Mastering Amazon Compliance and Growth with Or Shamosh – Episode 42 of the Agency Operators Podcast

Mastering Amazon Compliance and Growth with Or Shamosh – Episode 42 of the Agency Operators Podcast Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Agency Operators Podcast. Today, I'm joined by Or Shamosh of Amazon Seller Appeal Group. How are you doing, Or? Speaker 2: Hey, everybody. I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. How about you? Speaker 1: Very, very good. Yeah, thank you. I'm very excited to talk to you. I actually haven't met anybody that is a specialist in the appeals department. It's sort of a difficult, it's a difficult job. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: When people have their listings down and their accounts down, they're pretty unhappy. So being the guy to help fix that, I mean, you definitely are a hero at the end of the day. So excited to jump into the weeds with you here. Awesome. Before we jump in, I just wanted to kind of ask if you can share a little bit about your story because the job that you're doing is really specific and so I'm sure there's a fun sequence of events that occurred that kind of got you here. So yeah, please share. Speaker 2: Definitely. So I've started actually as a seller back in 2016 and like a lot of people, I've made a lot of mistakes and they got suspended. And against many others, I went to the back in the day, it was a lot of Facebook groups, went ahead and help. I got suspended. I have no idea why. I don't know what to do. Help. No one answered. It was like completely no one knew what's going on, what to do. So like every other normal person, I decided to read Amazon's guidelines and Amazon's business solution agreement. The one that you like, I read and agreed, accept. So I read all of that. And then I tried to appeal because I really had no clue what I need to do. And to my surprise, I failed. It got rejected. But then I thought I have nothing to lose, so I tried again and again and again until I got reinstated. And with time I decided, because I got suspended again for another ACN and another time for the account level, and I got the hang of it and I started to understand how the system works. So then I decided to try and shift my way from being a seller to help others, help resolve other issues, and it worked pretty well. We got a lot of clients, a lot of people, a lot of accounts that we got resolved. And in 2019, the company got solved and they founded an Amazon operator. So we raised a few million dollars and we started acquiring brands. It was back in the days when it was a complete hype. But it went also pretty okay. We sold, we are currently, we are eight-figure sellers. So I also have the experience, the hands-on experience of both selling and getting suspended and resolving it. So it happens to everybody. And today I'm focusing on my group. We have a group of a few companies. We provide peer services, risk management, due diligence, for MNAs and acquisitions. We cover all compliance, risk management, appeals, whatever you name it. We basically cover whatever you need. Get suspended because we honestly are here and we even don't charge for our services to avoid getting suspended, to prevent. We provided knowledge everywhere for free because we don't want you as our client. We don't want you to get suspended. We want to entirely eliminate the need for an appeal. And from what we saw over the last nine years of Provided appeals for almost three thousand and five hundred people. We saw that there are a lot of things common for them that most could prevent. So we thought of why getting way way to get suspended and then hire us and pay us and have so much downtime and risk and issues. I'm here to help you avoid getting suspended and avoid being our clients. Speaker 1: I see. So you take on clients so they can avoid being your client. Speaker 2: We don't even take them as our clients. Just join this webinars and course and lecture about it to educate people on what's going on. And if you want to send me your list to see what are your risks, how to avoid them, I will do that for free. We don't charge for that. We don't want such people. We just want to help people avoid getting suspended. To educate people. Speaker 1: So what are the things that you would say, you know, kind of being here with this audience, like what are the top three things that you guys are seeing as like the main reason why people get suspended? Speaker 2: Yeah, so before the main three things, let's understand about suspensions. So suspensions, we categorize them into three main aspects. There are the legal issues, which are patents, copyrights. Things like that, which trademarks, which often involves either third parties, like people complaining about you, the rights owner, let's say, I don't know, This Logitech mouse and Logitech or Sony earphones, I don't know, and Sonica, they file complaints about you, either from trademark, patents, inauthentic, counterfeit and so on. So this is the legal part. Or maybe customers complain that the product is fake. The second thing would be the regulations, the FDA, EPA, DEA and a lot of other similar names, which basically means, hey, if you're selling, let's say, a dietary supplement, or I love to take things that are on my table, our water bottle, it comes in touch with food or water, it needs to comply with certain regulations. The food great thing, dietary supplements, like you eat them, it needs to comply with regulations. It's not about the law. It's not about Amazon's policies. It's about how to write the labels, the expiration date, things like that. And then, obviously, the