169: The Missing Piece of Amazon Selling: Avoid Account Suspension, Increase Reviews and Scale Your E-Commerce Business Cynthia Stine

Robert Plank 0:00 Robert Plank Show, episode 169 the missing piece of Amazon selling, avoid account suspension, increase reviews and scale your E commerce business with Cynthia Stein, Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Robert Plank show, we talk about all kinds of subjects, from website creation and selling on Amazon as well. Our guest today is Cynthia Stein, and she's the founder of Online sales, step by step. It's the industry's leading consulting firm dedicated to helping Amazon sellers get reinstated and avoid suspensions from the platform. She is used to being an advocate for businesses and the voice of the frustrated and powerless. Prior to becoming an Amazon seller in 2010 Cynthia had 25 plus years in business crisis and turnaround consulting experience. She's also an influential blogger and the author of two popular books, suspension, prevention, get reinstated and protect your Amazon Seller accounts and make 1000s on Amazon in 10 hours a week. So Cynthia, welcome to the show. How are things going today?

Cynthia Stine 1:04 Oh, well, thank you for having me. And I would say that hell's a poppin today. So this last week has been among the craziest that I've had since I've started this business. So yeah, it's been nuts because Amazon has been making so many changes that affect its third party sellers on the platform, and everybody's freaking out, basically,

Robert Plank 1:28 oh well, I mean, I can't wait to talk about that, about, you know, the scary part, and then what the the answer is for us all to get out of it. So as we're ramping up today, can you tell people about just to make sure that we're all caught up or all on the same page. This thing about, you know, being an Amazon seller, could you tell everyone you know what it is and why people should sell on Amazon compared to other opportunities or platforms?

Cynthia Stine 1:55 Well, absolutely. And you know, basically a lot of people, when I first started this in 2010 selling on Amazon. A lot of people honestly didn't realize that they could buy anything else besides books on Amazon. And you know, 2010 doesn't sound that far away, but it's been light years in terms of how things have changed, and for third party sellers, you know, people like me, I can sell on the platform and use the same listings and the same technology that Amazon does, and I can have Amazon take care of my fulfillment for me, which means I can send them all my inventory, and they actually sell it and distribute it for me. So I don't have to have a warehouse. And, you know, I can have them take care of payments, and I get to leverage the fact that Amazon is the most trusted brand in the world, and so basically, I get all the benefits of being Amazon, which is really amazing, considering many Amazon businesses are are like I started out there, small mom and pop, family owned businesses, and they're able to sell millions of dollars a year on Amazon, you know, with just a few people and with relatively little effort. I mean, I will never tell you that a business isn't going to be hard work, but when you consider you're going to work hard anyway, you might as well work for yourself and and so Amazon, being the number one website for E commerce, just absolutely brings the buyers. And so, you know, it's, it overwhelms any other site out there, including eBay, walmart.com, any other site you might think of jet it. You know, Amazon is just the big gorilla. So from an opportunity perspective, of course, people are flocking to it, and, you know, trying to make their fortune on amazon.com and many people have, many people have been successful, and they're continuing to grow, but there are hiccups and and so one of the things is, you know, Amazon has a lot of rules. People don't always understand them. People get into this business, and maybe they don't have a lot of business experience, or they just don't have a lot of selling experience, and so they make mistakes because they don't understand retail, or they don't understand Amazon, and and when they do, Amazon will sometimes come down on them kind of hard, and that's where I come in. So with my company, we're a consulting company. And I started off as a seller in 2010 I still sell, but my selling is pretty small right now because I'm mostly doing consulting and, and basically I understand the needs of the sellers, because I am a seller and and so me, my team, we call ourselves seller advocates, because we know that there's someone needs to be on the side of the seller, Amazon as the big gorilla, and as the, you know, the company that's allowing us to sell on its platform, it doesn't always take its sellers into account when it changes the rules or, you know, enacts new policy that. Kind of thing. And so what happens is they may suddenly suspend a bunch of sellers from selling on the platform, and it takes them by surprise, the sellers. And what we do is we help them get reinstated and get back to selling. And there's a whole bunch of other services that we do that are either related to getting them back or keeping them from being suspended in the first place. So my business grew because Amazon started making so many changes, basically in 2015, and and so from then, that's where I've built. My business is helping sellers and almost every week, but certainly the last few weeks we've seen all kinds of changes. So right now, if you were on the Facebook groups, you would see a lot of sellers freaking out, running around, you know, wringing their hands. And so, you know, my job is to help them understand what's going on, why it's going on, and and how to how to operate within the new rules. Because the fact is, nobody wants to leave Amazon, right? It is a it is a great site for building wealth, so everyone just needs to learn the rules as they change and adapt. And to the best of my ability, I also try to help people see ahead. So the changes that happened this week, I actually have been talking about and forecasting for the last year and and the reason why is because the one thing that Amazon is consistent about, the one reason why people love Amazon, is that they are so buyer focused. Like, if you go and buy something on their platform, they make it so easy, so safe, so trustworthy, and so Amazon does everything in its power to keep it a great experience for the buyer. Unfortunately for sellers, this means it's not always great for the seller, and they are definitely the, you know, they're definitely the redheaded stepchild in this relationship, way behind the buyer, which is frustrating, because, of course, we're all also buyers, and we know how wonderful it is when Amazon really cares about you.

