Lesley Hensell is co-founder of Riverbend Consulting, whose 85+ employees solve problems for e-commerce sellers. Lesley oversees Riverbend’s service team, and she has personally helped hundreds of sellers get their suspended Amazon accounts and ASINs back up and running. She has been an Amazon seller for more than a decade. lifelong Longhorns fan, Lesley earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and

an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. She volunteers for A Wish with Wings, a wish-granting organization for little Texans with life-threatening conditions, and she serves on the Board of Directors for Hallie’s Heroes, which funds bone marrow matches and medical research for kids with cancer and critical illnesses.

> Here’s a glimpse of what you would learn…. 

In this episode of the Ecomm Breakthrough podcast, host Josh Hadley interviews Lesley Hensell, co-founder of Riverbend Consulting, about Amazon account protection and suspension recovery. They discuss the importance of product testing, the risks of review manipulation, and the complexities of Amazon's enforcement process. Leslie advises on how to escalate issues to Amazon's executive team and the value of expert assistance. She also shares recommendations for books, tools, and influencers in the e-commerce space. The episode concludes with information on how to contact Riverbend Consulting for help with Amazon account issues.

Here are the 3 action items that Josh identified from this episode:

Action Item#1 Prioritize Product Testing Compliance: Ensure that all necessary testing documents, especially for products related to children, babies, ingestibles, and topicals, are readily available.

Action Item#2 Exercise Caution with Review Practices: Understand the risks associated with review manipulation tactics, such as friends and family reviews, inserts, super URLs, and chatbots.

Action Item#3 Seek Expert Assistance When Needed: Recognize the importance of seeking expert help, especially when facing account violations or dealing with Amazon's enforcement processes.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Special Mention(s):

Related Episode(s):

This episode is brought to you by eComm Breakthrough Consulting where I help seven-figure e-commerce owners grow to eight figures. 

I started my business in 2015 and grew it to an eight-figure brand in seven years.

I made mistakes along the way that made the path to eight figures longer. At times I doubted whether our business could even survive and become a real brand. I wish I would have had a guide to help me grow faster and avoid the stumbling blocks.

If you’ve hit a plateau and want to know the next steps to take your business to the next level, then email me at josh@ecommbreakthrough.com and in your subject line say “strategy audit” for the chance to win a $10,000 comprehensive business strategy audit at no cost!

**Josh** (00:00:00) - Welcome to the Ecomm Breakthrough Podcast. I'm your host, Josh Hadley, where I interview the top business leaders in e-commerce. Past guests include Kevin King, Michael Gerber, author of the E-myth, and Matt Clark from ASM. Today I am speaking with Lesley Hensell of Riverbend Consulting and author of The Amazon Incubator. And today we're going to be talking a lot about how to protect your Amazon account to ensure it has good health status with Amazon. And if you ever get suspended, whether it be an Asin or your account gets suspended, what are the action items you need to take to make sure that that doesn't happen? And if it does happen, how can you get that up and running? Once again, this episode is brought to you by Ecomm Breakthrough Consulting, where I help seven figure companies grow to eight figures and beyond. Listen, Lesley, I started my business in 2015 and grew it to an eight-figure brand in seven years, but I made a lot of mistakes along the way. That made the path of getting to eight figures take a lot longer than it needed to.

**Josh** (00:00:46) - At times, I made bad hiring decisions. There were times where I had to actually fund payroll for my own personal bank account because of cash flow constraints, and I was stressed out when Covid happened because we watched our business actually take a 90% decrease in sales. And I remember wishing for a mentor who could have guided me through that maze of scaling up. Someone who had been there, done that, to share all the secrets to help me overcome those obstacles. And that's why I've decided to offer one on one coaching and consulting to help share the nitty gritty cash flow frameworks, the sales strategies, and the operating systems that have helped me scale my own brand. And because I believe in giving each entrepreneur my undivided attention, I only work with three clients at a time. But first, I want to make sure we're a perfect match. So, before that, I provide a comprehensive business strategy audit session for your a to make sure I show up and give you the value, and then be to make sure that we're the right fit for each other.

**Josh** (00:01:31) - So to our listeners, if this sounds like something you're up for, drop me an email at Josh at Ecommbreakthrough.com. That's Ecomm with two M's. And then in your subject line say I want to pick your brain. And then let's chat about how we can take your brand to the next level. But today I'm super excited to introduce you all to Lesley Hensell. She is the co-founder of Riverbank Consulting, whose 85 plus employees solve problems for e-commerce sellers. Lesley oversees Riverbend Service team, and she has personally helped hundreds of sellers get their suspended Amazon accounts and assigns back up and running. She has been an Amazon seller for more than a decade, and she's a lifelong Longhorns fan. Lesley earned a bachelor's degree in journalism and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. She volunteers for a wish with wings, a wish granting organization for little Texans with life threatening conditions, and she serves on the board of directors for Hallie's Heroes, which funds bone marrow matches and medical research for kids with cancer and critical illness.

**Josh** (00:02:22) - So that introduction, welcome to the show, Lesley.

**Lesley** (00:02:24) - Hey, thanks so much for having me. Josh. I'm excited to be here.

**Josh** (00:02:27) - Lesley, I'm grateful to have you here. You make such a big impact in the community. And since I live in DFW and so to you, you know, I got to say thank you to all that you do just in our local community. And we met up at one of the local MDS events. There is where we were able to connect. And so again, thank you for your time showing up here today and thanks for all that you do for the community.

**Lesley** (00:02:47) - I just wanted to say, listening to your offer earlier, talking to people, auditing their account, talking to them about their problems, that sounds super cool. So I just had to throw that out there, because there aren't many people like you who really want to help and coach individual sellers and get them to that next place. So a very exciting offer.