third aspect would be Amazon's guidelines, Amazon's policies, which are anything between common sense, You are allowed or not allowed to do and until complete made up rules, which we sometimes can understand. Sometimes we think they have no sense, but after all, it's their platform. They can decide if they want to make it arbitrary, if they want to make it clear, if they want the rules to cover things very hard or not. Just a few days ago, they have updated how to write titles. It's not about, I'm sure, FAMC Optimize, you know about it and started to work on optimizing titles for people with 200 characters and with a certain how it should be built. So it's not a law. There is no legal thing that obligates you to have 200 characters in the title. There is no regulation. It's a policy. It's a guideline. So these are the basic three categories which Amazon can support. Thank you for which you can be suspended for and you should be aware as any other business. It's not an Amazon. You're not only an Amazon seller. You own a business. You need to understand that like any other business which sells product. You are not only enforced by Amazon guidelines, but also by the law and also by the regulation. And the FDA can come to Amazon and say, Amazon, please remove this seller. And Sony can come to Amazon and tell Amazon, hey, Amazon, please remove the seller. And Amazon will comply and remove it. So these are basically the three categories. And the most common thing is First, obviously, and unfortunately, that sellers don't even know that they are subject to it. So this is first what I'm trying to do to try to educate people to be aware, because awareness is the first big step, the first thing that you need to do. But how can you do it? You're not like a legal expert, you're not a regulation expert, and you're not a policy expert. How can you know there are hundreds if not thousands of different things that you need to be aware of? Most of them are common sense. Let's say you want to sell earphones. Obviously, you want to write sonics because if you know, if you don't know, it's a violation of the trademark. Even without knowing that they have a trademark, even without knowing what's a trademark, I hope that your common sense will tell you that you can't use this. This is the third, the good news. Most of it is common sense. Now, secondly, what is not common sense, Google it. Seriously, just Google it. What I, of ChatGPT, today ChatGPT is amazing for such things of any other AI tool. A ChatGPT, I want to sell earphones. What are my legal requirements? What regulations I am under? And if you will see the camera, it's actually just a good, a good example to show that Symbols, IC, URL maybe, which to me they say nothing as a Amazon seller, but ChatGPT or Google will tell you what certificates in this case you require. Again, the water bottle, so it does like BPA-free. I don't know what's BPA-free. I'm an Amazon seller, so no. What I want you to understand Now you're a business owner, you're selling products which are regulated heavily and there are a lot of different things. So start by ChatGPTing it, Googling it, check on other products, check on the big brands, they are doing it, usually they are doing it good and you shouldn't, don't need to invent the wheel from scratch. And then finally, The thing that most sellers are getting suspended for are due to keywords. If it's like either one of these, if it's like on the legal side, so it would be since I used Sony keywords. If it is on the regulation side, if I said about the water bottle, so let's say that my water bottle is antibacterial. Antibacterial, by definition, by the regulation, the EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, antibacterial is a pesticide. A pesticide, by definition, is something that eliminates bacteria. So if you are saying that your water bottle is antibacterial, Here you go. This is a pesticide and it doesn't matter that you will come to me or to Amazon or to anyone else and say, what? No, it's a water bottle. How can a water bottle be a pesticide? Let me tell you, it is a pesticide because that's the regulation, that's the law. Even the Amazon guidelines, they went ahead and they have elaborated on that and explained that. A few years ago, if you are aware, a lot of gurus came and said, Oh no, Amazon, you're wrong. It's a false positive. What are you doing? The algorithm is out of control. I'm sure you remember. No, that's not the case. Not even close to being the case. The case is there are specific guidelines. And sure, it's difficult to know that because who can think that It makes sense, I completely agree. Who can think that saying that something is antibacterial will mean that you are a pesticide and will mean that you have to be registered by the EPA? It's hard. I agree. I completely agree with you. This is why I'm trying to educate and tell you that you first need to be aware of such things. So just search it on Google, search it on ChatGPT, search it on Amazon's guidelines like anti-bacterial and it will show you. So again, things that should raise some common sense a lot. So we talked about keywords in the legal side, in the judicial side. And on Amazon's guidelines side, which can be like the arbitrary things, like if you're writing 205 keywords, you might get not suspended, but suppressed. If you're like writing in the, let's say, the backend specific keywords, your keywords can get, your product can get classified as an adult, for example, meaning that you can't do PPC and things like that, that Again, not easy to know and not easy to follow because there are a lot of things, but that's just on the