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Apply These 3 Legal Marketing Hacks To Your Amazon Biz

So I may know a thing or two about Amazon, but me and the law have no relations. That’s why I was happy to get insight from Aaron Kelly, Founder and Senior Partner at Kelly / Warner Law.

As a seasoned, top-rated internet marketing focused attorney, Aaron prides himself on assisting entrepreneurs market better & keeping it all legal.

Find out more about Aaron at www.kellywarnerlaw.com and enjoy the following actionable insight into leveraging the law, selling online, and marketing!

The e-commerce private label industry is exploding — in a good way! Experts predict that by 2020, online shopping will be a $523-billion business, in the U.S. alone. And guess what? A giant chunk of that $523 is coming from private label entrepreneurs who are molding multi-million-dollar companies by leveraging Amazon’s FBA program and other third-party-selling, e-commerce platforms.

Yes, my friends, there is money to be made! The time has come to dip your toe in the private label pond. So, let’s take a few minutes to chat about some “legal hacks” associated with the niche.

Someone Left A Bad Review. Now What?

A big headache for online sellers is bad reviews. Sometimes they come from competitors, other times from legitimate customers — of both the sane and “implacable” variety. So, the question is: Can you get a bad review deleted? Sometimes. Let’s review a few scenarios.

Competitor Posts Fake, Negative Review On Your Product Page

Sure, free speech is free speech; in the U.S., censuring opinions is unlawful. However, purposefully and publically lying about person, product or business, to the point of harm, IS against the law. If you catch a competitor doing this, there is a solid chance you can a) win a lawsuit and b) get the post removed. Click here to read more about appropriate actions if you suspect a competitor is dabbling in some subversive black-hat marketing.

Legitimate Customer, With A Gripe, Posts A Bad Review On Your Product Page

Yikes! Someone posted a scathing review on a listing and it has decimated sales. Help!

First thing to do is breathe. This problem has been overcome by thousands of people; you, too, will get through this.

Now, consider the problem post. Ask yourself: Is it true? If yes, respond politely and publicly to the complainer. Consumers love to see customer service. Often, a polite, genuinely concerned response to the negative post can completely cancel out a scathing rant. So long as you confront the problem and offer solutions, all is forgiven in the eyes of many consumers. After all, nobody is perfect and the majority of people on this planet understand that mistakes happen. It’s how the mistake is handled that matters.

If, however, the post in question isn’t true, several scenarios may apply. Counterfeiters, who are leaching off your listing, may be to blame. If so, there are ways to alert Amazon of a possible fraudster, which can result in their account’s termination and deletion of related elements, including misplaced reviews — ultimately solving your problem. Also, if a consumer leaves a review that contains false statements of fact, you may be able to get a court order and have it removed — depending, of course, on the details.

Someone Hijacked A Listing. Options?

Another online selling headache? Listing hijackers who run rampant on open catalog platforms, like Amazon. (If you’ve never heard of “product listing hijackers,” bookmark this page, quickly jump here for an overview, then come back.)

You know the culprits; pirating counterfeiters who prey on listings. At best, they’re a nuisance; at worst, they can kill a legitimate listing — and associated profits — by disseminating inferior-quality products. So, it’s important to strike back hard and quick.

So, how does one go about shaking a hijacker?

• Contact the culprit. Be polite. Who knows, it could all be one big misunderstanding. And believe it or not, this is often the case. Someone new to the niche clicks the wrong button and presto, they’ve inadvertently taken over another listing. In such cases, the newbie usually apologizes profusely and everything goes back to normal. No harm, no foul — and most importantly, no headaches or solution investments.
• If you contact the culprit to no avail, it may be time to enlist a lawyer to send a strongly worded letter on your behalf. Typically, the buck stops here and hijackers jump off. After all, they’d rather leach off people who aren’t lawyered up. But believe it or not, the cost of getting a professional letter is probably a lot less than you may assume.
• Sometimes, the best life hack is good old fashioned investigating. And that’s certainly true in the online private label game. As simple as it may sound, the best — albeit not foolproof — way to avoid a hijacking / counterfeiting tangle is by vetting your supply chain. And when we say “vetting” we mean VET-TING! Spend 100% more time on the task then you anticipated. Quadruple check everything. Get references and follow up with them.

