Oh The Trouble I’ve Seen

Being in retail isn't so easy, Amazon specifically. Brands want to sell their product but when you play with the big boys and girls, you play by their rules. Amazon has complications unique to their marketplace and you have to know what you're getting into before you set foot on the playground. Or the court. Or whatever. Listen why you need to be prepared and what to do if you find yourself in a pickle. Here we go…

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Michael Maher  00:00

Hello, everybody, welcome to The Longer Game podcast where we talk about retail reimagined and the future of retail. Today, I'm joined by a friend of mine that I'm getting to know better. And his name is Chris McCabe, he runs, he's the CEO of ecommerce-Chris, and he'll tell you more about it. But they're really focused on helping Amazon sellers, get out of suspensions or any kind of issues like that. And that's a lot of what we're going to talk about today. Just at the start of the show, let everybody know, Chris has a conference going on in Boston, September 23rd. And it is called The Seller Velocity Conference. Of course, 2021. Not 2020, like the Olympics did, but 2021 seller velocity conference, and he has been so gracious to give us a code. Just LONGERGAME, all one word for anybody that wants to get a discount going in person. So Chris, thanks for joining us. I mean, guests g4 f6 Thank you for joining us.

Chris McCabe  00:56

Yeah, Thanks for having me. Happy to be talking to you today for a variety of reasons. I know we've talked all week about different interesting things going on in the Amazon space. So

Michael Maher  01:06

There's never, some maybe, there's a dull moment, but there never seems to be a shortness of conversation that could be had. I don't know that I said that correctly. But every time I've recorded this podcast, I'm like, man, I think we could keep going for like an hour and a half. I just don't want to bore people too long.

Chris McCabe  01:25

Now, there's, you know, I know that it's kind of a glut of certain kinds of content in the Amazon space, but there is still an abundance of good content that can be presented. Maybe it's not always presented the right way or the right time. But there are worthwhile conversations to have about, you know, just like you said, the future of retail. 

Michael Maher  01:46

Yeah. 

Chris McCabe  01:47

Because those those larger questions might seem distant or vague, or overwhelmingly gigantic, to the point of not being useful. But I don't think we're that far from that discussion becoming part of everyone's everyday life anymore.

Michael Maher  02:05

And I think that the pandemic really did. I've said this on another episode, but you know, I'm still getting messages from people like, Hey, I hope you're hanging in there. And then I'm like, if this is not the start of the pandemic, like it's been over a year, I'm good now. Like, I think I've got it figured out, of course, that was like an intro for a lot of people. But it's super relevant to the ecommerce industry, because there was a ton of growth that happened in the first part of 2020. Almost eight to 10 years worth of growth. If you just look at ecommerce as a percent of total retail sales. And I won't bore you with the numbers, but it was a big jump, and Amazon's 40% of that. So I mean, it's very, very relevant. And I think we're only going to continue to see ecommerce develop as a percent of sales. But we're also seeing companies like Walmart that has a big brick and mortar presence get into ecommerce. They're be likely going to leverage their stores and they already are when it comes to, you know, refunds and things like that. Amazon's now starting to build out retail stuff. So yeah, I think I think it's here and right around the corner.

Chris McCabe  03:05

I think the Amazon versus Walmart with some minor players, but Amazon versus Walmart battle for retail, the soul, the life the future.

Michael Maher  03:15

The soul of retail.

Chris McCabe  03:17

I mean, we already know that we're in it to an extent but like you said, the battlegrounds keep changing, and that shifting a little bit. And it's not we're past the conversation of Amazon's dominating ecommerce marketplaces. But Walmart has all the stories like it's going to all merge into the same conversation.

Michael Maher  03:33

No, yeah, absolutely.

Chris McCabe  03:34

The most exciting part of all, because maybe they'll finally be a kind of reckoning. Instead of talking about it, we will see it in a daily life.

Michael Maher  03:43

We will see detail of retail.

Chris McCabe  03:46

Well, I mean, what if Walmart? What if you started seeing and people are already used to Amazon fans everywhere? I mean, they're certainly in my neighborhood.

Michael Maher  03:52

Yeah.

Chris McCabe  03:54

What if you started seeing in 2020 tshirts, seeing a huge investment by Walmart to have them bring stuff? You know, there's Walmart vans, out there a third of the time or half the time? I mean,

Michael Maher  04:07

those Amazon truck businesses are from what I understand our affiliates. So anybody could go and start an Amazon basically delivery business. They give you the truck, I don't know a ton about that. But Walmart could very easily do that same thing.

Chris McCabe  04:21

And Amazon's trying to be a much bigger player in not just I mean shipping, but like transportation, they're going to become a transport company and a shipping company to the point where, you know, UPS is kind of on the Amazon side FedEx seems to have wandered to the Walmart side, and they're gonna duke it out there. I mean, whether or not they by UPS, maybe won't matter. There'll be such close partners. It's just gonna be that fight over the last mile. And maybe there will be some other upstarts we haven't heard of yet that jump in and say, You know what? We've been doing fulfillment and transportation and shipping for 25 years already. What's the reason we can't mass the last Smile quicker than a company like Amazon. 

Michael Maher  05:02

I feel like DHL is another big partner but they I've seen them do a lot more international stuff.

Chris McCabe  05:07

Yeah.

