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Anthony Lee joins us to talk about Amazon Sellers who are also Service Providers and a conflict of interest. And it is not just Sellers that bring up the idea of a conflict of interest.
It’s not a Conflict of interest…
- It’s not a conflict of interest because if you are a solid, reputable service provider then you will have NDAs and privacy policies in place to restrict the sharing and utilisation of customer information and data for your own benefit
- Think just like a stock broker example or financial adviser who manages your trades/investments
- He knows where you are investing and if he used that information for his own gain then it’s deemed unethical
- But it does happen – as a recent popular keyword tracking service got bought by a Chinese company that was a Huge Reseller – and it was very evident they used the data for their own gain
- It will happen because there are unethical people there
- Does this mean that you don’t have an Agency handle your PPC for fear of conflict of interest?
It’s about Trust
- You like to be around people that you like and trust
- Some content marketers that are fly-by-nights
MWS Authorisation does not give up control
- A lot of people believe that when you give up access to MWS to a provider they can control your account
- This is not true
- They can see data and they can submit flat file feeds through the API to change your listing
- The worst they can do is screwup your listing and see your data
- All your data is telling them is how many sales you are making
- This is data they can get without your account anyway
It’s not a long term Business Model to be unethical
- Understand that people want to be on-guard
- Agencies you would vet in the same way as any other service provider
- How long have they been around
- Are they reputable
- Stealing your idea is not a part of their business model
Unintended consequences
- There are companies that have sold companies and then the data is used in a way that was not intended
- If you have access to data then you ‘could’ be accused
- Danny uses service providers that have made a conscious decision not to be Amazon Sellers so that this cannot be claimed
Trust Me – I’m not a Seller
- There are some companies out there that ‘claim’ NOT to be Sellers but…
- One – then how can they be good at serving you if they are not Sellers and understand it
- Two – how can they say they are not sellers, are they 100% sure there’s no sellers in their employee list
- Also, the ‘hurdle’ to become a seller is very small, you could become a seller in a day
The Risk is Pretty Low
- The majority of these services are just pursuing their business models
- There are some service providers who claim to be Sellers – and they really are not, might have done some arbitrage a few years back
- There are only TWO cases that Anthony knows of where companies have abused Sellers
- If there’s a public face to the business then you can engage with them and get a feel for trust
Sellers Services run by Sellers
- When Sellers run services the tools are being developed to help their own selling business
- So they get to the point quickly and the tools are aimed at fixing the right problems
- These services will move with Amazon’s ToS as they will 100% need their offerings to follow terms for their own selling
The Refunds Programme
- The refunds program led to people being suspended
- This was difficult as Amazon don’t make it easy
- The company in question just made a mistake and didn’t know it would get anyone in trouble
Poor Service experience
- Anthony used to do Listing optimisation as a consultant
- He had a client that had a ‘Matcha Tea’ listing that he was optimizing
- Anthony hadn’t tackled this kind of listing before and didn’t know anything about Matcha Tea so he researched it and found out about chelated minerals and detoxing
- He used his research to update and optimize the client’s listing
- Within minutes the client was in-touch and his listing had been suspended
- This was because it’s against the law (FDA) in the US to sell chelation products that do any treatment to toxicity
- If you make these claims you can’t sell this product – Amazon will not let you sell this product without the proper FDA certification
- This poor dude was told this product cannot be sold
- This mistake cost Anthony money and wrote his appeals for him and the client got it back so a happy ending in the end
A Good Service Provider will….
- A service provider needs to keep their skills relevant and upto date
- They need to keep a track of Amazon rules and ToS to make their service relevant
- If you are a successful seller, they haven’t got time to be stealing ideas of other sellers
- Most of these services are still pretty new
- Extra data is being pulled in some of these areas as the business might be testing a new service offering that will help you
How do you pick a Service Provider?
- First place you go is your network – who is using what service and what is their experience (word of mouth from someone you trust)
- Do you due-dilligence
- Do a whois:site.com and see what they have in there, who runs it and where
- Lookup their Manta or BBB to find out where they are located
- This will make you feel better to know where their office
- If you can’t find this info then maybe go on to the next service provider that’s more open
- If you feel like they want your business and perform then you have found a good service
Test the Customer Service
- Danny puts in a support call on a new service to test the quality and timeliness of their support
- This is a good indicator to how the business is operating
- Your business with Amazon needs 24hrs to turn things around so your service provider must be able to respond
