Amazon News: Walmart’s Surge, Seller Hacks, and Amazon’s Accountability

Amazon News: Walmart’s Surge, Seller Hacks, and Amazon’s Accountability 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. Hello, hello, hello. Speaker 1: Hello, hello. Unknown Speaker: What's going on? Speaker 2: Coming live for another Amazon Seller News Live from the Arctic tundra of Florida these days, which is crazy. We were talking about before we went live that they got something like, what, 8, 9, 10 inches of snow up in the panhandle of Florida, which hasn't happened since 1989. Not a good situation for Florida at all, but kind of interesting to watch people deal with it. Speaker 1: Yeah, unless you got a four-wheel drive and you love to use it. Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I grew up in Wisconsin, so when it snows, we're doing donuts in the parking lot and stuff like that, so we just have fun in it. But down here, not so much. Like I said, I've seen that video of the Florida salt truck, which was like a Ford F-150 with two guys in the back throwing salt out with cups. Speaker 3: Yeah, because they're just so unprepared down there. Speaker 2: Yeah, not prepared at all. I appreciate everybody out there joining us. I see we got a bunch of people streaming in, which is awesome. So appreciate you joining us as we're going through the news today, which we've got a lot of good ones. Just feel free to throw your comments in the comment box there. It will show up for me on the side. And if it's relevant to the story, we'll throw it up on the screen and talk about it. Or if you have just questions, comments, concerns about Amazon, when we have time, we can dive into those as well. So with that, let's go ahead and dive into the first News story here. We'll actually go with that view. So this one was kind of a last minute late breaking one. It came out a day ago, but it's pretty serious. So I wanted to put it at the front of the news here. So Seller Central account hacked the KeaBabies security breach. Ivan Ong, co-founder of the $78 million Amazon brand, KeaBabies, He shares a harrowing experience of a security breach on his Amazon Seller Central account. Despite multiple assurances from Amazon, hackers repeatedly changed the admin email, bypassed security measures, and even altered bank account details, leading to lost sales of $230,000 per day and leaving the business at risk of bankruptcy. Ong suspects a potential insider job or a systemic vulnerability in Amazon's platform, urging Amazon to address the root cause to prevent widespread cyber attacks on seller accounts. This incident highlights the urgent need for stronger security protocols and proactive crisis management to safeguard sellers' accounts and livelihoods. So I read through the full article And basically what is happening is the hackers are somehow changing his admin email. He's working with his account rep, which he has, and they change it back and the hacker immediately changes it again over and over and over and over. And at this point right now, Amazon has just got his entire account shut down and locked down and they are essentially out of business at the moment. Speaker 1: And without their money. Speaker 2: Yes, without their money, I believe 50-some thousand dollars may have gotten transferred to the hacker's bank account from his article here. Now, I will say this article is written by the owner of KeaBabies, so we're taking his word for these things, but I have no reason to think that it's not true. From what I've seen out there so far, it definitely seems legit because their seller account is down. All their products are removed and what's crazy is that I've actually bought some of their stuff for our baby, so it's a pretty sad ordeal. Speaker 1: Yeah, so I actually have a friend this exact same thing happened to and it took him, if I'm not mistaken, it took him the better part of a year to get it resolved, but Instead of hacking his whole account, they hacked in and changed the deposit account. So he didn't see it right away, right? So it wasn't, hey, I can't log into my account, what's going on? It was one deposit, two deposits. If you got daily deposits, two deposits, three deposits, and you go, what's going on here? And it took him a long, long time to get his money back. And I don't think that he even got it all back. In fact, as soon as I saw that you posted this, Todd, I shot him a text to ask if he can give me if he's got any tips on how he resolved this. And, you know, I'm sure Ivan is doing everything that he can. I'm sure he is to get this resolved. But, you know, As we always reference on this podcast or on this live stream, Amazon is Amazon. And so, you know, it's not always easy to get that stuff handled, but hopefully he can get back to me and give a couple of tips on how he handled this. Speaker 4: Well, usually when you change a bank account, there is a notification. So I think it goes to one, making sure that your notifications on your primary email are ones that you actually look at when you set up some alerts. And then I also wonder maybe if it could be something that's happening kind of as an internal thing. If he used like, let's say he reused his password multiple places, and maybe not only do they have access to his email, but maybe they also got access to like his web mail or something along those lines. I think it's a good time to reiterate that for password security, you should never reuse a password for Amazon bank accounts, anywhere that should be completely separate and not reused. And you want it to be long. And you want to make sure you're not storing that. I once had a client that sent me all of their passwords to access their accounts in a Google sheet. I would not recommend that, you know, like you got to protect your passwords, you know. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Last pass. Yeah. Last pass. Speaker 2: I use last pass. On that Robyn real quick, in the article, He talks about that they tried multiple different email addresses. They even created a new Gmail account and that was hacked immediately as well or they were still able to change it. He even got a new phone number and changed the OTP to that new phone number and the new Gmail. They were still able to change it. So that's what kind of makes them think that maybe it's an inside job happening perhaps. Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going to say either some sort of malware in his computers, I mean, feeding them that information as soon as he takes that action or somebody potentially even higher up or closer to him in the company is responsible. So yeah, that's, and it's sad because I've been connected with Ivan on LinkedIn for a very long time and have seen them grow that brand over the years. And it's just sad to see. You never want to see this happen to anyone. Speaker 1: Yeah. Here's the thing that bothers me, though. Two-factor authentication isn't so easy to break as a password, right? And so if he's changed his email and his phone number, that 2FA is going to a unique spot, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, a new phone that they shouldn't have access to. Speaker 1: Exactly. Technically, you only have access to one phone. Sorry, a phone number is only sent to one phone, but it's not impossible to duplicate a SIM, especially with eSIMs these days. It's not impossible to do that and then you get everything, right? But they got a new phone, right? So how else? Speaker 2: Fresh web-based email, so it's not attached to his computer. That's one thing that it says in the article that they did. And they were still able to get the admin email changed to the hacker's email. And it also says that they were able to successfully bypass the three-day hold period when changing a bank account. Speaker 3: Yeah, that was the first thing that I wondered. I completely forgot to mention it. How were they able to disperse funds so quickly and bypass the hold period? I mean, how is that possible? Speaker 4: I feel like this has to be some sort of inside job or, you know, yeah, because it's, there's a lot of safety things that got bypassed. But if he was using, like, let's say, Microsoft Authenticator, and maybe he shared his, instead of creating a sub user for like, like an admin or something, he shared his ad, his, his primary account, the admin account on Amazon. And then he also logged them into his Microsoft Authenticator and maybe then they changed it and he forgot about it. I mean, I'm not saying it's his fault that we all do things like this, but you know, , we've had people try to share us passwords with the admin account and you know, we're very strict. We don't ever want admin access. Even for a minute, we like make them change the password if they shared it with us. Cause we don't, we don't even want to be, Have access to those things. Speaker 1: Yes. But again, they still broke through after he changed everything. They still broke through. That's the scary part. Speaker 2: Yeah. And Amazon supposedly had put a freeze on the account, they claimed. Right. Speaker 4: Right. Speaker 2: But it makes me kind of wonder if it's a competitor who bought off someone inside of Amazon to take them down. Because otherwise, why, if you're a hacker, you're trying to steal money. You know, why wouldn't you just silently in the background, you know, change the deposit and try to get the money versus continually changing the admin email, making it obvious that you're hacking and getting the account shut down? Speaker 3: Well, like Danan said, Danan, the guy that you use in your example, I'm like, well, whoever hacked him, that's a smart hacker, right? Like they got as much out of that as they possibly could because they didn't change the admin email, right? If you can't log into your Amazon account, that's an immediate red flag. So yeah. And Todd, I mean, I don't think it's, outside of the realm of possibility for a competitor to have paid off an Amazon employee as well. I mean, we know that happens. Yeah. I was like, we know good and well that happens. So it is interesting. Speaker 2: Yeah, interesting and definitely sad. I wanted to put it here at the front, get some press out there for him. Hopefully, somebody will see this and can help him at least get that up. But just as important, protect the rest of us because if they're able to do this to him, they're probably able to do it to just about anybody if they really wanted to. Not a good situation. Speaker 1: Yep. Speaker 2: Salman says brand insider job. I kind of agree. Either that or an extremely sophisticated hacker for sure. All right. Any other thoughts on that? Or we can move on to the next story here. All right. Let's head on here. So the next one up, Walmart gains ground on Amazon. Insights from Francis, anybody know how to say that name properly? Speaker 1: Francois. Speaker 2: Francois. Mangrit. Sorry, Francois, if I messed that up. But he highlights Walmart's significant 21% growth in 2024, outpacing Amazon's 8.2%, driven by better logistics, Walmart Plus subscriptions and a growing marketplace. Walmart's extensive store network and services like buy online, pick up in store offer unique advantages, attracting shoppers and third party sellers with competitive fees and streamlined operations. For Amazon sellers, Walmart provides a strong alternative to diversify sales, though the platform is becoming more competitive due to increased seller participation, especially from Asia. As Mingrette notes, 2025 will be a pivotal year for marketplace competition with both Amazon and Walmart making strategic moves to capture more market share. I'm definitely happy to see this, that the growth pace of Walmart is outpacing Amazon. One of the key aspects to that is definitely the buy online, pick up in store, especially for groceries. That's an area I think Walmart is gonna continue to dominate Amazon in because it says that there's a Walmart store within 10 miles of 90% of the country. Speaker 4: Are you guys Amex Platinum users? Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 4: So I remember when the Amex Platinum promo came out for Walmart Plus and I was like, isn't the whole point of platinum that I'm super elite? I don't need Walmart. Um, you know, but I think that Walmart has been doing a really good job. There's actually been significant data showing that they are capturing six figure plus income earners in their stores. And, you know, partly because of, you know, uh, promotions like they have with Amex, But then also the GLP ones are bringing in the pharmacy or bringing in higher socioeconomic demographics into their stores and purchasing. And I think it's important to talk about when we're talking about Walmart and these numbers here, they are including those app orders. So some of those are kind of like grocery Instacart. So we want to take that with a grain of salt. But we're seeing more and more clients have success on Walmart. And, you know, the last like the last online purchase that I bought For Walmart, actually a recent one was I bought, we went to the St. Regis in Venice and the soap we really liked and I ended up finding it cheaper on Walmart. And so we're finding that there is starting to be more of a place for luxury items. So I am kind of really watching Walmart, especially as they're starting to develop their advertising platform and WFS is getting a little more mature. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: This is a good thing. This is a good thing. We really need more competition in this area so that prices can go down a little bit. But I hope it gets to a point, and this is wishful thinking, but I hope it gets to a point where Amazon goes, hey, we've optimized. We're reducing fees for you. Now it's cheaper than ever to sell on Amazon. And by the way, We're going to treat you like a customer too. Speaker 3: If only. If only. Speaker 1: Robyn, did I make you throw up in your mouth a little bit there with that comment? Speaker 4: No, I just want to know who your drug dealer is and how I can get some. That's what I want to know. Speaker 1: Sure. Today it's caffeine brought to you by Yeti. Speaker 3: I know I've seen quite a bit of this on my end as well, right? In the reseller world and within the reseller community. I mean, with all of the The mass regatings that we've seen across some bigger brands like Nike, Milwaukee, Oral-B, etc. A lot of people that got stuck with that inventory have taken that inventory and they've gone and listed it on Walmart. Speaker 1: I was going to bring that up with you, Corey, because I wonder if some of this growth has been a bunch of resellers jumping ship from Amazon because they know they can't sell there anymore and doing the same thing at Walmart. Speaker 3: Well, I know that for a fact. I mean, you take one look at Amazon Twitter and six months ago, people are talking about their reselling profits and doing online arbitrage and doing wholesale. And there are still people talking about that stuff, myself included. But now I'm seeing a lot of people talking about Walmart and posting screenshots of Walmart revenue, which is something that we thought we would never see. And those posts are getting a lot of engagement. There's a lot of people doing this thing. I agree. I think it's good that Amazon has some level of competition out there. We'll see where the next few years go. I think, Robyn, your point about the GLP-1s bringing in, I guess, a higher socioeconomic level person, it makes a lot of sense. That's just interesting. I just never would have known that. So that's a cool fact. It makes sense though. Speaker 4: So I mean, I think it's kind of like, you know, with COVID, a lot of people who never would have used Instacart started using Instacart. And then I think for, I can tell you for me that, you know, because things have just gotten more expensive and because I got the free Walmart Plus and it includes free delivery, you know, like there are a lot of my groceries that I moved from Instacart to Walmart because I'm lazy and I don't like grocery shopping. So I think that, you know, even our household has been part of that shift and it hasn't necessarily been driven completely by prices, but it's been more, you know, convenience and I'm already paying for this. I might as well get it because I'm I'm using a benefit from something else. I think some smart partnerships. I will say that there can be a little bit of an issue for brands that you really want to watch. Walmart Retail versus Walmart Seller Central, making sure you're not setting yourself up for an issue with buy box suppression on Amazon with low price. I know that they don't give the low price warnings, but basically those price alerts. So, you know, but, but for resellers, I know several resellers that are moving to at least get that inventory gone. And so that kind of goes, creates Amazon's flywheel on Walmart, right? Cause people are just trying to get their money back. So they're selling it at a lower price. You know, if you think about Amazon's flywheel, lower price means more customers, which means more sellers, which means a better experience. And it kind of goes in a circle. And Walmart is basically taking Amazon refugees and creating their own flywheel over there. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the other interesting thing from this graph too, so if you look at, I think we can throw out 2020 because that's kind of a funky year with everything going on there. But if you look from 2021 to 2022, Amazon lost about 4.3% of its growth. And then 2022 to 2023, it went down a little less than 2%. And then 23 to 24, another four plus percent. Drop there. So if that continues, you know, and in 2025, their growth is six or five or four percent, you could potentially see Amazon kind of flatlining here in the next few years. Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I think we're looking at the results of Amazon implementing these things that are we know are total bullshit, like Amazon Hall. Speaker 3: Yep. Speaker 4: I think what would also be interesting on this graph would be to compare it to brick and mortar retails. We have brands that are in Lowe's, Home Depot, Walmart, and they're saying that they're seeing declines or they're seeing a smaller amount of growth even on aggressively pushing brands and emerging brands. So I think one thing to consider too is if you look at most brands for COVID, there was this kind of big bump. And then we kind of basically created a linear line now. So the percentage of growth is a little skewed because we had this artificial growth that came from the stimulus and people being home. Having time to do things like making sourdough and buying supplies and things that they might not normally do. So I think that a longer data set and comparing it to brick and mortar would be more useful data. Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed. Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Either way, I think it's a positive trajectory for Walmart. So I guess the question is how many more years until Walmart is about 50% of the sales of Amazon, five years, 10 years, somewhere in that timeframe. Speaker 3: If ever, too. And I hope that they do get to that. I hope that they do get to that point because, I mean, like we're saying, competition is good and somebody's got to keep Amazon on their toes because the government's not going to do it. Sellers aren't going to do it. Sellers aren't able to do it. So I hope somebody like Walmart comes in and does it. Speaker 4: They're smart. They're really driving that sale through the app, right? So if you think of like getting people to shop on walmart.com, it's not getting them to shop on walmart.com. It's getting them to shop on Walmart here on their phone, right? Because that's, um, I recently needed something and it wasn't available and I added in it and said, it's not available, but we can ship to you for free. And, you know, it was just one button and so they, versus, you know, if it wasn't available on Instacart, then I'd have to go to Amazon. So, um, but it's also a really good way for brands to kind of manage inventory out of stocks. If there were to be a supply chain, Walmart might be, start to have this like reputation of being able to continue to provide inventory where others, the inventory is spotty. Speaker 1: Yeah. Todd, we've got a comment from Salman. He says, Amazon disposed 20,000 inventory with LOA. I'm not sure what LOA is. Speaker 2: Letter of Authorization. Speaker 1: Thank you. And all documents and now he's got 2,000 units and he's going over to Walmart. So another Amazon refugee over to Walmart. Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah. So Amazon locked down his listing, probably gated the brand that he was selling. Stole $20,000 of his inventory and now he's moving the rest that he has over to Walmart. Speaker 4: I think you're going to see more of that, not less, as they're responsible for recalls, as their CPSC had another recent crackdown on them. I think that they're going to get more strict on supply chain rather than loosening that up anytime in the near future. Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's going to happen on Walmart at some point as well because if Amazon is being held liable to all these things, Walmart is, they're going to be coming after Walmart as well. Walmart's got I don't know if Walmart has deeper pockets than Amazon or not. Is their market cap bigger or smaller than Amazon in total? I'm not sure. Speaker 3: I think Amazon. Actually, no, I think Walmart's biggest. I think Walmart's number one. Or not by market cap, but I know by revenue, I think. Speaker 2: By revenue, yeah, that's what I mean. So Walmart technically is larger overall than Amazon. So if they're going to come after Amazon, they're going to come after Walmart too. Solomon, I would just be careful of that a little bit, you know, make sure you do have the letter of authorization. So that's good. But, you know, just be careful at Walmart's probably going to do the same thing at some point, but hopefully they'll have better support to look at your letter of authorization and make sure it's legit and allow you to sell. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: That's the biggest problem with Amazon, right, is just their Just not treating sellers good at all, which is a big reason that I am wanting to switch a lot of my purchases over to Walmart rather than Amazon just to kind of help Walmart however I can. Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, it really truly would be as simple as Amazon going, hey, why don't we help the people that help us? Speaker 2: 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 3: Novel idea. Speaker 2: Yeah, like KeaBabies, right? Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Speaker 2: KeaBabies should have like an executive on the phone working with them. I mean, that's a $78 million company. I know it's a drop in the bucket to $487 billion, but still, I mean, that's a big company. People love their products on Amazon. Really good reputation. It's just ridiculous that they don't have an executive Working with them to get that fixed. Speaker 1: I fully agree. Yeah. Hopefully, our network of people that are watching this and get wind of this story can get an executive on for them, you know? Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: We do have power within our community to help each other. And we just need to make sure that the word gets out to the people that can get you the help you need. But we are capable of producing that. Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah, it makes a big difference. It's happened before. Amazon definitely does react to bad press. Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Speaker 2: So the more bad press we can get on that first story, share that thing all over the place. Speaker 1: Yep. Speaker 2: And tag Amazon in it and maybe you'll see some movement. Yeah, Amazon doesn't want to react to. Speaker 1: Yeah, Amazon doesn't want on Fox, Fox News. Amazon allows hackers to steal And Crash, a $78 million brand loved by millions of Americans. Speaker 3: Loved by millions of mothers. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 3: They can spend that kind of whichever way they want. Speaker 1: Trusted by all the babies in America. Speaker 2: Yeah. Amazon destroying the lives of babies. Speaker 1: That's right. Yep. Speaker 3: That's the headline right there. Speaker 1: And it's true. Speaker 2: Yeah. All right, cool, cool. Any other thoughts on Walmart before we move on? Speaker 1: Nope, I support them. Speaker 2: I support it as well. I was just gonna say, I just thought that, you know, you may be right that Walmart will never be, you know, 50% of what Amazon is currently, which would be 250 million or so. But I could see Amazon start declining, Walmart continue to rising along with other platforms as well. And that would allow Walmart to potentially rise to 50% of what Amazon comes down to. Speaker 4: There was a time when people thought Amazon would never get bigger than eBay too. The only thing that you can guarantee in e-commerce is that it's going to change. Speaker 1: The only thing I'm waiting for is for there to be enough marketplaces that I can build a tool to bring all the data in API to every single one of them, and then I get every customer and filter the orders to the marketplaces. And then I treat everybody like shit. Speaker 2: Yeah. Hire your own sellers. Speaker 4: I don't know if that's a mission statement that people might rally around, but you might want to wordsmith that a little. Speaker 1: No, no, I got it. It's like, don't worry. You're just as unimportant to me as the other one. Speaker 3: As the next one. Speaker 2: Might want to put that one in ChatGPT and ask for some suggestions. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thanks everyone. Speaker 2: All right, let's go ahead and jump on to the next story here. So this is a strong opinion from Blair Forrest. Amazon resellers versus direct selling. Which strategy is right for your brand? Blair Forrest, founder of AMZPrep, dives into the ongoing debate of whether brands should sell directly on Amazon or partner with resellers. Direct selling offers higher margins, 15, 25%, and full control, but requires expertise and capital, while resellers provide immediate Amazon expertise and working capital, but may sacrifice some control and margins. Success stories exist on both sides with the best strategy depending on factors like cash position, team expertise, growth goals, and distribution strategy. Forrest highlights that no one size fits all answer exists and brands must evaluate their unique needs to determine the optimal path forward. Speaker 3: Todd, I feel like this one is right up your and my alleys, right? And I've certainly got an opinion on this one. So I think it comes down to exactly what he says in the post. If it comes down to expertise and capital, if the brand has the expertise to win on Amazon and they have the capital to invest, then they should sell themselves. One or neither of those two things, then they should partner with an authorized reseller. And I think it pretty much comes down to that. I think a lot of brands, they don't have the expertise, but maybe they do have the capital. They go try and win on Amazon and they just get absolutely destroyed because they don't have control over their supply chain. Their listings haven't been updated in two or three years. They think they can just send inventory into FBA. And print sales and everybody goes home happy, but that's just not how it works. So yeah, that's kind of my take on the situation. Every brand is different. It's not one size fits all, just like Blair said. Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I think it should say brand partnerships versus direct because resellers can be anything from people just flipping products, which are not necessarily going to have any benefit. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: So brand partnership versus direct is kind of the route that brands should be looking at either, like you said, Partnering with someone like myself, Danan, Corey, who have a lot of expertise on Amazon, you know, a decade worth of experience that you can leverage to sell your products. Versus selling direct on Amazon yourself and then you're either gonna have to learn all that knowledge or hire and pay someone probably 75 to 100,000 or more that has that knowledge or build out a team to be able to do it or outsource it to someone like Robyn on there as a consultant agency. And do it yourself. So those are kind of the different options. I guess, you know, throwing in there using an agency would essentially be like brand direct, but hiring an outside company to do the work for you. Speaker 4: You know, and I would say that I've done all three. And I know he's mentioning two, but I'm going to add a third one. So if a brand really wants control and they're focused on driving growth, they have resources allocated. Even with a full service agency, you're gonna have to have inventory and process changes. There's going to be conversations about ads and creative. So if they have the time and resources to enter in that and they're looking to actively grow Amazon, I think having them sell directly has the highest margin. But there are times when a brand will come to us for an audit And we'll say at the end of the day with where you're at, we think you should go with a reseller and a structured reseller where there's agreements or maybe there's some brand defense ads running, those kinds of things. So a well-structured brand partnership can be really great for brands that don't necessarily have the resources, the time, maybe they're focused on other channels for growth or they've got other issues or they need the capital up front. They can't have that delayed capital. The third one would be brands who want to actively grow, but they don't have enough ad spend to be able to grow all of the products in their product mix. So for companies that have really wide product mix, sometimes what we'll recommend is we're going to focus on these SKUs. We're going to give resellers notice, have them move, create Amazon-only SKUs, whatever we're going to do. And we're going to focus on driving these sales and restricting sales on these particular products in a way that's fair, not pulling the rug out from under people. We're going to focus on growing these sales and we're going to allow resellers to continue to do what they do best on some of these other SKUs so we can focus. Advertising on Amazon is like fighting with a toddler. Pick your battles, but win at all costs. So if you don't have enough bandwidth to fight all of those battles, then sometimes partnering with reseller partnerships can be a great piece that goes with And we have some brands that have said, you know, this reseller has been with us. They, you know, they, they, they believed in us when we were young and as a brand and we want to honor that tradition. I love working with brands like that. And so we'll work around those resellers to make sure that they're taken care of as we continue to find ways to grow the brand on Amazon. Speaker 3: And that's such a good point. Like it's not all or nothing, right? You don't have to say, okay, we're taking our entire Amazon channel in-house. We're putting a team on it. We're putting resources to it, yada, yada, yada. You could say, okay, well, we've got a couple of really strong resellers that a lot of times they've been working with for a number of