I guess you’re going to probably try something anyway., but you might get your account suspended just to understand in advance that the appeals process is different from 2023. Or, like I said, 2022, where you could apologize for doing things, where you could say, look, I’ve never been suspended before, give me another chance. And that would be enough for you to give a plan of action and expect them to accept it.

Chris (00:11:10) – Maybe on the first or second try or the third try,, finessing some of the language on the plan of action that doesn’t really work anymore. So I don’t know if you’re hearing the same things. In the space that I am. I mean, we were just at the prosper show a month ago talking about this and the think tanks., and I know it’s going to be a topic at our Sell or Velocity conference, which is coming up,, within a few weeks of when you post this episode, May 1st and second in New York. These are things we’re going to be talking about in strategy sessions and on the panels that we have,, and in the talks from our speakers. Because you can’t tolerate Amazon won’t tolerate and you can’t afford to make mistakes in the same way that you could last year or the year before, simply because the appeals process has changed so fundamentally.

Josh (00:11:49) – Fascinating. Chris, this is,, this is definitely a good warning., to our listeners,, I want to dive deeper into that new appeals process that you just discussed.

Josh (00:11:59) – But before we get to that, I want to dive even a little bit deeper. So let’s talk about the abusive conduct between sellers. Now, one thing that we do and I’ll use, you know, kind of our brand as a case study here. We have over a thousand copyright registrations. We also have over,, what, three, 400 design patterns. Okay. Now having Amazon on their brand registry, kind of like an IP violation form. We’ve seen mixed results because a lot of our, our,, work or things that we come up against is that competitors will create copyright derivative works. Okay. So if you were to consult with lawyers they agree. Yes. This is copyright infringement. If you were to take this to court, there’s a high degree of probability you would win. Okay. With that being said, you just file it as you normally would on brand registry and it’s a mixed bag. Sometimes they accept it, sometimes they don’t. Depends on the associate that,, has the chance to review that and their understanding of copyright derivative works.

Josh (00:12:59) – So what do you see, you know, from people that are saying, hey, these people are stealing intellectual property, right? Whether it be copyright infringement, design pads or even utility pads., right. A seller should be worried about things like, hey, like you need to be very careful and don’t get, you know, don’t be filing too many copyright infringement claims and then not be true. Now, obviously, I think that’s good business practice. Like if it’s not copyright infringement, you shouldn’t be filing in the first place. Well, it can blow.

Chris (00:13:27) – Back on you. I think that’s what brand owners in the Amazon space don’t understand when they hire these brand protection agencies, or sometimes the lawyers who are really just looking for as much business as possible, how much standing you have to make a certain claim is secondary in their minds., get a valid IP assessment from an if you if you yourself are an intellectual property attorney, you probably have the wherewithal and skills to assess if you yourself are not an attorney, don’t rely on your understanding of the law.

Chris (00:13:53) – And this kind of applies to not just intellectual property, but all facets of the law., don’t make assumptions. I see a lot of brand owners kind of assuming things about trademark protection, what it gives you, what it doesn’t. And I’m glad you brought up copyrights and copyright protection., copyright seems fairly straightforward in terms of these are our images. We copyrighted them. You put a little, you know, C in a circle in the corner., but it gets abused. Amazon knows it gets abused. Mostly the trick I’m seeing is somebody copies your images, puts them on a website somewhere, any website, and then report to you for your own images for infringing their copyright because they copied it. Put a little C in a circle on it, and publish it on some other website. Could be their own website, could be some random website somewhere where it’s leading back. You know, the owner of the URL, some LLC, somewhere that no one’s heard of., Amazon will process that a lot as a proper copyright infringement and take you down for it.

Chris (00:14:45) – Can it be fixed? Of course it can be fixed. Is it annoying? Yeah, I know it’s annoying., but you can prove that you’ve copyrighted something and on such and such of a date. And of course, if you’re copyrighting everything as you go along,, whatever date they publish it on their website is after the date that you copyrighted the information., so there are ways of doing this right the first time. Is it harder if you don’t do any of this out front?, and you don’t set it up correctly, are you? Yeah. You’re kicking the door open for somebody else to come after you. And that’s probably one reason why they are coming after you. They’re taking action on you because you’ve left yourself vulnerable. And so one again, we’ll be talking about this at the velocity Conference soon. But one thing I see on blogs and podcasts and many private phone conversations I have with brand owners now, is you can’t get away with mistakes anymore because you’re making yourself into a target.