Robert Plank 7:17 Yeah, and I've kind of noticed that, like, just as far as from a buyer's point of view, I was blown away that, like, something I bought maybe a month or so ago, I had like a, like a same day free Prime shipping, and I bought this thing, and then I was just thinking, like, how the heck is Amazon gonna get this to me today? I don't think they have drones in operation yet. And then it turned out that they their system hooked into some, like, local delivery company. I thought, well, that's pretty cool. Like, like, any seller can get started quickly and plug in. And then I was thinking, well, that's, that's so weird that Amazon, you know, they trust any seller to, you know, ship things on time or send the right item in, or they trust any shipping company that wants to hook into the system to, you know, get the package there the same day the order comes in. But then, I guess, but also, thinking of it from the way that you're explaining it, it's like, okay, like anyone can get started fast, and anyone gets that trust by Amazon, but as a seller, if you screw up once or twice, then you're really dinged. And that's, that's at least what my experience was as a seller as well. And I still sell a little bit, but I've kind of phased it out, sort of like you as well. But I've noticed that as a seller, like, if you're not, you know, 99.99% on your game, they will, they'll kind of give you a little bit of a black mark. Is that right?

Cynthia Stine 8:34 Yeah, that's, that's right. They kind of through the trust but verify, right? And I will say that Amazon is probably the most metric centric technology company you've ever worked with, and they track everything. The data that they can see, the minutia that they follow and track, is absolutely mind boggling. And so that's how they that's how they know if you're doing a good job, right? That's how they know and and so when something comes up, a lot of people tell me that they're completely surprised, like we had no idea that, you know, we were having this problem, right? And usually, when I go back and I look at their reports and the things that they were getting from Amazon, I actually can see that they were having this problem for a while, right? They just didn't know where to look. And that's, you know, and that's not surprising, because you as a seller know this Seller Central, which is where sellers kind of interface with Amazon is huge, confusing and not always intuitively laid out. And so there's no one or nothing there that says, you know, Hey, Robert, you should be looking at this report every week. And so they don't always tell you what they're looking at. And so that's part of what I try to do with my book and with my consulting, is to help sellers understand what they should be looking at, what Amazon is. Looking at so they can keep track of that, and they can fix problems before they get up to the the Amazon warning level. So, but I don't, I totally get why sellers are confused, or they don't see this stuff coming, because it took, you know, it took me a while to figure it all out. I'm probably the only person you've ever met who has read the entire Amazon Terms of Service restrictions and all of Seller Central, and even so, that even so, it's so they keep they keep adding to it and changing it. So I'm sure there's a few things there that I haven't read.