**Josh** (00:03:03) - Well, Lesley, I appreciate those kind words.

**Josh** (00:03:06) - Lesley, you are somebody that people are reaching out to with problems on a continual basis. Typically, you're not hearing the good news. You're hearing just a lot of bad news. When people reach out to you because they're having issues with their accounts. And so, I'm curious, Lesley, what kind of got Riverbend started? How did you get it started and why did you start it to begin with?

**Lesley** (00:03:21) - So that's a great question. I've been a seller since 2010, and way back in those early days of Amazon, I would go to conferences so I could meet other sellers just like everyone else. You know, you got to find your people, and it's not like you've got a lot of Amazon sellers living down the street, right? So I would go to these conferences, and the more that I went, the more I started hearing people talking about things like account suspensions. Amazon wanted a plan of action. How do I do that? And my background. Prior to being an Amazon seller, I spent a lot of time as a consultant and old school business consulting, so I've written plans of action before.

**Lesley** (00:03:52) - They were just for things like the Small Business Administration and, you know, for internal use at companies. So I started writing appeals for folks. And about seven years ago, I wrote an appeal for a guy named Joe Alta. He had a really nice selling account that was suspended for suspected inauthenticity and got him reinstated on the first shot after he'd been struggling for a while. And he called me and said, we need to do this. We need to, like, put together a business. And he's up in the New Jersey, New York area, you know, where there's a huge amount of sellers that he knows. So now he's my business partner. We launched Riverbend and he oversees all the sales and advertising that side of the business, and I work with the service team. So we actually started because of his suspended salary that I just happened to become friends with.

**Josh** (00:04:32) - Well, all good business ideas come from problems and opportunities, meeting each other. And it sounds like you had some good experiences there.

**Josh** (00:04:39) - And obviously you've been able to learn the ins and outs of Amazon. And I think, you know, as we were chatting before we hit the record button, sounds like on your team of 85 plus employees, you've got some Amazon, some former Amazonians that can kind of peel back the curtain and say, like, this is how things are working, behind the scenes at Amazon. That probably helps shape things. So, Lesley, as we dive into things, knowing that. We're kind of in the middle of 2024 here. What is on the top of your mind right now and what are you seeing that Amazon sellers need to be aware of and so that we can start dotting our eyes and crossing our t's?

**Lesley** (00:05:12) - A really important initiative that Amazon has been taking. And first I have to say almost everything that we're going to talk about today is stuff rolling downhill. So government agencies are all over Amazon right now. That has really ramped up over the last few years. And so almost every initiative comes from the government.

**Lesley** (00:05:33) - So we've got the FTC filing a lawsuit against Amazon. The EPA has a consent decree with Amazon. Everyone is after Amazon. And, you know, that is kind of a consequence of this open catalog that anyone can list a product that Amazon doesn't have to approve of, which makes Amazon amazing and creates opportunity for all of us. But then some of this backward action happens where there's enforcement afterwards. So the first example is if you are a seller who creates your own products, you manufacture things, and there's any kind of testing that is required for that product. Amazon's getting very aggressive about asking for those testing documents. In the past. A lot of times they never asked for them or they would only ask for them if there were complaints. Now they're starting to proactively ask for testing. So if you sell a topical, you sell an Ingestible. You sell anything that has to do with children or babies, they're going to ask you for testing. And here's where people get caught up. they assume that their manufacturer testing is good enough, and it's really not Amazon starting to require outside testing.

**Lesley** (00:06:33) - And a lot of these cases, and it needs to be current. It needs to be within the last 12 to 24 months, depending on the type of testing. but here's an interesting thing. Sometimes Amazon asked for inappropriate testing. They don't understand your product and they'll ask for the wrong stuff. So just to be aware that that is a possibility. And then you have to convince them that, no, this isn't the right testing for my product. And before you think, hey, I'll just do it anyway and send it in, so they'll be off my back. no lab will do the testing. So, some products were allowed. We'll say I can't do that testing for you. That's not appropriate to the product. and no one's going to do it for you. You've got to convince Amazon. No, this isn't the right thing for me. But for private label sellers, having that testing regularly updated in a file somewhere in your company that you know where it is instead of waiting till they ask you, is super important.

**Josh** (00:07:19) - Yeah, I think that is great feedback and information. Lesley. So, what types of testing are you seeing being required most frequently right now? And then my follow up question to that would be, you know, is this something that everybody should be super proactive about and say, you know, like because how should you know whether testing is required? I would argue, like if you're selling a supplement or anything adjustable and things like that. I think Amazon's been very clear as of late that it's like, no, we want everything tested if they're putting it inside their body. Right. but for others like whether it be like a children's toy or let's say you have a notepad of paper, right? That yes, children could be using it or it's like thank you cards. Right. That kids could fill in for their birthday. Does that need children's testing for it? So why don't you maybe walk us through what types of tests are you seeing most frequently being required? And then what approach should people be taking here?

**Lesley** (00:08:08) - So for children's and babies products, if something is listed outside of a children's or baby category, you need to be really careful to not have a lot of keywords loaded up on that product that imply that it is a children's or babies product, because if you do, you will be required to come up with testing.

**Lesley** (00:08:25) - So it's the standard CPSC testing. They're looking for lead, for example. so if backpacks are a great example here. So there are a lot of backpacks that are not kids' backpacks. They're for hiking. They're for camping. They're clearly for adults. So you don't want to put the word school all over that backpack unless you really intend for it to end up in children's and have to have all of that testing. So in some cases, the seller brings it upon themselves. it really you should only have to do the kids testing if you're in those categories and clearly selling to children. As far as things like the ingestible and the topicals, what I recommend is you work with your manufacturer and ask them for the specific product, what testing they recommend because they already know. They know exactly what is required by retail stores. And that is increasingly what Amazon is requiring, because Amazon was way behind retailers for a long time on this. Retailers have always asked for testing for products that's been very standard, or at least for decades.