Chris (00:15:36) – And you have to understand that if there’s any value in your category, if there’s any value in your brand or what you sell, likely there are 10 or 11 other companies out there that want to sell just as well as you are. Whatever that product is could be widget X, right? But every category is represented. Every category is lucrative. Every type of product within a category has value. But what does that mean for somebody who’s got less time in the game and less sales than you?, it means that they can weaponize abuse to try to siphon sales from you to them. The IP reporting tools and intellectual property, bogus intellectual property violations. That’s one of the abuses that has become very popular. That’s the bad news. The good news is, unlike two years ago, Amazon is very aware of this now., and if you. Really appeals to me. Not. Not by relying just on seller support cases, not by just opening brand registry tickets., you can’t expect lower level teams to save you.

Chris (00:16:28) – You have to understand how to escalate these things when they get stuck, which generally speaking, depending on the situation, means emails from the primary email on your account to the people who are in charge of managing the marketplace, preventing abuse, and investigating situations like those.

Josh (00:16:43) – Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So do you see, the good news is that Amazon’s cracking down on a lot of those false IP infringement claims. Then like they’ve caught that. But for a brand owner like myself that’s like hey you copied the design of my product. Do you see that as a target that Amazon has? It’s like, well, once you reach X percentage of success rates, you know, it’s like only 50% come through successfully. We’re suspending you or anything like that.

Chris (00:17:08) – Yeah. I mean, suspending. You mean suspending the seller that you’re reporting? They should be.

Josh (00:17:12) – No, I’m referring to. Yeah, the brand that is alleging that there’s copyright infringement. Right. Let’s say 50% of the time Amazon agrees they take down that other listing.

Josh (00:17:21) – That’s fine. 50% of the time Amazon’s like,, I don’t know that that was a valid copyright claim. And so they don’t they don’t say no sorry this was denied. Do you see Amazon maybe keeping a score and being like hey, if you send us one more infringement that we disagree with, we’re going to have problems with your account.

Chris (00:17:39) – , you cannot continue to submit unsubstantiated IP claims without fear of reprisals. But the question would be, I mean, if you’re you can submit as many valid, successful ones as you need to. We work with brands that are consistently sending this stuff in, but they’re all valid. And I’m not saying Amazon does the right thing and takes the right action up front every time. Sometimes it takes a couple of cracks at it because as we all know, some brand owners just get messages back saying generic copy and paste. I mean, it might just be a request for more information that you already sent, right? They botched that stuff all the time. But you can’t.

Chris (00:18:09) – You don’t have to fear consequences. You can’t worry about submitting legit claims and getting punished for it. You do need to worry if you’re submitting stuff and you’re kind of like, I think this is a trademark violation. I think this is a copyright or a patent violation. No, you have to be 100% solid ground and sticking with IP. I mean, I’m not an attorney. I can’t give legal advice, but I can steer you in the direction of IP attorneys that we’ve referred people to for years without ever getting complaints or having problems from it., I mean, quality legal help does cost a little more. Obviously, there’s kind of quickie cheapo legal help out there the way there is for anything, and that has less value. Right., but as long as you set aside some resources in any business, owner needs to set aside resources,, in terms of dealing with problems, troubleshooting something, whether it’s a bad supplier, you have to replace,, legal fees, resources for, you know, listing an account, suspension work sounds self-serving, but I think it’s a good idea to have a rainy day fund for emergencies of the nature that we handle or otherwise.

Chris (00:19:10) – Right. Yeah., but. People who if Amazon views it, are going rogue. If you start submitting IP claims just because you don’t like the idea that somebody may or may not be copying your product, may or may not be manipulating your images and editing them and using them elsewhere., if you’re just doing this based on your own assumptions of I’m in a mastermind, I pay a thousand bucks a month to be in the mastermind, and somebody else in the mastermind or the group seems to be saying that they’ve got the same problem I do. They told me what they did to fix it. I’m just going to follow their blueprint, and I’m going to hope for the same results. That’s not a strategy. That’s copying somebody else’s strategy. That may have worked in a different context. That seems similar to yours. But I wouldn’t skimp on getting a legal assessment before employing that strategy. Or if you’re afraid of Amazon shutting down the whole account and you don’t think you have 100% solid grasp on compliance and Amazon guidelines, I wouldn’t, you know, just assume you’re going to run through and get away with something that can’t be backed up with documentation and evidence.

