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Selling on Giants: Amazon Account Threats and How to Prevent Them with John Cavendish · Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to Selling on Giants.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: In today's episode, we're tackling one of the biggest pain points for Amazon sellers, account health.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's sudden suspension, policy violations, or unexpected catalog issues, maintaining account health is critical to keeping your business running smoothly and profitably.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: To help us navigate this essential topic, we're joined by John Cavendish, founder and CEO of Seller Candy.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: With years of experience in the Amazon space, John and his team have seen and solved just about every account health issue a seller can face.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Today he'll share insights on the most common threats to Amazon account health, how to prevent them, and what proactive steps you can take to keep your business protected.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: If you've ever worried about account health, ACIN suspension, or policy compliance, this episode is packed with actionable strategies to help you stay ahead and thrive as a seller.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Let's dive in.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Before we dive into the full interview, let's quickly highlight some of the key takeaways on maintaining Amazon Account Health.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: A topic that can make or break your success as a seller.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: First, Amazon Account Health hinges on key metrics like shipment times, customer feedback, defect rates, and the voice of the customer.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Regularly monitoring these metrics and your account health dashboard is critical to catching issues early before they escalate.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Second, prevention is key.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Common causes of account suspensions include policy violations like unauthorized drop shipping, poor customer reviews, and high return rate.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: To avoid these, ensure compliance, address feedback proactively, and keep your product listing clean and align with Amazon's guidelines.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Finally, John shared a practical three-step process for reinstating suspended listings.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Open a case to document the issue, sanitize your listing via the category listing report, and escalate only after resolving the underlying issues.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: This approach significantly shortens resolution times and helps keep your business running smoothly.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: With that in mind, let's jump into the full interview with John.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: John, thanks for being on the show.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: You've been in the Amazon ecosystem for quite some time.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Can you share a bit about your journey into Amazon and what drew you to focus on helping sellers succeed?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks for having me, Will.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I mean, I got back into Amazon in 2014, 2015 as a seller.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So back when it was too late and everyone was saying it's too late, 2015, you should have gotten in 2012.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I came in as a seller and started selling in Europe.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I was kind of ahead of the ahead of the curve.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't think of it at the time.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I was at a disadvantage, but I was ahead of the curve selling in Europe, and we were selling in 2016 during like across all the different European marketplaces.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that was before Amazon had any of the VAT stuff or any of that stuff kind of sorted out.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was all mess like the Wild Wild West.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I did that.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I traveled around the world a bit and then I started an Amazon agency because I was bored, to be honest, of selling supplements on the internet, which is what I initially started selling back in the day.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, kind of sold the uh supplement business.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then a couple of years later, I started selling candy.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And selling candy really came out of me wanting to build a real business and wanting to help people.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized that with the agency, I couldn't help everyone because a lot of the leads and the people I met, they had great brands, but not brands necessarily that fit the Amazon model.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: But in that year, in 2019, 2020, I'd had like 500 sales calls.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized that not everybody can be successful on Amazon, but anyone that is successful on Amazon hates seller support.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's the worst thing about selling on Amazon.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we create Seller Candy, and Seller Candy is basically a productized service that surrounds seller support as a platform.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we have over 40 ex Amazon seller support agents who we hire from Amazon.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're in the Philippines.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have a portal, our clients log in, log the outcome, and then our team does whatever it takes to make that happen.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: So completely outcome-driven, like having an assistant on your team, an expert on your team who just knows Amazon and knows how to fix things.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty awesome.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: And quite the journey.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: So from seller to your own agency, had a bit of a period where you were off.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh what did you guys do?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like how you came to the um the problem of dealing with seller support, which universally is painful to the next level.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess what uh before we jump into the main topic, uh, given your expertise in solving complex Amazon issues, which is why we go to customer support or seller support, uh, what is it about the challenges sellers face that keep you passionate about uh about helping sellers in the space?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just a uh sale masochist and I just really, really love to call to cause myself pain.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um no.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think there's always something new.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, to be honest, I'm no longer the expert.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was the expert for a while, but now we have a team of you know 40 ex agents, an ops team, a sales team.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we got 60 people.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I am now passionate about the team.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Nice finding the best people, growing people, you know, enjoying the people I'm working with.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: I enjoy that most about the business.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: What we do is excellent, we do great work, and the work gets better and better.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but actually, my involvement in the technical part, uh, not so much anymore.