**Lesley** (00:09:16) - and now Amazon is catching up. so there's some standard stuff like you need codes on, on batches of products if you're selling a topical. So a CoA is a certificate of analysis. It's just telling you what's in the product and that it's not spoiled. That's where they're looking for bacteria, for example in a face cream or a toothpaste or seeing if there's something in there that's going to make you sick. so your manufacturer will tell you this is exactly what you need. If they don't, you need to think about who your manufacturer is, because that might mean they don't want testing done. A new thing Amazon is requiring a lot more of is called an air iPPt test. And that is essentially like a skin patch test where they have people in a trial put something on their skin every day for a certain number of days and see if they have a reaction. Amazon's asking for that more often for anything that stays on the skin. So lotions, creams. That's the one where Amazon asks for stuff that's not appropriate.

**Lesley** (00:10:06) - So for example, you shouldn't do a repeat test on shampoo because it doesn't sit on your skin. You rinse it out. It seems like a silly thing, but repeat testing takes at least six weeks, usually beginning to end. It takes 10 to 12 weeks because you have to initiate it. They have to get the group. They have to study. It takes a long time. Your product can be offline for three months because of this testing. So if you need it, you need to have it on hand. And if your product doesn't need it, if Amazon Escort, be ready to make the case and get a statement from your manufacturer and pull the rules out of the FDA showing why you don't need to have it. It's not a little thing when Amazon asks for testing that is time consuming.

**Josh** (00:10:42) - Yeah. No, that is super insightful. So, Lesley, how do you communicate? I mean, we all know seller support gets you just a lot of canned responses, right? Let's say Amazon asks you for a test and you're like, no, this like this genuinely does not need this test.

**Josh** (00:10:56) - Or at least that's your belief. How do you argue that and get Amazon to say, okay, yeah, I guess you don't need this.

**Lesley** (00:11:02) - So first you need to make absolutely sure that you're right. You don't want to get in a struggle with Amazon when you're wrong, because that's just going to cause more problems. Not that they're going to do anything to you. They won't. As long as you're acting in good faith, they're probably not going to do anything. Take any action based on you arguing, but it's just going to drag the process out when you could just go get the freaking test and have it ready right as soon as possible. but unfortunately, especially in areas of safety which this falls into, they rely a lot on algorithms to tell them what products need, what testing. And they also rely on a team of paralegals who say yes or no, this needs testing. Then the front line people, the front line support and seller support and seller performance will not override those pronouncements, whether it's made by the technology or a paralegal human.

**Lesley** (00:11:48) - So you are not going to get anywhere. Do not waste your time. Try once. So I call this, you know, getting your best appeal. So you send your best argument through it like the dashboard to seller performance, right. You have to have it on the record. It's there where anyone in Amazon who has the tools can go see that last best appeal where you're saying, this is not necessary and here's why. And then you have to start escalating with an executive. So whether that's going to the Jeff team, which is usually frontline, that's the first place you go. It's executive seller relations, or to another team like someone in brands, someone who oversees seller performance. You're going to have to go to one of those people to get this overridden.

**Josh** (00:12:23) - Interesting. So it is possible, but take some escalations in order to get there.

**Lesley** (00:12:29) - Oh, absolutely possible. We do it all the time. and we get testing requirements overridden all the time. But it is not the easiest thing to do.

**Lesley** (00:12:36) - And what's frustrating for the sellers is they will say, hey, I'll just go get the testing and then no lab will do it for them because it's not the right test. So, you can't just pretend. You can't just fake the not fake the test, but even get a real test and turn it in because no one will do it. you really do have to fight these battles.

**Josh** (00:12:53) - Interesting. So, Lesley, let's say we do need to move forward with getting a test done. How much are these tests on average? Costing? I'm sure every test is different. And then do you have any recommendations, like partners or people that you point people towards?

**Lesley** (00:13:06) - So Amazon has an ever-changing list that is on Seller Central. And you want to go and find that list of the partners that they recommend. And you want to use one of those. They cost a little more than some of the independent labs, but Amazon's not going to bat an eye at their tests. Also, Amazon is reaching out to labs.

**Lesley** (00:13:24) - So if I send in a report to Amazon, they might call my lab and see if it's a real test, if they have questions. And unfortunately, if you use a small independent lab, they might not answer the phone or respond to that email. So, Amazon will assume that that is a fake document that is forged. And they can shut down your account for that. You don't want that to happen either. So much better to go to one of these larger testing facilities that they have a relationship with, because I'm sure they have an Amazon team there that just answers Amazon queries about testing. And you know you're going to be safe as far as cost. Oh, my goodness. The range is crazy because like that repeat testing, I mentioned before, that's super expensive. It's a few thousand dollars because it's over a long period of time. But like standard code testing, I mean, that's a couple hundred bucks, I believe. It's really not crazy. And within your manufacturing. So, you need an outside lab doing like your CoA once a year or once every two years, whatever the standard is for your product.

**Lesley** (00:14:14) - But your manufacturer should be doing a CoA as part of the manufacturing process every time they do a new run of a product.

**Josh** (00:14:21) - Yeah, okay. Good to know. And so, your recommendation to sellers is that they should be proactive with this. You would encourage them. And then is it testing for every single Asin that they put up. Right. It's not like a blanket. Hey we've got this. And now it unlocks a category of products. It's more like every single skew or Asin needs to have that. Is that true?