Avoid FTC Fines By Getting A Marketing Audit

Marketing mistakes can cost a bundle. Attorneys General and the Federal Trade Commission have the authority to sue and fine parties that engage in “unfair and deceptive marketing.”

So, what constitutes unfair and deceptive marketing, you ask? The list is long and detail-dependent; what’s A-OK for one marketing campaign may be a NO-NO in another. That said, here are some ballpark guidelines:

• Don’t Lie. Basically, don’t try to be tricky with consumers. Regarding marketing copy, don’t try to trick them with fancy language and lies of omission; don’t wizard statistics and studies out of thin air.
• Material relationships and partnerships must be disclosed to potential buyers before the payment stage of a transaction. Additionally, brands must disclose marketing elements that affect the overall perception of a promotional piece.
• Say No To Fake News Sites. Once upon an unregulated time, fake news sites were all the rage. Now? Not so much. The FTC thinks they’re “unfair and deceptive,” plus, fake news sites often come with intellectual property baggage.
• Don’t exaggerate findings. Weight loss product marketers often get trapped in embellished-claims quick sand. And it’s little wonder; it’s an exceptionally competitive niche! So, marketers may sometimes fins themselves highlighting an atypical result as if it’s the norm — or drawing false, but great sounding, conclusions based on questionable scientific studies. Avoid this at all costs. The FTC hates it and dolls out hefty fines to those who dare do it.

If there were ever a profitable opportunity, it’s the online private label space. Experts predict the niche will be generating revenues in the multi-billions by 2020. Last year, Amazon FBA sellers, alone, shipped over 1 billion items to people in 185 countries!

Profitable private label operations safeguard their operations with a rock solid defense. Hopefully you can use the above tips to tighten up your ship and react more effectively in the face of a business threat.

(SOURCE)

- So much great info out there. Did you find this helpful?

7 Steps To Protect Your Amazon Product Listing From Hijackers

By Greg Mercer

I love sharing my experiences and strategies of selling on Amazon. There are so many great things about it (like the potential profit, the ability to sell and not touch inventory, the way Amazon handles fulfillment and provides millions of customers, etc), that people will often think it is too good to be true. Why isn’t everyone selling on Amazon, they wonder? This leads to two of the most common questions: is it too competitive already, and for those who know the Amazon lingo, what should I do about someone who hijacks my listing?

These questions give me a chuckle. And then I give my answers: Amazon is a huge and ever-evolving marketplace where new opportunities emerge every day; and do not let “hijackers” deter you from getting started, as it is a false roadblock that can be avoided.

I believe that it is very important to do a competitive analysis before you enter any business, or select any product to sell on Amazon, but it is not smart to worry about an ever-present but ambiguous threat of competitive “hijackers”.

Remember when you were young, maybe you were afraid of some imaginary boogeyman who came out at night while you were sleeping….maybe kept you up, gave you nightmares, or had you jet off into your parents bed. Did the boogeyman ever get you? No? I didn’t think so….My point is, don’t let some abstract fear hold you back from selling on Amazon, there are steps that we can take to protect ourselves and prosper!  There definitely are people who can hijack your listing on Amazon, but we can take preemptive steps to make it difficult for them to do so.

In this post, I want to review what Amazon hijackers do, and how you can protect yourself and take action should something happen.

What does it mean to have your listing “hijacked”?

In short, having a listing hijacked generally means that someone is selling a counterfeit or similar version of your private label product. This is particularly frustrating to a private label seller, as we took the effort to create our own brand and product specifically so we can avoid having to compete with other Amazon sellers to earn the Buy Box. 

What is the Buy Box?

Amazon will automatically designate one seller the default seller of a product. If a customer clicks the “Add to Cart” button, the seller that owns the Buy Box will get the sale (unless the customer specifically changes to purchase from a different seller). Because customers will rarely opt for a different seller of an identical product, “owning” the Buy Box is a tremendous advantage in boosting your revenue. 