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Quite the journey.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty awesome.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then let's jump into the main topic, the most common threats to Amazon account health and how to prevent them.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I was specifically really excited about this topic because account health is a hot issue.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's like the most under uh undervalued aspect of it because uh you don't realize the damage it could take when you have poor account health, where you know advertising is kind of instantaneous, marketing is turned to uh tied to a ROAS.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: So it's definitely an underserved area.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: So then though, let's start with the basics for those listeners who maybe just don't have a lot of experience with Amazon.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: What exactly is Amazon account health and why is it such a critical factor for sellers?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, account health, just in your account dashboard, you can see your account health indicator.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if everything's going well, you never look at it, you're all good.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's when it starts moving, you know, it's like a um, what do you call it?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's a scale.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And as it starts moving towards the left or round anti-clockwise, then you got to stop worrying about it.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, lots of things can impact your account health.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: It if you're fulfilling items yourself, it could be shipment times.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: If it's FBA, it doesn't matter about that.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it can be you know feedback on products, feedback on customer service, responses to customer service, just basically everything Amazon cares about as the KPIs of running your account kind of affect your account health.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um you're a reseller, and you're listening, and if you're a reseller, not I'm not sure how many of your listeners will be, then if you're a reseller of many products, that's gonna be more difficult on your account health because every so often you'll have one of the brands raise a complaint against you or something, even if you've done done nothing wrong.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And quite a lot of our clients are also resellers, or maybe 20, 30 percent, and they have those issues.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's interesting, and I believe it too.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it sounds like account health is pretty much anything related to the customer experience on Amazon.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously, they're the most customer-centric platform.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I could see why they're not the most seller-centric thing.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, seller-centric.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: So you went a little bit over KPI.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, what happens when a seller's account health starts to decline?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: What are some of the short and long-term implications of uh of poor uh account health?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the worst long-term complication is that they will suspend your account.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully that never happens.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: We've only ever had one client like three years ago who was actually suspended.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's our claim to fame.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, nobody's ever used us has actually been suspended apart from this one guy who went on holiday without telling anyone and didn't set his account to holiday mode.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so he just destroyed all his metrics.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we still got his account back for him.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it but you know, it just sucks when something like that happens.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the damage is done.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: The damage is done, yes.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the worst possible case.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: If not, it's just you know, it's just that continuous threat.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So the continuous like uh cloud hanging over your head.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Are they gonna do something worse?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: If anything bad happens to my account, I might get suspended.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: My entire business relies upon this.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go broke, I'm gonna be on the street, I'm gonna have to sell myself, sell my kids, you know, whatever it is.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we don't want to get to that stage.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, general business continuity requires good account health.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Something you should keep an eye on.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and to your point, suspension is the worst case scenario on smaller scales.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: You might lose your listings or be suppressed in search.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: So uh all those factors play a major risk.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: So let's jump into uh let's go a little deeper to some of the common issues and some preventative strategies.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: From your experience, what are the most common causes of Amazon account suspension and how can sellers prevent them before they happen?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so common issues of account suspension.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, firstly, I mean, to be honest, doing dodgy things, doing things against TOS.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, often we talk to people who we can't actually help if you've done anything that's really against TOS.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, drop shipping violations.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, many people get them because they drop ship, don't drop ship, Amazon will catch you eventually.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but if you're making a lot of money, you can take the risk.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: The good thing about drop shipping is that you're not holding any inventory.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: So some people it's good while it lasts, but um I wouldn't really touch it and we don't touch it because we don't want to associate ourselves with that.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, other other issues of account suspension.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the ones that you can't control, like Amazon linking to accounts and saying you're related to a suspended account.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen that many times, and then it's just a horrible untangling situation of figuring out why.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, terrible account health.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, not too many people go down with that one anymore because people are more know more about it, smarter about it than they were before.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um anything else you know, what have you seen about for reasons for casual account suspension?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I see a lot of the NCX stuff to be honest.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Not account suspension.