Robert Plank 10:35 So along those lines of, you know, some sellers not knowing about all the the pitfalls and the traps. So what exactly happened recently that has all these people freaking out? Okay,

Cynthia Stine 10:46 so this was the case of people who were using review programs. So if you sell a brand on the platform, like, you know, you your private label, or you you just have your own brand, maybe you're the manufacturer that you're selling on Amazon. A lot of times, companies like that would basically sign up with a review service because they wanted to get a lot of reviews to kind of kick start their their sales. And also because we all know that the Amazon algorithm favors listings. That's what they're called. When the product, you know, you go to look at a product favors listings that has a lot of activity on it, sales and also reviews. And so they would hire these companies that would shoot their reviews, you know, through the roof, right? And so you would go out there and see people, you know, companies, especially the supplement guys, some of them would have like 30,000 reviews in like a year, it was insane, right? And you'd be like, Good grief, I don't even know if Harry Potter has that many reviews, right? And so that that was because they were gaming the system. And there was a lot of ways they can game the system, and Amazon has been shutting down those loopholes all year long, but this latest news, they basically said nobody can use an outside review company to get reviews on the platform. The only company you can use is Amazon's own program, which is the vine program, because, again, it's fully vetted and trusted, and they have complete control over it. And so the other thing they've been doing this week is they've been taking down all of these, you know, overly cheerful, possibly paid for fake reviews. Or, let's just say, a lot of the guys who were getting these products for free and writing a review, they were just slapping stuff up there, right? There were even people who would write reviews before they even got the product, so Amazon can see all of that, and it made them unhappy, and so they basically stepped in and they took it, they took it out. So I have clients who have lost 1000s and 1000s of reviews overnight from their listing, and they're upset because they paid a lot for that. And and basically we have several, you know, companies that grew up providing the service who are now out of business. And, yeah, so the furor online. And then you have some people who are just, you know, really angry online. Or we already have people who are still trying to figure out how to game the system. Well, okay, with the new rules, that one cracks me up. I'm like, did you learn? Nothing just happened, you know. So there will always be the hustlers, I guess, who want that competitive edge and and I'm like, Well, there's a future client, so that's what's got people, you know, if you're and then, of course, they're all wondering, well, what can I do to support my product? Because, sure, you can do sponsored ads, and everybody does that. But we really want reviews, because they mean so much to the buyer, but obviously they don't mean much to the buyer if they're fake or paid for, right, right? So that's what the latest furor is, you know. And Amazon, like I said, this has been coming for a long time, and they've been going at it kind of piece by piece, stopping certain behaviors, putting out new policy things all year long. I mean, it wasn't it was it really shouldn't have been a shock to anybody, but it was a shock to a lot of people that they finally did it. I think,

Robert Plank 14:30 yeah, and I too, have seen that happen in little bits by bits like maybe about it. This time last year, Amazon was going after different Freelancer sites for people who are publicly offering for reviews to the point where not just getting it shut down, but like, full on lawsuits and stuff.

Cynthia Stine 14:48 Yes, and that's the thing they they have. That's what I'm saying. That this water writing has been on the wall for a while. I mean, they were literally they were suing companies. They were suing individual sellers. And. Then, of course, my business is helping sellers who've been suspended. And so I would get suspensions, you know, every single week. And I tell people this, I get them all the time for manipulation of the platform, product, review, abuse, etc. And you know, a lot of times we are able to get our sellers back, but the only way we can do that is to give up all the fraudulent reviews, or the not only fraudulent, but against Terms of Service. And so I have been saying this and talking about this for well over a year and and so, you know, I guess everybody finally got it, but that's exactly what Amazon did. They are very serious about buyer trust. And so I always tell people, if you are thinking of something and you think that it might, you know, in effect, you know, interfere with buyer trust. You know, don't do it, because Amazon will be all over it.

Robert Plank 15:59 That's, that's a pretty good test, right there, yeah? Because, and, I mean, yeah. And I've seen the same exact thing, and it reminds me a lot of with these people that you're trying to get around the system. It reminds me of when people would get Google slaps back in the day, and then they the next day, they'd be trying to figure out, figure out a way around it, and think, but not thinking that, okay, you're one person. There's this huge company where they have huge teams, and all they're doing all day long, 24 hours a day, is thinking of ways just to keep everything clean. And here you are, one person. You think you're going to outsmart this whole team of like, one of these biggest companies in the world. So okay, so let's say that someone, so someone's selling on Amazon, and maybe they're, they're doing, you know, a bunch of different things. And maybe they don't even realize that some of the things are doing they shouldn't be doing. So you keep mentioning this thing of a of a suspension. So what exactly is a suspension? Like? What like, What would someone wake up to if, if they did something wrong, and Amazon kind of brought down the hammer?

