Amazon Sellers Blog

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By Patrick Young
ableusa.info

Debt is a useful financial tool that provides resources to cover your ecommerce business expenses, buy inventory, and fuel expansion plans. However, if your business starts struggling to meet its revenue expectations, you might find yourself owing an enormous amount of money to lenders in a short period of time.
 
Overcoming debt is hard, but it is possible! Today, AMZ Sellers Attorney explores important financial strategies you as an ecommerce business owner can adopt to overcome debt and improve your venture’s long-term financial position.
 
Create a Budget
 
The first step toward taking control of your finances is creating a budget. Review your revenue and expenses for the past year and look for trends that help identify underperforming assets and areas where you are overspending.
 
Additionally, segregate the various types of debt that you have from highest to lowest interest rates. This includes credit card bills, vendor payments, bank loans, etc. Prioritize allocating money to paying off higher interest debts.
 
Similarly, recognize areas of your business that bring in the most revenue and channel your resources towards expanding it while cutting back on those that are non-profitable.
 
Reduce Expenses
 
Negotiate with your supplier to allow you more time to pay your dues or work out a part-payment system. Additionally, speak with your employees about cutting back on benefits until the business recovers financially. Through open conversation and negotiation, you could be able to reduce these expenses.
 
Overcoming certain expenses involves taking hard calls such as eliminating products, raising prices and adding shipping charges. Making these decisions could prove to be the difference between your business surviving or going under.
 
Increasing Revenue
 
Focus on the products and channels that are bringing you the most revenue and allocate increased resources towards those. For example, if your online marketing campaigns are bringing in major sales, increase the budget for the campaign and aggressively promote products on social media and your site. You can also up your online marketing game by investing in SEO services. Improving your SEO has great ROI as it will help you improve your search rankings, which often means more clicks and in turn more customers!
 
As mentioned previously, you can opt to increase your prices to generate more revenue. However, be mindful of your customer’s behavior and ascertain whether they will be receptive to the increase. For loyal existing customers you can offer discounts or add-ons to increase your average transaction value and ensure retention.
 
Also, adjust your payment terms to reduce the delay between selling and receiving payment. For example, currently, if you provide 60 days to customers to make payment, reduce it to 30 for all future orders and new customers.
 
For customers with overdue payments, promptly send reminders. Consider using a collections agency if they fail to pay even after constant reminders.
 
Consolidating Debt
 
If you have several high-interest loans and a large debt to repay, consolidation could be a good option. Consolidating debt involves combining various loans and debt into one single loan, usually with a lower fixed interest rate and monthly payment. This allows you to have a predictable amount to be paid each month rather than juggling variable payments with different interest rates.
 
However, applying for and understanding the terms of a consolidation loan can be complex. Additionally, there are various requirements such as a good credit score, proof of finances, and more which you need to submit. It is advisable to consult with a credit counseling organization or hire a debt management professional to assist you.
 
Overcoming business debt requires time and perseverance. It is essential to create a budget, cut down on business inefficiencies, and practice good financial practices. Be patient, take it one step at a time, and your situation will improve before you know it!
 
If your business is dealing with a wrongful Amazon suspension, you need qualified help on your side to get your account reinstated. Connect with AMZ Sellers Attorney today! 

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Under the DMCA, a copyright owner can file a takedown notice against another seller who is infringing on their copyrighted work.  If the seller against whom the notice was filed, the accused seller has the remedy to file a counter-notice, which has the effect of re-establishing the allegedly infringing content, unless the accused infringer files a complaint for copyright infringement.  Under the old law, this required a filing in federal court, which can be extremely expensive.

On December 27, 2020, Congress passed a bill called the CASE Act, which provides a small claims alternative for filing a copyright infringement case.  While the remedies and damages are limited, there are several things which are very interesting for Amazon sellers:

1.   Copyright holders can now file a small claims copyright infringement case under the new law, which are decided by a four-person board of experts.  This is a voluntary process, and if the defendant opts out, you must proceed to file in conventional federal court.

2.  A filing provides you with a filed complaint that you can show to Amazon to defeat a fraudulent counter-notice.

3.  A filing is cheaper, you can be represented by counsel, and hearings are virtual (held by videoconference as opposed to in -person).

Our Amazon attorney is here to help answer your questions on this new process and how it may benefit you.
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We provide an appeals service which, for a monthly fee, will take care of addressing these policy violations to keep your account in good standing.  Just click here for further information.

If you have been frustrated waiting up to one year for your trademark to be registered, relief is in sight.  Amazon has changed its brand registration policy.  Now, instead of submitting an application to the Brand Registry after your trademark has been registered with the USPTO, you can submit it after you have applied for the trademark, using your application serial number.