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: So uh we have been fortunate not to have to deal with a lot of like total account suspensions.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and to be honest with you, that's a little bit above what we do.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: We would probably refer them to somebody like you guys if you do that.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but what we see usually is on the product level, and we'll see a lot of poor customer reviews, like quality issues around that typically lead to um product being suppressed.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then I know like the poor shipping and um on-time delivery, product defect rates, like all those might lead to uh product and or account suspension.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's what we've seen on our end.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, which honestly, we are more on um async suspension account suspension as well.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, poor voice of the customer, people not noticing high return rates or high high levels of problems, um, people leaving just reviews which are blatantly not related to the product but are highly negative, you know, this thing burnt my hand off, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever the review is.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, because we are we only to handle account suspensions when it's something that we know what's happened and they come to us first.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Usually when people come to you for an account suspension, they've begged, they've tried everything, and they've done something against TOS, at least in our experience.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: So um we leave them to other people.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: We do a lot of product and product suspensions, write a lot of plans of action.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, plan of action for sure.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: How do you guys handle some of like the random changes?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like I know we had the um the pesticides was a big issue, and I know there was something recently, I can't think of it, but it's like they just sweep uh a bunch of these brands under one algorithmic umbrella.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, have you guys had a lot of experience with that?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: And kind of how do you tackle um those types of situations where it's something everything's been running great, Amazon changes something, and uh it's a fire drill.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, it's great for our clients because we are integrating into so many accounts, we see the patterns early on, and then we develop a process.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: As you said, as I said, we got like 40 people, hundreds of accounts.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it means that we now have a process to fix it, and we'll just go through every account and fix it.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: So each one of the account managers will go through, follow the process we develop, and then sort it out, to be honest.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we we've got some workarounds for things like pesticides, you know, the the number one bit one being if you're a US company, just do the pesticide test.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you can just sell pesticides.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then if you get taken down, it doesn't matter because you can still sell.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you're a non-US company, then that's the worst.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we had a company with 40,000 skews who got caught on 40,000 skews who are a Canadian company.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that was like a long-term project fixing that one.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: I bet.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um But yes, there's Amazon bots that go through and highlight words like antibacterial and then get you done for pesticides, really frustrating.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: It is frustrating.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Luckily, it can be turned around pretty quickly, but to your point, I couldn't imagine having to do that through a 40,000 skew catalog.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: That that would be a full-time job as an understatement.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty crazy.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what are some proactive steps the sellers could take to build uh a strong foundation for maintaining good long long-term account health?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, proactive steps.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, look at it.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, check it.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe put it on your on your checklist, like how often are you doing things and hopefully you have a checklist for yourself or for your team.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't, create a checklist.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because if you do it all from memory, you can never outsource it to someone else.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of us start a business because we want some freedom.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, sell a candy is one of those services that helps give you more freedom.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, put it on your checklist, check it regularly, and manage manage yourself like you're an employee.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because the reality is if you're a business owner, you might be slacking off sometimes and uh you can probably get your work done more efficiently or quicker.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um check the voice of the customer, go through all of your account health pages, check your brand dashboard if you're a brand owner, and um yeah, if everything move if anything moves in the wrong direction, talk to your friends or talk to seller candy or talk to you guys and uh figure out what you should be doing.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well said.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: How does having good documentation uh impact the process for resolving account health issues?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Do you find with the sellers and some of the issues that you're uh having to deal with that documentation is required?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: And is it a challenge to get it from some of the sellers you serve?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think it depends on depends on the issue.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if it's a most people these days have better documentation.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Years a couple of years ago, not so much.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, like a child safety certificate or a hazmat certificate if you need it, or a supplemental, a supplement certificate.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Most people tend to have them if they need know they need them.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the worst one is Amazon when Amazon asks for something that isn't needed and then would accept that it's not needed.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: But then that's where we come in, you know, continuously back and forth, calling, figuring out why they believe you need this special document, which you definitely don't need for this type of product, and trying to educate them that they don't need it.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's funny.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Educating seller support could be a full-time job, John.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: I 100% agree.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: And on that note too, dive it a little deeper.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: So um, what what advice for navigating appeals when Amazon responses seem vague and generic?