Chris (00:20:11) – , just because, you know, somebody that didn’t get punished for something. Inconsistency is rife in the Amazon space. We hear all the time, especially the perspective that I have as a consultant, my colleague Michael and Leah McHugh, who works with us. We hear this every day. One person does nothing happens, another person does A and the outcome is right. Totally different enforcement., that’s just because Amazon is inconsistent. It’s a very logical explanation that’s not going to change anytime soon. Yeah, so don’t do too much math in your head without factoring in some doing, some fact checking and some due diligence.

Josh (00:20:43) – Yeah. And Chris, I think, you know, you made a great statement of like, setting aside some funds as, like a rainy day fund and just knowing that. Guess what part of doing business on Amazon is. Guess what? Things are going to get caught up, right? Things are going to get snagged by, whether it be bots or you have competitors that are maliciously trying to attack you, you need to plan that.

Josh (00:21:04) – That is going to happen. If you’re selling on Amazon.com. It’s just the nature of the beast, our brand, ourselves. We’ve had various listings that have been suspended or false IP claims against us that we’ve had to deal with. And, you know, I could save those stories for another day. But like it happens. And the good news is there is a way around it if you are doing things white hat. Right. And here’s kind of my, my favorite thing that I rely upon is like, I sleep really well at night because I know I’m not dancing in the black hat strategies and I’m not worried. Waking up tomorrow is my account going to be suspended? Right? And I know for other people their strategy is I’ve got X number of Amazon accounts. If this one gets shut down I’m moving to this one x, Y and z. And what was interesting, I think Kevin King had somebody based in China. Right. That was saying what they’re doing overseas. And that’s that’s the game they’re playing.

Josh (00:21:54) – Right. But the good news is, yes, they can churn and burn really quick. They can make a bunch of money. But Amazon seems to be catching on pretty quick. They do suspend those accounts. Yeah sure. They move on to another one. But guess what. That’s a really challenging long term strategy. So to our brand builders that are listening, if you’re building a true brand right, like you cannot afford to even dance in those black hat strategies because it’s a totally different ballgame. They’re in it to make a buck as fast as they can. And at the end of the day, they are always going to get caught. At some point in time, things will catch back up to them. So, Chris, before we dive into the appeals process and the updates there, last thing I want to dive into is you talked about Amazon cracking down on more of those like hacks inside your listing to drive more traffic, etc. we talked about all the seller abuse stuff, and now the next thing you said is those the hacks inside the listing that are driving traffic.

Josh (00:22:47) – Can you give any scenarios or specifics here? Yeah, just to give people some ideas of what to be on the lookout for.

Chris (00:22:52) – Well, people are correcting listings furiously now because of restricted products and compliance flags. The problem is do you have whatever those it could be health claims, product efficiency, capability claims. There could be a lot of things if Amazon’s flagging it as non-compliant, do comply. First of all, figure out if Amazon’s incorrectly getting you for restricted products or for non-compliant claims. Because as with anything, there’s a level of automation there. Mistakes made. There’s a certain percentage of listing flags that aren’t going to be correct. So one appeals to the error people are making by not disputing something. When Amazon flags them, they’re assuming it’s right. I guess people do both. Sometimes they assume Amazon’s wrong. I’m going to appeal it as a dispute. And then we’ll look at the claims and say, oh no, they were right on this one. Your detail page was in violation or your packaging was in violation.

Chris (00:23:40) – Some people are like, well, we can change a detail page and our listing content pretty quickly. We can’t change packaging that quickly. The claims are on the packaging too, so we’re going to have to just appeal it as a dispute, like it’s a mistake that might work one out of 100 times, I don’t know, but you’re in the wrong at that point. You’re just doing a Hail Mary hoping for a miracle. Because if it is a restricted claim, health claim or otherwise disallowed and it’s on your packaging too, then it can’t be appealed until the packaging is resolved. Remedied. So that’s a big, big change. People are understanding now that if they make a change to the detail page, but there’s claims on their packaging, the appeal may be rejected. Amazon finally caught up to that fastball. Right., but in terms of different types of claims, I think these are listing optimization attempts where people are hiring agencies at third parties to boost their sales, and maybe they have a conversation about, hey, you’re not going to do anything on myosin that’s going to get it suspended, right? Oh, no, no, we won’t do anything like that.

