Amazon News: Damaged FBA, AI Control & Best Buy Enters the Fight

Amazon News: Damaged FBA, AI Control & Best Buy Enters the Fight Unknown Speaker: Welcome, fellow entrepreneurs, to the Amazon Sellers School podcast, where we talk about Amazon and how you can use it to build an e-commerce empire, a side hustle, and anything in between. And now your host, Todd Welch. Speaker 2: All right. Welcome back to the next episode of Amazon News Live. With me, I have Neil Robson. Welcome back to the show, as always, Neil. Speaker 1: Hey, Donovan. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm a regular on this show. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: It feels like I've almost achieved that status. Speaker 2: Yeah, you are a regular. Yeah, I love it. This isn't even my show. Speaker 1: So we're just we're renting it from Todd. Speaker 2: Yeah, we're renting it. Yeah. So Todd is doing some continuing education, probably Amazon related. And so he's not able to make this show. So I will be running it this time around. But we've got some pretty interesting news to go over this week. So, Neil, are you ready to roll on this? Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah. You know, there's some good ones in this one. Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I'm glad you've had a chance to read it because I actually have only been able to read the first one or the first two. So, this one's from Vanessa Hung and Vanessa always delivers really good information, well-researched factual data, not just AI crap. So, I always appreciate her posts for that. So, I'm actually going to take some time. I'm going to read almost everything that she wrote here because I think it's really important. Amazon has introduced, what'd you say? Speaker 1: Why don't you throw the post up? Speaker 2: Oh yeah, good. See, this is what you're here for, buddy. All right, so I'm going to share screen. Window, this one. All right, so that's hard to see, but can you, if I zoom in, no, it does not show that. It does nothing. It does nothing. Speaker 1: Oh, here we go. Speaker 2: There we go. Okay, good. All right, so Amazon has introduced a new FBA damaged inventory ownership policy and it could change how sellers recover value from Amazon fault damaged units. So basically in the past, it says that Amazon would reimburse you and you know, but Those products may have made it into the trash, but they may have also made it back into inventory. But now it's definitely going to get back into inventory. So now when Amazon reimburses you, they take full ownership of those goods. They've purchased them from you. And they have the right to resell or liquidate them through an Amazon warehouse or other channels. I wish it was not through Amazon at all and only through other channels. So this means that those units could reappear Likely, almost certainly on your own listing, going into competition with your sales. So alternatively, you've got a few options here. So Amazon reimburses you and they take ownership of your product and they do whatever they want with it. Or you can have Amazon take ownership of the damaged units for select products. So you can choose which ASINs you want. Maybe you have some Just some lost leaders that you don't really care. You're just using it to get them into your funnel and use them for advertising, etc. Or you can disable all. Responsibility from Amazon and they don't give you any reimbursements, but you elect to do with what you want on those products. And which, quite frankly, in my case, that's that's what we've chosen to do. We have Amazon return any products that clients return or get damaged because their supplements, they're all individually packaged. Like it just makes sense for us. We can take those and recreate a new, um, a new product and send it into inventory. So, or you can have this done on some of your ASINs and not others. I, I think that it's actually good that you can choose what happens with it. But I also know that despite what you choose, Amazon still screws it all up. Neil, comments, thoughts? Speaker 1: Yeah, so this one, I see Amazon putting sellers into a very tough situation with this one, right? Where it's like, you know, Amazon's now passing the buck from their warehouse services damaging your products. Right. That's what I read when I see this. It's for warehouse damaged products. Right. So this is it's damaged from the warehouse food, you know, dropping your crate or whatever run over by a forklift. Who knows what happens? And now Amazon's saying, hey, you know what? We broke this. But we're going to sell it anyways, right? We're going to do some value recovery. We're going to sell it on platform. And you know, it's going to show up as a warehouse deal. Now, the thing that I really don't like is the fact that it's showing up on your specific listing as a warehouse deal. And it wouldn't be so bad So my major concern actually leads into your number, one of your areas of expertise that and where we're talking about negative reviews, right? And, you know, the average consumer, they're like, oh, it's a warehouse deal. I'm going to buy that. And then they get the product. They're like, oh, this is broken, even though I bought a warehouse deal. What do they do? They go to Amazon. They rage with the review. You get nailed with a bad review. Amazon still pockets that value recovery. And you get what? The cost of your product back? 10 times out of 10, a seller would take the loss on a unit to avoid a negative review, right? Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Speaker 1: Absolutely. Speaker 2: They'll take the loss on two products to avoid the negative review. Speaker 1: Right. And so where I'm going with this is like, if Amazon were to put some type of, you know, I always say you got to sign the waiver, right? If customers were willing to sign the waiver saying they understand what they're purchasing, and agree to waive their rights to leave a negative review, and the return is not charged back to the seller, Then this is all good, right? Then this is a win-win-win. Amazon's removing garbage from the landfill. You get your money. You get your cost back. And everyone's like, it's a reuse, reduce, recycle kind of thing. But where it's at right now, without that waiver in place, there's a lot of risk. Speaker 2: That sounds like rainbows and unicorns to me, and both of them don't exist. Speaker 1: Right. And so I have a client who uses an Amazon Renewed account. So they're in the electronics space. They often get open box returns for electronics, and the electronics are expensive, right? The average selling price is over $100. They're focused on value recovery, and they opened up a secondary Amazon account for the renewed. And that's where they send all of their repurposed inventory. And that works out well for them. But Amazon told them that they wouldn't have negative reviews pop up. And it ended up not being what Amazon said. And so there was negative reviews popping up. And now it's like, well, what the heck are we doing this Amazon Reviewed account for? So it really, you know, Amazon saying, we're going to sell this and we're going to make our money back. We're not taking the loss on this, even though it is our fault. And it's like to me, you're screwed if you do and you're screwed if you don't, right? Like either you're taking the L and that could be a big L, right? Like if Amazon screws up an entire, you know, case pack carton, you know, something gets run over, something gets dropped from the top shelf, you know, you could be out thousands of dollars. Speaker 2: Yep. Speaker 1: Right? Or Amazon says, you know what? We're going to sell it and we could potentially be doing damage to your brand because... Speaker 2: I dare say it wouldn't even be potential. It would be certain damage to your brand. Speaker 1: Right. Speaker 2: Because we know exactly what the grade and restock team does. They put the craziest stuff back into inventory. A case in point, do you remember the poopy swim diaper that got sent out? Do you know this story? Speaker 1: No, I don't know this story. Speaker 2: Okay. A friend of ours in the industry, his name's Paul Baron. They do swim diapers, awesome swim diapers called BB Littles, if I remember correctly. And we used them for our children, every single one of them. And they're fantastic. Somebody did a return. And they had it so that if anyone does a return, send it back to them so that they can dispose of it. Or it was either that or they told Amazon dispose of it, right? And so that's something that you turn on in Seller Central. And we used to have that on and we started finding, we said dispose of it because it was a consumable and stuff like that. We found that there were products going back into inventory. Even though you say, don't put that product into inventory, it's used and shouldn't be used by anyone else, still finds its way back in there. And this happens to them and they got a negative review that Somehow, in some way it went viral, right? And it was 100% Amazon's fault. I think it got their account suspended or the product shut down. It affected them very, very heavily. I can't remember the exact details. We should have Paul on here to talk about it actually. But you know, it could have ruined their business because it was a biological hazard. Right? At the fault of Amazon and they took the fall for it. So, I mean, no matter what, I believe that giving Amazon the responsibility for your product, you're going to pay for it no matter what. But if you can mitigate that risk by saying, Amazon, don't touch my stuff. Send it back to me. And that, of course, that won't always work. If you sell glass bottles, breakables, break. Yeah. Something that's easily broken. Like, let's hope they all shattered. Right. But if you sell bouncy balls and they just damage the packaging. No, no, no. Send that back to me. I'll repackage those, you know. Speaker 1: Right. And that's where it becomes a real challenge because like I can see Amazon side, you know, if you were to look at their P&L, they're probably paying out upwards of $100 million a year in this damaged inventory fees, right? Stuff happens when you run one of the largest companies in the world. Of course, there's going to be, you know, the loss leaders in the warehouse or the incidences in the warehouses. And now they're saying, no, no, no, we can actually pass this fee back to the sellers and make them pay for our mistakes. And to me, that's what it seems like it's happening. And I think a waiver would be a great way to be able to say, OK, you know what? Customer fully understands they're getting a discount item. They are waiving their ability to leave a negative review and they understand what they're getting, right? Yeah. Speaker 2: When would that, do you foresee that even being remote? Speaker 1: That's not on their radar. No. You know, I really wish sometimes they would tune into the show. I feel like I have some pretty good workarounds for some of these issues that are popping up on Amazon. Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, look, you know, we've been in the space a long time. Those of us that have been in the space for a long time, you know, and I'd say at this point, five years is probably a long time, 20, 20, 10 years. And, you know, 2015 is when a lot of things started shifting and, and when, when it actually started going downhill for sellers, it was around 2017, something like that. 2017, yeah, 2018, something like that. And, you know, so for instance, I, I pay at least four times as much to sell the same product as I did a decade ago. And I still sell the same product and it's still the same price. So that means I'm making a lot less money on it. But I can't change the price because the manufacturer's price is the same. And I've done that before, you know, and I've gotten a notice from Amazon and buy box suppressed. So, you know, at the end of the day, I think you have to decide based on what kind of product you have, what kind of profit you have, et cetera, that they either send it back to you or you get reimbursed, but it's likely going to go back into the system on your listing and you are going to take the full brunt of the negative reviews that come in. Speaker 1: If there are some, right? And we don't, we don't know that, but I'm saying like the damaged product going out, like a lot of the time sell, uh, purchasers or customers are just going to be like, Oh, what is this? Speaker 2: I have clients that do great in resale and they're the, they get the shit end of the stick of that, you know, fairly often, you know, it's Amazon's responsibility to not send in a poop diaper and they send in a poop diaper. You know what I mean? Speaker 1: Yep. And there's those crazy stories about that. And that's, you know, why a lot of sellers choose to not have their returned inventory co-mingled back into their actual stock because instances like that happen, right? Where the, you know, poop diaper getting back in. That's a crazy one. I've heard of some other crazy, like I'm on Reddit and I see some of those crazy stories come in on Reddit about some of the returns, like just return fraud that happens. Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. All right, shall we go on to the next? All right. So this one's a cool one. So Best Buy launches. Oh, let me let me zoom in on it. That should be good. Best Buy launches digital marketplace more than doubling the number of products available online. So this happened just a few days ago. All right. So let's go over the stuff. They're more than doubling what they've got. So you've got more options. Fanatics Fan Shop. I don't know any Best Buy Fanatics except for people that don't have anywhere else to go for electronics. They're doing small appliances, indoor, outdoor stuff. They're trying to attract more people. I bet that what we're going to see is this Black Friday and Cyber Monday that they're going to hit this advertising real hard. Because Best Buy stores, if you're not from America or you don't have a Best Buy near you, come Black Friday and Cyber Monday and Yeah, pretty much those. I mean, July 4th as well. They stock their stores up with tons and tons of TVs and electronics and Xboxes and monitors and all kinds of stuff like high volume sales stuff. And it's you walk in the doors, the doors open up and there's just a hallway of TVs right at the door and they're prepped for that. And these I found out that companies like Samsung and They actually manufacture cheaper versions of nice TVs with less ports and stuff like that to get a ton of sales velocity during these times. But they're not always the same TV as you would get on the showroom floor on a normal day. So this is kind of interesting. But I mean, there's always been BestBuy.com. You read this full article, excuse me, you read this full article. I'd like to know what your thoughts are on them doing this new system. Speaker 1: So in Canada, like this is, I read this and I was like, what's going on here? So in Canada, we've had Best Buy, like we have Best Buy CA, Best Buy.CA. And once a year, I go in and I buy a new desktop computer. I have a really nice laptop, but once a year, I just go in. And that's because they have a 3P marketplace on BestBuy.ca. And I can get a refurbished, newer computer, open box, for, you know, 60% off. So I just treat myself every year to a new desktop. And this has been ongoing. Speaker 2: Are you a gamer? Speaker 1: I am not a gamer. I just like to keep my equipment nice and clean and up to speed and everything like that. And this is one great way where it's an affordable option for me to just be able to upgrade once a year. And I don't have to worry about my desktops. I do have a nice laptop and I can switch in between them very, you know, it's seamless. But on BestBuy.ca, we've had this 3P marketplace where you can buy all this kinds of stuff. For years, and that's what I've been doing and like it's a great way for sellers to be able to do this and I, you know, there's Interesting underlying factors as well, right? Like Best Buy has really evolved in their trajectory as a retail store. You know, they went from electronics to now they're starting to get into home appliances, vacuums, and pretty much anything now. Like they're trying to become a more general household store. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're trying to fill that gap in the market, right? And as they expand that offering, I'd be interested to know how they're actually doing, how their top line sales are actually doing. And if this is an attempt to move more into the e-com space, because the retail space is actually struggling with just foot traffic coming in the door, right? Like everyone's just so Getting so used to purchasing online, right? And I think, I think, you know, with, I saw some where they're talking about groceries, Amazon Grocery, you know, being able to deliver groceries within three hours of order, right? And it's just like that. I want it now is really, really starting to become prevalent. Speaker 2: Yeah. I think there's a bit of a dichotomy here in that when I go to a Best Buy, I want to see what I'm looking for, pick it up, handle it. But I'm finding that there's less and less inventory being in store and more and more being online. Where was I? I think I was in Slovakia i'm pretty sure i was in slovakia and i can't remember the the the name of the store. But there was a store that you walked it was it was in europe there was a store that you walked into that had a catalog. And you just said i want item number one or item number two whatever the item number was right and you create this order. And it was basically a fulfillment warehouse in the back you just had a storefront almost like a you know what it was like is it like a post office. You had a few front-facing people, you had a catalog, and you just said, this is what I want. And these bins would come with your order bagged up. Here you go. Speaker 1: That's kind of like Ikea, right? Ikea kind of does the same thing, except that they have a massive showroom. You walk through, you write down the number, and then you pick it up in the warehouse on the way out. Speaker 2: Yes, yes. That actually would be the best American of that. Yeah, except this place has no showroom. I have a feeling we're going to go that direction in many ways. I don't know about supermarkets, but I could see Best Buy Eventually going that direction, they'll have a showroom floor. I think Best Buy would end up like Ikea. They've got a showroom floor, couple of these things, but then they've got a full fulfillment warehouse in the background. So they don't have to put all of their inventory on the showroom floor. You only need the one or two and say, yeah, this is what I want. You write that item down or you add it to your cart and you hit submit and then you go pick it up. Speaker 1: I think that's a pretty similar model towards like magic stores as well, right? Like they don't keep all their inventory on hand. They have large off-site warehouses. And it's like, you go, you lay down in this, you try them all at the store, then they send you off to a warehouse to pick up your matches where they deliver. Right. And that sounds like that's kind of like the future. Speaker 2: Definitely makes sense because you don't like, I don't need help carrying this register. Speaker 1: Yeah, but I can see a lot of stores going that way. I thought there was a news article that just came out where some of the, a large retailer in the United States just went out of business. In Canada, we just lost the Hudson's Bay company where it's a similar story, right? These big box stores just kind of getting their lunch eaten by e-commerce and that's just the convenience factor, I think. Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they say that e-commerce is, you know, we always hear e-commerce is saturated. It's so far from the truth and yet there are these big companies that have their lunches being eaten by people like us, you know. It's just change. I've said it, I don't know how many times, you either evolve with the future or die in the past, you know. And for these large companies that have all manner of red tape, it's hard for them to pivot on this stuff and I can't speak to really big companies, but I know I've spoken to quite a few of these larger, older brands that they are only just getting onto Amazon. They're like, yeah, we should look into this Amazon thing. It's like, buddy, Amazon is a trillion dollar thing. You're late to the game. But they use these You know, their methodologies are old school and that works in a good old boys manner of business, but I mean, it's not a young person's game exactly. It's not exactly what I'm saying, but what I'm saying is that business is evolving. You have a much younger entrepreneurial crowd that is primed to take over the areas that you're not looking at because you're not considering that you're using an old methodology or an aged methodology on your business. Speaker 1: So, yeah, absolutely. Like some of the like their retail first, right? Retail first, e-commerce second, some of those large companies. And, you know, it shocks me at some of the large companies that still aren't, don't have presence on Amazon. Speaker 2: All right. Speaker 1: That's one of those things where it's like, what is going on? Yes. Speaker 2: If only to protect the brand. Speaker 1: Yep. And like, I understand you want to own your own B2C channel. That's fine. But at the same time, like if you don't sell it on Amazon, someone else probably will. Speaker 2: Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. Look, that's an opportunity for people like me. Not that I'm actually going after that. I would want to do, I don't know, three to five brands. We have complete brand control on one brand. They've got about somewhere between 70 and 100 SKUs and maybe a little more. I mean, that's a lot to do. But what brand wouldn't want somebody like me? And there's lots of people out there like me, well, like my wife, who actually have more than a decade of experience on Amazon. Who understands the area and who wants your brand to be successful and to protect it as a partner with the brand. And that could be, that would be a best case scenario for any big brand. Say Yeti, for instance, Yeti is not, if they weren't on Amazon, I'd love to have Yeti as a client, but, um, you know, if Yeti wasn't on Amazon, And I said, hey, Yeti, you're not on Amazon. I am a brand manager. I take complete control of your brand and customer service and you don't have to worry about it. I take a percentage of sales. You get the rest. And I will ensure that your brand is protected on Amazon. I will treat it as my own because that is my job. I mean, people go, yeah, I don't want to, I don't want to dive into that or likely they've tried. And Amazon goes, Oh, nope. Sorry. You're suspended. Blah, blah, blah. You know, there, there was a, a large supplement brand, quite a large supplement brand. They're probably doing 30 plus million, 30 to 50 million a year off Amazon would be my guess. Got onto Amazon. I got on a call with them. And we were discussing me managing their brand. I'm like, ah, you guys just don't have your stuff straight. I'll refer you to a buddy of mine, which I did. And they signed with them and they're doing great now. But I found some stuff in their account that would, if Amazon got wind of it, would permaban the account. And at that time they were already doing like, Yeah, people need people like us. Speaker 1: Yep. Service providers exist for a reason, right? That's to help navigate complicated ecosystems like Amazon. Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. All right, I'm going to let you take the initiative on this next one. Which one's this one? Speaker 1: Oh, this one is the FBA limits, right? Amazon running out of room already. That's a very interesting one. So yeah, you know, I skimmed through it and this looks like, you know, When you have a, for me, like Amazon just signed a big deal with Walmart, where they just were handing over some warehouse space to Walmart. And now Amazon put out a release saying, hey, we're running out of space again. And so I think we talked about this around Prime Day as well, where we like, maybe a few weeks before Prime Day. And one of the things that came up was several of my clients actually received... Unknown Speaker: Hey, Amazon sellers, tired of losing money on storage and shipping fees? Well, Amazon Storage Pros is here to take the headache out of logistics. We manage everything from inventory and creating efficient shipping plans to working with 3PLs and Amazon's AWD so that you can focus on growing your business. Start with a free storage cost audit and discover exactly where you're overspending and how to fix it. Don't let logistics eat into your profits. Visit AmazonStoragePros.com. That's AmazonStoragePros.com to get your free storage cost audit and start saving today. And now back to the show. Speaker 1: Long-term inventory, like saying, hey, we're reducing your inventory storage, right? We're reducing the amount of inventory that you can send in. And this was right before Prime Day. So