Planet Amazon Podcast

Thriving on Amazon: Dan Brownsher’s Path from eBay Reseller to Marketplace Maestro

• Adam Shaffer • Episode 19

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Ever wondered how to crack the code of Amazon Marketplace success? Join us as we sit down with Dan Brownsher, the mastermind behind Channel Key. Starting from humble beginnings selling men's accessories on eBay, Dan’s journey is nothing short of inspiring. He shares his evolution from reselling to private labeling and ultimately founding a full-service agency that helps brands thrive on Amazon. Prepare to uncover the secrets behind his success and gain invaluable insights into navigating this dynamic marketplace.

Managing a remote team can be challenging, especially in the ever-evolving world of Amazon retail. Dan walks us through the trials and triumphs of operating a 100% remote company, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. From resolving account issues and IP claims to fostering team alignment and engagement, Dan emphasizes the pivotal role of experienced partners. Learn the best practices for maintaining high performance and delivering consistent, quality service in a remote setting.

Selling on Amazon isn't just about having a great product; it's about strategy, precision, and adaptability. Discover the multifaceted approach required to succeed as we examine the essentials of demand planning, retail readiness, and inventory management. Dan sheds light on common pitfalls and the importance of timely account management, including the role of third-party specialists. As we wrap up, we express our gratitude for the wealth of knowledge shared and look forward to our next conversation. Don't miss out—visit Phelps United's website for more tips on accelerating your Amazon sales!

For more information about Channel Key, please visit: https://channelkey.com/

Want to chat with us about this podcast? Send us a text message here

The Planet Amazon podcast, brought to you by Phelps United, addresses all things Amazon and other eCommerce marketplaces. In each episode, we talk with Brands, Agencies, and Sellers about Amazon news, new features, policies, brand policies, logistics, marketing, issues, and challenges, among other topics.

To watch all Planet Amazon Podcast episodes, visit our YouTube channel.
To learn more about Phelps United, visit our website.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Planet Amazon podcast with Adam Schafer, where we explore the world of Amazon and other e-commerce marketplaces. Join us as we delve into the latest strategies and tactics for successful selling on the world's largest online marketplace.

Adam Shaffer:

Hello everybody, I'm Adam Shaffer and welcome to the Planet Planet Amazon podcast, where we talk about all things Amazon Today. On the podcast, we're excited to have a real Amazon Marketplace veteran. His name is Dan Brownsher. I'm sure many of you have heard of him. Dan is president CEO, co-founder at Channel Key, advising multimillion-dollar corporations at fast-paced entrepreneurial startups on how to navigate the complex landscape of Amazon retail and the broader world of e-commerce in general. Dan is also the co-founder of Trend Nation, a top 200 global seller selling $1 billion in revenue. He is a national thought leader in Amazon retail strategy and emerging e-commerce trends. Welcome to the Planet Amazon podcast, dan. Thank you, adam. Thank you for having me. Wow, what an amazing background you have. I definitely need to learn more, but, holy cow, you've done a lot.

Dan Brownsher:

It's been a fun journey, Adam. It's been a fun journey, Adam, where you know Amazon's a really amazing ecosystem that has created, I think, opportunities for a lot of different types of entrepreneurs. So very fortunate to have found Amazon in the early days and it's, I think, it's still early, it's still really early.

Adam Shaffer:

Well, I know, kind of maybe boring to you, but interesting to people that are listening.

Dan Brownsher:

What got you started to start ChannelKey and get involved in this crazy, large, enormous Amazon marketplace? So it's a good question, adam, and I can give you the Reader's Digest version or I can give you the deeper version For the ADD. Perfect, okay. So I let's see. I graduated from Ohio State early 2000s and started a side hustle e-commerce business with some buddies, slash business partners, like in 2008, 2009. And basically what we were doing was sourcing goods on Alibaba.

Dan Brownsher:

We picked a random category men's accessories so cufflinks, money clips and we started selling them on eBay and it was a total side hustle side project for me. I like creating multiple streams of revenue and income and this was one of those things, uh, so I did a day job where I was, uh, you know, selling spine implants to surgeons and then, by night, I was taking photos of cufflinks. Uh, we were sourcing cufflinks, listed them on ebay and packaging orders in my basement in my house. So, uh, that uh turned into, uh, my partner moving to vegas, my, my partner starting to attend trade shows and buying branded merchandise like from, you know, big brands like Tommy Hilfiger, kenneth Cole, to then starting to sell on Amazon, to then becoming a massive reseller, and 12, et cetera, to us pivoting to creating an exclusive reseller model on Amazon, similar to a quiver or a pattern or an e-tails.