Chris (00:24:31) – We’ve done this a million times with a bunch of other people and nothing got suspended., just because it’s not flagged immediately when it goes live on the site, doesn’t mean that listing isn’t coming down later. That’s another piece of advice that Amazon might not pick up. I mean, they’re calibrating their bots and flags all the time. Maybe they haven’t accounted for this new hacker trick yet., but it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a competitor who’s watching your listings like a hawk and they see something you’re doing and they’re interpreting policy differently, better whatever than you are, they’re going to report you. And it doesn’t matter how long Amazon would have taken to get around to your listing, they’re going to see it and they’re going to take action on it. So and again what I was saying earlier, sellers are getting better at reporting each other legitimately now, not just complaining and sending in abuse reports like, I don’t know what those guys are doing, but I know something’s crooked going on there.

Chris (00:25:15) – Obviously that gets thrown away., so those are the two things I’m seeing in terms of I mean, it could be it doesn’t have to be consumables. Obviously, any health related claims, anything that could be ingested or consumed, you have to be super careful if you’re in those categories., it could also be, you know, we see more compliance flags and other types of items., kitchen. Kitchen., electronics depends on. Depends on what it is. A lot of listings are getting flagged for. Doesn’t work as expected. Those come out as defective item complaints. Right. And buyers are like, I don’t know, it didn’t work. Broken didn’t work., it might not be that it’s defective, like damaged. It might just be that they don’t understand how to use it. So certainly before the next Prime Day, before the next spring sale or Q4, whatever it is, make sure instructions, I mean, buyers are looking at detail pages very, very, superficially before they buy.

Chris (00:26:07) – I think they’re not looking at the details of is this product suitable for me or are buyers really asking themselves, Will I know how to use this? If there’s any nuance to how to put together the item, how to use it, how to use it for best results? Sometimes they know how to use it. They’re not using it most effectively per your instructions. So have the instructions very clear of course, with the product itself when they’re buying it., but also have it clear on the detail page because the last thing you want is the wrong kind of buyer buying your product, who’s almost guaranteed to leave you a bad review or leave you bad feedback for having inaccurate or improper info on your detail page. Those are the types of things I’m hearing from brands. I mean, maybe some of them are switching up their agencies because they’re not. Just because their sales aren’t what they want., they’re seeing more flags in their account health, and they’re kind of worried that there’s going to be a bad impact on their overall account.

Chris (00:26:54) – , or listing optimization companies, even just this morning, I’m trying to think of the phrase the seller used with me. I think he said we’ve been burned many times by hiring different services., without getting too into the weeds on who they hired and what they did. Exactly. I think the bottom line is you just need to fact check claims. Don’t for what? For any reason, do not rely just on somebody’s online reviews for anything. It could be for what types of services that we offer for a living. It could be what an agency does. It could be an optimization service. It could be any kind of third service, third party service provider. Ask and rely more on the answers you get to your pertinent questions. Rely on the detail you get in the answers. Treat it like a job interview, I guess. Treat it like an investigative reporter interview. Do that level of scrutiny. Don’t just look at reviews and then say, well, other people positively, positively reviewed them. I guess that means they’re good.

Chris (00:27:47) – And I saw that they were speaking at some virtual summit. I guess that means they’re good. You’re making assumptions. Don’t make assumptions. Don’t make assumptions.

Josh (00:27:55) – Very good words of wisdom., Chris, one last thing. Just because it popped into my head, see, a lot of people talking about insert cards or things on product packaging. Are you seeing Amazon taking a lot of action on, you know, insert cards? Obviously, if you’re incentivizing any reviews, I think that’s an obvious like big no, no, especially 2024. Like we don’t even need to address that.

Chris (00:28:14) – You don’t need to go into that.

Josh (00:28:16) – But, insert cards such as and here’s where I think the difference of opinion is yeah, you go into a retail store, right. Let’s say you’re buying a planner right on the back of the planner. Okay. There is. Hey, get my, you know, 500 printables for free. You know, when you purchase this planner, here’s the website, right. That’s on standard retail product packaging, right? And it’s the same thing for other types of products.