tip of it to show that keywords are the main thing that can get suspended over these three categories. Unknown Speaker: Very nice. Speaker 1: I appreciate all that. I remember the pesticide situation. I mean, I still deal with it sometimes. I have a shampoo company, same thing. That's a pesticide. You know, I said, what? It's the shampoo. How can it be a pesticide? And some things are ridiculous. Like you said, antibacterial surface, that can be anything. Yeah, exactly. Like a spatula that's made of stainless steel can say that it has a coating on it that is antibacterial, which is normal, right, for kitchen products. But no, they're going to flag it. So on one side I understand but at the same time they also need to have guardrails. I mean like the amount of products that they did target to eliminate was by far a tremendously higher number. Then the actual amount of pesticide products in the marketplace. So I feel like their blanket approach did fail. I think they've learned from that experience, but certainly it makes sense if they're going after keywords. And the other thing is like we do a lot of content optimization. We don't get a list from Amazon that says here are the new keywords that we want to approve, don't approve, like, don't like. They never tell you. So we might write a listing and we get it flagged right away and we've used no keywords that were getting flagged previously but now they're getting flagged. So it's like we have to start running like an internal list of all the keywords we're not supposed to use. But it's sort of like a hit and miss, especially when you're working with certain categories, like in the medical supply industry. Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. Speaker 1: You know, yeah, like garden products, if you actually are selling pesticides. So it's very delicate, you know, where there's so many limitations to what you can say, what you can't say. Speaker 2: So that's right. And that's right. That actually is a great point, because I agree that Amazon over-enforced. Started in 2019, 2020, something like that. What happened is that the regulatory body, the EPA, issued a new rule, a new act. And they've decided, due to something that actually happened in Germany, a lawsuit against them, the background story doesn't matter. But they've decided to enlist a new rule, a new act, and say what Products are classified as pesticides. So far, products that were classified as pesticides were very specific things, like they had a list of products. And then they changed the rule, the guideline, the regulation, the EPA, not Amazon. The EPA came and said, OK, now every product, and it's written there, every product that It's a pesticide. So there is no mistake, no confusion. And then they came to Amazon and came to Amazon. Hey, Amazon, please start to enforce our new rule. Personally, if I were Amazon, what I would do is have my simple, stupid algorithm. Scan the listings the same as they did, but instead of suspending people and making them go through this horrible process, just remove that keyword or just alert the people. Dear seller, we've identified that we've written antibacterial. You have 72 hours to remove it or else we will be obligated by the law to suspend you. Why not do it? It's so simple. Because they did scan it. They did scan the listing. So instead of, dear seller, you are suspended. Dear seller, please remove or else we will suspend you. So it's all about their decision, eventually. They were obligated to suspend. I will give them that. They are obligated because the EPA, like, enforces on that. They don't have a choice here. But they could have decided to do something else, like give a fair warning, three days, 72 hours. Ramon, as we are obligated to suspend you, sorry. Explain it to people. Don't have people running around and saying it's a shampoo, it's not a pesticide. Explain that it is a pesticide. Speaker 1: Yeah, and the other thing is like, what's confusing is sometimes you have a listing that has a keyword and a listing that It doesn't have a keyword and one of them gets suspended, the other one doesn't and so you're trying to compare and contrast and you know, it's like it doesn't make logical sense because it's like you see your competitor doing something and then you copy them and then you actually get suspended and you say, why? How come they're allowed to do it? It's because Amazon hasn't caught them yet. Speaker 2: Exactly. Speaker 1: Right. Speaker 2: Exactly. This is what I always tell people. When we like, we sell the pills, a lot of people are asking me, hey oh, can I, let's add a list of competitors that are already, that are still online. It doesn't matter, Amazon hasn't caught them yet. Yes, because, as I said, Amazon scans the market. Scanning the market, even for Amazon, costs money. It's an algorithm that runs around the marketplace, the backend, the set of data, the content, the listing, the probability paid, whatever, and it scans. If there is a match of a keyword, a phrase, or whatever the algorithm identifies, There is something that has to be done on Amazon's side. So this scan that Amazon's algorithm is making costs Amazon money. Each scan costs Amazon money. So it's not 24-7 enforcement. It's not the entire market base is being enforced at the same time. Not for the entire guidelines. Sometimes they are writing it for specific subcategories, sometimes for specific keywords, sometimes for specific guidelines. So the fact that you are online and even your affiliation is still online and the other one is suspended, It doesn't mean anything. It's just because the algorithm didn't write to your listings. Unknown