Cynthia Stine 16:54 Okay, so what they would wake up to is the fact that they would get a notice and get an email. It's also under their performance notifications, and when they log in, it's at the very top of Seller Central that their account is suspended and all of their listings are shut down. Nothing is selling, and they have 17 days to respond to whatever the issue is. Sometimes it's a performance issue, like if they're fulfilling their own inventory, and they're not, you know, at a high enough quality or sometimes it's a product quality problem, like there's something wrong with their products, and they're getting a lot of complaints and a lot of returns might be a policy violation, like all these review manipulations. And so they get an email and it basically says, you know, you're suspended, and they hold back any money that they owe you. They keep the money in escrow, and you're you're out of business until you get this issue resolved. And so that's when they usually start panicking and look for someone like me. And then what we do is we help them write their appeal and put together what Amazon calls a plan of action. So the plan is how the seller tells amazon it won't happen again, and why it won't happen again. So, you know, it's like a little kid, I promise Mom, I'll never do it again. Well, they're not going to buy that, right? They want to see a real, concrete plan to make sure it doesn't happen again. And, and they don't care very much that you may have, that you may quickly resolve, whatever the issue is that got you suspended. They're much more concerned about the next time, how to make sure there isn't a next time and and so a lot of my clients really have trouble understanding what Amazon wants. They don't understand why they're suspended sometimes, like, the language isn't very clear to them, and then they don't know what Amazon means by a plan of action. And I, you know, I've seen some of the most dreadful plans you've ever seen, and they're like, Well, I submitted my plan. I don't know why it didn't work, you know? And it's like because it's awful. And so that's where, you know, my company, e Growth Partners, comes in, because we have a lot of experience doing these we've, over the last year, we've helped well over 500 sellers get reinstated. We've seen all the complaints, you know. We know what Amazon is looking for, and what we can do is also help our clients understand what's going to need to change now, because, just because I get you back on the platform, you know, and selling again, if you keep making the same mistake, they're going to shut you down for good. And that's called being banned and and that's much harder to come back from, and

Robert Plank 19:42 so along those lines. So, I mean, yeah, that first of all makes sense if someone, if someone you know, pays a bunch for a bunch of, you know, fake reviews, and then gets caught and then says, I promise I won't do it and have the plan of action, but they still do it, that that makes sense where you know, if they're a repeat offender, Will. They'd be banned. But has anyone been just completely banned out of the gate? Is there? Is there someone who just kind of messed up so badly the first time around that there's just no coming back from it?

Cynthia Stine 20:11 Yes. So the few scenarios where they will not even give you a chance, I will say Amazon gives most people a chance, but the few times that they basically will shut you down and not give you a chance, is for counterfeit, fraud and crime. So if you're selling stolen goods, if you're selling what I call real counterfeit which doesn't which sounds funny, I know, but if you're selling what they have determined to be counterfeit goods, they'll just shut you down. They won't even let you back into your account. You're done fraud. You know, depending on what the fraud is, they may try to help you the first time, but if you don't fix the problem, then you're out of there. And what I'm talking about there is, like, embezzlement. I've had a couple of clients where somebody was definitely embezzling from them. Amazon caught it, but then the problem continued to persist. And so Amazon said, Well, you didn't figure it out. Goodbye. And so, yeah, those are the few times, though, where you're you're just not You're not going to get an appeal. They're not going to talk to you about it. They're going to confiscate your inventory. You're done. Those are very rare, and we've only had a few, really, a handful of those out of all of the ones that we've helped. So for most of my clients, they they are able to log into their accounts, even though they can't sell anything, they are able to basically make amends and make changes. And if Amazon can see those changes, you know, before they reinstate them, all the better, right, right? And so I you know, people are upset because Amazon will suspend, you know, boom, right? And you may not get very much warning, but they are letting people back. So you they do let people fix their mistakes. And I will say this too, I have had clients who've been suspended like four times, is my highest so far, and every time, though, it was for a different reason. So Amazon let them back. But for my clients who've been suspended for the same reason, we call them Sloan learners. You know, sometimes we can get them back, maybe there's a compelling story we can tell, and other times we just can't. And so we, we really try to help sellers not get caught again, right? I mean, I get COVID Not to fix the problem so they don't have that problem anymore,