Josh (00:28:41) – I want to say crafted Nabisco. Right., Mondelez. They have different sweepstakes that they’re running. If we remember those old cereal boxes, right, that you would have on the back, it’s like entering to win the sweepstakes. Right? And it would take you to some, you know, place where you enter in things like that. This is a strategy that has been done by CPG companies for decades. And those they are not. They are not changing their product packaging to remove that. Hey, download your free,, you know, printables for this planner. They’re also not removing the enter the sweepstakes on the cereal box to send it into Amazon. Should they be worried about that? Or is Amazon just saying? Yeah, that’s not the letter of the law or the intent of the law.

Chris (00:29:21) – That would be the question. In today’s climate, especially, the game has changed now that the FTC isn’t just harassing Amazon about inaccurate, inaccurate product reviews, positive reviews anymore, the FTC is actually going after sellers and suing them.

Chris (00:29:34) – So,, but in terms of anything that there’s been so much scrutiny over reviews, there’s been so much public comment on it, media interest in it. Amazon has taken a very hard line on it, understandably, back in 2016, 2017, when you were selling 2018, it was really just don’t incentivize reviews as long as you’re not paying people to leave your five star reviews, you can do some of these other things and you’re kind of okay. The raffles and contests were a trend for a while. Rebates post-purchase were a big deal for a while. All of those things have gone away or should have gone away because and that’s kind of what you’re talking about contests, things like that, because they tip the scales. Amazon believes those incentivize people to leave a positive review over a negative review, which means it’s not objective. It’s subjective at that point. And they want an objective system where buyers can evaluate reviews without thinking that, oh, well, somebody was paid to leave that review or somebody left that review for themselves.

Chris (00:30:30) – That’s the world that Amazon wants. And also Amazon spent a lot of time and resources on this. And they don’t want it. They want this to be something they spend less time on. So think about what is efficient and useful from Amazon’s perspective because they’re interested in protecting their own bottom line. Right? So if it’s easier for them to suspend a bunch of people and make the FTC back off a little bit, or make the media back off a little bit from complaining about fake reviews on Amazon, then that’s what they’ll do, even if it’s bad for sellers, right? Yeah, they will do that.. Partially because they’re sick of it. Partially because sellers are still using old tricks. I think some of the tricks cycle back around like inserts sort of went away for a while. We didn’t hear about it for a year or so, year or two, and they came back this year. And I’ve been talking about inserts a lot more this year than I did in 2023. I’m assuming it’s just a recycled old technique.

Chris (00:31:18) – I’m sure the rebates conversation will come back up again., there’ll be other influencer marketing offerings that will come up where people will say, is this is this borderline or not? The number one misconception I want to tell your listeners is that you can’t do anything under the sun and say, well, that’s okay, as long as I don’t ask for a review, or as long as they don’t ask for a positive review before people would say, oh, I’m not asking for a positive review, I’m just asking for a review in exchange for free product. But I’m not asking for a positive review, so I should be okay. Then that went away and people said, well, the real problem is asking for a review so you can give away as much as you want safely. Assume you’ll get positive reviews out of it. Just don’t ask for a review. Now that’s going to. You can’t give away product and expect to get away with it without being punished. If somebody reports you for it, it no longer matters to Amazon.

Chris (00:32:01) – We see this in enforcement trends all the time. It does not matter to them if you’ve asked for a review or not. Are you less likely to be punished if you don’t ask for a review? I guess you could consider that a slightly lower risk. But Amazon is suspending people if you give away product because they know you know. I know your next door neighbor knows that you’re more likely to net positive reviews, aka tip the scales in your favor if you give product away. And a lot of the inserts were just about giving away products. I had a call the other day, somebody said, okay, what if I’m giving away a product, but it’s a different product. I’m giving away a new product because I want to just say I’m testing a new product. It’s not for sale on Amazon yet, but it’s free and I’m going to give it to you with this product. It’s coloring outside the lines in a very dubious way, and like the nuance might matter to you that you’re not giving away more of the product that they bought, like buy one, get one free is kind of the most common.

Chris (00:32:50) – , but you’re still giving something away. It’s something that they’re not being, that they’re not paying for. And so you’re incentivizing them in a sense. You’re not asking them to do something in exchange for the incentive. I get it, but there’s still an incentive there. And Amazon wants an incentive-less system, if only because it means less heartache, fewer problems for them.

Josh (00:33:09) – Yeah, it makes a lot of sense in the five.