Let’s take a look at what this actually means. I found a random example of an item that has two sellers (it should have only one seller, as it is a private label product).

When we search Amazon for “bamboo wood cutting board”, we see the following results:

And clicking through on that result, you can see that there are two sellers for these cutting boards:

If we click through to see who the two sellers are, we can compare the sellers side by side:

Based on the number of seller reviews and who created the Greener Chef brand, it looks like the original seller and the creator of the private label brand is calledGREENER BRANDS. They are competing against a seller called Nakeing.

Here are the two product pages for each seller, first this from GREENER BRANDS:

And this, slightly more expensive, from Nakeing:

So in this case, Nakeing is probably hijacking the listing for these cutting boards, because they are not getting the cutting boards manufactured and imported, but instead selling a version of cutting boards that is what GREENER BRANDS created and sells.

Just a note, I do not know these brands and certainly do not know this for sure, I just wanted to use this as an example for this blog post.

So Nakeing is selling these cutting boards, which may be the exact cutting boards that are in the listing or a counterfeit version that they just send to unknowing customers. If you own the GREENER BRANDS brand, this can be a serious problem, because you are losing sales to someone who is piggybacking off of your hard work of finding a product and selling it successfully on Amazon. 

To make matters worse, an unsuspecting customer may purchase your cutting boards, but instead of buying from you, your listing hijacker (ie Nakeing in this example) owns the Buy Box and they receive a counterfeit version of your cutting boards! They are unhappy with their purchase, and leave a negative review on yourlisting! So you get a bad review for something that you don’t even sell, and this bad review could deter future visitors from not purchasing your product.

This could derail your successful product if it continues. Of course, you don’t ever want to find yourself in this position to start with, so let’s explore the precautions you can take to prevent this situation.

How to Deter Listing Hijackers:

1. Monitor Your Listing Closely

They don’t call it “Amazon” for nothing–things can get wild out there! Whether you are walking through the Amazon forest, or the ecommerce superstore, heed this advice: be aware of your surroundings at all times!

Beyond just checking in on your Seller Central dashboard every day, you will want to see your listing from your customers point of view. How many sellers are selling your private label product. If it’s more than one (that one seller being you!), then you may have a hijacker situation on your hands….you don’t need to check your listing every day, but periodically will be sufficient, especially as your sales start to ramp up and others may note your success.

Additionally, if you notice any sudden dips in sales from your Seller Central dashboard, that could be an indication of something amiss.

Invest In Your Brand:

Building your brand can be a great solution to deterring hijackers. You can do this in several ways.

2. Build Your Own Ecommerce Site:

If you are able to create your own ecommerce channel outside of Amazon (sites likeShopify or Square Space make it easy to set up your own ecommerce store), you can avoid the riff raff of Amazon hijackers. This is a great long term strategy as well, so that you can start building your own customer base that you can contact directly, and not be fully reliant on the traffic and rules of Amazon.

Amazon offers a white label fulfillment service, so you can have customers check out completely on your site and then have the item fulfilled by Amazon. Or you can send the customer directly to your Amazon product page to check out.

3. Brand Your Products Better:

If you create better branding on your product listing, and show that you have a distinct brand and logo on the actual product, and the packaging, you may deter the lurking pirate. The reason for this is because you are clearly demonstrating the brand to the customer, and if they order your product from a counterfeit seller, then it is immediately apparent that their product may not have the branding that your product should have.

So when you are taking your product photos, do your best to show off the branding on the packaging and the product itself. This is a best practice regardless, as you are investing in developing the brand and your marketing collateral, you might as well show this off to your customers!

Here’s a great example of a well-branded private label brand that I came across in the Jungle Scout Product Database:

You can see that not only do they show the brand in the product itself, the packaging, but also in the product listing and product description. Despite being a private label brand, they convey to the consumer in this niche that their product is a “brand name” product.

4. Register Your Brand with Amazon

One helpful step to protect yourself against hijackers is to register your brand with Amazon. It is a very straightforward process that I have covered before in webinars and blog posts.  You can simply go to the page to register your Amazon brand and fill out some basic information, like below:

One thing that you will need to have or create is a company website, which you can do quickly and cheaply with Shopify or Square Space if you want a site to also do ecommerce transactions, or even just a WordPress or Unbounce landing page would suffice.