years. Hey, let's keep them in the fold because they do add value, assuming they are, and find a way to have more of a hybrid approach, right? Like we said, it's not all or nothing. And I think that's a great way to look at it. Again, obviously, depending on the brand, depending on their goals, depending on their situation. Speaker 1: My brand right now, my wife and I have been selling their products on Amazon for a decade. And is that right? Yeah, this year is a decade. Yeah. And, you know, this is a handshake deal that I made with the CEO a decade ago. I flew out to California, met him. He's like, yeah, cool. Let's do this handshake. Cool. See you later. And it can work. It really can work. And I think that You know, it costs them nothing and they have tried. They've told us, hey, we're going to try and do this ourselves. Yeah, cool. Go for it. And they said, they came back and was like, yeah, nevermind. You can just have our whole catalog. Speaker 3: A lot of times that's how it works. Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. And that just reaffirms your knowledge, experience, and capabilities to help a brand out. Speaker 4: We have several resellers that refer brands to us. And the idea is not that they would sell direct. It's that the brand pays us to update the listings. And run sponsor brands and sponsor display ads, which run regardless of who's having the buy box. To help their resellers grow all together, right? So there are times when that really works well too, where, because especially with compliance issues, you as a reseller might need to get listing changed to update to a new compliance. If you have somebody that is working on behalf of the brand, they can help work with Amazon to get those things changed for them. It can keep important SKUs online. Speaker 2: It's important too that if you're going to be a brand and work with a reseller or have a brand partnership and your goal is to grow your brand on Amazon, we can do a lot of good just by optimizing the listings and stuff like that, but if you really want to make it go, I always try to get some type of advertising share where the brand is putting in a certain amount of ad dollars and then I'll match those ad dollars. Otherwise, it's hard as a reseller, right? Because the margins are smaller, so we can't afford as much ad spend for the products. So that's where the brand can pitch in however much a month, whatever that looks like, one, two, $3,000 or whatever. And really help boost the products. And of course, as the reseller, you know, a lot of times most of us are experienced with running PPC ads and doing that. Or I know Robyn, you actually help resellers as they're running their ads or being their PPC person, I should say. So that's something to think about too with the brand that if you go direct, you're gonna have to pay for ads. You're gonna probably wanna pay for ads if you're using a reseller as well. You may have to pay a little bit less because the reseller might kick some of that in as well, but you do get access to all the experience of the reseller. That they've had with all their listings, optimization, everything else. Yep. Speaker 1: I don't even run ads. I don't have the margin to run ads, but I haven't run ads in forever, so. Speaker 2: Yeah, and that might be a place, Daynon, where you go back to the brand and ask them if they would be interested in doing an ad share or something like that. Speaker 1: Absolutely. It's a brilliant idea. It's been a topic of conversation several times, but they've never wanted to pull the trigger on it. But who knows? Maybe they'll want to do it this time. Speaker 4: I did have a brand that I audited and they said that their reseller was doing ads. When we asked them to provide the data, they said that they couldn't provide the data because Amazon didn't provide the data. And I was like, um, where's that red flag guy? So there have been people who have been burned. So there needs to be some transparency there. I will say, you need to make sure if you have somebody running ads, They understand running ads for, at a reseller position, is different than the ad strategy that you would run for a private label. So you can't just, you know, follow a private label person and implement those things because you won't have the margins to run them that way. You're gonna have to run a very, very tight tacos byproduct where you're really looking at variations and controlling the variations across, you know, like if you're gonna advertise something, you really need to control all of the variations, the buy box for all those variations. Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes that is true. Sometimes it's not. We've got some suppliers that you're 100% correct, Robyn. Mostly the ones that don't want to do an advertising share, but the ones where we have an advertising share, we run the PPC much more like And today we're talking about a private label brand. Because typically too, you know, we're getting a discount on the cost of the product. So the margins are much higher. The brand is kicking in ad dollars to be able to run it more like a private label as well. Speaker 4: And there's always a use case for everything, right? I think it depends on the product and the margin and the category too. Like grocery, there's just a tighter margin than there is, We have a product that is onboarding with us. It's got a $2,000 product. So there's a lot of room, even if they were using a reseller there, to run ads. Speaker 2: Yep, for sure. Yeah, there's probably not going to be much margin if you're selling $3 dice or something. Speaker 3: Price point plays a big factor as well. Speaker 2: Yes, for sure. For sure. So yeah, I mean, you got to weigh all those things if you're a reseller or I mean, if you're a brand looking at resellers or going direct. Personally, I like the idea of using a brand partnership or an agency if you have no experience on Amazon and you don't really want to have experience on Amazon. But if you wanna really get into the nitty gritty, hire a team, figure out ads, figure out graphics and everything else, then that's the kind of brand that wants to dive in and do it direct. Speaker 4: I think that's a great point. Speaker 2: Any other thoughts on that or we'll move on to the next? Story here. Speaker 1: I'm good. Speaker 2: All right. So CPSC orders Amazon to warn consumers about hazardous products. Amazon must now recall over 400,000 hazardous third party products sold via its Fulfilled by Amazon program, including defective carbon monoxide detectors and unsafe children's pajamas. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission requires Amazon to inform affected consumers directly, display recall notices on its site, and provide refunds for destroyed or disposed products. And one thing that wasn't in there is they're also required to display it on the order page for the consumer if there is a recall. This decision emphasizes Amazon's accountability for third-party goods, urging sellers to ensure their products meet federal safety standards to avoid similar issues. Starting January 26th, Amazon must also submit monthly progress reports and maintain recall records for five years, signaling stricter compliance and measures for its marketplace operations. Speaker 1: Good. One quick thing. How do you have dangerous pajamas? Speaker 3: I was wondering the same thing when he said, I was like, okay, the first one I understand, but children's pajamas. Speaker 4: They're one of the most regulated products in the children's category. There's very specific Things on buttons, flammability, phthalates. I mean, there's a myriad of things that need to be included for that CPSC and a lot of safety testing. It's not just an article of clothing. Pajamas, even more than regular children's clothes, have a whole different bar. This is a very good thing, but it could catch people who are private labeling products that maybe haven't gone into the compliance thing. And there's even like changes depending on how much your production is. So I've looked into, I volunteer at a children's hospital. And so I looked into like helping create some pajamas We're these infants that have a lot of tubes. And the person I was talking with was saying, well, depending on how much you make, there's different requirements. So it's a very complicated, compliance for children's products especially is a very complicated, and that's good because that keeps our babies safe. So I mean, I had a client that's no longer with us. It was clearly a kid's product and they're like, can we just say it's an adult product? And I was like, well, you have a seven-year-old in the image and all of your reviews say it's great for seven-year-olds. So no, no, we can't. You know, so these are good things. And I think this is where, you know, we're going to see more. We're here to talk about catalog cleanup, more UPC restrictions. And that's because UPCs, especially on foods, are connected to recalls. But also, you know, if those recalls happen, they need to make sure it happens for each one of those products. And so I think that's why you're seeing the tightening of like mismatched brands and UPCs. Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yep. And yeah, you're gonna see a lot more caution on Amazon's part when it comes to anything that could potentially be hazardous So expect a lot more of those emails coming in about listings getting taken down for this or that and then having to jump through the hoops to get them back up. Speaker 3: And I feel like that's something that every one of us resellers has had to deal with at some point or another, a product getting removed either for a legitimate safety concern, legitimate reason. And a lot of times it's a false positive, right? It's the AI or the automation removing that listing. I've been on listings where it goes down for a couple of hours and it's back up and it never happens again. And I've been on listings where myself and others on that listing had a lot of inventory invested into that ASIN at FBA. And it's not compliant. And if we can't get the paperwork to make it compliant, then that's a loss that you've got to take. So that does happen. But I mean, at the end of the day, while that might suck for resellers like myself at times, definitely a good move for the consumer and for the public in general to continue to hold Amazon accountable. Speaker 1: Yeah. Another one that they just put out was if you have a sharp object, if it's not properly packaged, they won't take it. And I sell knives. Speaker 2: Yeah, it has to be in a what a clamshell or hard plastic blister pack. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 4: I would say that for resellers, it's important to know that safety testing can take two to four weeks. And every product in the package has to be tested. So we had a bow and arrow, toy bow and arrow company, and the bows were already in brick and mortar. They had done all the safety tests. And so they had some that had quivers with them too that were in brick and mortar. Because they had a paper target that was included in that set, Amazon required the CPSC to include that even that paper target had been included. In that, we found that there were phthalates in the quiver and so we weren't able to sell that quiver as part of the product. So that process took four months for the brand, who is in brick and mortar, to resolve. And it was an issue where they tested it and then they hit chain suppliers and that testing was actually not as rigorous as it needed. It had the testing, but it didn't file the CPSC. So it can be a complicated product. So it's not always that their brand is not helping. It could be that they are trying to figure out what happened as well as you. And those tests are very expensive, especially if they have a large product mix. It can run anywhere from like one, to, you know, sometimes 5,000 or more, depending on what tests need to be done per, you know, per SKU. So it can be a pretty pricey thing. And so it can, when we first saw the CPSC regulations start to happen, we saw some baby products, those categories completely got decimated when these first regulations started to come rolled out. And then people kind of worked around them. So you might see a little bit of shifting in baby brands and kids brands as this is getting rolled out. Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And it's definitely a good thing to keep the consumers safe. It's gonna make it a little bit harder for certain brands and resellers and such, but that's just kind of a part of doing business, which is something that a lot of Amazon sellers got used to, is that they really didn't have to do a lot of things that were normal parts of doing business for a long time. And now Amazon is being forced to do it, so therefore they're going to force us. We're here to do it as well and run our businesses like a real business. Speaker 3: Yeah, shocker, right? Speaker 1: This is a good thing though. Speaker 3: Me and Danan talked about this on our podcast recently. Yeah, that this is like somehow Amazon sellers have managed to get away with running a real business for 25 years because FBA has been around since I think the year 2000. And you know, it only took about 25 years, but the platforms caught up. And now everybody's got to take things a little more seriously, which is definitely a net positive, like you said. Speaker 4: And as consumers, we need to think about when we're, you know, we're thinking about buying something off Tamu or Wish or what have you, that safety testing isn't as strict there. And you might think, oh, that's great. That means that the things that your child might be putting in their mouth could have lead in them. So, you know, I'm not saying all products. I'm not bashing the platform. I'm just saying that Amazon's rigor, that could actually help Amazon be able to maintain their market cap is if they feel, if people feel like I can trust Walmart, I can trust Amazon, but I can't really trust for the things that are important for my family, batteries, kids products, unless I really buy them from a trusted place that I know takes compliance seriously. Speaker 2: To be fair, you definitely can't trust Tembu and products on there, but you can't trust products on Amazon and Walmart either because they're not vetting all these millions of products that are coming in from overseas. The government's not vetting them. They're just relying on the categories that people are putting these products in and then the keywords that the AI is picking up on. And so if a black hat seller is smart enough to avoid all that and sell their product, you still have a good chance of getting some products that may not be all that healthy. So you got to be really careful what you're buying. Make sure you're buying it from a legitimate seller, preferably a U.S. based seller. So if something does go wrong, you've got somebody to hold accountable. I look for that stuff all the time when I'm shopping on Amazon, especially if it's something for my baby for sure. Speaker 1: My wife is, just on the subject of children, my wife has gone very deep into what actually is safe, who's done the testing of their products. I've been begging her for ages to create a mom blog because she has so much information on this stuff. If you told me, I wouldn't believe some of the stuff that she's found out that are based on closed tests of products and what has led and what doesn't and stuff like that. It is absolutely insanity. But yeah, enough about that. Speaker 3: I believe it. Speaker 1: Our babies are our future, right? And if we poison them, well, the world's going to have some troubles. I mean, let's be honest. That's what's been happening. Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the government's not going to protect you. Amazon's not. Walmart's not. Timmu's definitely not. So you got to take it upon yourself to deal with it. I mean, look at, what is it, Red Dye No. 4 that they just banned, which has been like banned for 40 years in Europe and California. So everybody knew that it caused cancer, but it took the government like 40 years to get their act together. Do it. So yeah, there's can't rely on that. Speaker 1: No, you know, Europe has some of the some of the best. I'm not saying they're perfect, but they've got some of the best food laws. And there are countries out there that that really, really put the the family unit, the child, At the forefront of what they feel is important. And I believe that's a good thing because if you can protect children from certain things, then you're gonna make, you're helping society to that degree, right? But if you allow this crap to go through 40 years to get rid of a known carcinogen, Give me a freaking break. Give me a break. Speaker 2: And that only happened because they knew, I think it only happened because they knew Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to be leading the FDA here shortly. And they're like, oh, let's do something now. Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. They're sweeping as much under the rug as they can as well, I'll bet you. Speaker 2: I'm sure the shredders are going full time. Well, that might have stopped by now, but I'm sure they were going full time. Yeah, for sure. All right. Cool. Cool. Any other thoughts on that or anything else? Speaker 1: Let me see. I just want to see if my buddy, he didn't answer me. I was hoping that on our first story that he'd have a couple of tips for us, but nothing. Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Anybody joining us here at the tail end. Share this story all over the place. This is for KeaBabies, which is a really good baby brand. Their account is basically locked up because of security breaches in Amazon. So definitely spread that around all over your social media and let's try to get them some press and hopefully someone over at Amazon, one of the executives or something will step up and get this resolved for them. Speaker 1: I'm gonna, I'll put the link. I wonder if it, does it let me? Oh, that's not right. Hold on, I'm putting the link in the chat here. Where did that go? Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll throw it in there as well. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, thanks. Speaker 2: Yeah, do what we can. Sellers, we gotta support each other, so do what we can to help out where we can and get these guys back up, hopefully. Speaker 1: Yep, absolutely. Speaker 2: All right. Awesome. Well, Danan, Corey, Robyn, I appreciate you joining me and everybody out there watching. Thank you so much for watching. We'll be back at it again next Friday, every Friday here. So until then. Happy selling, everybody, and have an awesome weekend. Speaker 1: Bye, everybody. Speaker 3: Bye, guys. Thanks for having us. 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. Speaker 2: 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. God bless and have an awesome day.