Michael Maher  05:07

Which is good. I mean, there's definitely a market for that. I just keep picturing the rockem sockem robots, and like Walmart, and Amazon just duking it out. Like, the people that have the money are the CEOs of the company, Doug McMillon, and whoever is taking over for Bezos, I can't remember.

Chris McCabe  05:25

Andy Jassy. 

Michael Maher  05:25

Andy Jassy, and they're just, they're just punching out in the middle of the ring. It is exciting.

Chris McCabe  05:31

I know a couple of guys who work or historically have worked with Andy Jassy. So for me, it was, it was interesting kind of almost, I would say, on a personal professional level that he became CEO, I expected Dave Clark to be the CEO.

Michael Maher  05:45

So you came from Amazon, correct?

Chris McCabe  05:47

Yeah. So backing up I worked at and the reason I work on account suspensions, and listing reinstatements, and so forth, any kind of appealed strategies, because I worked on those teams for Amazon, it's a direct correlation to the work I do now. So maybe that's a lack of creativity on my part. But when I started consultant years,

Michael Maher  06:05

Who cares? *Laughs*

Chris McCabe  06:06

When I started consulting, it was a one to one relationship. And also, I appreciated the gravity of the the commitment to that kind of work, and how people doing it themselves weren't necessarily well versed in the right way to do it. They were just kind of doing it with trial and error, which may be back when I started this business, that was a bit more survivable, I don't see them being I see myself telling people, go ahead, take a stab at it, maybe  a second attempt, if you think it's worthwhile, but after that, you need to help tap out and call for some help. I mean, it doesn't have to be us. But it has to be somebody with with expert level contributions to make to your cause. Otherwise, they slip off into the abyss a lot quicker now, or at least get to the point where they're on the backburner. And Amazon doesn't want to pay attention to them. I mean, they might have a vibrant brand. That's sure having SKUs doing pro, you might be in the middle of a product launch. You might be, you know

Michael Maher  07:05

kiss my ass.

Chris McCabe  07:06

Oh, yeah. But you'll be treated like either a newbie or somebody, who's been like reoffending and getting re-suspended every year. I mean, they could easily put you in some weird bucket that you don't belong in. So

Michael Maher  07:18

yeah, you. So you brought up a couple great points. And the more that you and I talk, the more you and I seem to have a lot in common about. And so I like that. And I like hearing different opinions as well, my wife is good at helping buffer me and like, no, you really are too loud, you need to sound less inside. But, you know, you've initially talked about, you know, there being good content out there. And you and I both talked about education and how it's really important. I mean, aspects of education, you know, I posted on LinkedIn before and, you know, told agency, stop lying to your prospect, stop telling people that you can do Amazon work, because if you can't, if there's not a direct crossover, there is a correlation between digital marketing, ecommerce capabilities, and Amazon, of course, but it takes time to learn those eccentricities of what's going on there. I think about doing sales for my business. I'm the one that's doing it. Hiring someone to do sales, I'm like, it would also almost need to be an account manager that then crosses over because they can speak to the issues with clients. They're coming with very specific stuff. So there's that with putting good content out there. I have a friend who actually trademarked the term entrepreneur porn. And it's essentially like

Chris McCabe  08:28

you're available

Michael Maher  08:30

yeah still available. But like, it's a great term, because it's all the I got this laptop lifestyle, and I got this and every entrepreneur I know, has had to grind it out at times and has made sacrifices so I don't know. And I think you know, a lot of people with an Instagram lifestyle are likely renting, you know, cars and looking cool. But if that's what you're selling, I don't want that. Because it's not real.

Chris McCabe  08:53

That's the images everything approach. Yeah.

Michael Maher  08:56

Yeah. And, and I've seen a lot of people say, Oh, I'm the school of thought of this guy, on Amazon. And I'm like, and that a lot of times, I just never really paid attention to that part of the industry. And so I'd have to go look someone up and say, okay, and they're saying these are the new five tactics to handle, these seven tricks. And I'm like, it's not that's the sexy version of Amazon. Amazon is just treating it holistically. A holistic business approach, knowing that every single piece really has to be in place.

Chris McCabe  09:24

Yeah, I've not I've been really public about saying I don't believe in like one stop shopping companies or agencies or consultants because I just the way I see Amazon Marketplace related work, I don't see that you can. First of all, I've never seen one stop shopping where they were great at everything on an aggregate level. I mean, I just don't see it in this space.

Michael Maher  09:46

Leadway.

Chris McCabe  09:47

I also know my limitations. I mean, there are sales and PPC and marketing things that will greatly benefit Amazon sellers that maybe someday I'll acquire additional knowledge and I'm happy to educate myself when I can, but those Aren't things I can sell. Like, I'm an expert on this. Just because I'm an expert in account reinstatement and listing takedown appeals doesn't mean that I'm an expert in everything, Amazon. And I mean, if that changes, then great. I mean, if somebody is great at appealing stuff, you mentioned to me earlier that you sometimes write appeals for reinstatement and they work out. Again, success is what pays the bills. So if it's working really well, my to say stop doing it.

