July 30, 2021

Hello Amazon Seller,

Thank you for being a subscriber, and thank you for opening this email.

“It’s impossible”, said Pride.
“It’s risky”, said Experience.
“It’s pointless”, said Reason.
“Give it a try”, whispered the heart.



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Amazon Suddenly "Finds" a Bunch of Lost Inventory

Many sellers were puzzled on Wednesday after Amazon informed them it would be adding inventory to their Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) account.

Amazon said the inventory in its fulfillment centers had not been allocated to sellers' accounts "due to an error in one or more of your shipments to an Amazon fulfillment center."

Read this crazy article from eCommerceBytes>

This Is the Biggest Threat to Your Amazon Business

Life is hard right now for an Amazon business owner. Sea freight costs are crazy, the Trump tariffs are still in place, and over 60% of third-party sellers are from China. However, none of these things are the biggest threat to your Amazon business.

The single biggest threat to your Amazon business and your livelihood is rising Amazon advertising costs.

This is a well-written article from EcomCrew makes some excellent points...it's worth a look.

Read the article>

How Does Amazon Search Algorithm Work?

At its center, Amazon's A9 ranking algorithm serves to maximize the number of sales on Amazon. And so, it recommends products that customers are most likely to buy. Items having the highest purchase likelihood are ranked first, while those with lower purchase likelihood are ranked second, third, and so on.

This begs an important question:
How does Amazon determine what product a customer is most likely to buy?

Below is a link to an excellent article from ZonGuru that spells it out for us.

Read about this>

Review Manipulation Glitch

Sellers are revealing that their product reviews are being wrongly flagged for review manipulation.

Amazon is reportedly displaying ASINs in the review manipulation section of their account dashboards and then deactivating those listings. Some of them are products these sellers have never even sold or ones they sold as long ago as 2015.

It is unclear at this moment whether this is a glitch or some other nefarious doings of the evil underbelly.

Amazon refuses to acknowledge appeals on the basis that sellers never sold these items. Instead, the seller receives a canned response claiming that the listing in question has had high levels of review abuse and that they will not reinstate the listing for the benefit of any seller, whether they’d ever sold that item or not.

How To Choose & Calculate The Right Keywords To Rank With Amazon PPC

This podcast might help a little with helping you not waste money with Amazon's overpriced advertising.

This week we look at what keywords to rank with, this is an area a lot of people mess up as they choose keywords that are not in Brand Analytics (fatal mistake), too high volume, and cannot get impressions or high volume with poor relevance to the chosen product. He provides you calculations you can use to verify which search terms are best to use based on your current position. For example, this will change on an existing product with a campaign or organic sales history versus dropping a new SKU with zero.

Take a listen>

Really Cool WebPage

The webinar below is powered by Sellerapp. They have a page that I find so interesting. Go to the link below and put in any ASIN and you will get a ton of information about the link. Need an ASIN to try, use this one: B00YPD99KA

Sure it is designed to get you to sign up for SellerApp, but there is some great and free info there about each ASIN and is very well presented.

See for yourself>
mastery

Amazon Q4 Mastery

Gain expert advice from industry specialists and connoisseurs who will equip you with the skills needed to navigate this Q4 successfully. There are exciting goodie bags on offer for those who register. So what are you waiting for?

Register for the Q4 Mastery webinar, which will take place from the 2nd to the 6th of August 2021. The event is free. All you need to do is register.

Save your spot>

I know the webinars above and the one below have the same dates and look similar, but they are two different webinars.

ecomq4

eComQ4 Summit

This event was created by sellers for sellers like you. The best way to experience a highly profitable quarter fourth is to learn from world-class 6 and 7 figure sellers who are actively running their own successful eCommerce businesses on Amazon, eBay, Shopify, and more.

They will teach you straightforward, easy-to-understand strategies and techniques to help you get quick wins in your business this fourth quarter. The current eCommerce stats and potential future growth projections are insane.
Get your piece of this eCommerce pie. It's time for YOU to stop sitting on the sidelines and take your business to the next level. GET REGISTERED TODAY so you can learn how to get massive profits in 2021.

Price: Free

Place: Virtual Online

Date: August 2-5, 2021


This Summit is FREE to watch each individual day, 8/2-8/5. To obtain UNLIMITED replay access to each MASTERCLASS session plus obtain ALL the BONUSES, you can purchase the All-Access Pass. The current price is $97 for 22 Masterclass sessions + 4 hours of LIVE Q&A sessions and 28 Bonuses, all covering what's working right now in the current eCommerce climate. That's over 26 hours of AMAZING valuable content to help you crush the fourth quarter.

Grab your ticket>

The Closest Thing to Removing Negative Amazon Reviews

There is no worse feeling than seeing a negative review pop up on your listing after all the hard work (and money) you put into the product. As an Amazon seller, one of the first things you ask in that situation is, “How do I contact the customer who left this review?” After all, offering great customer service is the closest thing you can do to removing negative Amazon reviews.

There are some things you can do, but you have to be brand registered.

Below is a link to an excellent article from Jungle Scout on this topic.

Read more>

Using Instagram Reels To Promote Your Amazon Products

Video-based shopping is on the rise, and Instagram is set to become a top video-shopping app. They have strived to stay ahead of the competition, and one of their most popular features, Instagram Reels, has made it possible for many sellers to boost their sales through short, fun, and entertaining videos.

Showcasing your products through Instagram Reels is an engaging way to share content and drive more users into your online store.

Sidenote:
If you have never heard of Instagram Reels, join the club, because neither have I.