Speaker: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Speaker 1: That makes sense. Any other reasons people are getting suspended all the time or that's pretty much like 90% of it? Speaker 2: That covers most of it. Then there are the unfortunate blackheads. Competition that a lot of people, a lot of others are still doing. Um, we do try to help people, uh, avoid that, like avoid getting suspended after the attack started. So my tip here would be that if you have identified that someone is making an attack against you, document everything and send it to Amazon. Open a case, call Amazon. Don't try to like overdo it, but kindly call them or send a message. Hey Amazon, I think, not I know, I think that someone is attacking me. This is not a report. I don't have evidence for it. I just ask you to make an investigation. Here are the details that I have. Here is the evidence that I have. Please investigate. Now, this investigation, it doesn't matter what will come of it, because if eventually your account will be suspended, hopefully, and in most cases, what will happen is that it won't go to automated bots that suspend you. They will go to a human. It will go to someone. Who will first check your cases, check whatever was annotated internally. And again, hopefully we'll see whatever you spoke with account health or service support. And it will help wave this decision in the way. So it's not about making the investigation to, I don't know, stop the attacks or unreasonable, unreasonable things. If you think that someone is making anti-competitive behavior against you, make sure that Amazon annotates it and writes it down on the writing as though to have a copy of it. So when someone comes to enforce on it and suspend your account, firstly we'll see that and you will take a second to look again. Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. So basically, You kind of make everything, you have everything recorded in your account, so if anything does happen, it's a record, you're keeping a record. But so how do people know, like so you're saying like if I think somebody's making an attack on my account, my listing, could you give an example what kind of triggers, what kind of signals somebody can look out for if somebody actually is targeting them that kind of way? Speaker 2: So we actually just dealt with a similar case a few days ago. So I will change the situation a little bit to make it simpler to understand. Let's say that you have a new listing. And you have another new listing. An existing listing, you have 1,000 reviews. You know that the average rating that you get for like, let's say for every 100 new orders, you get five ratings of reviews. So 5%, I think it's reasonable. You know it based on your experience, based on the ratio of sales per ratings of reviews. And now you see a tremendous increase of reviews. Five stars. Everything is looking good. And suddenly you have 50 new reviews for 100 orders. Common sense. Doesn't it look weird? How come 50 people out of 100 are leaving reviews, 5-star reviews? I hope that if you are experienced enough, you should know that it is completely unreasonable. And this is some kind of anti-competitive behavior of someone who is trying to show as if you are manipulating reviews as if you have bought reviews. So then it's time to get your account suspended for reviews manipulation, as if you have bought those reviews. So think about what he's done. He went ahead, he hired 50 buyers, he bought your product 50 times, he left 50 reviews. That is a lot of work, but it happens. It happens, unfortunately, quite a lot. All to get you suspended. So in this case, be honest with Amazon. Hey, Amazon, we saw an increase in our reviews. I think, I don't know, I don't have any evidence for it, but I think that something weird is going on. I don't, based on my experience, again, Amazon, I don't know, based on my Humble experience. This ratio is unreasonable. Please investigate. Again, I don't know if there is an issue. I don't know if there is no issue. I'm just raising a concern that I had. And now the thing in these cases is to balance it between raising the red flag by yourself because by opening the case, you might be opening The Pandora box for whatever it is, you might be the one that is firstly alerting Amazon of any potential issues. So you need to think this through and balance it to what you think Amazon knows and what you are letting them know. Speaker 1: Very cool. Or, I want to thank you for all these nuggets of gold. That's really good stuff. I think that's very helpful and hopefully anybody listening can, you know, first of all, protect themselves. Second of all, just be prepared to, you know, do things in a way that's compliant. And if anybody needs to, if anybody for some reason wants to get in touch with you, if they might have a problem already or in the future, where can they find you? Speaker 2: So first, you can just Google my name. It's on the screen, Or Shamosh. You will find me on Facebook, LinkedIn. My website is AmazonSellersAppeal of Google ASA Compliance Group, ASA AmazonSellersAppeal Compliance Group. You can reach out to me through wherever you prefer. I will be happy to help. Even if it's just to take a look at your listing, And let you know what the potential risks you're facing, what I would be cautious about, what I would advise you to look at. I would be happy to help. Speaker 1: Awesome. Much appreciated. Thank you, Or, and thanks everybody for listening. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. And again, hopefully you won't need us. Have the best of luck and good luck. Thank you. Speaker 1: Take care.