Dan Brownsher:

To pivoting to private label, to then bifurcating the businesses and saying, hey, listen, we, we know how to create these best in class Amazon businesses for ourselves and we know these brands are all struggling with how to do it, so why don't we create a service or an agency that helps these brands do do Amazon at a high level? So that was like the genesis of of channel key. So two businesses, one Amazon private label. We sold it in 2021. Private equity, which is again large.

Dan Brownsher:

Amazon PL business, and then I've been running channel since uh january of 2017, so so the product business is now gone and you're focused 100 on the agency.

Dan Brownsher:

Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah so it's so when we split right, we created we created channel keys a separate company with owners, uh, and my two partners ran that business, uh, and I ran the agency. So, uh, so, yeah, so, channel I'm sorry, trend nation still exists, but we're not involved anymore. Um, and I've been solely focused and dedicated on on channel keys since, uh, january of 2017. So, uh, we're up to about 85 people now and we're fully remote and, uh, full service, full service shop and I work're some of the biggest brands in the world.

Adam Shaffer:

What's interesting is we kind of compete, but we don't. I mean it's such a huge market, like I talk to all the competitors. You mentioned a few and there are others. I mean there's millions of people that sell on Amazon and we all still help each other out and talk to each other and sometimes we share clients and we help each other with clients. So when people say, why do you want a competitor on the show, it's like, first of all, I'm here not really to talk about us and what we do, but we are an agency. But we do buy and sell to help our brands. Instead of selling to Amazon, they sell to us. But with you you have such an incredible experience. You just bring more to the table. To me it's like you're part of the community. People come and ask questions. I don't care if you're a competitor or you're not a competitor. Everybody seems to help each other out in this place. I've never seen that outside of the Amazon world.

Dan Brownsher:

Yeah, it's so interesting. It's still a small community, right, it's certainly getting a lot bigger. But you're right, I talk to our competitors all the time and have personal relationships with a lot of our competitors and it's okay, which is fun and interesting and allows us to kind of see the growth and the trajectory of a lot of different types of businesses in the ecosystem. But yeah, I don't know. My experience is people want to share Not always, but in most cases they are willing to share. It's it's moving so fast and it's we're all dealing with a lot of the same types of problems and challenges that come with running these types of businesses and playing in amazon sandbox, um, but it's still, I don't know. In my opinion it's still really nascent, like obviously amazon's massive, but as a total percentage of retail ecom's still small. It's growing. Amazon's got what half of all us marketplace, uh, um, but there's like so much blue sky ahead.

Adam Shaffer:

So I don't know Still early $640 billion of merchandise that gets sold. There's so much, there's so many. Like I was just saying, I think we have a little bit of a break and um hearing each other, but $640 billion in merchandise that gets sold, if you're a billion dollars in sales, you're still nothing. I mean, it's amazing how big this pond is.

Dan Brownsher:

Correct. And the pond is getting much bigger right, bigger and bigger, and I don't see it slowing down anytime soon, you know.

Adam Shaffer:

I have a softball question for you, but it's something that's near and dear to my heart, and that is you know, we meet brands. We meet brands every day, small and large. We love them all and they're like I think I need help, but I'm not exactly sure why I need help. But I think need help, but I'm not exactly sure why I need help. But I think, tell me why you think most, if not all, brands need help selling and understanding Amazon and why there's a place for agencies, because I think that without the help of an agency, you're going to fail. So that's just my twisted view of things. What do you think, dan? That's just my twisted view of things.

Dan Brownsher:

What do you think, dan? Yeah, and Adam, you cut out there for a second, okay, but I think I got the gist of it and I think it's. Why is there a place for agencies right in our world, especially with dealing with I don't know any size? I don't know. We're a service business, right, and there's so many other types of service businesses out there that exist, and whether it's an attorney or whether it's a cleaning crew or whether it's a Shopify shop, businesses any type of business needs to decide what they want to be good at right. And so do you want to be good at building a brand and developing products and being an expert in every single channel you sell through or not?

Dan Brownsher:

And the answer is some brands do and some brands don't, and I think, from my perspective, this is all we do and we are in it every single day, and it's moving so fast and it's only getting more complex. There's only more technology tools that exist. There's only more ad types that exist. There's so much, there's so many challenges that brands experience or will experience every single day. And to hire a group that has the people, the experience, the technology, the resources, the relationship with Amazon, the access to certain things like DSP or whatever to flatten the learning curve for brands.