Chris (00:33:11) – Stars at the top of the insert. I’m still seeing people at the five stars at the top. That is the easiest thing. It may seem like a minor cosmetic design or image mistake., it may seem minor. It’s the easiest thing for somebody to take a screenshot and send that to Amazon and say, there’s five stars. I’ve seen people getting punished just for having the five stars at the top. Nothing else. No aberrant language, no violations anywhere else.

Josh (00:33:34) – So fascinating. Chris, this has been an excellent conversation and I know we’re getting to the top of the hour here.

Josh (00:33:40) – So we’re going to start to wrap things up here. So I’m going to start to summarize here Chris with the three action items from today’s episode. But if you think I’m missing something you want to nail down one last thing. Here’s your chance. So action item number one is just use white hat strategies. Because your life is so much easier. You’re going to be able to sleep better at night. And at the end of the day, if you’re really trying to build a true brand, if you use white hat strategies, you will be able to achieve those goals faster and easier than if you continue to put up these hurdles in front of you and have to spend money on legal accounts or suspensions, and dealing with the stress and headache that comes with that. So that’s action item number one, action item number two. And I love that you talked so much about this today, Chris. Is that just because you heard somebody say, oh yeah, this is Ptos compliant or I did this and it was fine, you need to fact check it yourself, right? And just because an agency or a website has glowing reviews doesn’t mean that it is what they are doing is acceptable.

Josh (00:34:40) – It’s within Amazon’s terms of service. And I think it’s super important. I feel like there are more people that have started selling on Amazon, and then they pivoted to selling to Amazon sellers because they’re like, oh, I’ll start, you know, selling the picts and the shovels to these people. And I’ve got the latest and greatest hack. And guess what? Those hacks only work for maybe six months at a time at best. Right? And then like if, if they’re not selling anymore and they’re still pitching their hacks from five, six years ago. And that’s not somebody I want to be working with. Right. Last thing, action item number three is to set aside a rainy day fund and understand that you need to be proactive with your account protection strategies. So making sure you address anything that comes your way on the account health issues list, right. And making sure you get things cleared up cleanly. That also includes making sure that you work with really good strategic advisors that know the ins and outs, because there have been more, I guess, or services that have popped up that say, hey, we’ll help you on suspending this listing or whatever.

Josh (00:35:41) – And they have the new contacts. And I think, Chris, like you have a you have years of experience here and a really good reputation that I would encourage our listeners, you know, you would be at the top of my list for somebody I would go to and budget, like get the expert opinion of somebody that lives and breathes Amazon appeals and tows compliance on a daily basis for nine years.

Chris (00:36:02) – Yeah, it’s almost,, 10th anniversary that we’ve been doing this, so that’s amazing., Chris.

Josh (00:36:09) – Anything else that I didn’t include in those action items?

Chris (00:36:12) – , no, I mean, I’m one of them. I’m getting ready to. I think you’re about to ask me for my recommended number one warning sign or, appeal strategy tip. If you want, I can segway straight into that. Let’s do it. I have nothing to say about your top three action items beyond. I’m so glad you mentioned the Rainy Day Fund, because honestly, I don’t feel that gets talked about enough in this industry.

Chris (00:36:34) – , I understand that there’s a certain amount of flying by the seat of your pants whenever you’re a business owner., we’ve all been there. We’ve all done it. But there’s so much at stake. And Amazon can be this kind of perceived as this sort of heartless monolith a lot of the time., they’re not necessarily like a typical business partner. They tend to control the relationship. And any time there’s a power imbalance like that between you and a marketplace or a bank or a hedge fund or whatever it might be out in the business world, you have to strategize accordingly., and one of the tried and true methods of doing that for thousands of years of business is squirreling away resources and having a rainy day fund for the day where something bad happens. You’re prepared, at least financially prepared. You might not have the right brains in the room yet and the right action items lined up, but you’ve at least got resources. So I love that you said that at the end., in terms of appeals strategy shift.

Chris (00:37:26) – And I think I alluded to this earlier but didn’t go into it in tons of detail. Number one recommendation is to decide upfront initially when you get one of these suspended listings, or they send you a performance notification that says your listing is under review or your accounts under review for that matter., dispute this. If you think this is an error, decide right away. Because we see a lot of people, sometimes they admit it. The next appeal, they dispute it, the next one, they admit something, the next appeal, they dispute it. They change their mind every five minutes. What does that tell Amazon? It tells Amazon we don’t need to spend time reading this. They can’t make up their mind. They don’t know what’s going on. We’re just going to send a general denial. And if nothing else, kick the can down the road so somebody else can look at it. If these guys ever get their act together, decide up front is it a dispute or not? If it’s something where you do have to correct and amend certain things.