Michael Maher  10:28

But one of the things, so just back up a little bit. For anyone who's not familiar with Amazon space, so much, it's very common that if you make an offense against, you know, you have against Amazon or the consumer, so you ship something late, or you are selling what they claim to be a counterfeit good, or whatever the case might be, there's so many, there's a list of things, Amazon will suspend your account or suppress your product, and almost with impunity, and it's now up to you to say, I didn't do this, even if you didn't do something, and they have an algorithm that links things. And so and Chris can definitely speak more to this than I can. But once that algorithm locks on, you then have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that, you know, you're not a part of this. And I think what's really interesting about your line of work, Chris, is that you have, your an ex-Amazon person who's actually doing the work they did at Amazon. And that's not always the case, you know, coming from Amazon, it gives you a lot of clout. And so I think that's a tool like if I was at Amazon, I would likely use that as well, you've got an direct crossover, though, from working on account reinstatements, and then coming out. And so you've got that insider language, that's difficult to acquire.

Chris McCabe  11:42

That communication, it's so central to how Amazon views you and how they judge you on your ability to convince them that you've properly appealed in a way that they can accept, and they can reinstate your listing or your account. And its high stakes to the point of if you think well, I can read a few blogs, I can look at some forums posts, I can look at some Facebook group posts, right, and just post something people still do that they post in a Facebook group. I've got this kind of suspension who resolved this lately. Oh, what is your appeal look like? Oh, can I use this?

Michael Maher  12:19

Because of what works now? It may not have worked six months ago, right?

Chris McCabe  12:23

Not only that, well, there are apples and oranges comparisons that they don't realize they're making, which I don't know why you'd want to even risk that.

Michael Maher  12:30

Yeah

Chris McCabe  12:30

Even the chance that you're making an apples to oranges comparison between somebody who says they had your problem or your situation is so much risk, I wouldn't even want to do it. But I mean, it depends on how much you need your business. Look, if you don't need your business that badly.

Michael Maher  12:46

Just go for it 

Chris McCabe  12:47

Play all the games with it you want I mean, you can just scribble something on a napkin and type it up and send it in. But if this is high stakes for you, in terms of you employ people, or this is your lifeblood, you have to take the appeals process seriously, which means that you have to know how, what kind of Amazon, what kind of communication you can expect from Amazon, which is going to be generic and murky and copy and paste. But that doesn't mean you can give that to them. It's a double standard. Because Amazon has the power in this relationship. You need to give quality and communication to them. And then know what to do if they don't respect that by reviewing it properly, and accepting it and reinstating you.

Michael Maher  13:26

And if even I get better information, you have to know what to say in order to open up that conversation.

Chris McCabe  13:31

Yeah, well, there isn't really a conversation. It's a one way conversation if you give them what they need. And it's like, Okay, this meets our criteria for how we can judge this appeal and what we can base a reinstatement on there doesn't have to be a conversation, because the next message you get is you've now been reinstated. Right?

Michael Maher  13:50

And it's so weird. It's like a Christmas but you know, now just get to have a paycheck again.

Chris McCabe  13:56

Yeah, yeah. Or you just expected it to be a knockdown drag out fight, which for a lot of people it is. And it isn't, and they take the first appeal, you submit they still do that. It's just the percentage chance that they do it on your accepted on the first appeal, the first try is less than it used to be. Mostly because of their problems. Sometimes it's because you didn't bring your best, your A game and you gave them something out of haste. That's incomplete, or you didn't understand what they wanted. So you provided something but it's off target and off message anyway or off topic. Or I mean, some people do call-in to account health services and they say, I gotta provide a plan of action. I got to provide an appeal here. What are the expectations and sometimes they're just given bad info or they're misled by a non seasoned, you know, rookie kind of person who's giving them generic advice that that doesn't get them into the details and the comprehensive specifics that they require in a plan. In order to get reinstated, and it's just two sides talking past each other at that point. There are different levels? Yeah, 

Michael Maher  15:07

There's different levels of factors that are at play here. So one is, you have very little communication from Amazon. Two is, because of that you don't necessarily know the criteria. Three is a you're in experience, potentially, what level experience do you have in order to fight this and knowledge you have about Amazon? And then one of the other things is the level of knowledge or the person at Amazon, which is not guaranteed? I think that's one of the most. Yeah, that's one of the frustrating things from a brand's point of view or a seller's point of view is, you don't you know, you could get someone that's like, Oh, yeah, I know exactly what I'm doing. I'll take care of this. And you get someone else to like, I, you know, this is my, they don't say that. But like, I don't know, this is my first couple of cases, I don't really know what to do. Do you know, about turnover? Or about the amount of people that could be seasoned at seller support or seller performance, whatever the case might be? Do you have any insight into that?

Chris McCabe  15:58

Yeah, I mean, at any given moment, there should be hundreds of people, if not, you know, low 1000s, globally, who are looking at this stuff and transferring things or reading things and responding. But there's such a wide range of skill level and experience level and people who are willing to take the time to properly review and appeal it's worth noting that they get credit for an investigation or like an account review or an appeal review whether or not they do a good job on it. So they're kind of looking for a reason to decline you and say no, because it's quicker to find a flaw and base your judgment on that than it is to thoroughly review everything except all of that content. And say, Yes, we can take this, you it's counterintuitive, you would think they're trying to save themselves work by looking through something quickly and saying, Yeah, this is fine. This includes everything, I'll just reinstate this, this guy or this woman. And it's not, it's much quicker to be like, Oh, this part looks a little vague, or this looks a little weak in the plan of action. Or maybe it's like not even the plan of action, maybe it's supply chain documentation, this invoice looks a little funky, or there's something missing here that is much quicker for them, even though they know they're making more work for their team down the road.