It is important to note, and Amazon states this clearly: “Enrolling a brand in the Brand Registry and registering as the brand owner does not prevent other sellers from selling the branded products.”

Ultimately, once you have registered your brand, you will be able to control your listing, and less likely that someone will change your product listing without consent. And if someone sells a counterfeit product, and it is proven (with photos and descriptions), then you can have the hijacker’s listing removed.

5. Contact the Seller Directly: Cease And Desist

This point is perhaps the most important, so glad that you made it here. And it is simply this: contact the seller directly and ask them to remove the post. Yup, that simple, yet very effective.

You can contact the seller through the link on their profile, which you can access here, in their Seller Profile. This is how you get to the Seller’s Profile:

And you can contact them like this:

And when contacting them, it is best to be short, friendly, and to-the-point. Here is an example template of what I would send (we can pretend that this is for Jungle Stix), feel free to use this verbatim, or edit as you need:

Hi {Seller Name},
I see that you are also selling Jungle Stix. However, I have created the Jungle Stix brand from scratch, and have never resold any wholesale items to any other reseller.

I own the brand, and have not authorized you or anyone else, to sell Jungle Stix on Amazon.

If you are selling a different brand, while posturing as Jungle Stix, then you are selling counterfeit products, which is something that Amazon takes very seriously and will shut down your account without warning.

If you do not remove your product from the Jungle Stix listing within 24 hours, I will have to contact Amazon and issue a formal Cease and Desist letter. This is obviously not an ideal situation for either of us, so I hope that you take heed to this note and remove your product from Jungle Stix listing immediately.

Thank you for your prompt attention.

Sincerely,

Greg Mercer, CEO @ Jungle Stix

And that is basically as much as you can say and then the ball is in the hijackers hands….if they do not respond or act accordingly, you will want to contact Amazon directly. And that brings us to our last action to address listing hijackers….

7. File a Complaint With Amazon

You can submit a complaint with Amazon with one form. You will have to gather your evidence, which means purchase the product from the offending seller, document all the ways in which it is counterfeit and deceitful, and submit it to Amazon.

Be as thorough as possible here, with as many photos and details as you can muster, comparing your product to the product that you received from the hijacker. Keep in mind that Amazon wants to protect its customer experience as much as possible, so if it is clear that someone who purchases a fake version of your product will not be happy with the purchase, then they will act on that. This may take time and back and forth, so not my ideal course of action.

In Conclusion

Having to deal with the shady seller with questionable principles is the unfortunate side of selling on Amazon. There will be people who want to prey on others success and turn a quick dollar, however, I think that there is too much hay to be made to worry about these people as my main priority. If you follow the steps outlined above, and continue moving forward with developing a strong brand with well-curated products and marketing strategies, your success will overshadow the hijackers who feast on the crumbs they can gather from you. Onwards!

(SOURCE)

- So informative! What did you think of this article?

Ecommerce Fraud Prevention – How To Protect Your Business

BY SHABBIR

Back when Fish Finder Source was an ecommerce store, there was one period of time where I received a ton of fraudulent orders. Unfortunately, I was new to this then, and in the excitement of receiving orders, I fulfilled them without really vetting them.

As a result, I received a string of chargebacks that nearly meant losing my business. A chargeback is when someone calls their bank or credit card company and informs them that they don’t recognize a charge on their statement.

Here’s an eye-opening statistic. In 2012, ecommerce fraud cost merchants a staggering $3.5 billion!

If this happens, the bank will immediately return those funds back to the customer. But where do they get those funds from? Your and my pocket! In the event of a chargeback, the bank will deduct the funds back from whoever they were charged to without even asking the merchant for their side of the story first. How can the bank access your funds? Through your merchant account!

On top of that, you’ll be slapped with a penalty, and you’ll lose a little bit of your credibility. This information actually gets attached to your EIN number, so it sticks with you for good.

Chargebacks are not permanent – merchants can fight them, but the process is long, and even if it comes out in your favor, the fact that you received the chargeback still sticks.