Learn how to do it>

Amazon’s Review System Is Not Broken

Amazon’s review model has been through many upgrades and bolt-ons. It was once easy for sellers to buy reviews and entice customers to leave 5-star feedback, but no more.

The overwhelming percentage of reviews are actually legit. Moreover, Amazon continues to adopt practices that make fraudulent product reviews a thing of the past.

Read a bit more about this from Practical ECommerce>

The Ever-Changing Amazon Return Policy

Starting August 16, 2021, Amazon will automatically authorize U.S. return requests that fall within Amazon’s return policy, including items where sellers filed requests to exempt SKUs from the Prepaid Return Label program. For returns of seller-filled SKUs that are exempt from the Prepaid Return Label program, sellers will have the option to upload a merchant-paid label. Return requests that are out-of-policy or category-exempt will be sent for manual authorization.

All Individual sellers are now enrolled in the Prepaid Return Label program.
So, Amazon will automatically authorize all returns that are within policy and then issue return labels. Sellers will only receive requests for out-of-policy returns.

Then, starting Aug. 31, 2021, sellers will also receive requests for these types of items:
Handmade and Amazon Custom
Certified Pre-Owned Watches
Professional Medical & Dental Supplies
Sexual Wellness
Intangible items (digital software, coupons, warranties, etc.).
Dangerous goods and those non-returnable by law.
Heavy and bulky items.

Sellers can continue to ask for exemptions for high-value SKUs (worth over $100) that need special shipping.

But Amazon will grant no other exemptions. So, low-value items that need special shipping or items over 70 lbs in weight and 108 inches in girth can’t be exempt.

Read more on how to request exemptions>

Amazon’s Revolving Door of Brands

The list of best-sellers on Amazon is different day-to-day. And it’s not new trends replacing old ones. Instead, it is brands that didn’t exist just recently pushing out other short-lived brands. Unrecognizable, unpronounceable, and unmemorable and only created for the sake of selling on Amazon.

In the headphones category on Amazon, 1,800 different products from 666 brands were among the top 100 best-sellers in the last twenty-four months. That’s nearly three new products from almost one new brand every day replacing current items in the best-sellers list. Those brands are pseudo-brands like NUBBYO, LAFITEAR, NANMING, AIWONS, or HWCONA.

Read more at MarketPlace Pulse>

Jungle Scout Summer Sale....this is a special sale that the general public won't see. Good until August 15th.

jungle scout summer sale 2

Tidbits:

From Aug. 22, 2021, sellers must provide information about the Country of Origin (COO) of any product they’re listing.
Without this information, sellers will be unable to create new listings or edit existing ones. Sellers are advised to check that all their listings have this information.

Amazon has announced a VAT Service that is aimed at helping sellers with European VAT compliance. Upon joining, Amazon will take care of all the filing costs in the first six months.

Some sellers had thousands of ASINS delisted for using UPCs that are not in GS1 for the name-brand items used. For example, listing a 2 pack Sony with a speedy bar UPC (that’s not SONY) can get you delisted. This is so far only for very popular brands. If you are private label and have old listings with UPC’s, not GS1 it has so far not been an issue.

Amazon is hiring executives with Bitcoin expertise, and the buzz is that the company plans to accept Bitcoin payments by the end of the year.

If you want to read about Amazon's Q2 Report, see it here.

CashCowPro

A lot of people seem to be searching for this software and they end up on our site. There must be a reason.....

CashCowPro was designed, developed, and built by a team of sellers and tech specialists. The software reports on sales data, tracks keywords, collects feedback and reviews, finds profitable niches, monitors inventory, improves conversions, and split tests listing title, price, images, and features. See real-time sales, profits and refunds, competitor sales tracking, stock level, and sales velocity. Monitor your own keywords (and your competition’s keywords). Monitor the competitiveness of your keywords with a listing analyzer and optimizer. A sales velocity calculator provides an out-of-stock predictor.

Cashcowpro has a 20 million best seller index on which you can get estimated sales, price, fees, BSR, FBA fees, and weight using their free chrome extension.

The automated feedback feature allows you to set up a drip-email campaign to remind customers to leave positive reviews. What’s more, emails are sent based on best practices, and this feature is 100% Amazon compliant.

The A/B Split Testing tool helps you optimize your listing so that you know which price will yield you the most profit. The tool compares titles, costs, and main images. The tool is 100% automatic – just set it up and let it do its job.

The Page Views & Conversion % feature lets you see just how well your listings are converting. You can quickly access customer and order details about a selected order on the CashCowPro interface.

The platform supports five major Amazon marketplaces (USA, UK/EU, Canada, Mexico, Japan).

They are having a sale right now, until August 31, 2021.
Subscribe for 3 months and get 4 months.
Subscribe for 8 months and get 4 months free.

Check it out here>

Deals we know about....

Use this Promo Code - A2Z50 for 50% off lifetime of your subscription to Zonbase
Use this Promo Code - A2ZSC50 for 50% off your first month for Helium 10.
Use this Promo Code - SAPPHIRE for 20% off your first three months for Seller Labs software.
Use this new Promo Code - A2Z_10_6MON_2021 for 10% Off For 6 Months for A2X software

Use this new Promo Code - A2ZSC for 20% off the first month or annual plan for SmartScout
NOTE: Above offers are subject to change.
Thank you for reading. I wish you unbelievable success. Selling on Amazon can be challenging sometimes, but I know that we can all achieve our goals by working hard and helping each other.

Any suggestions about our site or this newsletter are welcome. Just hit reply and let us know your thoughts.

Keep sourcing, keep selling, keep learning, keep growing.

You can do this!


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