Dan Brownsher:

It's basically, in my opinion, impossible to replicate it. If you're a brand, it's. It's basically, in my opinion, impossible to replicate it if you're a brand, unless you are massive and you've got a ton of resources and you want to become an expert on the platform. It's really hard, um and it and it changes every single day. So, uh, I don't know. We've got experience across multiple, multiple categories, multiple years, multiple issues resolved, multiple ads and multiple everything that we multiple ads and multiple everything that we can leverage and, you know, pinpoint solutions for our clients really quick.

Adam Shaffer:

What I think is you have to be so damn good at everything if you want to be successful on Amazon, and it's hard because, like you said, it changes and it's really competitive. So if you're not really good at content and understanding how to test competitive, so if you're not really good at content and understanding how to test your content, if you're not good at the logistics and making sure you don't run out of stock and the issues with that, you're not going to compete with the guys that are all over this every minute of every day, and that's why you need somebody like you mentioned, a lawyer. It's like you need a lawyer for this. You need somebody that's a specialist in managing every aspect of your Amazon business. You might be good at the brand and understanding your brand, but making it work on Amazon is a challenge, I think. So I'm a believer in that. You need professional help wherever you can get it, and some people go to a company like yours that could do it all, and some take pieces and spread it out.

Dan Brownsher:

I like to work with a group of people I like and enjoy working with yeah, we've used this analogy over the years that running a proper Amazon business, or a best-in-class one, is like flying a plane. Right, like everything's got to be happening in concert for it to make sense, and that's our overall thesis. Right, like we built our own you know large private label business. Like we've done it, we've done it all. Like we've sourced the inventory, we've got stuck with the inventory, we've labeled the inventory, we've shipped it. We've done all this stuff and we know what it takes. And, yeah, it is complex. It is complex and it's all going to be working together. And Amazon is not like other channels. We do a lot of vendors or vendor central clients, and it's like negotiating AVN with your vendor manager is hard and it's specific and it's unique and it's not like any other channel, right, but it's incredibly important. And so to have that purview and ability to touch every part of the business, in our view, is important and it's critical.

Adam Shaffer:

What's funny is you mentioned shipping products. I mean it's important and it's critical. What's funny is you mentioned shipping products. I mean God. I mean you're going to, at some point of your life at Amazon, make a mistake. That's pretty costly, whether it's a reconciliation issue or something you did wrong that Amazon comes after you for and hits you with a chargeback or whatever. So if you haven't made your mistakes, you're going to make somebody coming into this space. They're going to make a mistake and, like somebody like you has made that mistake or those mistakes already and you know what's going to burn your fingers. You know, tell us about any of the the burn your finger moments you've had. If you want, you don't have to share, but if you have any good ones, give me your favorite. But I mean we. We know brands that have gotten fine a hundred thousand, $200,000 from Amazon, gotten products held at Amazon for a year and haven't been able to get them released. You know all kinds of crazy stuff.

Dan Brownsher:

It's so crazy I'm like trying to think that question spurred immediate PTSD for me, but I don't know. Let's see, we've dealt with so many issues over the years, from faulty uploads to where Excel spreadsheet one of the columns got accidentally deleted and you've uploaded the wrong data into the pricing field and changed all your prices on Amazon to brands and this is super common and has been common for years trying to figure out ways to generate more reviews and leveraging QR codes to try and get more traffic to their listings and or generate more volume and reviews. We've had accounts shut down. We've had so many listings shut down you name it like.

Dan Brownsher:

We've dealt with it and seen it, and whether that was at our product company we owned or dealing with our clients, you know it's a constant battle, right, it's a constant battle and it could be super nuanced, like, hey, if this type of issue happens, you have an ip claim or whatever. Like, how do you resolve that issue? Right? Who do you talk to specifically? Because you can't just pick up the phone and call amazon, right, it doesn't necessarily work that way. So knowing how to triage an issue and do I go left or do I go right is important because it can save days, weeks, months or perhaps your entire account if you make the right decision versus the wrong decision.

Adam Shaffer:

And getting through them. Sometimes you go left, right and center because you try everything and you see whatever breaks through, you get lucky and you try something. Somebody says no, somebody says yes and you get lucky that way. But it's not. I would say it's an art more than a science. On that, it's playing it right, saying the right things, getting the right words to the right person at the right moment. So it's interesting, but I think the big point of that is. But I think the big point of that is, if you're a brand, you're going to make a mistake and then you're going to make a mistake again and you might as well work with people that have made the mistake so you don't ever have to make them again, because they could be costly. And even if you think you got it dialed, there's something you just don't know and you're going to step into a pothole and it's good to have a partner with you along the way.