Michael Maher  17:16

That's gold right there. That is gold. So any brand that's listening right now, know that if you're, and I love what you said about you don't need to hire us, but you're gonna have to hire an expert, I say that all the time, about brands that want to actually grow and Amazon, I'm like, it's very tough out there. You don't have to hire me, I can recommend another service provider that I'm friends with that would do good work it but you're gonna have to find an expert. If you don't, you're going to end up paying someone you know, a lot less to do not good work. Or you could get scammed into paying a lot more. And also not getting it work. But the business development was great. But it doesn't matter. You have to at this point, you have to find an expert. But if you're so if you're listening, and you're brand new, dealing with any kind of suspension, products, oppression, you have to have an ironclad plan of action. So when Amazon suspend you, they say you need to put together a plan of action to address these things. And again, like Chris said, it's very vague. And so you have to go in detail and say, This is what we did. here's, here's what we're gonna do, here's what we've been doing. Provide evidence of that actual evidence of that. And if you're not doing that, then it's going to be very, very difficult to get your appeal approved. So you might as well save yourself time and I think, hire an expert. And yeah, it might be additional money. But if you like you said, if it's your livelihood, what would pay? I would I don't even know what the pricing would be, but like, let's say, an appeal cost $3,000. If you're making over a million dollars, What does $3,000 mean to you, in terms of in comparison to your business?

Chris McCabe  18:51

I mean, typically, we're working with brands that are losing like when their top ASIN goes down, they're losing 3000 a day. Yeah, no, they spend a week appealing it, then that's 21 grand, you know, I mean, whatever, however many days it takes them to either decide to continue on some people approach us and I say you're at like a decision point, you're at a fork in the road, you're either going to ask talk to me for like an hour, and I'm going to give you my best tips, guidance, strategy, whatever. And you're going to commit come hell or high water to doing this yourself. Whatever the results are, or you're going to kind of pull the parachute cord now and get somebody else in it now, but make that decision today. Don't waffle. Don't, you know, halfway it because some people like "Well, we're going to try this a few more times. And then we're going to call you if it doesn't work". Nowadays, I mean, I used to say kind of okay, well let us know if you need anything. Yeah, nowadays I'm like if you're trying this a few more times before I even start knowing that it's gonna take me at least a few days to assess, draft it get your feedback on the draft, finalize it, have you submit a few more days for them to look at it, if they don't answer within 48 hours, you're already talking about several days of law sales, you're talking about 1000s of lost dollars.

Michael Maher  20:08

So it's not that Amazon would penalize you for trying to do something and not winning, it's just that you're going to continue to lose revenue.

Chris McCabe  20:14

Well, eventually, they stop feeling like they have to respond to you anymore. If they think you give, they give you a few chances. I mean, we used to use the three strikes and you're out adage, and you wouldn't be out of the game. But you're out for like that, you know, attempt at doing this yourself?

Michael Maher  20:30

Yeah

Chris McCabe  20:31

I don't even know if I say three strikes anymore. I tell people like, take, take a shot at it. If it doesn't work, hire us. Yeah. Take a second try out if you think you can appropriately revise your appeal. You know, even with me jumping in, and like coaching people for an hour, like when they show me their appeal, and I give them some inline, you know, feedback or some critiques or suggestions. I mean, there's a certain percentage of those that are going to bounce back just because nobody read it. Yeah. And then you have to understand, well, is it time to escalate it or not? Should I get it into a manager's hands? I mean, you can't escalate something, if it's a low quality appeal. That's the big thing I see a lot of brands doing to harm themselves is I got a copy and paste response. They didn't say why it was rejected. That means it didn't, it wasn't read, or that means a bot read it.

Michael Maher  21:20

Yeah

Chris McCabe  21:20

I need to escalate it. And I'll say, well, whoa, whoa, slow down, show it to me, I can look at something I've done this 1000s of times, now I can look at it

Michael Maher  21:30

it was crazy.

Chris McCabe  21:30

Within five or 10 minutes, I can tell you whether you've got something that can be escalated, but with some edits and tweaks that can't be escalated and shouldn't be anywhere near an escalation. Or, you know, yeah, you look like you've done this before, this looks adequate to me, you just have to figure out where to complain that no one's reviewed it for you yet. And believe me, managers and VPS of Amazon, at this point, it will at least the marketplace management side of Amazon, they know that these things aren't being properly read or reviewed or like and if you call account health services, again, they'll look at denial notes for your appeals, or they might not tell you what they say exactly. But they can see if there's like three or four words on your account. That was just somebody you know, putting some BS in there that didn't want to spend time annotating your account. They know it's obvious to you them and the world that that wasn't read properly, it wasn't reviewed, if they were honest about it, then come back on the phone after putting it on hold and looking at things and be like, it doesn't look like this was you know, reviewed properly. They're not allowed to say that stuff, for obvious reasons. So they have to say, well, not a lot of evidence here on why it was denied. Let me take a look at it. You know, based on my experience, I'll tell you why it was denied. You're already in like casual observation and conjecture and, and guesswork. And this is not the area to be guessing on anything. You need to know exactly why it was denied. And you can insist upon it. There's nothing wrong with insisting on. If you're not going to help me find out factual data, like why this was rejected? I have a way to revise it.