Robert Plank 22:53 right? Yeah, because, because, I mean, everything that you're describing there just sounds super scary, especially if you know that they have a business loan, or if they're paying for employees or office space, or, you know, warehouse space to get everything, you know, prepped and shipped. I mean, that just sounds super scary. If suddenly, you know, the money's locked up, the inventory is locked up. There's no point in sending more inventory, because there's nowhere for it to go. That just sounds like a really dang scary situation. So as far as what, what you do, Cynthia, so am I hearing this right? And that that you just, you provide everything, no matter what their situation like, if they're if, if they've been suspended, or if they've they've even been banned, or if they're in trouble, they should come to you. But also, if things are going great, or things are going okay, should they still come to you, just for you to give them a pass and make sure everything is is up to snuff. Yes.

Cynthia Stine 23:43 So we have suspension prevention assessments, where we'll go in and look at an account that's not in trouble, but just to make sure there's nothing kind of hidden that they don't see. And then we also have kind of ongoing maintenance services, and we call them, get clean, stay clean. And there's a whole like series of services underneath that title. But the whole idea is, of course, is to maybe clean things up again. If they were suspended, they may have some things that need to be fixed, and then, once they're clean, keep them clean. So, you know, we're constantly looking for potential problems for them every week, and we're helping them in different ways, depending on what the seller needs to keep their accounts clean, everything from getting negative feedback removed to, you know, gosh, now we like to do dozens of things. Or like, for example, we offer services where we will handle your buyer request. So if you get a lot of buyer emails and you're, you know, on the holidays or vacation or you just, you know, even over the weekend, you can't really afford to leave your business like you have to answer those buyer emails. And so we will do them for our clients on weekends and evenings and holidays. Um. Sometimes even full time, just so that that metric, because it's a very important metric, how fast you respond to your buyer, just so that metric stays really good. And that's, that's what we do, is we kind of look at the metrics that might be giving our clients problems and see how we can help them, make them better,

Robert Plank 25:15 awesome. And yet, I'm looking at the some of the pages, and so, so, yeah, so at the moment, you have that price at 250 a month. And so is that right? Like, if it's, is it a flat 250 like, if someone is selling, you know, one product or 50 products, is it the same, or is that get adjusted?

Cynthia Stine 25:33 It's pretty much the same. Now, if we have a client that just has a really enormous account, and we may have to charge them more, just because it takes so much more to do their report. But generally, we're the first report is the big one, right? And then, because we're doing it every week, we're only looking at what's changing every week. So it really gets down to that most the time, most sellers, you know, 250 a month, just for the looking at what's going on in their account and the report, and then, like I said, if they want to do additional things, we have concierge services. We have higher level of services. You know, obviously the people who want us to answer their buyer emails are going to be paying us an additional fee for that. So we have a lot of customized service, I guess is what I'm saying. We've had clients come to us who needed us to do an audit of all of their product reviews to find the ones that were compliant versus the ones that weren't, and so they could turn the non compliant ones over to Amazon. So we have, we have some very specialized services for sellers, mostly based on the ways they possibly get in trouble. And

Robert Plank 26:44 it sounds like with new Amazon rules, or changing Amazon rules all the time, and some of those buyers who, like you said, the slow learners who think that there's always a way around it, it sounds like they're they're creating new sub niches for you all the time.