Adam Shaffer:

So I am a huge advocate changing the topic to something more about business than Amazon. Now you mentioned you're in Vegas, but your company is 100 percent remote and during COVID, I think we all learned for the most part how to work remote. But you remain remote and you like that model, I like that model. How do you make that work for your company? Because you see all these CEOs, I want everybody back in the office and then the employees are not happy and then a lot of people are more productive at home than they are in the office. So what's your take and how do you make it work for Channel Key? It's a good question.

Dan Brownsher:

And we've had offices Right, when we first started, we had an office I think we had three total offices in Vegas. Over the years we were toying with remote and then COVID hit and we pulled the plug Right and actually I owned it. I was a part owner of a building downtown. We hit and we pulled the plug right and actually I owned, I was a part owner of a building downtown, we were a tenant in the building and we didn't we didn't renew the lease, right, that's how much we believed in in, in remote, for this business type. Not for all business types that you can do it, but for this business type, uh, it makes a lot of sense. Right, like I don't know we're, we are in the people business, that's it. Like I don't, we don't have you know a manufacturing facility or trucks or we're not making stuff. Right, it's people and and computers and software and contracts, like that's it and so, uh, which can make it even harder. I think to your point, adam. Right, it's like, how do you and we've got 85 people on our team how do you create a service model that is delivering a service with human beings and technology, and do it at scale and do it, and do it consistently, so you're producing a repeatable outcome for your clients at a at a high level. It's really hard and it only gets harder as your team grows. For me, the key is from an executive perspective, and my perspective it's we need to craft a vision for our team that is crystal clear, and we need to reinforce that vision over and over again. We need to reinforce what our values are and what we stand for. We need to reinforce where we're at today and where we're going to be in three years and talk about it so everybody knows what is happening. So we're all rolling in the same direction. Okay, so from a and we use EOS, by the way, traction EOS to operate our business, and we have for years and so I think it starts with that as creating alignment and transparency around the foundation of business and where you're heading, then in a remote environment.

Dan Brownsher:

In my opinion, the key is creating OK and making sure that the team is working together and they're engaging with each other. So there's some things we've done, like I don't know. One of the core rules that we've had in the business since day one of going remote is any meeting we have, internal or external, you must be on camera, right, and people talk about Zoom, fatigue and all of that, and I don't necessarily, I don't necessarily buy into it. Now, it's hard to stand in front of your computer all day and be in meetings all day, but, in my opinion, okay, I'm talking to you, adam, right now. You're in your office or your home or wherever I can see your background. I can see the beautiful, you know, palm leaves in the background, and you're in my home too, like you're in my home right now, I think it's very intimate, okay. So, additionally, you can see me, you can see my facial expressions, you can see what I'm wearing, you can see, you can see all that. And if I'm on calls all day and I can't see you, that would drain me, okay. So I believe that seeing people on calls is it creates connectivity and creates intimacy.

Dan Brownsher:

And then it's about creating um these collisions digitally on a recurring basis. So we do, we do. We have recurring huddles where we get all staff together. We have recurring all staff meetings where we're sharing. We have a, a team that we call our act team that is creating events. Uh, that our team does be virtual painting. It could we've got something today actually where we're doing. Uh, you know, we everybody's, we send out baby pictures of everybody and then everybody has to guess. You know who the person is inside the company, right, so that we're creating these events and ways for people to interact with each other and to collide with each other. So, um, I don't know, in my opinion, it's just, it's not any different than running a business in an office. You just have to make space for people to connect with each other.

Adam Shaffer:

Yeah, I mean, and the reason I ask you that is because, if it just in business in general, right now it's a big topic and you've made it work and so, hey, you know, you know great work, congratulations, you made it work. But I just think there's a good for certain companies, there's a place for it, and I think there's a place for hybrid also. But I think it's opened up a whole new world where your pool of talent is worldwide.

Dan Brownsher:

It's an absolute competitive advantage from a talent set perspective. We've got people all over the world. So, yeah, absolutely we can hire the best and brightest and we can do it very efficiently. We've got 30 people in the Philippines that are amazing members of our team that hey, listen, if we were in office we couldn't necessarily do that. So it creates a lot of flexibility to your point. And if you can do it at scale and do it and maintain a culture of connectivity, it works. It absolutely works. And I love real estate, adam, and I've never understood why a lot of these business CEOs or whatever want to bring everybody back into the office. I think it's based in fear and I think perhaps they want to get a return on their investment on their real estate. So I love real estate, but I would not own office space right now. I just wouldn't, because I don't necessarily believe in it fully at this point.