The reason you lose credibility is that ideally, a chargeback should only happen when a merchant commits a fraud on a customer – either not delivering the goods, or falsely advertising their products. So more chargebacks ideally means we aren’t doing our jobs as merchants.

With too many chargebacks(most merchant accounts have a set percentage they allow for per month), you’ll lose your merchant account(as I did mine) and since the data is tied to your EIN number, you’ll have a very hard time getting a new one anywhere.

Now this system is in place to protect consumers – but it is completely consumer-centric, and is built very unfairly for merchants, so some unscrupulous individuals take advantage of this at our expense.

Two major types of chargeback fraud

As a merchant, you’ll face two types of fraud most of the time.

1. A cheating customer buys a product from you, you ship it to them, and when they receive their statement, they’ll claim the charge from your store was not recognized. The bank blindly returns them your money.
2. Somebody buys something from your store using a stolen credit card. You ship the item to the thief, and when the original cardholder gets their statement, they don’t recognize your charge, and claim a chargeback.

Dealing with the first one is very easy. Most merchant accounts have a process for you to submit documents that prove you are in the right. Usually, these documents are your original invoice and proof of shipping.

Dealing with the second one gets a little tricky. It’s hazy because you never really know whether the card was truly stolen or not – the only thing you can do after the fact is submit your documents and hope for the best.

Ways to avoid fraud

The best way to deal with fraud is to protect yourself before it happens. While there is no way to protect yourself from an unscrupulous customer, fortunately for us, most people are honest. On top of that, providing good customer service will mean that customers will be very appreciative, most of the time.

On an episode of National Geographic’s Brain Games, the host ran an experiment where a coffee shop barista gave back too much change. Everyone they tried the experiment on gave the change back. When the barista became distracted and gave poor service, though, a few people kept the extra change – but most people still gave it back.

Here are some warning signs for potential fraud orders.

Red flag 1: Different shipping/billing address

For most orders you receive, the shipping and billing address are going to be the same. They may be different on occasion, such as when somebody is buying a gift for someone else. But use your common sense here. My general rule is that if the addresses are close by, chances are someone’s billing address is their home and they are shipping it to their office, or vice versa.

Red flag 2: The IP address of the order is different than the region being shipped to

Most ecommerce platforms automatically log the IP address of where an order was placed from. If you receive an order with a billing address in one place, the shipping address somewhere else, and the IP address in yet another place, something may be fishy.

Red flag 3: Addresses are different on big-ticket items

If the products you sell are relatively inexpensive($100 and below), it’s highly unlikely someone is going to go through all of this trouble for something inexpensive. If you are selling electronics, expensive items, or items that can easily be flipped elsewhere, you’ll have to be more careful about things.

Red flag 4: Customer does not respond

If you are doubtful about any order, the easiest way to sort out the confusion is by calling up the customer and confirming what’s going on. Most fraudsters will not have a real phone number – so it’s important that you call, and not email. If you are still doubtful, you can just ask them to send a picture of their driving license and credit card side by side. If they want, they can cover up all numbers except the last four on their card.

When you ask for this information, be courteous and inform the customer that you are asking for this information for their protection to make sure someone isn’t using their information without their knowledge. Once you point this out, most honest customers will not mind complying.

Red flag 5: Repetitive orders

One way I realized that an order I received on Fish Finder Source was a fraud was when I got two orders for fish finders in succession from the same address. One day, I received an order, and I shipped it out. Two days later, after the first order was delivered, I immediately got another order from the same guy for another fish finder. Nobody’s going to need two fish finders in three days! I cancelled and refunded the second order, but I had to face a chargeback and the subsequent loss on the second one.

Red flag 6: Big-ticket orders overseas

One of the fraudulent orders I received was for a $1500 fish finder that was supposed to be shipped to Canada. I fell prey to that one, too, unfortunately, but it was an expensive lesson. If you get a large order for an address overseas, be careful. First, it’s harder to verify the customer, and second, unless you use FedEx or some other expensive private shipping, you have no way of knowing whether or not your order will actually reach the customer. Of course, there’s also the chance that it’s some cybercriminal holed up in a room somewhere, too!