**Lesley** (00:14:40) - It's for the essence that are topicals, essence that are consumables, and you really just want to follow what the recommendations are from your manufacturer, how often you're doing these most manufacturers want to do testing, and many of them are required to do testing for their insurance. It is a good thing for you to do for your insurance because if you were ever to be sued and then your insurer finds out that you've never done testing on your injectables, they might try and use that as a way to not cover you, because it's industry practice to do testing.

**Lesley** (00:15:07) - So as much as everyone hates these kinds of expenses and hassles, this is more of the if you want to build a sustainable long-term business, this is the way you have to do it.

**Josh** (00:15:16) - Awesome. Great feedback and recommendation. And again, Lesley, it also sounds like as soon as you get, I guess notified that testing is required, the listing immediately goes down. Like Amazon does not like. Or is Amazon giving people a grace period and letting that listing stay on?

**Lesley** (00:15:31) - So it's a mixed bag. if it's based on complaints, the sun is down. but they're increasingly now saying, hey, in seven days, we'd like you to give us testing documents, or we require testing documents in 14 days. they're giving some time. Most of the time, if it's not based on complaints, but they're just cleaning up a category. And that's why this is so important. Because you don't know when Amazon is going to decide that whatever your tiny little node, your tiny little browse node on Amazon becomes their target.

**Lesley** (00:15:58) - And it's because some competitor of yours sold a product that was awful. And so they need to do something about it. It happens.

**Josh** (00:16:04) - Yeah. Fascinating, fascinating. All right, Lesley, anything else to add on to the testing information. Are we ready to move on?

**Lesley** (00:16:11) - Let's move right.

**Josh** (00:16:12) - Along. All right, so what else? I think another thing that you talked about is review manipulation. You're seeing that back in the forefront right now. So, I would love to hear kind of like what types of review manipulation issues are you seeing from sellers right now?

**Lesley** (00:16:27) - So it's really interesting because review manipulation as a suspension type kind of went away for a while. It was almost like Amazon decided, oh, we've done enough on this. We're moving on to some other project and now it is back. And this is one of those FTC requirements. While the testing is more that the FDA is all up in Amazon's grill, this is definitely an FTC requirement. The FTC is very focused on fake reviews right now, super focused on it.

**Lesley** (00:16:53) - And then another thing that people don't realize is, manipulation in terms of two businesses selling the same product and the two businesses are owned by one seller. So that's the reason the whole linked accounts thing isn't allowed. You're not allowed to sell the same products on two different seller accounts. It is because the FTC sees this as a way for pricing manipulation to happen. So right now, what we are seeing is going back to some of the old school stuff. For a while, it was getting really sexy. Like people had chatbots and Facebook groups with chat bots, and a lot of that seems to have kind of faded away. I think sellers have stopped with the super URLs, largely. That was happening for a while. I think people are seeing that it's dangerous. We've all accepted that Amazon shares data with Facebook and Instagram and everyone else. All these giant platforms share data around enforcement, and that was a big thing. So, we're going back to old school. we're seeing people suspended for friends and family reviews.

**Lesley** (00:17:45) - we are seeing people suspended for inserts. Lots and lots for inserts. In fact, I have a really large snack brand I'm working with right now that got busted for inserts in one product. They removed all of that inventory from the warehouse because Amazon is now requiring that. So that particular ass and they got caught. They removed it all from the warehouse. It was the whole give us a review, send us a picture of the review, and will refund your purchase. yeah. So, they did that and then they left all the other products with the inserts in the warehouse. And so, Amazon found those and said, oh, instead of an ass and level suspension, now you get an account suspension and Amazon isn't really happy with them. This is a tough one because, golly gee, you should have known. I mean, why did you keep doing it with the other products? so I think this changes a lot of the equation for a lot of sellers who've been very risk tolerant up to this point.

**Lesley** (00:18:33) - Talk to a lot of people who say, yeah, you know, I'm probably not going to get caught. So, I'm willing to try these things because my category is tough, and I want to compete. Well, now that, you know, you've got to pay to remove all your inventory if Amazon catches you and then you all know the deal, you can't just turn around and send inventory back in. There's that waiting period. All those challenges. I mean, is it really worth it? Does it change your risk calculus? I think for a lot of people, the answer is going to be yes. And then the friends and family thing, you know, it cracks me up every time. People are like, how did they find it? They never say I didn't do it. So, when I have a client listed for review manipulation, the first thing we do is go through all the list of potential sins you could have committed. Because Amazon wants the list. They want you to admit every single thing you've done, and if you refuse to admit some of them, they won't let you back on.

**Lesley** (00:19:17) - The key is just to admit it. So, we're going through the list of sins, and I'm.

**Josh** (00:19:22) - Interested to hear the list of sins.

**Lesley** (00:19:24) - Okay, so asking friends and family for reviews, uploading positive reviews on your own product, downloading negative reviews on your own product, uploading negative reviews on competitor products. Downloading positive reviews on competitor products. Buying and leaving reviews on competitor products. Cherry picking. So that is where let's say when someone gives you positive store feedback, then you ask them for reviews or you say to people, you send a follow up email and you say, hey, if you're happy, give us a five-star review. If you're unhappy, call this customer service number. So, you're diverting happy people to Amazon to give positive reviews and then unhappy people. You're going to take care of them in a different way. You're not going to ask them for a review. yeah. So that's just a few of them. Then there's the super URLs, the chat bots, offering steep discounts. you really don't want discounts over, say, 25%.