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like uh is anything your team does uh to get answers outside of just being really persistent, which seems to be uh the best way to handle seller support.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, we have like a three-step system for that.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um I can go through very quickly if you want.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's do it.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: All right, step one, you get you get your listing gets taken down.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, oh no, my product's down.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um raise a case to seller support, asking them why it's down.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's the first step you always need to take because then you've got a case number.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Do you need that case number?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, then you'd uh go into another case log, you'd ask them to up um ask them to enable your category listing report if it's not already enabled on your account.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: For anyone who's listening, that's basically a flat file of all of your listings.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: And because your listing's suspended, you can't edit it, but through the category listing report, you can edit it.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you then find your listing.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: If it's been suppressed for something on the listing, which it half the time has, you then just sanitize the listing.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you go through everything on the listing, you change it to the most generic, useless thing ever throughout.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: So there's nothing that could possibly offend Amazon's bots.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, this this product does XYZ, no claims, no nothing.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, then you flash the listing.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you re-upload that as a flat file, as a bulk upload file, then you've got a bulk upload number.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Then on the third step, you call Amazon and you say, um, actually, you might want to delete relist.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: If it doesn't work, you might want to delete relist the product before step step 2.5.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: So delete it, wait 24 hours, relist it.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can call Amazon.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: You've done those three things, and they're the three things they're going to ask you to do.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got a case log, you give them the case number, you've got a bulk upload number, you give them that.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: You told them you've deleted relisting it, and then you stay on the phone until they fix it for you.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, or you call them back again and again and again, and hopefully eventually you get through to leadership team.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: But this way, you know, you can kind of shorten your two weeks of back and forth into like three or four days.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Still, still two or three days, maybe.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but at least you're pushing it through the system.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um otherwise, they're just gonna you're gonna call them up.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: What's gonna happen is you're gonna call them up and they're gonna raise the case for you, which is the first step.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Two more days is gonna happen, they're gonna tell you to do the next bit.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, cool.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Two more days is gonna happen, they're gonna tell you to delete realists, and then you're gonna be back where you were anyway, just a week later.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but it's smart, honestly, and it's real pro obviously you guys have a lot of experience, you guys do a ton of case management.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I could hear it in the steps of just get the case number, uh, make sure that you delete it because that's what they tell you to do.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: 80% of the even if it's not related, they're like delete the listing and leave us alone for two days.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I totally get it.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh last question because I do want to jump into a bad seller candy, but have you ever emailed like the Jeff Bezos email or whatever the new one is now?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like, has it ever worked for you guys?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever been so desperate that you gave that a shot?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, yeah.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we actually got a list of emails, a list of useful emails.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you want that, you can email me and I'll I'll send it to you.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, Jeff still kind of works, only works for certain things.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a bunch of different ones, like heads of different departments.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think we've got like 20 or so different email addresses that we can use for that, but we only use that at the most extreme circumstances, otherwise we we're gonna get it's gonna get disabled.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I've got a great slide from a webinar and presentation I do, which is Jeff as Jeff Bezos' Dr.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Evil, which I always share when I ask who is responding at the other end of this email address, and it's like Dr.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Bezos, it's great.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um we do email those, but uh only on extreme circumstances.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you heard it here first.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: It does work, but under extreme circumstances, and I'm sure they're inundated.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we've actually found some success posting in the seller forums too.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: So if it's uh not an issue worthy of emailing, um, I guess it'd be Andy Jesse now.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the people in the seller forum can be pretty responsive and help drive results too.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: So uh so tip out there for you guys as well.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, awesome, awesome.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: So now I want to talk about seller candy.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: What I love about talking with other agency owners, like um understanding what the experience is like working with you guys and how you guys do business.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, with that being said, can you walk us through how seller candy works?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like what makes your approach to solving sellers um unique compared to traditional Amazon support?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, so what we do that's unique is we don't do what you do.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we don't do performance management, we don't do uh PPC, we just deal with the stuff you don't want to do in your daily operations.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um so if you want to work with Seller Candy, what you do is you go to the website, you book a call with our team, and our team figures out if we're a good fit to serve you.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, do we do you have enough ASINs?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have the right revenue level for us?