Cynthia Stine 26:59 Oh yes, I think I'll be in business forever because of the clever creativeness of my clients, you know, but like, and also just the things that Amazon will suddenly decide they care about, like they've been trying to clean up the catalog. That's what the whole site is called, you know, for years. Just, you know, make sure that all the pictures are uniform. Make sure the descriptions are a certain way. You know, they're very particular in how they want things. And so they've, they've taken recently, they've gotten kind of a hard line on this, and they've started suspending sellers who've had a lot of pictures on their listings that are not following the style guide, right? And I have a client currently where we're having to audit their reviews. Another reviews, excuse me, their pictures, and we're talking about 10s of 1000s of items that they sell on the platform. It's, it's a huge job, and and many of them are not at all compliant, because they were put up there before the rules changed, right? And so before Amazon got so adamant that the background had to be not only pure white, but it had to be this particular color of white.

Robert Plank 28:15 Yeah, and yeah. And so it sounds like a lot of buyers kind of assume they're going to they're going to be grandfather, because it was okay when they put it online. But, but, I mean, nope, not so much. And, I mean, and, yeah, and I've, I've seen some, some marketers and people like that, try to teach, like, well, upload, like a computer rendered picture for your your product. And thinking that doesn't sound like, What the what, what the rules kind of state, or, I've seen some of those listings where it's like, a huge, a bunch of huge graphics as opposed to text, and I'm thinking, like, Well, are they putting the images there just to, like, hide from him, try to hide, like, the the words on the page, and even, like, I bought some kind of like, like, pool scrubber, filter, skimmer thing, and I bought it, and the picture showed it had, like, a handle and, like the main piece. And I bought it, and it was just the main piece. And I was thinking, like, now I have to go, like, as a buyer, that's a crappy experience, and I have to, I have to put in the paperwork, and have to mail it back. And it's like, I don't even know if that, uh, that seller, is going to be around for much longer. So it sounds like there are just all kinds of ways that people can, that they might, you know, they might go wrong. And then even if they think that they're gonna spend all this time, you know, studying all the rules and regulations and and fix it well next month, who knows what Amazon might change to and so as you wind down here, kind of just a little slightly, kind of off, off the path a little bit, but um, so people are a lot of people are getting hit, especially lately, because they they basically cheated the review system. And so are there legitimate ways, aside from sponsored ads, for people who are if they they've come to you, they've gotten the audit, they've come clean, but they still want. To have some of the, the I don't know, like the the marketing boost, like, what's a quick way for someone to to get those reviews without being black hat in Amazon's eyes?