**Lesley** (00:20:09) - Amazon considers that an incentive, offering free products. all those all those things, the extended warranty thing, they're starting to not like either, diverting off of the Amazon platform. So, you're diverting people to your own store instead of diverting, or your own website instead of Amazon for customer service. So that's a sprinkling of is that enough for you, Josh?

**Josh** (00:20:28) - Everybody's head's probably spinning and they're like, oh crap. Basically nothing. Nothing. Amazon doesn't want anything.

**Lesley** (00:20:34) - They don't. And then there's the whole BSR manipulation that kind of goes with that. So, here's some really ugly tricks people have done in the past that are kind of fun. Let's say I want to boost the sales of my product. so I order products for fake people, and I send them to Amazon lockers. because you don't have to have a real address, right? You send it to an Amazon Locker. so, I think about things like brushing my teeth. Remember the seeds? Everyone was getting seeds delivered to their house, and they couldn't figure that out.

**Lesley** (00:21:01) - That's just brushing. so ordering products, causing the order of products that people didn't really want. Also, all those websites out there that they're like deal sites and you go to the deal site and it sends you to Amazon, you buy the product. Those are considered best seller manipulations. And then any kind of refund is manipulation as well. So yeah, there's so many ways to game the system. I didn't even say the really ugly ones because I don't want people to know them because they're so bad.

**Josh** (00:21:25) - We'll have to talk about that offline. okay. Lastly, So, product inserts definitely are probably one of the hottest topics, the most debated thing in the past decade of Amazon, right, and everybody's got so many different opinions. And I'd be interested to hear your perspective on this because obviously I think that if you have a QR code or an email or, sorry, a website, that then people are going to that's like, hey, leave us a review and we'll refund your product or whatever it is.

**Josh** (00:21:53) - Like, that's just stupid at this point, right? Like that's an easy no in my opinion. The grayer areas may be something that I see other and bigger brands do on the store shelves right there in retail stores. Right. And so, here's a good example of one that I found. We recently purchased a children's book on Amazon. Right. It's not sold by Amazon. It's sold by a third-party seller. Okay. And in there they have a QR code that's like, hey, get our accompanying, you know, printable guide that, you know, helps you navigate children's emotions. Right. It's also in retail stores. It's in Barnes and Noble. And inside that front cover, they have a, a, I don't know, a gift or just an accompanying something that goes along with that product. Now, that would be my question to you. Would Amazon see that as a no as review manipulation or anything of the sorts, knowing that this brand, they're doing something that they do across every retail platform that they have.

**Josh** (00:22:48) - Right. And I think go back to the days of cereal boxes too, right? How much promotional material was on cereal boxes? It was always entering this giveaway or this contest. Right. And you could be entered to win a trip or something like that. At least I remember that well, staring at the back of cereal boxes growing up. And that was not somebody trying to manipulate the reviews on Amazon at the time. That was just a marketing practice for people that were selling into retail stores. So, with that being said, I'd be interested to hear kind of your perspective, Lesley, on that.

**Lesley** (00:23:15) - Well, when you bring up a great point, because things that are considered traditional marketing, Amazon doesn't want to happen. And that's very frustrating for people. But again, I don't think Amazon likes spending time on any of this garbage. It's because of the government being all over Amazon so they don't feel like they have a choice. That being said, the example you gave of the children's book is fine as long as they aren't saying, give us a great review and you can have this principle.

**Lesley** (00:23:39) - You can get this added content, additional content that is not based on any task at all of the buyer is going to be okay. Where you get into trouble is where you're saying, you know, we are going to offer you this, and then we hope you'll give us a review. anything that's going to create an incredibly happy feeling for the customer so that they will want to give you a better review. So, you're not talking about, in that case, giving away something free, that's really an additional product that they would spend money on Amazon to buy. so, I don't I don't see that as problematic. I can see how, though, with Amazon's rules that as a seller you can be afraid of anything, even normal stuff. I have someone recently who has a complex product, and so they really need to be able to help people who aren't using the product correctly, and they're literally afraid to have a hang tag on the item that directs them to their own website for customer service assistance, because they also sell the product on their own website.

**Lesley** (00:24:37) - And so is the Shopify store, but it also has all the information there. So, we had to create a QR code that actually sends you to Amazon messaging so that someone will message directly to them so they can send the PDF back that's there. You know, I know we already gave you this stuff with the product, but here's how I use it again, because, you know, consumers throw stuff away and they're like, what do I do? but it's upsetting to me that this small family business is afraid to put a QR code on a product when they're not trying to manipulate, they're just trying to help people. but you can. But Amazon, their attitude is they own the customer list. They own the buyer list. So, if you're diverting people off their platform to your own platform, they see it as theft of the customer.

**Josh** (00:25:15) - Okay, interesting feedback. And I guess this would be my last question for you in regard to those inserts. Would it be safe to say like again, going back to the book, for example, if you're going to do it because it doesn't make sense, like in the example of that complex product, what if they were selling that into a lot of brick-and-mortar retail stores? Right.

**Josh** (00:25:36) - And so what you're expecting everybody that you ever sell this product to, whether they buy it on TikTok shop, they buy it on eBay, they buy it on Walmart, they go to the store in person, maybe it's Ace Hardware and then it's taking them to Amazon. It's like, hey, if you need support, come message us and it goes to Amazon support. I guess that my question is like, I know the bigger brands like Kraft Mondelez, right? And you think of those big cereal brands, or you just think of the big CPG corporations, right? What do they have on their product packaging? Well, they have a website. They have their contact information and their address. Right. So, they're doing it. I cannot imagine in my mind that Amazon's going to reach out to the tide and be like, can you not include your email address or your website here? So, help me kind of navigate that, Lesley.

