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Rant & Rate is a new subshow to Seller Sessions.
With Chris McCabe, former Amazonian. Chris joins us to talk about Amazon bad press, was an Amazonian for 5-6 years on account performance evaluation and enforcement team. Now operating as a consultant on account suspensions and protecting from.
- October last year was the report on fake reviews and a rush of suspensions.
- Once this story got into the public realm it damaged Buyer’s confidence in the Amazon platform
- There was another report this year showing a new batch of paid for reviews via PayPal and a new rush of Amazon suspensions
- Amazon is taking it seriously and taking action
Sellers Taking out Sellers
- It’s not just people manipulating for reviews – you also have Sellers leaving fake 5 star reviews on other competitor products to get them suspended
- This is a con and should be avoided and causes Amazon bad press
- If it sounds too good to be true then it very likely is
A Seller with a $400k Loss hits CNBC
- A leveraged client that has blown up with around $400k in loss of sales
- Reporters in general are interested in hearing Amazon bad press and these kind of stories from Sellers
- An attacking Seller had sent a lot of messages on WhatsApp and these had been screenshot and sent to a reporter
- The reporters love these kind of stories
- There are consequences if you’re going to take the black-hat path
- This story went into the press and was magnified because Amazon did nothing about a Seller abusing another Seller and impacted his livelihood
- Amazon do not want Amazon bad press and so now they are noticing
- Seems like there’s a lot more negative stories out there – seems like Sellers are using the media to jolt Amazon into action where they have not been taking action
- It helped that Amazon Media Relations were contacted for a quote – this team then goes inside Amazon and chases the teams that are not taking action
- CNBC taking interest really helped get Amazon to take action
Hoverboards and Fidget Spinners
- Fidget Spinners and Hoverboards
- Hoverboards got Amazon to take action of Safety – this all exploded and a safety complaint had a big impact on Sellers
- A lot of auto-granted claims happened around this Hoverboard issue which Sellers were not expecting
- This technology problem with fires and falling off your Hoverboard left sellers open to personal injury and fire risk
- This kind of rapid response reaction happened in Amazon when Chris was there too
- Amazon will take a lot of action to avoid bad-press
Steps to Take
- What steps can people take if they feel Amazon is ignoring their needs
- We spend a lot of time with active sellers to prevent suspensions by improving their communications with Amazon – as you cannot control how Amazon communicates with you
- When Sellers are confused they message Amazon more – auto responses are not helpful
- Most Sellers want telephone contact with Amazon but this is not sclable
- When you write to Amazon make sure you give them an easy to review message with bullets, numbered points and well written clear concise and direct.
- Work to get and keep Amazon’s attention with facts and data – presentation, style goes a long way
- Be careful when sourcing and do due-diligence especially around risks such as injury and fire risks
- Most sellers have integrity and want to serve Amazon customers in the correct manner
- Sometimes there will be gaps in knowledge that can introduce risks
Talking to Reporters or the Press
- Talking to reporters
- They need information they can use – not fluff
- Stick to the facts, things you can prove
- What can you show them not just tell them things
- Hopefully the reporters are doing their due-diligence too to make sure you’re a genuine story and not just trying to take out a competitor
Is it Getting Better?
- Direct contact on a 1-2-1 basis with Amazon is not scalable
- Chris is seeing improvements with Amazon – the Notice Dispute Team in Amazon did not exist
- You can now dispute a notice claim which Sellers could not do previously
- They do take notice and react, not always quickly but they are working on it
- Amazon are doing something about it – we can debate if it’s enough but they are taking action