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Do you fit our client profile?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll tell you if not, but if you want us to fix something, we'll still fix it for you.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: But we'll tell you if you're a great fit for us long term or not.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um then we onboard you.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: What that means is you jump on a call with our onboarding person, they show you the system, they get access to your account because we need limited permissions to be able to manage cases, and they introduce you to your account manager.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, then you have access to the system.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we have our own portal, you log in, you log, like basically what happened, what you want to happen, you just log it in through our system so you can see everything, because we find that Amazon sellers are not the most organized people necessarily.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we give you a portal, which basically you can organize everything you want to do inside with us.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we also do an audit of your account.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we book you in for an audit call a week after you're onboarded.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: In that time, you've used our system a bit, and then we go through and we give you a whole list of stuff to give to us.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we show you um what you know what might be some things you want to change in your account, what are some settings you might want to update.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, we try and make it so you get a great experience and you also um get the most use out of our service.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Then we're into steady state, you get a monthly check-in call, and um you get to know your account manager and their team leader, and we just make your life easier and more pleasant on a daily basis.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't need to manage us.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's no hiring, no training.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to keep on top of our competency.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we are self-managed.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Just give us the stuff and use as a tool if you want to.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Let us do our thing.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: And you're primarily managing cases uh and things that pertain to account health.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, like typically, if I was a supplement brand, I would hire you guys to deal with just case management and anything additional?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Anything that you can deal with in seller support.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: So you raise a case about.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, it could be um, it could be as complicated as a a Suppress listing and why has it gone down and what's happening?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or it could be as simple as updating listings, content, uh raising, you know, we can do that through flat files, or we can contact make cases.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of most things now are locked down.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you just give it to us and we'll figure out why it's locked down and fix it, or merge the listings, or merge the reviews, or whatever you can raise a raise a ticket about, really.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: I like and then most of the communications is done through the the dashboard, and then you guys use email on top of the monthly strata uh calls with your account manager.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: So everything everything is done through the dashboard, but you receive that by email as well.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: So every time we respond, you get by email, you can respond to the email, but it means that everything's traceable.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: If one of our team is sick or goes on holiday, you don't even notice, we just replace them immediately and then they swap out again.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um we have we can have calls with you if we need to.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Something complicated.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: We can jump on a Zoom call.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, that's what makes it simple to work with us.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it sounds super simple.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of nice that it's all all through the system, and um uh you have the team already trained, so it's not like if somebody left or they're on holiday, you have to worry, you know, what's John is my account being serviced, so on and so forth.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Can you share a success story, an example of how seller candy helped us uh a seller overcome a major challenge around their Amazon business?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a couple of years ago there was the big uh the big uh whatever you call it, boost while everyone was selling their businesses, you know, the big bubble.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, and one of our clients was being purchased by one of the biggest, now mostly bankrupt, um aggregators.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um and they came to us and they said, these guys are buying us.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um but we've got a problem.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Our main skew is down, it's been down for three weeks.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: These guys have told us they've got an amazing ops team and they're gonna get it back up, but it's not back up.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a three million dollar sale.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if we don't get it back up, we're gonna lose three million dollars.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: So they came to us, we said, All right, we'll we'll do it, we'll look at it.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we dove in, we figured out what was wrong.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, it was um it was both a brand issue and a catalog issue at the same time, which is why they got stuck.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it took us a while to fix it.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think it took us like 10 days to fix it, but still way better than the the three weeks they got nowhere with.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Got it back up.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: They were super thankful.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: They said, All right, see you later.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're good now.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Two weeks later, it goes down again for a different reason.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: They come back, we fix it again, and they sell it and they um you know get their milk through millions of dollars and uh all good.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we made a couple of thousand a thousand dollars or something, should have charged them a percentage.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we did a great thing for them and uh great success story for us.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's amazing too.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it's cool you're able to take them into their next business to be able to sell their business.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: And man, that was a hot time um to be in the e-com space.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, John, this was super helpful.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Anything else you want to share about seller candy?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Anything additional about how you guys do business before I ask you to share the uh the future or your your opinions on the future of e-commerce and technology?