**Lesley** (00:26:18) - Which is difficult to do. So, think of it, though, as Procter and Gamble.

**Lesley** (00:26:22) - yes, they're the manufacturer and they don't. I don't believe they would sell their product on their website most of the time. so that's part of why it wouldn't be considered diverting, because they aren't the manufacturer and the distributor. The world is a little different now, and that's one of the challenges, however. so, like for my seller with the complex product recently, they sell their Amazon product with a different hashtag than they have on their non-Amazon product, because they do sell into retail stores, and they do so on Shopify. And so, they have a different version. So, they will order containers for Amazon. And it's got Amazon specific going direct to Amazon. As annoying as that is, you're right. If you're the manufacturer you should be able to have your website on something. And most of the time, if you're sticking to the rules and you're just putting your website up for customer service support, you're probably going to be okay. but if they're getting aggressive, you do have to be careful.

**Lesley** (00:27:08) - And here's the unfairness of it if you. So, we're seeing the unfairness of this for the seller. I promise you that the FTC is not after Walmart, even walmart.com right now on this issue. They're not. I work at Walmart and never have one for review manipulation. Never. Not once. Amazon more than I can count. So, you know, they're after Amazon for a lot of reasons. And so, these other stores, they don't have the same requirements or the same limitations on manufacturers because they don't have the same enforcement by the government.

**Josh** (00:27:40) - Yeah. And I think that's super insightful right then. And they're right. And I think that unfortunately it's just kind of like a it's a random lottery, so to speak, of whether Amazon decides you're the one of a thousand that they pick and they're like, yep, we're going to come down on this guy so that we could show the FTC this is what we're doing, and we're trying to crack down on all of this. so, it provides a lot of context, as if you get caught in the crosshairs.

**Josh** (00:28:03) - That's the context behind it all. So, I guess lastly, my last question on this topic would be what's the action item you would give to sellers here?

**Lesley** (00:28:13) - So, especially if you are in a competitive category. spend some time evaluating what you're doing right now and try and evaluate it as an objective third party. You also need to really watch and see what your team members are doing, so you can have team members who have been tasked with, let's not have bad reviews, let's get rid of bad reviews. And they're offering people stuff in return for removing bad reviews. And you can't do that. So, you've got to spend some time auditing what your team members are doing from a customer service standpoint, and then auditing your materials that are going into the Amazon warehouse. And keep in mind the reason I said, especially if you're in a competitive category, a lot of times you get caught because a competitor reported to you. So, the more competitive your category, the riskier this is.

**Josh** (00:28:55) - Okay.

**Josh** (00:28:56) - Great summary. great action items. All right. Lastly, let's move on to some more fun topics. What else are you seeing people getting suspended with or what issues? What else is Amazon kind of cracking down on at the moment?

**Lesley** (00:29:08) - So there is a crazy thing that's been going on since the beginning of the year, and I would expect it to continue for some time, but then it will change because it's failing. And that is not necessarily the type of suspension. It's the way Amazon is asking for appeals both on the ace and level and on the account level. So, it doesn't really matter. Like if you're someone who never, ever gets their account suspended, this can still happen to your assets. And it's called dispute only appeals. So, what that means is you get suspended, you get your ass suspended for restricted products, for example, which, you know, if you're a private label seller, it's happened to you most likely, or you get something suspended for a condition you sell is new. And Amazon doesn't say, how are you going to prevent this in the future? That whole three-part appeal they've always asked for.

**Lesley** (00:29:53) - And when I say always, I mean always. Back to when Amazon started enforcement back in like 2005, they've asked for this three-part thing where they say, what's the root cause? Why did we suspend your reason? What have you done to fix the problem right now with these unhappy buyers? And then thirdly, how will you prevent this from happening again in the future? Instead, they're saying you can dispute that this happened. In other words, was it bad enforcement or did you not break the rule? And that's your only avenue for appeal. And so, you can either say, I didn't do it or you're out of luck. Well, let's face it, y'all, sometimes we did it. I mean, I've got clients who have restricted product suspensions because they had a bad keyword. Maybe they didn't even know the keyword was a forbidden keyword and it was in there. They're happy to remove it and apologize and not do that again. But Amazon is saying, no, can't do that. You just have to say you didn't do it.

**Lesley** (00:30:44) - I have a client suspended right now for variation abuse. Okay, variation rules are confusing to say. I'm not going to lie. We've also seen this for bundle policy, which is even more confusing because even people inside of Amazon cannot agree on bundle policy and what it means. Right? So, I have suspensions right now for clients with variation abuse and bundle policies that are disputed only. Will they break the rules because they didn't understand the rules? It's not okay to break the rules because you don't understand them, but because you need to learn. But come on, any of us could make a mistake on a variation. It's just a mistake. And they're arguing only about disputes. so just be aware. sometimes they are letting you acknowledge. They're letting you just acknowledge the violation. If you're a private label seller, never, ever do that. Don't do it. You have to appeal. Because if you acknowledge, then they're going to say you can't sell that asset anymore. Or if you sell the Amazon and have one more problem with it, they can block you from ever selling the ascent again.

**Lesley** (00:31:37) - So do not acknowledge you have to appeal. And if they give you this dispute only format, you've got to take it to an escalation. So, you're going to have to escalate to the email that we all know about its executive seller relations team or someone else at Amazon and say, okay y'all, Amazon's the land of second chances. And I've been saying this a lot lately. So, I've got kind of a script. Amazon is the land of second chances. You always have been. How is it possible you're saying that when I made a mistake that my seller account was taken away from me for a mistake on a variation, or for a bad one? Bad keyword? Are you crazy? We all know that the catalog is filled with bad variations. Are you going to take all of us down seriously forever? And we can only dispute. So, this is a crazy thing. and just know that it's not over when they do this ridiculousness, and they keep telling you we won't accept an appeal. You just have to escalate.