Michael Maher  23:11

I have no reason I can actually feel it. Yep.

Chris McCabe  23:13

I mean, this is just logical. How can you possibly revise an appeal? First of all, why would you spend another afternoon doing that if the first version wasn't even appreciated? Or properly read? Secondly, how can you come back with new and different and interesting and compelling information? If you don't even know why it was rejected in the first place? What's missing? That's where Amazon's dropped the ball on sellers. 

Michael Maher  23:35

Okay, so I think it's really important that people understand, though, and at least the way that I view Amazon is, I don't see them as the savior of all things. But I also don't see them as the devil either they're necessary channel. There are, they're fraught with complications, but there's plenty of opportunity there. And so one of the things that I have seen is your level of experience with Amazon. And it doesn't matter if you're making a lot of revenue or little because you said Amazon will treat you like you've offended so many times, you need to prove to us like your parents, like I'm disappointed in you. It's past me being upset,

Chris McCabe  24:11

I like it.

Michael Maher  24:11

I'm disappointed in you, you need to prove to me, you know why, why we should reinstate you. And I actually passed one of those places in it's around my neighborhood where I was 15 years old, and I took a car out without driver's license in Millan night. I thought it was cool. And I had two teenage girls in the back of the car with me, and a policeman was like, "Hey, where's your license?" And I was like, uh, anyway, I just put I took a picture of it recently, because I thought, this is really interesting. It's like 20 years later, and I think I'm doing all right. But anyway, long story short,

Chris McCabe  24:42

but you did a community service, I thought it was still cool on sense.

Michael Maher  24:45

It was Yeah, it was still very cool. I felt cool even though a summer gym and doing community service wasn't very fun.

Chris McCabe  24:51

But right of passage, my friend, right of passage

Michael Maher  24:54

right of passage. What I'm getting at is that it doesn't matter how much money you're making. I see people, their first response, they're like, why is Amazon doing this? Like, I'm just gonna tell them the wrong like, nope, you guys wrong, this is not it, please reinstate us. And I'm like, you cannot do tha. It's first of all, it's only going to make that person who's not. And here's the thing. I worked with Amazon for a decade now. And Chris, you're saying stuff here, that I'm even learning about the depths of how deep this goes. And you said something earlier about how you know, you don't believe in all in one agencies. Right? Sometimes when I look at Amazon, it's, you know, it's a niche for some people. But it's a billion dollar niche. And so there's a lot of areas in there when it comes to like, you know, reimbursements for product that Amazon's lost or stolen, right. When my agency works with people, we partner with someone, I don't even attempt to mess with that. We say, we'll help him for me, that will help with account suspensions. But at a certain point, it's like we're gonna it's time to call in an expert. And so that's where I would, you know, call you in and say, we need your help. So even even if you're, you've been doing this for a long time, there's a lot there are a lot of layers in this. And it's so specific to Amazon, you cannot treat it like a target or a regular Walmart or any other kind of situation, you really don't have power in that sense.

Chris McCabe  25:24

And I've got a story that was a recent unfortunate event that I can use to illustrate why I don't like kind of the one stop shopping or why I loved your post on LinkedIn this week, so much.

Michael Maher  26:27

And I only said that because I sometimes I feel like we are kind of a generalist, really marketing and advertising. But I'm like, man, we're doing all this stuff. Are we really doing every single thing super, super well. And so that even to me, it's crazy and be like, Man, you found a good niche. And I'm like, it's a pretty big deal. A lot of room here,

Chris McCabe  26:44

you probably are doing all those things really well. The problem is when people overextend themselves, and they say, Oh, you've got a problem with Amazon. And some agencies just add like a tab or a page on a site that says like suspension help just for maybe the SEO or the keyword?

Michael Maher  27:02

Sure, sure.

Chris McCabe  27:02

Like so I think there's a marketing kind of salesy reason maybe they don't really do it, or they would just refer to somebody like me anyway, they wouldn't actually do it when they want to traffic, right? What the traffic, so there's that but then there are people it way beyond that, who are actively trying to help people, and they're actually doing more harm than good. And I had a case recently, we all know that competitor brands, or a lot of them are being attacked by blackhat, companies blackhat sellers, messing with their listings, elicit back end, keyword abuse is a big thing where they can attempt to overwrite your racing contributions and put all these keywords into your flat files and Brand Registry, prevent them from doing that.

Michael Maher  27:45

And the effor to that seems, that seems so easy. 

Chris McCabe  27:48

Well, the thing is, there was an agency like PPC or an ads or, you know, market with the same marketing agency, which shall not, you know, be named, right, that was trying to help them troubleshoot this. And they were just opening up seller support cases, and maybe trying to use support to get through the catalog, which was like a good idea if that were enough. And it was a good first step. But the content of those cases wasn't like, this is abuse, this needs to be referred to the abuse teams. These terms were not entered by us, we have to delete these elicit keywords. And then we need it referred to the abuse teams, not just to reinstate these people, their listing was down because of this. Yeah, it wasn't just not winning the buy box, or hey, there's some weird stuff in our flat files, and we didn't put them there, you know, or our back end that we didn't

Michael Maher  28:36

But some people don't even know what team  what teams there are at Amazon and saying, I need to escalate this to this team. So that's key.