Adam Shaffer:

Yeah, it's good for restaurants and barbershops, maybe, yeah, so okay, well, thanks for breaking away from the Amazon topic for a minute and talking about biz, but let's get back to Amazon biz. But let's get back to Amazon and the question is for you what is the most challenging part of Amazon? We talked about a bunch of different things before, but what do you think is the most complicated but important part of Amazon to master?

Dan Brownsher:

That's a really good question. That's a really good question, um, and I want to be thoughtful. My answer, adam, uh, because there's so many different complexities and I think it changes every day. Like you asked me, today it's one one answer, and ask me tomorrow it's something different, just based upon what we're dealing with. Um, I don't know.

Dan Brownsher:

I think the most complicated part about Amazon is trying to think about a brand and where they're at today and where they want to go and build a strategic business plan for them. That encompasses their demand planning how their product is distributed, encompasses their demand planning how their product is distributed, who their competitive set is, what their margin profile requirements are, and whether or not they want to grow profitably or they want to take share, right, and then to create a multi-layered traffic driving promotional strategy campaign around some sort of calendar is a really hard challenge, and that's what we try to do, right? So I think at a macro level like that's, that's a big problem to solve. So, hey, you, you and we, we have a, we have a, a company that we're talking to right now. That's a $300 million Amazon brand, like 300 million, right, it's like, okay, we want to grow the business, okay, okay, what does that look like? How do we do that? You have a sure business in a competitive category. How do you do that? And it's not a single thing, right, it's a multitude of different incremental things that are going to happen to yield that outcome.

Dan Brownsher:

So I think building those types of plans is super complex. If I look kind of more micro, I would say running trap, like everybody wants to talk about advertising on Amazon's like the super sexy topic their ad business is growing so rapidly and it's so cool, and there's prime video and there's Thursday Night Football is all really cool stuff. That's super important and but it's hard right, and it's getting harder right. And you've got to now think full funnel for these brands around how we're going to leverage all the traffic on the platform and now off the platform. So piecing that, that matrix together and you know, leveraging all of this data through AMC and piecing and stitching this client persona together and the journey for the consumer based on the product type and how you want to advertise and drive traffic, I think is a really hard problem to solve.

Adam Shaffer:

I'm taking you on my next client call. That's great, I need that. So no, you're right. I mean it's hard, but it's important and it's not just let me put in some money and let it ride on the Amazon platform. It's everywhere, it's off Amazon. Let me put in some money and let it ride on the Amazon platform. It's everywhere, it's off Amazon, it's video it's influencers.

Adam Shaffer:

It's everything, it's everything. What a pain in the neck man. God bless you. That's great. I'm glad you're doing that. It's fun, right, it's fun, it's fun. And you know you talk to brands all the time and many of them have been doing it themselves or through Amazon. What do?

Dan Brownsher:

you find is like the most, maybe maybe not the most common. But what is the biggest mistake you see that brands make selling on Amazon? Man, it's honestly the basics Right. I think they, in a lot of cases, fail at the basics, right. I think they've, in a lot of cases, fail at the basics. And in my opinion, the basics are retail readiness right. Are you using all the images in the carousel? Do you have videos? How's your store look? Are they plus content? Are your titles optimized? How many reviews do you have? How good quality? Like the basics, like retail readiness.

Dan Brownsher:

In our opinion, which is an Amazon term, it's like table stakes. At minimum, you have to be retail ready and we see so many brands that just aren't Right. And then the other component to that, I think, is managing the operations of their business Right and more specifically, around their inventory and the management of their inventory and the control of their distribution of their products to the world. Because, again, running a proper business on Amazon is like flying a plane. You can have the most badass product videos and content and ad structure and DSP campaigns, all this stuff, but if you can't keep your product in stock right or you or you have challenges with the buy box. It doesn't matter, like none of it matters, and so I don't know. I think that it's this. It's still the basics, like the fundamentals of operating a business controlling distribution, keeping products in stock and maintaining a base level efficacy around. You know how your PDPs look, I think is what we find very often, regardless of lifestyle or life cycle or size of brand.