**Lesley** (00:32:25) - Because front line people can only do what the SOP says. And the SOP says you can't accept an appeal, so you've got to escalate. And then seriously, all the most important things that I've said in this whole podcast do not acknowledge defects. You have to fight them unless you never want to sell the product again.

**Josh** (00:32:41) - Awesome information, Lesley. Is this something that people can do on their own? And would you advise people to go at this alone, or is that the place that you know, all of these great services like yourself kind of play to help these sellers get, you know? Is it because you guys have the right contacts within Amazon? You've been doing this so many times, or is there a chance that, you know, people can escalate this on their own? I know in my experience, anytime we've tried to escalate things, it kind of falls on deaf ears or we don't even get a response. So, I'm interested to hear your perspective on that. If we do need to escalate things, what's the best way to go about it?

**Lesley** (00:33:12) - So I'm sure there are a lot of people in your audience who are very sophisticated sellers that have been around, and they really know the Amazon parlance, the right words to use.

**Lesley** (00:33:21) - So if you're very confident, I think it is reasonable to try the Jeff escalation path on your own. And if that doesn't work, then it's probably time to bring in outside help, because you have to be really careful in escalating to other groups that you're talking their language. We have certain executives that we use, certain points that they care about and bring those to the forefront. Also, we tried really hard to have enough shop talk, enough of the Amazon parlance, but not too much. There's kind of a balance. And so, you have to make these escalations super short and squeaky clean, where it's what I need from you. What I've already tried. Please help me. It's very short. So, if you've got one of these issues and you feel pretty confident that you know exactly what the problem is, go to the Jeff at Amazon.com email. We all know Jeff isn't there anymore, but it doesn't matter because they have an entire team that answers his email. They're called executive seller relations. It is very important that you address the email to dear Executive seller relations.

**Lesley** (00:34:16) - That way they know that you know that you're escalating to them, not to Jeff. That makes them pay more attention. Also, your merchant token, also known as your A number, which you can find in the settings of your account. You want to have that in the first paragraph. That way they again know that you're a sophisticated seller, that you know what you're doing, that you're asking the right people, and they can look up your account quickly. They're supposed to look it up from the primary email address that is your login email that you sent the email from. But if you add that token in there, it's more credibility for you and it gives them something to search quickly if they would rather look it up that way. so, if you do an executive escalation, be sure and say, hey, don't spend a lot of time on it. I'm a really great seller. I've been on Amazon for 500 years, I'm very reliable and sweet, and I've got a dog and he's cute. I mean, don't do all the spiel about how your mother depends on your business, and you have 25 employees who need to eat.

**Lesley** (00:35:06) - They don't care. What they do care about is if you can say, my hero Ason is down, and it generates $7 million a year in revenue on Amazon. They do care about that. They care about my products. Fill a hole in your catalog and you've taken them down. So, a quick statement like that can work. Then you have to say what Amazon told you the problem was. They said that I had an incorrect variation. and then what you have already done, I have already appealed to stellar performance ten times. They sent me the same canned email. What gives? and then very quickly, what you need from them, I need to I need a fair review of my plan of action. I need a human being to review my plan of action. Can you help me? and be respectful? Use bullet points. I love it when I can do an escalation that's less than a half page of singles. I do single spaces with spaces between the paragraphs. So, if I write that way and I've got bullet points less than a half a page on a word document that I then cut and paste into an email, I'm feeling really good about that.

**Lesley** (00:36:00) - If you can pack the information in and keep it that short.

**Josh** (00:36:04) - Awesome. That's great. Great context for all of us. If we ever need to reach out to them. And hopefully we don't have to do that very often, if at all. So, Lesley, this has been fantastic. Is there anything that we haven't yet talked about that you think we need to reiterate to sellers as we wrap things up?

**Lesley** (00:36:19) - So just a quickie. Last year in 2023, all of us were asked to re-verify our account information because of, again, the government, the Inform act. And we all went through that process, and we thought we were done. Amazon didn't bother to tell you it's going to be an annual event. So, you may have already had this pop up in your account. Just don't be surprised when they say a critical event has happened in your account. Don't have a panic attack. You're just going to have to click a few buttons that say confirm, confirm and just know that this is now part of our lives.

**Lesley** (00:36:46) - Every year, forever.

**Josh** (00:36:48) - There you go. So don't be concerned. Every year when it comes up, just put it on your calendar and know that you're going to have a critical event show up in your Amazon account every year.

**Lesley** (00:36:57) - Yes. No, no panicking allowed. It's just how they do things. They want to scare you half to death.

**Josh** (00:37:01) - Yeah, I love it. Lastly, this has been super informative, and I hope this provides a lot of great information to our sellers so that they can be more proactive. Because I would argue more than anything, the best way to prevent Amazon account health issues is to just be proactive here. These tips here, the shortcomings of other sellers and say, okay, let's make sure I'm not doing X, Y, and Z, and then you'll probably never have to go across any of these issues that we discussed today. So, what I love to do is wrap up every episode and leave the audience with three actionable takeaways from each episode. So lastly, here are the three that I noted, but you let me know if you think I'm missing something.

**Josh** (00:37:34) - Number one, Amazon is being forced to require testing on the majority of their products, right? Whether it be it's a children's product, especially if it's a consumable item or a topical. Lesley listed out a few of those examples. Know that the pressure is coming from the government, right. And then in turn, Amazon is now requiring these things. The best way I would think that a seller should approach this is imagine if you're going to try to sell this product into retail stores, what questions or requirements or testing do you think they're going to require? Okay. Then say all right, well guess what Amazon. Most likely if they're not asking for it now, they're going to be asking for it down the road. And so. Go ahead and get those tests done so that when you do get the notification from Amazon, you can immediately provide that to them and then your listing doesn't get taken down. So, I think that's action item number one. Action item number two is reviewing manipulation, which again this has been the talk of the decade.