Chris (00:38:08) – You’re listening for certain practices or certain operations. Fine. Maybe you’re not disputing it as an erroneous suspension. Are they asking for a plan of action or not? Are they taking you through a series of checks? Check box, submission forms where you have to designate which one applies to you. Maybe you add some appeals texts, maybe you don’t. Amazon is consistently changing those forms.. Even between the time that we’re recording this today and the time you publish it, there could be a new change. So we’d be very careful what they’re asking you to do. We’ve seen a lot of sellers do a plan of action and submit it when it hasn’t even been asked for, and not only does it get rejected immediately, it confuses Amazon. They’re like, why are they submitting a plan of action? Well, the reason is probably they hired some template mill who had some copy and paste generic content from last year that they just did some fill in the blanks on., do not do that. Do not assume an appeal means a plan of action.

Chris (00:38:59) – Even if you’re not disputing it, they might be asking you for other stuff. Don’t assume that whatever they asked you for last time, even for the same Mason, even for the same flag on the same Asin. Don’t assume that whatever they asked you for last time is what they’re asking for this time. Because even if it was only two months ago, it could be different.

Josh (00:39:13) – Yeah. Chris. Really, really good words of wisdom. And at the end of the day, here’s what I would do. If you get that suspension or warning signal, please go to somebody that’s an expert., this is not something that you want to dance around with, with exactly what Chris just alluded to. Amazon’s not going to take kindly to that. You need to show up and show them that you’re an intelligent business owner, because that’s who Amazon wants to do business with. Chris, as we wrap things up, I’d love to ask each guest the following three questions. So here’s our lightning round. Number one.

Josh (00:39:39) – What’s been the most influential book that you’ve read and why?

Chris (00:39:42) – I like Brad Stone’s Amazon Unbound book because it gives you a very crystal clear perspective. It gives you Amazon’s perspective on the marketplace and how they handle business in general. Of course, Brad talks about more than just third party sellers. There’s a chapter or two on that, but their perspective, the perspective in the executive ranks. And I know sometimes these books are like an alphabet soup of this executive and that executive, maybe a couple of them have moved on. I think Dave Clark was written about in Amazon Unbound, which came out a couple of years ago. He’s already not an executive at Amazon. I understand that the names change, but the themes don’t change, and the approach and the perspective doesn’t change in their executive ranks on their team and how they manage all facets of their business. Obviously, how they manage AWS might be slightly different than how they manage the marketplace, but how they manage the marketplace is similar to how they manage all of Amazon’s businesses, which is what’s in their interest.

Chris (00:40:31) – What’s going to make the most money, what’s favorable to them with the least with the least amount of risk? And can they continue to do things as they see fit without getting criticism from the public or from the government? That is all. Not only in Brad Stone’s book. That’s how you want to look at Amazon, as opposed to looking at them as an equal partner. I think most of your listeners don’t see Amazon as an equal partner, but they’re a dominant partner, right? They’re a partner that has the ability to restrict your funds, your inventory. If you’re using 100% FBA, which most of our clients are, and they have control over your selling privileges. So it’s a different kind of company. And it’s not just, oh, those big tech companies, they’re all the same. Well, they share a lot of the same traits because they’re trillion dollar trillion and a half dollar companies. Of course they have things in common. But Amazon is its own animal and they run their marketplace accordingly.

Chris (00:41:18) – So understand where you fit in their plans for the marketplace and where you fit into their plans for you, because bargaining power matters, right?

Josh (00:41:27) – And to sum it up, you have very little bargaining power. Let’s just say that, Chris, that’s a great book recommendation. Thank you. Next question. What is a new productivity tool or software tool that you’ve recently discovered that you think is a game changer?

Chris (00:41:39) – How new does it have to be?

Josh (00:41:41) – Because I just get what you like using.

Chris (00:41:43) – I like referring people to getting reimbursement ticket system., because at this point we’ve referred so many people there,, without hearing anyone saying anything, you know, in terms of we could have gotten more money back,, lost and stranded inventory and compensation for damaged inventory. I believe those requests are at an all time high right now., and that’s money that’s, you know, pretty easy to understand if you’re getting less money than you could be. Yeah. And usually they do an audit,, a free audit where they tell you how much you, you could be getting,, that ends up being a short conversation, because once you understand, you could be getting more money than you already have.