Adam Shaffer:

It's interesting you talk about distribution. The biggest issue I think we see is that the brands. Biggest issue I think we see is that the brands. They want to be successful on Amazon. They want everybody to be kind to their brand and not lower the price below minimum advertised price, but yet they don't want to put in place a channel policy that helps protect them because they're afraid they're going to offend somebody, to lose sales or something like that, where, if they did it right, they would get more sales at a higher profit by having rules in place to not let anybody on the planet sell their stuff on Amazon.

Dan Brownsher:

Yeah, amazon. Like to become a professional seller on Amazon. It costs you $40 a month, right? So it's not. The barriers to entry are ridiculously low. And so it's right for for gray market. It's right for for, you know, companies that maybe have a retail store dot com that just want to push out the back door and list it on Amazon. It's right for that, it's always been right for that.

Dan Brownsher:

Yeah, and you're right, like, people or brands need to treat Amazon not like any other channel. Right, because it, because, because that opportunity exists, and we see this a lot of times with B2B customers. I have a big B2B businesses that, hey, listen, I don't want to upset my, my business customers, right, but what? What they're doing is they're introducing competition to themselves on the platform, and so they need to make a choice Like who do you want to be? Like, what do you want to be good at?

Dan Brownsher:

And we're not saying don't have a B2B business or don't sell to your B2B customers. No, if you want to grow a real Amazon business and control it, you've got to control the distribution on the platform and or the buy box, Because if not, it will inevitably get out of control. Assuming there's good volume for your products, somebody will latch on to it in some way, shape or form. So our opinion has always been, from day one, is if you want to be successful on Amazon, you should control it, whether you're a three-piece seller or a vendor, control it. Own the buy box, own the catalog, own the content, own the traffic driving strategy.

Adam Shaffer:

Otherwise somebody else will we'll talk to a brand and we'll say this store, xyz store, is buying it from that distributor and they're selling approximately this much a month on Amazon through all the tools we have, and they'll go that store is that company. I didn't know that. Oh my God. That's like. That's my best, that's my best retailer and they, they're your best retailer because they're selling it all on Amazon. They're not selling it through their mom and pop store, they're an Amazon seller and they're selling it below map and they're destroying the rest of your channel business. Don't you understand? Either put a rule in place that they can't sell it below minimum advertised price or stop them from selling on Amazon. But I don't want to hurt their feelings, but you've got to do something. But you're just going to complain all day and you're not going to solve your problem. So it's a tough conversation sometimes to have, but it's reality.

Dan Brownsher:

And it's been like that for since I started, right, I mean we started as a reseller, right, like we know how it works, you know all the tricks, don't you.

Dan Brownsher:

I mean, yeah, absolutely Not that we ever did anything nefarious. But yeah, like we, we saw it over the years, right, especially when we had a. You know, we pivoted from being a reseller to being an exclusive reseller. So we go these brands who say, hey, listen, let us be your exclusive seller on Amazon. Who say, hey, listen, let us be your exclusive seller on Amazon. In exchange for that, we'll do your catalog work and we'll do your ads and we'll provide you these services. Right, but we're still going to buy your inventory. Oh and, by the way, we're going to hold price. We're not going to violate math.

Dan Brownsher:

And where that broke was man. We bought the goods. It's sitting in my warehouse and I can can't sell it. I have an exclusivity agreement with you, but you can't control your distribution, so I'm stuck. I got stuck, um, and so it's been a problem forever. Now it's probably it's gotten better over the years because it's just more talked about and amazon's become bigger. But like, this is not a new issue, you know. So we've seen it. We've seen all the crazy stuff with the fake addresses and like it's just, I don't know, it's wild, but yeah, pretty basic thing. You know you'd think you'd want to control this channel and platform.

Adam Shaffer:

That's cool. So I have like a surprise. I just got this piece of paper today and it tells me and I said I wouldn't get into anything, super in the dirt, but this is kind of high level. So it's a kind of a contest. You have to pick what the largest complaint or fear that Amazon sellers it's the greatest fears Amazon sellers have and I'll give you the multiple choice and then see if you can get it right Other. So don't go with that one. It's account suspension, rising fees, asin suspension, black hat attacks or counterfeit goods, which is 3P seller's biggest fear.

Dan Brownsher:

Okay, so what is a third-party seller? That is, a brand owner or not a brand?

Adam Shaffer:

owner. It's generic, so let's say it's somebody selling anything on Amazon. Are they concerned more about account suspension, rising fees, ASIN suspension, black hat attacks or counterfeit goods I'm going to go with yeah, I'm going to go right now with rising fees.