Chris McCabe  28:43

And I'm sure they had experience with reaching out to catalog before most of us have, and that's great. But they got stuck immediately. It was like stop sign. What do you do at the stop sign, where you stop? Do you go left to right. So the client

Michael Maher  28:56

I'm gonna wait here

Chris McCabe  28:58

The client was like, stuck. And he was stuck for a while he didn't contact us. He didn't know that we helped with stuff like this. I mean, we have abuse reporting stuff on my site under services. But I mean, thank God he got to us when he did, because we were able to remedy that. I would say it still took me like a week to get his listing back up. To get the keywords deleted. I had to do an escalation form. And the agency hired had absolutely no idea about the escalation process, about the strategy of appeals. These are essentially hybrid appeals where you're petitioning for reinstatement as you would with any appeal, but you're reporting the abuse at the same time.

Michael Maher  29:36

Yeah. And very reactionary to like, well, they're just doing this and if you can't prove that, then it looks like maybe even more of a stab in the dark.

Chris McCabe  29:44

The good news is in these cases, you can prove it because the person at Amazon whether it's catalog are the abuse prevention team can look and see that these elicit keywords were added to your back end against your will obviously, you wouldn't put in all these crazy terms to get yourself flagged. So sometimes they just put in like pesticide you know, to attract the pesticide bots. I mean, that's all

Michael Maher  30:03

Ah, okay. I had a client, who had an electronic. And Amazon said, this is a pesticide and they took it down. This is a couple years ago, that makes me wonder I was thought, you know, just something that the algorithm triggered it. And so they're like, we got it turned back on, like, then, like, within the same day, but I'm like, maybe it's a competitor,

Chris McCabe  30:24

They could have been legit. I mean, they might have had something in their listing that said, like antifungal, anti microbial, like for a razor whatever.

Michael Maher  30:31

Okay

Chris McCabe  30:32

Like electronics and all sorts of other items. It was an antenna, by the way. So yeah, I mean, it depends on what was in the language of the listing. The problem is, so many people had their listings taken down, because some of them were false positives, and people appealed and got them reinstated without much fuss. Some of them it was like terms in their detail page, they had to just delete those terms, and then come back and petition for reinstatement. That was unfortunate, but that was fixable. . But the black hat services realized, oh, Amazon scanning and you know, algorithmically seeking out these words, if I can just tuck them into somebody's back end keywords, I can get them suspended overnight, or right away or tomorrow.

Michael Maher  31:15

Easy.

Chris McCabe  31:15

And people were puzzled, because they were like I went through my flat files, I have nothing that could even conceivably and of course, I would have conversations at them. And I had to be skeptical. First, like, Are you sure? Let me look at what you got

Michael Maher  31:28

Someone could come to you and lie to you? And do you have to flush out and say, during discovery? Is this actually something I want to take on? Because it could be causing you to be not reputable?

Chris McCabe  31:37

Well, in those cases, we can figure it out if they and sometimes they just don't know what they're doing, or they didn't do their own flat files. And so they're like, well, somebody else did that for us. So we're just gonna look at it. And then they figure out Yeah, I can see what happened. But those are the gaps and loopholes that black cats understand and exploit. So they know they can put pesticide type terms in your back end and get almost any listing that exists suspended, at least temporarily. But they know you can fix that. So they know they only get a temporary bump out of it. But if they cheat you out of two or three days of sales at the right time of year, or if it's like high volume product. I mean, I've got another seller we're working with now who sells like 400 units a day.

Michael Maher  32:19

Yeah. Have you know, you miss out on those sales right there the algorithm could really push you out

Chris McCabe  32:24

I mean, what if each of those units goes for 45-50 bucks? And it takes you a handful of days? To me that's a lot of money.

Michael Maher  32:30

Yeah.

Chris McCabe  32:31

So that's why I bang that drum for you know, and this goes for me too. I mean, fact check what I tell you as well.

Michael Maher  32:40

Absolutely.

Chris McCabe  32:40

I take my word on everything that's not responsible.

Michael Maher  32:44

Yep, No, I and so I tell people when it comes to discovery, whenever they're looking, you know, and they're like, oh, maybe I'm kind of concerned about price. And I'm like, and I'm just very straightforward. Because one, I'm a big believer that, you know that things are going to work out the way they need to. And I'm very confident that if I show them to do do the work, God can take care of the rest. That's my personal belief. But what I also tell people is it I want to be I don't want to rush someone into something. So if they don't feel comfortable yet, and they need to ask more questions, I'm like, take your time, if someone wants to rush you, it's not worth it. Now, I may want the revenue for my business, but I'm never gonna force you into something. Because I know that whatever effort we're going to put in in three months, that's then going to make you, you go in and say I don't want to do this anymore. It's really a waste of our time. But I tell people, you're going to be very hard pressed to find quality. Here's the thing, quality work below this price point, you can find potentially find it above this price point. And the way that we bill it, we really kind of partner with people, but I said, you're gonna be really hard pressed to find it, you're gonna need to hire an expert. I said that on a discovery, a rediscovery call, and it kind of got cold for a little bit and then talk with someone again. And they said, we've been burned by two agencies. And they're like, well, we're looking at, you know, one person to do everything. I said, you can't take that approach. You have to go specific, and you've been burned twice in the past, so you're not in a good position to pick that same thing. Again, it's like people saying, what's the definition of insanity? It's doing this over and over again, but expecting different results.