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we've got a couple of um resources.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are unsure about what we do, you can head to sellercandy.com, scroll down, and there's a menu of services, and that kind of gives you a real overview of everything we actually do, which is super useful.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um we also have an a um a guide like that we've put together from the last five years of doing business, which takes you through the top seven issues that everyone has with their account, um, how to solve them step by step.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: You can check that out.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's at sellercandy.academy.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's a URL.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's not.com, Sellercandy.academy.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: It forwards you to our ebook, uh, to our download page for that.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you can put in your email, download that super useful guide.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um, if you want that list of emails of Amazon um escalation emails, just email me, John at sellacandy.com.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And just so everybody knows, all the links John mentioned, they'll be in the show notes.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: So wherever you're tuning in, be sure to check it out.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we'll link everything there, and John's email will be there.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: So you could definitely email John uh for those email addresses.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And uh great.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, John, on that note, uh we have a tradition here.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: We ask all our guests to predict the future of e-commerce based on some trends.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna ask you to pull out your crystal ball.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the question: how do you see emerging technologies like AI and machine learning shaping the way sellers manage their account health and operations over the next few years?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think that in a few years' time, we'll just stay at home all day.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Amazon will order things for us, they'll arrive at our house, and uh we will just become consuming machines.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: I like so we're on our way to Wally World pretty much.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm totally joking.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: No, like when I was doing my training back, you know, when I was doing ASM4 back in 2015, everyone was like, bye, 2021, everyone will order through Alexa.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Everything will be no the Amazon's choice badge is for the Alexa choice.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was like everyone's just gonna order that.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that didn't happen, did it?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, so um we will see, you know.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think AI is an amazing feature.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think there was a really good uh podcast I was listening to that was describing talking about AI.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, it's becoming clear that AI is not a tool, it's a feature.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: So everything's gonna have an AI feature in it.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: But these AI tools are probably gonna mostly die out.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe Chat GPT will survive.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but they're just gonna be everything else is gonna be AI, AI interfaced.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, I think for sell support in the long term, uh, hopefully Amazon gets their support together, but in the short term, it's getting worse.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: So great for seller candy, but um not uh not great for everyone else.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a while away until they can trust decision making to the AI.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think uh I 100% agree there.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a good uh tool or feature, like it's good to help, uh, but it's certainly not replacing anyone.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it uh seller support would be a complete nightmare if they just got rid of all the people and made it AI and bot driven.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh talk about job security, John.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean, I think everyone in a middle level, um mid-level knowledge ink knowledge job should be scared.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: But we're all business owners, so we're all right.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: But anyone who's like a copywriter or something like that, they should be very worried because an app an AI is better than an average copywriter, especially plugged into a smart person who can coach it and make it better.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's better.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, certain aspects for sure.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: I uh yeah, the copywriting is something that got hit uh really bad, and there's other aspects too, but that is interesting.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, hey, thanks, John, for uh for sharing your invaluable insights and experience with us today.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a pleasure having you on the show.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Before we wrap up, if you could let our listeners know where they could find you, and if there's anything else you want to share or anything uh seller candy is working on that you guys are excited about.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I mean I shared out I shared some of those resources earlier, which will be in the links.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: You can check those out.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can check out sellercandy.com.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can uh download our guide, our seven, our seven most common steps guide.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and also you can message me if you want and check my check out my email or message me on LinkedIn.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um I have someone monitoring my inbox in LinkedIn.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: They let me know if someone in mess if someone messages me, so I will I will respond to you.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, beautiful.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: John, thanks again for being on the show.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, thanks for having me.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's a wrap for today's episode of Selling on Giants.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: A big thank you to John Cavendish for sharing his expertise on protecting and maintaining Amazon account health.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you're walking away with practical steps to safeguard your business and avoid the most common pitfalls.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: If you found today's conversation valuable, please take a moment to leave us a review wherever you're tuning in, whether it's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite streaming platform.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: Your feedback helps us grow and reach more sellers like you.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: And don't forget to share this episode with a friend or colleague who could use these insights.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks again for tuning in, and we'll see you next time on Selling on Giants.