Adam Shaffer:

I would have done the same, but it's account suspension. So they're 63.3%, and I wish I could tell you what report this is from, but it's from something that I printed out and of course I didn't take the source, but there's a bunch of coffee beans on it, so maybe it's the coffee bean report. But it's what is your greatest fear as an Amazon seller. So account suspension 63%. Rising fees is 17.7. I would have thought it's rising fees because not just this freight been going up although Amazon's freight rates are still better than most but just their fees in everything they do. Plus you're, you now have to pay for more space if you want to get more space. So I would have thought that's it. But have you run into account suspensions before? Oh yeah. So oh yeah. How have you dealt with that? We had one recently.

Dan Brownsher:

Oh no. How do we deal with it?

Adam Shaffer:

I mean that could be fatal, right? Oh yeah.

Dan Brownsher:

It's not good for business?

Dan Brownsher:

Yeah, it's bad. So let's see how do we deal with it. It depends, it depends on the situation and what happened. Right, a lot of our clients, vendors uh, it's more rare to have a vendor account shut down. But for a seller account, uh, do they have a sas core rep? Right, are they paying amazon? They have a rep that they they pay. And if the answer is yes, we, we get those folks involved quickly and we've had some recent um wins, like we.

Dan Brownsher:

For a while. There we were like sas core we. We were generally not pro sas core for a while, but I think that flipped recently when dealing with some of these issues. Um, so, if there's a sas core rep, get involved asap. Clear documentation, clear, clear, everything. And again, it depends on what the issue is, okay, um, and then we always pull in. We'll pull in specialists too, right, so, like, we'll pull in the, you know, the riverbends of the world if needed, or or some other companies that can help us resolve those very specific, like niche type issues, right, so, like I also. So what I've said is we're a full service agency, right? Um, for and for for brands on Amazon. Uh, there's a few things we don't do, um, but in certain nuanced scenarios we become generalists, right, and sometimes we have to bring in the surgeon, you know, to help us. Right, we'll triage an issue and we're the general care physician, but sometimes you got to bring in the surgeon and for those types of issues we'll bring in a third party to help us.

Adam Shaffer:

Yeah, no, and Riverbend's great. We had them on our show too. They're excellent, so good, call on them. You know, what I found a lot of times is it's account health Like. Sometimes people aren't realizing they're getting dinged every day by being late or something's not right, or they're getting complaints they're not answering. Everything is on the timer, everything is on a clock and you have to understand that. Whether it's you're managing the brand, somebody's managing it for you you got to get back and answer the questions or you're going to have an account health problem. If you're not shipping the products on time, you're going to have an account health problem and ultimately, you're going to get shut down.

Dan Brownsher:

There's so many different booby traps, right, and yeah, it's time sensitive. And then the POAs you write have to be written in a certain way and have to, you know, a certain length and a certain structure, and so it's a. You brought this up earlier like if you've not dealt with this issue before and you're a brand and all of a sudden your account is gone and you have to figure out how to resolve it. It's hard, it's really hard, and you can step in a pothole pretty quick if you make the wrong choice.

Adam Shaffer:

Now ASIN suspension. That is better than suspension, but you could have millions of dollars of inventory tied up sitting at FBA and they take your ASIN off. I mean, that is a nightmare too, and that we've dealt with. You know quite often where we have to provide paperwork and receipts and testing and, yeah, all sorts of stuff. It's a nightmare, but that you know. These are things that every brand ultimately runs into. So I it's a fear, but it's a reality. Like you just have to understand that. Do everything in your power to keep your account clean, make sure that you have all your paperwork, and there'll be that day when it happens and you got to have your stuff together.

Dan Brownsher:

You got to have it, yeah, and sometimes it's you can. You can try to stay ahead of it, but other times it's like again. It's like Amazon tells you when this is going to happen, right, like a box can come through and scrape something and pull you down immediately. There's some word in your copy on your listing, or a bullet point or whatever you know. There's that whole pesticide issue or products we can take, take down requiring pesticide testing. It's like it's it's just not a set it and forget it. Environment, right, and it's there's no, there's no. Like playbook that works all the time and it can be perfect today and your account can be shut down tomorrow by surprise. You know so it's hard. It's hard, yeah.

Adam Shaffer:

So, with all the competition, with all the complexities, we all still love the Amazon marketplace because we see so much opportunity in it. And you know, do you still? Do you think it's too late now for people to start on Amazon? Do you think that it's just every category is is so loaded with competition you couldn't break through?