Chris McCabe  34:20

I hear that too. There are people like, well, we hired two of your competitors. And I'm like, wait a minute, which I've only got one or two that I would even refer you right? If you didn't want to do it my way.

Michael Maher  34:29

Yeah. Okay.

Chris McCabe  34:29

And they're like,

Michael Maher  34:30

they were fifty agency.

Chris McCabe  34:32

Well, no, they're like we called five or 10 of your competitors today. I'm like, I don't have five or 10 competitors. I've got maybe two others, and eight jokers that you wasted your time talking.

Michael Maher  34:41

What do you actually say? It's pretty, I'm sure you do.

Chris McCabe  34:44

I'm blunt about that. Yeah. I mean, I'm known I'm probably like, personality wise, pretty direct and blunt. But also, people expect me to give them like straight, dope and frank information because of the gravity of an account suspension. You know, there's no time to fool around, there's a time element. I mean, you can't hastily appeal that doesn't get you anywhere. So I understand the need to answer. It's fast. But sometimes you're like, well, it took you an hour to get back to me and somebody else got back to me faster. So I hired them. And I'm like, Really? I don't think in an hour, 45 minutes, you can properly vet? Who knows? I mean, I understand the urgency. No one's arguing that?

Michael Maher  35:20

Absolutely.

Chris McCabe  35:21

Can you properly run them through the kinds of questions you need them to answer? Well, they answered to our satisfaction. I mean, they could be quoting from a blog post that they're looking at. Some of these guys have perfected their sales pitches, they've got a website that looks like it's been around for about half an hour. It takes a lot longer than that, to figure out who's worth your money. I mean, the lower price point people in my space, or my niche, or my industry, those are just templates that's just copy and paste generic stuff. So you're paying I mean, that's if you want a template with fill in the blank type, you know, I mean, that's not expert level to me, but that if that's what you want, and that's how much you have to spend. That's fine. Don't expect it to work.

Michael Maher  36:02

Yeah, well, I think you're absolutely right, you have to and you even have to know what questions to ask to verify someone. But the one of the things that I've noticed is, you know, we might have lost business out to another agency or something. And I know that the business of that business development side is very strong. And it looks incredible. And I would say ours is good, we've done a great job. It's not like, you know, we've had a designer will help us create a proposal templates so that we can put things in the right place, and it looks better. But some people have really, really spent a lot of time on that. And so it looks great coming in, but you get eaten up and just spit out the back. Unless you're like the multimillion dollar client that's really generating a lot of revenue as someone.

Chris McCabe  36:46

and I guess we're lucky, quote unquote, in a sense, in that if people decide not to work with us, unfortunately, because of how Amazon is so ready to suspend listings or suspend accounts, we are always busy seven days a week. So I don't have time to be offended. Sometimes I think we're a great fit for someone. But they're like, well, you know, you require prepayment to get started. And somebody else, you know, only asked me for like 1000 bucks

Michael Maher  37:13

There's a reason for that. There's a reason for that.

Chris McCabe  37:15

I was well, I mean, I used to do the half up front half on delivery. I don't anymore because I was chasing too many people for the other half.

Michael Maher  37:21

Absolutely, yeah

Chris McCabe  37:22

That I'm very open about that. Now, I wasted too much time on that. But we don't have time to be like offended. It's like, I know that we're going to get enough business to keep us busy, and my whole staff and team busy anyway. Maybe in the future, we'll live in a better world where Amazon isn't so trigger happy.

Michael Maher  37:41

Right?

Chris McCabe  37:42

And it'll mean less business for me. But that's fine.

Michael Maher  37:46

You will have learned marketing and advertising by then. And you'll be running as agency.

Chris McCabe  37:50

I mean, I can always I don't, you know, dwell on this so much, because we're always focused on kind of what people need and when, but I don't I don't have to do this. I can do other things.

Michael Maher  38:01

Okay. Yeah, there's a level of pressure that's off.

Chris McCabe  38:04

I didn't graduate from college and go work for Amazon. I did other stuff for 10 years before I went to work at Amazon. And I'm not necessarily going to be a consultant my whole life either. So,

Michael Maher  38:15

yeah. I think the days of picking one thing and doing it for 40 years or over. And there, honestly, there's a level of saying, like, I have a lot of different skill sets. So I could pivot in a direction or go somewhere else and do something that's very freeing in a way, and it allows you to be more competent and say, look, even if I lose this business, it doesn't matter, because I'm giving someone the right information. And I will get the next person who believes in what I'm saying.

Chris McCabe  38:41

Yeah. And some people can, I mean, I can tell by talking to them, or maybe in their emails, but some people can take a few ideas, run with it. And they'll write something up that I think is pretty close to the target. And I'm like, look, I mean, you don't need me yet. If you need me in a day or two or a week or two. But based on what you showed me, you're at least this is worth an attempt, this is worth a shot. And I'm like telling him, they'll say, well, I think I want you to do it. And I'll say, but I already looked at what you sent me.

Michael Maher  39:12

You don't need me.