Amazon was just saying, hey, Prime Day, it's coming. We noticed your inventory isn't selling. You got to get rid of it, right? Just cleaning out the warehouse is a little, we'll call it summer cleaning, whatever. Now, Prime Day has passed. And when we look at the results of Prime Day, We compare them to 2024 versus 2025. They did extend it for the four days versus the two days and Amazon put out a statement saying, hey, our prime day sales were up 33% year over year. And then they forget to neglect the fact that it was four days versus two days, right? So it's actually, when you put things into perspective, it's actually a net negative. And so if sellers went ahead and ordered the same amount of inventory as last year, thinking that they were going to have the same type of sales for all four days. And all of a sudden they're in an overstock situation, right? Where they didn't sell as much as they thought they were going to sell during Prime Day. And now Amazon's saying, hey, we're running out of space. And that's probably because this inventory didn't sell, right? And at the same time, they are helping Walmart out. They are trying to get into all these other spaces with their AWD and they're trying to get their fingers into everything, right? And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, we're out of space. What do we do? And so there's, I'm having tough conversations with clients right now, you know, Q, you know, sellers. Q4 inventory or Q4 fulfillment fees kick up October 1st, right? October 1st. So we have what? Let's call it 38 days, 38 days to do. And it puts sellers in it right now. This period right now is the trickiest period for sellers that are up against the wall with this inventory. Because if you see that October 1st deadline coming, So fees double if you're an LTS like you are in a bad spot. And you'll be forced to look at potentially disposal, liquidation, donation, whatever to avoid these fees because it's been LTS. But if you want to drop your price and try and do PEDs right now, We have Prime Day coming up in 38 days. You have to have a valid price for 30 days prior to. So that means you either have to double down on your discount and you're selling it at a loss. This is an inventory nightmare for some sellers right now where it's like, Coming off the Prime Day, it wasn't as good as you thought. You're overstocked. We have another Prime Day coming up in 38 days. You can't do a price reduction because Amazon uses the lowest price last 30 days to verify that price. And then if you want to participate in Prime Day to try and liquidate some more of that inventory, you have to go even lower than that price that you just offered. So it's just like this ugly scenario where Amazon's not helping anymore. I just had these conversations sometime this week where I was like, what do we do here? We have an eight day window. Speaker 2: Yeah, I knew you would have a bunch of information on this with all the brands that you work with. And because I don't have anything to do with inventory with brands other than my own, which is handled by my wife. I just don't have the info. So what's your recommendation for brands today? They have eight days to take action. What would you recommend they do? Speaker 1: It's a really tough situation, you know, like, what do you like? I don't know. Every situation is different, right? Like, if you have a small product that's not taking up a lot of space, you know, LTSPs might not be that bad. But if you are, you know, medium sized or standard sized product and your LTSPs go up, you know, I think they go up 2x, 3x, potentially something like that, you know. You're going to lose the value of your product within a very short period of time. I would say, honestly, this is where AI is great. I know we're talking about AI in the next one, but you can say, hey, this is my product. These are my inventory fees right now. I'm looking at LTS fees with Q4 storage fees on top of this, fulfillment fees on top of this. At what point am I hitting a negative here, right? And it might just be, it might be better for you to walk away. And this post is donate than it is to try and hang on and eat all those feeds, which is an absolute atrocity. But at the same time, what are you going to do? Are you going to get hit with an $18,000 inventory bill at the end of Q4? No, no, absolutely not. Speaker 2: And this is so, you know, early in my Amazon days, I spent money like I was a millionaire because of all the money that was coming in from Amazon. Or what I was seeing in terms of sales, and it was a hard lesson learned when I went, oh my gosh, I majorly overspent, I did not have free cash, I had no cash, you know, or a lot less. Yeah, you know, time and time again, it seems that inventory management is one of the biggest issues for brands. It's not PPC, people can figure that out. You can be bad at it, you can be good at it, you know, but ultimately it's fairly, you can figure out whether you're making money or not if you know how to do the numbers right. But inventory can kill you, kill your business if you get that wrong. Speaker 1: Absolutely. If you end up in an overstocked inventory situation, like, and the other side of it is, you know, you have the option of doing inventory removal, right? And who knows, like, I think last year, Amazon waived the FBA removal fee if you decided to remove your inventory from their FBA system. There was a certain window where they said, hey, you have LPS, we'll let it slide. And you just had to have a place to go. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And so, you know, if, if you're up against the wall with that LTS, maybe you'll hold on and see if Amazon offers that up again. And then you just pull the trigger on a, on a removal order. Speaker 2: Yeah. I can't remember if they do it every year, but I remember if they do it every year either. Yeah. It's been a lot of years. And I, when I was more involved with our Amazon account, I remember seeing it every year in the early days. Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it comes up like early November. Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: Well, let's see. Speaker 2: It comes before the cutoff date for having inventory in for the Q4 period. Speaker 1: So then it would have to be coming out in September, right? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: September. Speaker 2: Yeah. It'd have to be coming soon. September, October. Speaker 1: Yeah. BFCM, right? BFCM month, we'll call it. Last year, I think it was 11 days. This year, I imagine we'll probably push it to 15. It's a very tricky. This secondary prime day makes it very tricky in order to run discounts in this period between July and October, just because there's, you know, they're 90 days apart. Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. This is, I mean, if you don't already know, those of you that are listening, the reason they call it Black Friday is because that was the day, the sales day when most companies went into the black. So they were in the red, operating in the red all year long. And then from that point forward, basically after Thanksgiving, When all the buying started happening for the year is when they actually started making profit so they ran negative all year long advertising blah blah blah blah blah but they went to the black at the end of the year so that's why it's called black friday and. You know if you have this chance as well because. I don't run ads for my supplements. I don't do PPC. I don't do lightning deals. I don't do prime days. I don't do any of that. But I inherently have a spike in sales during those times because people are in a buying mood. I can't call this a case study, but I would like to propose that if you don't have the revenue to over advertise, you might, I was talking about this with someone else, you might consider just doing a little bit of day parting on your ads during peak times so that you don't have to spend tons of money. This all depends on what your profit margin is and stuff like that. But one thing's for sure. What I see is that brands today need to have a far greater profit margin initially or available than they used to. I used to be able to go, cool, I'll spend $10 on a product, I'll sell it for $20 and I'll take home six bucks. It ain't that way anymore. You can't do $10 available margin for fees and stuff like that. I think we beat this. Speaker 1: I was just thinking about it. I misspoke. You have up until September 10. Play with your price, right? Because you got to have that price 30 days before Prime Day, right? So if we estimate Prime Day being September or October 11th, that means September 11th, which means we have from now until September 11th. Speaker 2: Okay, cool. Well, you know, I asked you earlier, what do you suggest that brands do? And You can't really give an answer because it's unique to each brand, but one thing's for sure. If you sell on Amazon, huh? Speaker 1: Look at your numbers, understand the situation that you're in, right? Like, don't just put your head in the sand. Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. If you sell on Amazon, you need to look. You need to see what's going on, what the current situation is, your costs, your profits, all of that. Estimated budget from advertising, you need to look and you need to utilize AI. Speaker 1: AI can model it for you. AI can model it for you. If you give it all of your dimensions and everything like that, plug it into Amazon, If you search our page, it'll give you your answers. Speaker 2: Yes. So make sure that you do that and ensure that you're keeping profit this year because you want to be in the black folks. Speaker 1: Yep. It's the best time of the year. Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Sweet. So let's do this last one. I saved this one for last because I love John. He's got his tinfoil hat on all the time. He's always looking at these unique situations. But you know what? I've not read anything from him where I'm like, that's totally not true. It's like all true stuff. I think there's a lot. There's so much more going on that we don't know about. So let me read this one to you. Amazon launches AI Seller Assistant and it's everything you thought it would be. There's a dark conspiracy theory out there that Amazon wants total control of every aspect of your business. Evidence supports this theory. They want to know everything about your business. I fully agree with that. Speaker 1: They do. They want to know your margin. Speaker 2: Absolutely. Speaker 1: They want to know your supplier. Speaker 2: Yep. They want to see your factory data, shipping, customer service email, sales data, prices on non-Amazon websites, and the list goes on. Basically, Amazon is Big Brother, and it just got bigger. So, Amazon just launched Seller Assistant in beta. This program was codenamed Amelia for years, but it's Showtime. In a nutshell, it's ChatGPT for sellers. Right now, it's pretty basic and some of the answers are pretty general, but I do expect them to get better. It's also pulling answers from super old templates. For example, it uses outdated company policies and non-existent emails for resolving seller support issues. I have witnessed this myself. I do expect things to get fixed though. Here's a quick list of what the tool can do for sellers. Understanding account health and explaining ways to improve metrics. I don't trust Amazon for that. Simple listing creation. I don't trust Amazon for that. Advice on pricing. Yeah, maybe so. Advertising recommendations. And John goes on to say, now that's funny. Not today, Amazon. I couldn't agree more. The worst advertising The worst PPC managers I've ever met work at Amazon in the PPC area. Speaker 1: They just accept and recommend it. Yeah. Speaker 2: Explaining image guidelines. Okay, possibly so. How to optimize titles and bullet points. Absolutely not. I'd never trust Amazon for that unless it was policy related. Helping you find a specific report in Seller Central. Now that could be really, really helpful if it's accurate. Advice on tactics for new product launches. There might be some good information there. Maybe you can use the AI to give you information that you wouldn't be able to get by asking a rep because they've got their hands tied on actually giving valuable data. So we'll see about that one. Helping you spy on your competition. P.S. Amelia has access to all the data. And then organizing reports into spreadsheets or other formats. That's cool. I really like that. So it continues on, right? And he poses a few questions. Will this tool help you find money