Chris (00:42:18) – You’re probably happy with that, right?, and, Katina is one of the sponsors of our conference as well. So it’s not that we don’t have an ongoing relationship with them., I’m not 100% unbiased, but by the same token, I’ve sent them a lot of people over the last six years, I think 2018 to now., and I haven’t heard too many complaints. So they’re obviously growing for a reason. They’re getting a lot of people, a lot of their money back from Amazon.

Josh (00:42:40) – Awesome. That’s a great tool and recommendation. All right. Final question. Who is somebody that you admire or respect the most in the e-commerce space that other people should be following and why?

Chris (00:42:48) – Yeah., and this was a tough one because there’s so many people I’m going to have to go with Janelle Page, who’s our emcee. She’s not she’s not speaking per se, but she’s an MC for the Silver Velocity Conference for a very good reason. Janelle is very inspirational and motivational as a speaker. And also she does not just talk, she leads by example.

Chris (00:43:07) – , I. I don’t know if you know her personally or not. I’ve gotten to know her. I’ve gotten to know her slowly, steadily over the years. I know she’s been around in terms of, for those unfamiliar,, launching brands, helping to develop brands, getting brands to the exit point and then starting over with new brands or advising brands on how they can expand better, how they can sell on Amazon better, how they can develop influential, I’m sorry, influencer marketing better., that kind of track record of success combined with how she explains the brains behind it,, the presentation she gives and of nuanced, complex information. It’s very entertaining. She’s got a great sense of humor, and it makes it easier to listen to her, but also it makes you more willing to embrace her concepts because she’s got a lifetime., I don’t know how many decades of brand building and success behind her. And she’s still doing it, which means something. It means the work resonates with her. It means it’s important to her.

Chris (00:44:00) – It means that she enjoys it, and it also means she enjoys it., and continues with it because she is invigorated by it. And she has a passion for it. I know in this day and age 2024, people love to throw the word passion around. I’m passionate about this. I’m passionate about that. But I’m talking about passion in action. That’s what she exemplifies, and that’s why we were honored and privileged to make her our emcee for Stella Velocity., she’s the best example I can think of in this case.

Josh (00:44:24) – Yeah. Janelle is a great recommendation.. Fun fact, Janelle and I are actually from the same hometown in Utah, so there’s some crazy ties, right? Small world., so, Chris, thank you so much for coming on the show. Why don’t you tell everybody about the upcoming conference and where to find you if they do want to reach out to you, utilize your services?

Chris (00:44:41) – Oh, for sure., in terms of reaching out to us about the conference or my services, the best thing to do is my email.

Chris (00:44:46) – Chris at eCommerce. chris.com Chris at eCommerce. Chris. The conference is called Sellar Velocity. The website is seller Velocity conference a seller velocity conference.com., we are giving you the discount code SBC24NYC, and I believe you’re going to have that in your podcast notes. That gets you 25% off tickets. That code is still valid through April, and the conference is May 1st and second in New York. So,, kind of backed by popular demand. We’re doing the two day version of it, and the first day is our main conference day, May 1st. Second day is a bit of an offsite, kind of like a corporate retreat without the corporation part of it.. It’s going to be an hour outside the city, and it’s going to be 50 people versus the hundred people that attend the conference day. We believe in smaller, more intimate, networking sessions and a smaller conference in general. We’re not into the big conference. Of course. We attend some bigger shows like the Prosper show.

Chris (00:45:35) – , but in terms of doing our own event, we like people rubbing elbows with other experts, getting their questions answered in one on one conversations, not just queuing up in a line after a 45 minute PowerPoint and hopefully getting your question answered. So any questions about the event in New York?, coming up in a few weeks, let us know.. It’s our fifth one and we’re looking forward to it.

Josh (00:45:53) – Awesome. Highly recommended event. Unfortunately, I won’t be there this year, but I told Chris to put me on the list for next year. We already have a family trip, but sure. Chris, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been an awesome conversation. I would encourage our listeners if they have any issues. Chris is a great resource that I would utilize when those problems do arise, which surely will arise on your Amazon journey. So thanks for coming on the show, Chris.

Chris (00:46:13) – Thanks. Yeah, thanks for having me.