Chris McCabe  39:13

I mean, you might need me for an hour or like a one hour initial assessment. But why bother hiring me for the full time? I mean, if you have no time, and it's like, you're going to rush it, then yeah, you should hire me to do it. If it's going to be just halfway, you know, I mean, I don't recommend anyone saying, well, this is close enough.

Michael Maher  39:32

Great. Yeah.

Chris McCabe  39:33

But some people are like, I'm going to spend the afternoon on this. I think it's pretty close. I want your opinion. And they'll surprise me maybe they won't even sound like they're almost all the way done with it. And I'll look at it and I'll say yeah, this is pretty good. You know,

Michael Maher  39:46

we need more honest people like that in the world that can say

Chris McCabe  39:49

We need them in the Amazon space

Michael Maher  39:51

and the Amazon space for sure. So where can people find you Chris? This is the end by the way. I don't know that was a very hard and stop there.

Chris McCabe  40:00

I hear

Michael Maher  40:01

If people want to find you like, do they look in the dumpster? Do they look behind their houses?

Chris McCabe  40:05

I don't live to dive. Okay, those days are behind me.

Michael Maher  40:08

Okay.

Chris McCabe  40:10

Don't look behind my house.

Michael Maher  40:12

Don't look behind your house.

Chris McCabe  40:13

Yeah, look behind your house either. Unless you live in Massachusetts. So the reason the conferences By the way, just going back to selling Velocity for one second

Michael Maher  40:22

Yeah, yeah. One last September 23rd

Chris McCabe  40:24

September 23. It's a one day all day conference here in Boston. One reason that it's in Boston, at least this year, is because I live here. And this is kind of a treat and a thrill for me to do a conference.

Michael Maher  40:36

Yeah, yeah.

Chris McCabe  40:37

Here instead of in Vegas, which is the Prosper show or in the past, we've done it in Seattle. This is not the first year for Seller velocity. For those of you unfamiliar, we did it in New York.

Michael Maher  40:47

I think some of your sponsors, too, are based out of that area as well, right? Just one 

Chris McCabe  40:51

Yep. Yep. Teika metrics is co-hosting this with us. And it's in the Seaport in Boston, which is kind of you know, the central area for Amazon activity. I think there'll be more conferences not you know, necessarily associated with us that are in the seaport. If you're unfamiliar with Boston, that's just a great central location. But it's in late September, but it's not so late that you would be worried about snow. It's okay. Yeah, I can guarantee there won't be any snow. No snow or your money back.

Michael Maher  41:20

Okay. I was just gonna say I know, but I'm not even paying to get it tickets back.

Chris McCabe  41:24

It's gonna cost me and I mean, real snow. I mean, New England snow. I don't Yeah, but a dusting or any.

Michael Maher  41:29

We're not talking about Oklahoma's snow

Chris McCabe  41:31

We're not talking about Maryland where, you know, somebody hears about the words snow, on the radio, and they cancel all the schools. So it's September 23rd, we have a great lineup. We do have LONGERGAME, all one word as the discount code for your week, of course. And I'm hoping you personally can attend as well. Because we are encouraging people to come in person, we're taking all the expected precautions, of course. And it's great, because we have lightning talks, which are 15 to 20 minutes.

Michael Maher  42:02

Oh, okay. I like that.

Chris McCabe  42:04

As well as breakout sessions. So you can attend virtually By the way, it is possible, we always have a virtual option. You cannot attend the breakout sessions, virtually it's not logistically feasible for us to do that. Those are the breakout, those are the live lightning talks that you can that you can virtually, you know, remotely access. So we like to give people multiple options, depending on what their travel plans on are and where they are. But if you can come out to Boston, September is a great time of year to be here for sure.

Michael Maher  42:32

All right, you heard it from Chris, he's he lives in Boston. So he would know, thanks so much for coming on the show. I know that I'm definitely going to be reaching out to you to help my agency to get some things taken care of. And I just honestly appreciate the information. I think, the more we can learn from knowledgeable people that aren't just trying to sell you their brand, then the better off we're going to be in the Amazon community.

Chris McCabe  42:53

Yeah. And in closing, I appreciate that brands have a tough time of it these days. Amazon communicates poorly, but they expect you to communicate wonderfully. And it's not easy. Being a brand I admire, you know, hats off. People that struggle with this stuff, who are just trying to sell or make nice products and manufacture good stuff, who are struggling and wasting time with some of this, you know, back and forth with Amazon.

Michael Maher  43:21

It's heartbreak. Yeah, I know. It's very difficult to I it's very difficult to deal with and you just get disheartened.

Chris McCabe  43:27

I know I mean, I'm not really that patient of a person. And some people must have, you know, Buddhist awareness and patience to survive some of these back and forth nonsensical replies they get from Amazon. Hats off to you. I applaud your efforts. And I apologize as an ex-Amazonian, I have to apologize for some of that frustration. Even though I haven't been there for a while. It's not really my fault. But

Michael Maher  43:53

Yeah, but he's at least being nice people. So hats off to the brands. That's what we're leaving is. Brands, you're doing great work. If you're doing great work, keep showing up, doing the work and there are good people out there that can help you.

Chris McCabe  44:05

Thanks for having me.

Michael Maher  44:06

Yeah. Thanks for coming on. All right, everybody. This is it. Show's over. Talk to you later.