**Josh** (00:38:26) - Anyways, people have been trying to do crazy things with reviews forever, but at the end of the day, I hope all of us learned the lesson is like don't touch reviews with a nine-foot pole. Don't do anything on Amazon with it. Don't request reviews. Even if somebody has a good experience or even a bad experience with your product and they reach out to you, heaven forbid, via email because they found your website somewhere else, right? And they reach out. Like, I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your product. That's great. I'm still not going to ask you to leave that review on Amazon. I'm just going to leave it alone because who knows, maybe it's a competitor trying to bait you in, right? And so there's a lot of crazy black hat tactics that are out there. So just don't even worry about the reviews. Rely on vine reviews to get that product launch and then just let Amazon do its thing. Right click the request review button on your orders.

**Josh** (00:39:12) - That's easy enough. And guess what? You'll naturally grow your reviews. But I promise if you play with fire with reviews. Amazon because the FTC, they're on top of this thing, right? And they're not going to let it go easily. And then action item number three, would be if you have issues. Right. We talked about a lot of different issues. Please go to an expert. And because here's the thing, never just accept the violation or whatever it is that you got from Amazon. That's what you recommended, Lesley, because if you accept it and you accept the fault, then you're going to have potential future issues with that ace. And so go, go speak with an expert. I think it is more than worth the money that you would pay to have somebody like a consultant like Lesley give their expert opinion, who has dealt with hundreds and thousands of these violations' issues with Amazon. They've been there, done that. And for a lot of us, that's not the world I live in on a day-to-day basis.

**Josh** (00:39:59) - So go ask an expert for their recommendation. So, Lesley, anything else that I didn't mention here?

**Lesley** (00:40:06) - That sounds perfect. And you're right. In addition, on the expert part, I would just say if this is stressing you out, if you have an issue, come up and it's making you anxious and it's causing you all kinds of headaches, that's when it's really worth reaching out to someone. You know, you've got a VA in your business because you don't want to answer customer service messages, or because you don't want to do shipment reconciliations because it causes them anxiety. And it takes you away from sourcing new products or whatever actually makes the money in your business. This is really the same thing. If it is keeping you up at night, it doesn't. Don't let it ruin you. Let it ruin one of us. We're really good at it.

**Josh** (00:40:39) - That's great. You can take the load off our shoulders. Lesley. Awesome. Lesley, as we wrap up each episode, I love to ask the guests the following three questions.

**Josh** (00:40:47) - So, number one, what's been the most influential book that you've read and why?

**Lesley** (00:40:51) - I'm so bored that I'm going to say deep work or anything else. By Cal Newport. Cal Newport is like my work hero. He's made me rethink how I use my phone, how I use my email, how I spend my time. Time blocking is the most amazing strategy and will change everything about your business.

**Josh** (00:41:08) - I love that that was a great recommendation. That is also a great book. All right. Question number two. What is your favorite productivity tool or software tool that you think is maybe a hidden gem that people don't know about?

**Lesley** (00:41:18) - Okay, so this actually goes right in with my answer to question number one. I use something called Rescue Time. There are other similar apps Rescue Time you can put on your desktop and your phone and they work together. So it focuses on helping you see how you're actually spending your time each day. And you can set a productivity goal. So my goal for every day is three hours of focused work.

**Lesley** (00:41:38) - And if I hit that, I'm super happy because I do lots of multitasking and manage lots of people, and you don't realize how much you're pulled away from your primary tasks until you have this thing. It doesn't holler at you, but it'll definitely say, hey, you've switched tasks 20 times in the last hour. What's up with you? So I love that software.

**Josh** (00:41:54) - Awesome. What a great recommendation. All right, final question. Who is somebody that you admire or respect the most in the e-commerce space that other people should be following and why?

**Lesley** (00:42:02) - There are so many great people, but for super practical advice, I love Scott Needham of Smart Scout. Scott is such a cool dude. He is not interested in impressing anyone. He's not trying to show you that he's cool. All of his content is about Amazon and how you can make money, how you can do better. He tells you the good and the bad. He does a podcast called The Smartest Amazon Seller, but also he does post almost every day, I think, on LinkedIn and all the other social platforms.

**Lesley** (00:42:31) - And he's just the most approachable nice guy too. If you ever had a question or a problem, he would answer you. He's just just a neat guy.

**Josh** (00:42:37) - Yeah, I would echo those same sentiments. We had him on the podcast a few episodes ago and I was on his podcast as well. Excellent individual. So to follow. So encourage people to follow him there. Now lastly, if people want to learn more, they've got the seller support issues and violations, suspensions or keeping them up at night. How can people reach out to you and learn more?

**Lesley** (00:42:56) - So our website is Riverbendconsulting.com and here's this crazy thing. Josh, we have a phone number on the website and people answer the phone and talk to you about your problems. Not a voicemail, not a phone tree. Humans answer the phone. So if you've got a question, you've got a problem. You don't know. If we can help, we might be able to. We might not give us a call. And if we can't do it, we'll refer you to someone who can.

**Lesley** (00:43:18) - And then also you can find me on LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram and all those places under Lesley Hensell and reach out to me. I love to connect with sellers and answer their questions.

**Josh** (00:43:27) - Awesome. Lesley, thank you so much for taking the time to join us on the podcast today.

**Lesley** (00:43:32) - Thanks so much for having me.