Cynthia Stine 30:11 Well, if you're what we call 1p that means you sell directly to Amazon, as opposed to selling as your own seller. In other words, you sell it to Amazon, then Amazon sells your product for any price they want. Like that. You have a negotiated price with Amazon, and then they they own it, and they sell it, right? That's 1p so with those sellers, they have the ability to do the Amazon vine program right now. 3p sellers like us, like you and me, Robert, we don't have the ability to even do that. But I think that's going to change. I do strongly suspect they're going to open up their review program to 3p sellers like us. And so keep an eye on that, because that would, of course, be official, approved, etc. But the other way, you know, I tell people, is to do, and I wrote a blog on this earlier this year, is to do traditional marketing, you know, go back to the the fundamentals, right? And, you know, try to get the word out about your product on social media. Try to build some excitement about your product. And, you know, and basically, you can do giveaways if you want. You just can't ask them to leave a review on Amazon anymore, but what I've encouraged clients to do is to say, well, you know, give do some giveaways. You know, think of it as like sampling in a grocery store, right? And ask people if they like it, to share it, you know, with their friends on social media. So again, if I say, Wow, I just tried this new barbecue sauce, and it's really awesome, and I posted on Facebook, and then people decide to go to Amazon to find it. That's and, you know, and try it, you know, that's really great. And then the thing is, statistically, a certain number of people will buy your product, and they will give you a review, and you hope it's going to be a positive review. So the other thing is, you can email all of your buyers, your regular buyers, right? You can email them and after the sale and ask them for review. Now, you can only do this once, but you can do it and so you can say, hey, you know, I hope you're really enjoying your barbecue sauce, and you know, we'd love it if you would share your experience with the community. Click here to leave a review, and you can't ask them for a good review. You know, those are the rules, but there are things you can do to just kind of nudge a few extra reviews that way, and those are totally allowed. It's just like I said, you can't hound the buyer, and you can't give them an incentive for leaving that review, and you can't ask them for a positive review. But like I said, I have some clients who have done really great using sites like Pinterest and Instagram to generate excitement about their product, and then, you know, people go and they buy it the other way. The other thing to think about, too, is if you build a list online, through social media, or, you know, just any way that you might build a list, right? And you have an email list, well, you can market to those, because those are your peeps, right? And so you can say, hey, you know what? We're offering a special sale on Amazon this week for our loyal customers, you know, 20% off, and you give them the code, and they go out and they buy product. And then again, people who get product at a discount tend to be happy. It doesn't mean they're going to write a review, but they might, and so that kind of thing. And again, you you can ask them, you know, after they bought the product, if they're happy, and, you know, give them the opportunity to leave a review. You just can't. Basically, you can't be like, here I'm giving you this product, so go write a review. You can't do that. So that's why I tell people, just look at it as like sampling in a grocery store, right? They're gonna let everybody try it, and some of them will go buy it, and some will be so happy, they'll write their friends about it, you know? And they'll leave a positive review. And that's, that's what you that's what you want to do. You want to encourage raving, happy fans. And the other thing you can do is you can ask them to leave a review and just not mention Amazon. So you could say, Hey, if you're happy, we'd love it if you would leave a review on any of your social media sites, right, right. Leave it. Leave it vague. You're not saying on Amazon, but some of them, that's exactly what they'll do, is they'll go to Amazon and leave a review, but hopefully it will be an honest review, you would think. And so that's that's kind of the way to do it, though it's going to be a little bit slower. It's kind of old fashioned. You're going to have more organic reviews, which is what Amazon wants. They want real reviews by real people. Part of the problem with the. Um, the other review programs is when you compared the organic reviews the people who paid full price for the product, and you compared the reviews of where they had obviously gotten a deep discount, or even for free, you could see a huge difference in the ratings. So the people who paid full price, you know, maybe they're leaving twos and threes, and then the people who got it for $1 you know, they're leaving fives, and so you can tell that what they paid had a real impact on the overall review. But if you're a person who's going to buy that product on Amazon, you really should be looking at the twos and threes, right, right? Because the fives, you know, are not trustworthy.

Robert Plank 35:45 And I've noticed that as a buyer too. Like, when I'll go and I'll, I'll scroll through something like sometimes, and I, I can never quite put my finger on it, but sometimes I'll scroll through the reviews, and it's like all five stars all you know, like, there's like 1010, even just like yesterday, and they're all like, just super they're like, overly excited and and even some of them kind of start sounding similar, and then, and then, yeah, I'll go to that page where they show, like, the bet, like the best review, side by side with the critical review. Because all for all, I know maybe the bad review is just like, they don't like the color of the of the t shirt, or whatever it is. And then, but, but, yeah, but I noticed as a buyer, like, if there's like, two, if there's too many high, like, five star, and they're all just, like, super short and super enthusiastic, for some reason I don't trust it, and then I start just getting overwhelmed and driving myself crazy as a buyer, because I'm like, for some reason I'm not trusting the the high rating, and then I'm actually Looking for a product with a slightly lower rating, and then I'm just like, What am I even looking for? And I end up not buying anything.

Cynthia Stine 36:45 Right? That's right. And that's what, you know. That's what Amazon is trying to fix, because they don't want you to feel that. They want you to feel like you can trust the reviews that you see. And so that's, that's exactly right. I mean, I had one client who was shut down. This was a few weeks ago, before the big change, but he was shut down because he had broken the friends and family rule, right? And you can't ask people close to you to leave a review, and you can't ask your friends or family and so, and he's like, what? And he had no clue who would have left this review. And it turned out it was his mother. And, you know, bless her heart, right? She bought one of his products, and she left a positive review. And she was thinking, she's helping him out, right? Oh, no. And so, you know, we got him back and we explained, and he had to talk to mom, but it, you know, there are, you know, that there are things like that and and so that's exactly what Amazon is trying to prevent. Though they don't want your mom leaving, you know, a glowing review, even though she means well, because they really want the buyer to have to have trust that when they come out there, that these are real people who actually use the product and weren't unduly biased because it was their blessed child or their best friend or anything like that. So anyway, that's, that's what's going on. You know, this week, if we were to talk again in two or three weeks, it'd be something else.

