Hey, everybody. How's it going?
My son now has an official fidget spinner, and he absolutely loves this thing.
Now, if you see me carrying these around and going like this while I'm doing my videos,
you might want to figure out what's going on with Seth
because I do not want to get addicted to one of these things.
They're kind of cool, actually. There is a cool, low noise.
OK, I'll stop. Hey, I hope you guys are doing really well.
I decided to do a little espionage with Amazon.
And I did something I've never done before because I received so many email requests
and comments and questions and hearing this to other sellers,
what do I do if I sell a product and someone else hijacks my listing?
What I mean by that is they start selling on your listing.
And this is not just a generic category product in Amazon's catalog,
it's your own category or your own product
you created as private label that has your logo on it.
It's unique, it's differentiated, and someone else starts selling on it
and trying to make money off of your product and your hard work.
What do you do in that situation?
So I figured the best way to do this.
If you really want to know the enemy,
you have to go behind the lines as a spy and find out what they're doing.
And so we decided to do this and to test it out
and to see what does Amazon do to someone who hijacks a listing?
And so we had to become a hijacker in order to test it out.
We did it in the most ethical way I know,
and I have the opportunity now to show you how much Amazon
will really protect you because I've been to the other side
and I can tell you what happens.
So if you are an honest seller with a private label product,
this is your own product and you want to protect it.
Let me tell you what it's like for someone who tries to hijack your listing.
So we created another account and we got this account up and running.
Built up the account, got approved in the health and beauty category, which wasn't too difficult.
As of late, it was pretty easy there for a while,
and we found a product that was selling really well.
We went to a supplier.
We found a product that was almost identical,
but we intentionally had it different in two areas.
Number one, it was different in its logo. We used a different logo.
And number two, there was one ingredient off and we sourced this from a supplier.
We got it here. We sent it into the warehouse. We piggybacked on another listing and we waited.
And for about a week and a half to two weeks no one said anything, no one complained
and it actually started to sell.
And then about a week and a half, almost two weeks later,
we received a message from the seller saying: “You need to get off my listing.
This is a counterfeit product. I don't appreciate it.”
And I will tell you it is not a cease and desist.
It said nothing about lawyers. It said nothing about trademarks.
It said nothing about patents.
It was really simple and not even totally grammatically accurate.
And they sent it out and I felt bad.
So I'm like: “OK, this is exactly what I teach people not to do.”
But I wanted to find out what is Amazon going to do in this situation.
So we waited just a few more days and then we got this message from Amazon
warning us that our products may be counterfeit and they received complaints.
And therefore, if this is not an accurate product,
if this product is not accurate to the listing you need to remove it.
And so we thought: “OK, that's great. We got a warning from Amazon.
Let's go ahead and remove it because I really didn't know
how far I wanted to take this.”
Now, granted, this is a test account and I could live without it,
but I still wanted to find out.
So we went ahead and we removed the listing
or we didn't remove the listing and we actually just closed it,
we didn't delete it.
And we responded to Amazon. Oh, and they also asked for receipts.
And so we responded to Amazon.
We actually sent in the invoices. And we just wanted to see what happens.
And about three or four days later, Amazon sent us a message,
and I want you to see it for yourself.
I copy pasted it and obviously removed out the personal account info.
And it said this:
“Amazon has removed your selling privileges. To find out how to appeal this action, read more.
I was I was ecstatic. I've never been more ecstatic about Amazon
suspending an account than now.
Because I thought: “Man, as someone who private labels all the time,
if it is this easy to get your account suspended, that's kind of cool.”
And that seller didn't do a whole lot other than hear complaints
and file a complaint in the counterfeit department.
Where you can actually literally go and file a complaint under counterfeit products.
And so I responded to the appeal and I filled out everything
as expected, and I sent an invoices and I explained we were sorry.
And here's our intention and I did a whole bunch of stuff,
and within 48 hours, our account was reinstated.
So there's a lot I learned in this lesson.
Number one, if you are selling a private label product
and there are someone out there who is trying to sell your listing,
it is easy for them to start selling on your listing.
It is easy as that, but it doesn't last long,
if you can prove to Amazon that the product is not the same.
And the easiest way to do that is to show Amazon
that what you are selling and what they're selling is different.
Now it is a pain because you have to literally order
the other products, take a picture of it, send in an Amazon as proof.
And when they see it's different, they will go after the counterfeit seller.
So I'm telling you, Amazon has raised the bar.
For the longest time, I've heard rumors and people talking about how Amazon is increasingly
raising that bar and getting better and better at knocking off counterfeits.
Well, now I know for sure because I stepped to the other side.
But the important thing to me, the biggest takeaway from this is
you can trust Amazon to protect your listing
if you were selling a legitimate listing and doing the hard work of protecting it.
Now here's the crazy part.
What do you do if ten different people start selling on your listing?
Does that mean you have to buy every single one of those products,
take pictures, send them in and prove that that was a false,
that those were counterfeits?
I mean, that becomes kind of ridiculous, does it, doesn't it?
And during that time, they may be making hundreds of dollars.
Well, here's the good news.
Brand registry is now open, and one of the requirements
is to include your trademark.
So Amazon is raising the bar on that for us as sellers
so that they can back us up and help protect us from counterfeits.
That is good news.
Now the next question that keeps coming up
and I know many of you out there have suspended accounts,
and even some people
who have emailed me have said: “You know, I've have a suspended account. How do I?
How do I fix that?”
Well, let me share with you.
I had… This is not my first time to get a suspended account.
When I first started selling on Amazon, a long time ago, and I knew nothing
and this was completely ignorant and very innocent.
I started selling products. There were security products
and apparently some of the security products I was selling were not within
the approved items to sell.
So they suspended me for selling and I was excited.
I was in like 27 products a day, 30 products a day. I started making money.
Well, man, this really works.
And then I get this message from Amazon saying: “You can't sell these anymore.”
And then before I even had a chance to fix it, they suspended me.
Well, I also got that account back on board, and that's our good account.
And that's the one that's making us a lot of money.
But I can show you how to take that account
and I cannot guarantee it, obviously,
but I can show you the steps I took in both situations.
But this recent one's more important because Amazon changes over time.
The steps that I took to get it reinstated, it took me under 48 hours.
Now under 48, because they respond to you within 48.
I did a lot of work.
I wanted to see how how far can I take this?
Like, can I really get my account that’s suspended back on board?
And they sent me a message, and this is what they said.
“Hello, we have decided that you may sell at Amazon.com
while we review your account.”
This is the message they sent me reinstating my account.
But I just think it's kind of cool that we were able to get that back.
So this is something I teach in our program.
I can show you the steps we've taken to get your account removed from suspension.
And again, I can't guarantee that that's Amazon's power.
If anyone tells you: “Oh, we will get it reinstated.”
Run the other way. They’re lying.
They don't… They can't control that unless they're Amazon. I am not Amazon.
But I can take whatever experience I have and help you with that.
And if that's helpful for you, you should join our team.
All right. Well, I hope this is giving you a lot of hope and encouragement.
I was willing to step over to the dark side in order to show you
those hijackers do not stand a chance if you do your job right.
Have an awesome day. Bye.