that Amazon owes you? Nope. Will this tool help you increase your profit margin on Amazon? Nope. Will this tool help you increase organic ranking with fewer paid ads? Nope. So maybe there's a few good things that it'll help you with. Of course, you all have to use it or we all have to use it. Amazon's going to keep track of every prompt we put in there. And then they're going to optimize it. So maybe in the beginning days, especially during beta, maybe we can get some information that Amazon otherwise wouldn't give to us depending on what they give access to. But, you know, with Amazon releasing, um, what's their tool? Doofus. Speaker 1: Rufus. Speaker 2: Yes. Thank you. With Amazon releasing Rufus, it's atrocious in my opinion, absolutely horrible. It can be valuable and sometimes, but as a buyer, I've only ever used it as a buyer looking for something and then testing it out and I found it to be really bad. So Neil, what do you think about Amazon releasing this AI for sellers? Speaker 1: I'm not surprised. I think this is probably the right trajectory given Amazon is trying to move in this AI driven way. Right. And I can see Amazon isn't releasing this. For the good of the sellers, they're releasing this to try and help take some pressure off of support, right? Like I can see this moving into an AI support, seller support system versus having people on the other end. It's like, no, the AI can just go solve your problem for you. Speaker 2: Arguably, I would say in many cases, you're going to get far better support from the AI than you would from seller support because that is a misnomer. Seller does not, seller support has forgotten to actually support. Speaker 1: And so I think there is some good that comes out of this. I think it's just probably like it's going to take some time, right? I think it's good that Amazon's moving in the right direction, making it, you know, Some days I bang my head against the wall trying to find things inside of Seller Central because it's just not, you know, like the subscribe and save dashboard is the one that really pops into my head. It's like, can this AI assistant, you know, give me my S and S metrics and like, what is actually going on? Because right now it's a little bit of a black box. How many, how many am I churning out every week? How many am I gaining every week? And it's a, you know, it's a And this AI assistant might be able to just cut through the noise and be like, yeah, here's all your KPIs, right? Especially with finding reports. I am seeing it pop up in the business reports where it's saying, hey, your business is growing, your sessions are up 10% compared to last year, right? And they're highlighting this inside of the business report section, right? So that's also calling out good information for sellers. You need to stay on top of what's working, what's not working and things like that, right? And I can see that Potentially being helpful, maybe with a long term inventory strategy as well, right? Where it's like, hey, you know, I know a lot of sellers struggle with figuring out these LTS fees, and it could be like, hey, you know, All of a sudden, you log in, you talk to your AI assistant. In the morning, you say, hey, what's going on in my Amazon account today? And it's like, you have 50 units coming up for LTS within 30 days, you should consider a liquidation strategy. Do you want me to help you reduce your prices in bulk? Yes. Right. And that could be a very viable. Speaker 2: Totally. Speaker 1: Real life situation that Amazon puts forward to help sellers, right? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And I agree that it's not in the seller's best interest. It's everything Amazon does is in Amazon's best interest. But it's a tool where I can see it fitting into the marketplace for sure. And there's going to be some net positive from it. Speaker 2: I agree. Don't rely on it to run your business. Speaker 1: That's where I was going with it. I'm a big South Park guy. There was a new episode of South Park last night and they brought in ChatGPT and they're talking about how ChatGPT is giving out AI slop garbage answers for how to run a business. And this is a very real situation. Like I get these emails from people all the time where it's like, I just read this and I'm like, you didn't put a second of thought into this. You punched it in the GPT. It punched out half a page of AI slop and now I have to read this. And that could be what Amazon also has put out where it's like, there is that possibility where it's giving you bad advice, right? And if it's pulling from policy, old dated policy, and you're saying, Oh yeah, this is good. I'm I, you know, the AI checked the policy. I'm fine. You make a business decision based on that without seeing the latest and greatest, you know, all of a sudden you're screwed. Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. It could be terrible. The other thing is, is that Amazon policy doesn't always match up with other Amazon policy on the same subject. So like I'll give you a perfect example. So, I think, yeah, it was last night I was reviewing the Vine program contract and it says in the contract, You may not, let me read it to you. I screenshotted these both. Speaker 1: You know, it's bad when you take a screenshot of it. What is this? Speaker 2: Yes. Okay. Hold on. I have to, where is it? Please be right here. Oh no. Did I screenshot on my other computer? Speaker 1: I did. Speaker 2: Yeah, but I, and I don't think I have my, yeah, I do. I do. But I don't buy a new one every year, but I spent a pretty penny on the one I've got right now. Okay. Unfortunately, I don't have it right here. I was sure that I did, but darn it. Oh, that makes me so upset. Basically, here's what it said. You may not for any reason reach out to a Vine reviewer. Okay, that's what it said first. Then it said, if you would like to use the Vine reviewers review for advertising, you may reach out to them to ask them for that. That's the gist of it. It's ridiculous. I mean, and here's the thing. What I'm getting at here is that we are going to have problems. Where the prompt, whatever we prompt it, the AI is going to go out and reference policy and it's going to have contradictories and it's going to give you the answer. And depending on the opinion, it's like law, depending on the opinion of the lawyer on the other side of Amazon, you'll say, hey, you did this wrong, you're wrong, or that's fine, you're right, go for it. So, you know, I don't, I don't know. I think we'll have problems. I think by and large, though, compared to existing human support, we're going to have better support from this, but I would never rely on it to run my business. Speaker 1: Yeah, you need to have the citations and the actual policy to review yourself to make sure that this is what it says it is, right? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And it's interesting, you mentioned you don't run ads for your supplement brand. In the ad console, they're also rolling out an AI search bar at the top. So instead of having to use those clunky filters, you can just go in, you can now type and say, ACO is greater than 30. And it's going or equals greater than equals less than blank with orders greater than blank. And you can just type that now and then it runs its AI and then it just pulls up some filters. But they're moving toward like the example that Amazon showing here announces, search with metrics or campaign settings. For example, enter click through rate greater than one percent, time in budget less than 90 percent, top of impression sure greater than five percent. So they're saying these are like we can now type using AI filters or just like filtering like we're talking to an AI. So it's already coming into the ad console. And you know, I only see it growing and growing and growing. And that's just the way the AI trajectory is, right? Like, As it gets better, there's no reason why you wouldn't want to partner with it. But at the same time, it still needs that level of human oversight. And I think that's where, you know, there's going to be that disconnect is people are just going to go all in and they're going to stop thinking for themselves. And they're going to do exactly what the AI says. And That could be catastrophic. Like there was a tweet that came out. Someone was asking GPT a question and it sat there, I think it thought for three minutes and then it actually came back with an answer and it said, I don't know. Speaker 2: Oh, okay. Well, that's good. Speaker 1: And they were like, this is the best answer that it could have come up with instead of giving you a wrong answer. It's giving you an honest answer. Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 2: Yes, I agree. I would rather, I would far, far rather have that. By the way, I just, I found it. So I actually, I've actually got the contract open. Okay. So here's the contract. Last updated December 4th, 2019. But I downloaded this just a few months ago. All right. So 2F. Let me see if I can zoom in on this. All right. 2F says, you must not contact Vine Voices or attempt to influence Vine Voices or the reviews. If a Vine Voice attempts to contact you other than for ordinary customer support, you must decline any further communication and notify us. Three. Let's see here. It says, um, where is it? Somewhere in here. Hold on. You can ask for the reviewers permission to use a review, including, but not limited to your product description by responding to the review subject to limitations, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So in number two, it says, do not contact them. If they contact you, you contact us. Number three says you can contact them and ask them for permission to use this. So. In their own policy, in a single contract, one number away from each other, they contradict themselves. Speaker 1: Five paragraphs away from each other. Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes. This is what we're dealing with, folks. This is Amazon so big that the pinky finger doesn't know what the ring finger is doing. It's just the way it is. But you know what? It's still a darn good place to make money if you can figure it out. And these are just, this is the cost of doing business with Amazon. My advice to every brand out there is if you're not on Amazon and you're a current D2C, you're not on Amazon, you should be if only to protect your brands, perhaps not even worrying about profit, but just to protect your brand and make sure that no one else can sacrifice your brand image for their gain, do that. If you're only on Amazon, you need to figure out how to expand off Amazon Because the price of doing business with Amazon can really be very heavy if you get on the wrong side of their AI or somebody read a policy differently than you did. And I have been at the end of that. And by the way, I am currently being attacked by fraudulent reviews on my own seller account. Speaker 1: Well, at least you're the guy to handle it. Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Oh, no. This is like, I'm excited about this because this guy is screwed. It's actually two buyer accounts. They are screwed. And I've already gotten one of the reviews removed. Speaker 1: For those of you that don't know, Danon is an expert in reviews and review attacks. So if that is happening to you, hit him up. Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks, man. And Neil is an expert at PPC and PPC management. So don't come to me for PPC and don't go to Neil for review removal all the way around. Well, OK, cool. That is that pretty much wraps it up for today, everyone. Thank you for joining us. And next time we'll we'll be back here at the same time on on next Friday. And if you need help with PPC, go see Neil over at PPC Ninja. If you need help with negative review removal or monitoring your products for critical issues with the notification system, come to me, Danan at EcomTriage. And thank you, everybody, for Joining us this time around. We'll see you next year, next week, next time. Bye. See you next time. Unknown Speaker: This has been another episode of the Amazon Seller School podcast. Thanks for listening fellow Amazon seller and always remember success is yours if you take it. Hey, if you made it this far in the show, I really hope you enjoyed it and I'd like to ask you a favor. Could you head on over to Apple or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this and leave us a review? It would be greatly appreciated and would help us continue to grow the show and offer more episodes for you. Thank you. Speaker 1: God bless and have an awesome day.