Red flag 7: Shipping address doesn’t look right

It’s time to do some sleuthing! Head over to Google Maps and enter the shipping address, and have a look at it in Satellite View. Is the delivery address somewhere you would expect your product to go? Most of the time, it will be a house or apartment building, or maybe an office building.

What if it’s a warehouse? Or if the address seems to be a little off? One order I received on Fish Finder Source was supposed to be delivered to strange large warehouse. This raised a red flag – because the billing address was different, too.

Red flag 8: Express shipping

Most stolen cards have a very limited window before they are reported stolen, so orders with different billing/shipping addresses and requesting rush or overnight shipping are suspicious – it’s best to confirm with the customer in this case, too.

If you are not able to get in touch with your customer about a suspicious order because the phone number provided was incorrect, you can lookup the billing address in the White Pages and see if you can find a phone number there.

AVS settings

In your merchant account, there are a few security settings you can tweak to set how rigorous the verification process for any credit card transaction is. These are usually called “AVS” settings – which stands for “Address Verification Service.”

Usually the settings will be zip code matching, billing address matching, or no matching. If it’s no matching, just a card number, expiration date, and CVV code will let the charge through. It’s a good idea to have at least zip code matching enabled, and if your niche has lots of fraud, then have both matches enabled.

Refund a small amount

Another neat way to verify if an order is genuine or not was talked about by Andrew Youderian on one of his podcast episodes. If you receive a suspicious order, just refund a small, odd amount like $1.32 back to the customer, and contact them asking for how much they’ve received as a refund. If they are the genuine cardholder, they’ll be able to tell you, no issues. Such a small amount is a tiny price to pay for staying safe!

To finish this post off, here are some fraud prevention apps you can look into.

Expert tips

Andy Geldman – Web Retailer

Phone them. Many fraudsters won’t give a genuine phone number, and others won’t answer when you call. Just a few will have the chutzpah to continue the pretence of a genuine order, but are unlikely to give plausible answers to basic questions like, “Did you intend to order ten of this item? Why do you need that many?” It’s one thing to defraud a company online, but a whole other level to do it over the phone.

Richard Lazazzera – A Better Lemonade Stand

Using a modern platform like Shopify or Big Commerce, a lot of the guesswork is taken out of verifying the authenticity of orders. The fraud controls these companies implement are becoming increasingly good at detecting potential problems. If there are any flags raised for an order, I’ll evaluate those flags on an individual basis. For larger orders, or ones I have genuine concerns, I’ll call or email the customer and ask them to provide a photo of their government issued ID that matches the credit card. If I still have any concerns, I’ll just cancel the order.

 Mike Ugino – SellBrite

Time is money. Be quick to cancel orders you deem are fraudulent, but always send an email explaining what you’ve done and why you’ve done it. If the order was, in fact, genuine, MOST customers will appreciate the reasoning and be happy to give you their order information over the phone. Alternatively, you can invite them to reorder via PayPal, which offers additional fraud protection to the merchant.

 Steve Chou – My Wife Quit Her Job

1. I check to see if the IP address is in the same state/country 2. I call the customer and check that the phone number is in the same country 3. I check the shipping address to see if matches the billing address

Don Bush – Kount

We review hundreds of data elements for every transactions including information about, the device, the location, the payment type, associations, email, links with other transactions around the world, all in a matter of milliseconds in order to give the merchant what they need to validate an order and determine whether they want to accept or reject it. This insight allows each merchant to evaluate the level of risk they are willing to take while at the same time protecting themselves and their customers.

Fraud prevention apps

Here are some popular fraud prevention software you can use if you are a frequent target of chargebacks. Some of these companies are so confident in their algorithms that if you still get a chargeback, they will eat that cost for you.

• ThreatMetrix
• Signifyd
• Kount
• Riskified

Note: I have not used any of these companies myself – before you sign up for any of them, please have a chat with their sales staff to make sure their service is the right one for you.

(SOURCE)

- We hope this doesn't happen to anyone! Good tips and good tools to arm yourself with and be prepared. What do you think?