Robert Plank 38:20 Yeah, it sure sounds like, and, I mean, like you said, like, Amazon, Amazon really, like, like, you know, took off in the past couple of years, as opposed, you know, they move from, from being known for just selling books to this, this huge beast where anyone can jump on running it. And it sounds like every week there's a, there's about a handful new ways anyone can go wrong. And it sounds like everyone needs you and your services, even just if they're just hiring you for one time or on a monthly basis, or to clean up their stuff. Because, I mean, it just, it sounds like with Amazon. I mean, there's so many possibilities here. But on the other hand, it's kind of a scary thing, especially dealing with with, you know, physical products and employees where, you know, as the business grows, people might become more and more leverage, and if they make one small mistake, then it all comes crashing down. And that just sounds like a really scary place to be. But you can help them. You can help them clean up a mess or prevent the mess from happening. So where should people go if they want to find out about you, Cynthia, and about your packages and anything else about you. Where should they go for that?

Cynthia Stine 39:26 Okay, so our website, E, Growth Partners, just like it sounds, the letter E, growth G, R, O, W, t, h partners.com, and there they'll find information about us and our services. And if you don't see a service there that you need, you can ask us, because we have a lot of custom things that aren't even on the website. And so, you know, sometimes you can't put everything in a neat little package, right? But we definitely do that. And I will also add, because we are called E Growth Partners, that. We also do really fun things, which is like, we help launch new brands on the platform and make sure they do it right, help them get started. Help get those sales that you're talking about, maybe those early reviews. So we get to have fun and help companies grow as well.

Robert Plank 40:17 So not only doom and gloom, but also the growth stuff. Yes.

Cynthia Stine 40:21 So I have a new we have a new partner that joined us just recently, Peter Kerns, and he's a former Amazonian, and we are thrilled to have him on board. And but this is what he used to do when he worked at Amazon, was launch brands on the platform. And, you know, manage 1000s of brands, got them up, launched, and making hundreds of millions of dollars, you know, for Amazon, but for themselves as well. And so this, this skill set that we have, means we can also do the fun stuff as well as the the compliance and the maintenance and the boring stuff,

Robert Plank 40:59 awesome. So it sounds like you're filling in a lot of the missing pieces where, you know, buyers might might get stuck, not just with the hammer coming down, but also just as far as getting to that point, getting to the point where there there are products and things are selling, and they have a brand, and they're scaling, and just so it sounds like you do everything,

Cynthia Stine 41:18 well, we try to look at the whole life cycle of the seller right from beginning until the very end, when they might want to sell their business right or get out of it. So yeah, we try to, you know, help them through the whole life cycle from startup to being an established company and dealing with kind of big company problems. So yeah, we're trying to

Robert Plank 41:43 all those entrepreneurial challenges. Well, cool. Well, I can, I can just tell from the way you're describing all this Cynthia, that you really enjoy what you do. And I think that everyone should go right now, even if you're not at the point yet, even if you're just curious, but, but especially if, if you think you'll, you'll be at the point where you'll be needing Cynthia's help and services, and if you're selling, if you're at any level, selling on Amazon, I think that that's going to be a possibility for everyone listening. So egrowthpartners.com and thanks so much Cynthia for coming on the show and telling us all this cool stuff, some scary and some positive about Amazon. So thanks so much.

Cynthia Stine 42:19 Thank you, Robert. It's been a pleasure. This

Robert Plank 42:21 is Robert Plank. Do you enjoy this podcast? Do you have an idea for a future episode? Do you want to be a guest on the show or recommend anyone on the show? Whatever it is, the way to get in touch with me is going to Robert plank.com/ask, that's R O, B, E, R T, P, l, a, n, k.com/a. S, K. You