Dan Brownsher:

I don't think so, but I do think that I do think that the playbook on how to do it has changed. Right, like in the past and we did this ourselves. Creating an Amazon only brand, I think, is certainly still doable, but I think the longevity of it is challenge, and the way that you need to consider it now is it cannot just be Amazon, right, you can start it on Amazon, but you need to have a social strategy. You need to build a brand, right. You need to build a brand because if it's just based on Amazon and just based on reviews and it's just based on winning on that platform, somebody is going to take your lunch, right. Somebody is going to build a better mousetrap. They're going to come in with a cheaper cost. They're going to come up with something to deter traffic away from you.

Dan Brownsher:

So I still think it's absolutely doable and you can make products to market really quick and the research and the data that you can get to find opportunities still exists. But those holes in that white space closes super quick and what doesn't change, or what is a good hedge against that, is creating awareness of your brand, or what is a good hedge against that is creating awareness of your brand right and branded search right. Let's win on branded search and let's create some sort of connective tissue with our consumer, and I think the way you do that is through social certain product types. Tiktok is important right now, so finding ways to drive traffic into Amazon and build a brand on top of the Amazon platform, I think, is the way you have to do it. Otherwise, I think there's a lot of risk.

Adam Shaffer:

Would you do your own Shopify site too?

Dan Brownsher:

Yeah, I would. Yeah, shopify site drop a buy with Prime widget on there. And yeah, why? Absolutely, absolutely.

Adam Shaffer:

I mean, I'm really into the Shopify platform at this point too.

Dan Brownsher:

Yeah, Now where would I drive my traffic?

Adam Shaffer:

Yeah, that's a question. It might convert better on Amazon.

Dan Brownsher:

Might convert better on Amazon right, but if I can activate that customer on Shopify and create some sort of continuity around that, that's interesting.

Adam Shaffer:

You want the customer.

Dan Brownsher:

Yeah sure. So I think that's how you have to think. Okay, In the old days, just build an Amazon only brand and, you know, start ranking and maybe throw some advertising up and put an FBA, get a prime badge. It's like, hey, this is not that hard, you know, but it's not like that anymore.

Adam Shaffer:

No, and plus there's. There's just a commitment of advertising dollars. Like you're, like I know people think they could do it all organically, but you got to put that into your cost of goods.

Dan Brownsher:

It's ridiculous.

Adam Shaffer:

And it's only going up and the fulfillment costs are only everything's going up. Well, that's scary. So but there's good to know there's still a place to start a product anyway on Amazon. It's a good launching pad, potentially for a product that you want to get out there into other channels. So that's good to hear. And so you know, kind of wrapping this up, what advice do you have for not just somebody trying to start up, but a brand that's already selling on Amazon? What's your advice to them? Knowing what you do and how complicated things are, knowing what you do and how complicated things are.

Dan Brownsher:

Man, that's a really good question. My advice for a brand that's perhaps already selling or established on the platform is to leverage data that allows you to fully understand the customer journey and how your customers are engaging with your products at various stages of the buying platform or the buying funnel. Right, that's what I would say, because if you can see that and you can unlock that, which requires AMC, the map becomes a lot more clear and the playbook and strategy becomes more clear around customer acquisition, ltv and then how far my advertising dollar is going. That's my one piece of advice.

Adam Shaffer:

Good, advice and if I'm a brand and I want to get in touch with you, dan, and channel key, how do I do it?

Dan Brownsher:

Yeah, good question. So go to you. Go to our website, channel keycom. You can find me, dan Brownshire, on LinkedIn very active. I post multiple times per week so you can follow me and engage with me on LinkedIn. You can follow channel Key on LinkedIn. You can sign up for our blog posts. On our website we push out a lot of content so you can just easy Google search us, search Channel Key, search me and find us on LinkedIn or find us on our website.

Adam Shaffer:

Thank you very much. I mean I get a lot of your content. It's really good. So thanks for pushing that out. It's really good, so thanks for pushing that out. It's really helpful. With that, let's wrap up for today, and I wanted to thank you again for joining Planet Amazon Really enjoyed talking with you.

Dan Brownsher:

Likewise, Adam. I had a lot of fun and I appreciate the conversation. I'll see you in.

Adam Shaffer:

Miami man, I'll be there, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for watching another episode of the Planet Amazon podcast, where we talk all things Amazon. If you want to learn about how to accelerate your sales on Amazon, visit Phelps United's website at phelpsunitedcom.

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