A trademark application is not something you should try to do yourself.  An expert should be consulted, who will search your potential mark and advise if you have a chance at registration or not.  A professional can also respond to office actions from the USPTO and otherwise save an application which is initially refused.
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If your mark is accepted by Amazon’s Brand Registry during the application process, it will not retain its status with the registry unless it has been officially registered with the USPTO, which is a long process.  We can help you with this.  For further information, see our intellectual property law and trademark page at: https://www.amazonsellers.attorney/ip-law-for-amazon-sellers.html

​Several days ago Amazon US posted an Important Announcement for Drop-Shipping Policy.
Many Amazon sellers already had a chance to comment on this policy and note that nothing new was announced, but at least one positive aspect was found by everyone: the drop-shipping policy has become more clear and straight to the point.
We should take this chance to examine the entire policy, its meaning in general and important details, that you should not ignore when you choose this business model.
So, let’s start!
The policy starts with this statement:
If you fulfill orders using a third party, a practice known as drop shipping, you must follow all Amazon policies to ensure a consistent customer experience that easily identifies only you as the seller of record.
EXPLANATION: you need to make sure that a customer buying the product from you on the Amazon platform will receive an item, which will state yourself as a seller. This is very important for Amazon, and this is a reason why Amazon prohibits drop shipping from other online retailers (like Walmart for instance), as Amazon clients would receive a product with a Walmart label and next time will go shopping directly there, skipping this “unnecessary stop” at Amazon marketplace.  It is fine to source from Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, or Bed, Bath and Beyond, but you cannot drop ship from their online site directly to customers. Amazon does not want customers ordering from their site to receive something in a box with Walmart or Home Depot written all over it.
The next paragraph states another important aspect:
As an important reminder, all violations of the Drop Shipping Policy can break customer trust. As a result, any violation of our Drop Shipping Policy will negatively impact your account health and your ability to fulfill future orders using our Merchant Fulfilled Network (MFN).
EXPLANATION: This means, that if Amazon somehow finds out or suspects you are drop-shipping from other retailers or suppliers who keep their labels on the package, your account might be deactivated and you would need to go through several rounds of appeals to explain yourself, or to use professional services like ours to resolve things faster.
But we would like to make sure you understand the difference between the brand label and the supplier label. When an Amazon buyer wants to buy a branded product, let’s say “XXX”, the product must state the brand name, as customers expect to receive exactly this branded item. The supplier label must state YOU as a seller, and not any other third-party.
Further Amazon explains the exact prohibited actions:
The following drop shipping methods are strictly prohibited on Amazon:

• You may not purchase products from another retailer and have that retailer ship directly to customers, if:
  • the shipment does not identify you as the seller of record
  • anyone other than you appears on packing slips, invoices, or external packaging

Note: This means that the name, logo, or any other identifying information from the other retailer may not appear on what the customer receives.

• You may not ship orders with packing slips, invoices, external packaging, or other information indicating a seller name or contact information other than your own

EXPLANATION: Please forget about drop-shipping from such online retailers, as:

1. Walmart
2. Home Depot
3. Costco
4. The Kroger Co.
5. Walgreens Boots Alliance
6. CVS Health Corporation
7. Target
8. BestBuy
9. eBay
10. Dollar General

Do your homework in advance and find a reliable supplier, if you wish to have a successful business through Amazon marketplace.
Drop-shipping is a very beneficial strategy:

•  If you don’t want to keep storage of a purchased stock – all products will be delivered from the supplier directly to the customer, which is extremely convenient
• If you don’t have an extra budget to purchase the items in advance
• If you don’t want to risk, whether the product will be sold or not

With a drop-shipping business model you have a guarantee, that you will get paid, as you purchase a product from your supplier ONLY if it’s ordered from your Amazon account.
But in order to have all these benefits, you have to assure Amazon that you are a reliable and responsible seller, acting partly on behalf of the marketplace. The old and the new policy provides the details, you have to consider to be trusted. Put yourself in Amazon’s shoes and you will understand, that they don’t want the products to be delivered to their beloved customers from their competitors.
The last part of the policy pretty much repeats the above statements, except the one:
If you fulfill using drop shipping, you must strictly adhere to following requirements of our policy:

• You must always be the seller of record of your products, meaning you identify yourself as the seller of your products on all information included with the item.
• Remove any information identifying the third-party drop shipper before shipping.
• Be responsible for accepting and processing customer returns.

HERE: we need to pay our attention to the last point of the paragraph: YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ACCEPTING AND PROCESSING CUSTOMER RETURNS. If a customer for some reason wants to return a product, you are the one to organize this. Not Amazon, not supplier, but you.
We wish you good luck with your business on Amazon and as always, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to turn to us.  

At least once a week, we come across an Amazon seller whose seller account is deactivated for forged or manipulated documents. Most of the time, the seller has done something innocent like changed the quantity of an item from 1 to 10 by simply adding a zero.  Innocent, right?