Rolando Rosas 4:36
Well, I can’t agree more with that, man. You guys really do a wonderful job. So let’s jump into these questions because we’ve got some questions that we were taking from our, from different folks that we are, we’re going to relate to you as well. And some stuff that I’m just curious about and I know that our audiences too. Let’s start with the number one thing and you know, actually before we jump into that, that was Something that came across my cell phone that I actually just want to look right into the camera. If you are somebody that’s thinking about buying anything electronic hardware, or even toys, you better start shopping for it right now. Because the ports are backed up. I don’t know if you’ve been following whether you’re watching this live or even you’re watching this later on in the playback, it’s not going to resolve itself anytime soon. The ports are backed up there for weeks in some places and five weeks in other cases. And so if you’re planning on buying something, anytime, this year, in 2021, are we in 2021, still still make a move on it right now, because it may not be available for long because we’re hearing from our suppliers, some products, as of today have a 12 week lead time. So you may want to think that puts you right into the new year. So you might want to get started on that right away. We haven’t a little problem with my camera, but that’s where I will power through. Alright, so you take let’s jump right into it. The first thing that we want to tackle the number one top mistake I think sellers have made and the record right now of this year, bears that out is got to do with reviews. And as of few, just a month ago, during the summer, Amazon kicked off 55,000 Chinese sellers, and my understanding, they’re supposed to be even more that they’re going to be kicking off. But I know you have a lot of insights into that. Tell us what you can or can’t do with reviews nowadays on Amazon.
CJ Rosenbaum 6:40
Well, you guys know me pretty well. And I always see the glass is half full. So the review manipulation, what’s going on 55,000 I think it’s now pushing 60,000 is really good for legitimate sellers who don’t screw around, or are less aggressive in their review obtainment. So if you’re if you’re not doing anything right now, to get reviews, I would stay the course, if you’re taking some steps to drive reviews, I would stay the course I wouldn’t make any changes right now. And the services that are promising your reviews, stay away from them like the plague. Now, the opportunity that exists when you have 10s of 1000s of sellers getting kicked off is they have products, and we’re starting to see American sellers approach sellers in China and Chinese brands to try and get their products. So you know What’s bad is sometimes a great opportunity. You know, when real estate tanks, that’s the time start buying rental properties. That’s right. So right now, you know the aggregators are in this for the long haul. They’re buying up brand after brand. We haven’t seen anybody focus on the Chinese sellers who had their legs cut off. And interest I’ve been in touch with with dozens of them. And they’re really hurting, they need to sell products, they need to move their products. So on the one hand, stay away from review obtainment services at all costs. But start exploring these other sellers in China who are very savvy business people and see if there’s some way you can sort of hook up that maybe you can sell some of their products.
Rolando Rosas 8:18
I did not think about that one. Dave, we will be taking pencil and paper to this one. This sounds very interesting. Yeah, that’s a very interesting. Yeah, because I’ve read the same thing, CJ that the local Chamber of Commerce in Shenzhen is saying, you know that the economy for them is tanking. It’s just it’s they depended a lot on these 55,000. And now their economy, but it’s a very interesting approach for an opportunity. That’s right under our noses. And I’m sure a lot of sellers that either listening to us right now, or maybe watching this later, it’ll be like good riddance because a lot of these guys that were thrown off, they were flagrantly flagrantly violating the Amazon policies. No.
CJ Rosenbaum 9:06
100% 100%. I mean, there are like electronic farms to get reviews and giveaways and buying and selling their own stuff. So yeah, you know, do they do the same thing as American sellers often at a much higher level? Absolutely. Are they sort of known for stealing, you know, our ideas and inventions, relabeling it and that kind of stuff? Absolutely. So is it good, it’s potentially good. You know, there’s also a contraction going on of Amazon sellers, right? So you got these 10s of 1000s of sellers in China getting you know, getting the boot you got the aggravate aggregators, like Thrasio and SellerX and forum and boosted right. They’re buying and buying more accounts and more brands. And I think for the first time in the history of the platform, the number of sellers is actually contracting. So you guys out there who are watching this who are advanced sellers, you know, the playing field, the competition, I think is shrinking. So listen, there’s always killer opportunities, just gotta look and find them.
Rolando Rosas 10:09
All right, well, that’s definitely something to look at. We could do a whole show on that on how to explore those opportunities. And I’m seeing that we have our first question of the day. It looks like Tony from Tampa wants to come in. And actually, we’re going to be able to do this actually, in a different way. Normally, it’s on the chat, we’re actually going to be able to do a video. This person coming in, let’s say, or go ahead and bring in Tony from Tampa.
Tony from Tampa 10:35
Hey, CJ, how you doing?
CJ Rosenbaum 10:39
That is great. That’s a
Tony from Tampa 10:42
big shout out, by the way to Rolando and Dave. Happy to be on your show. CJ, I got I got a question from down here. I sell artists and woodcarved bottle coasters on Amazon. And can I get my friends and family to give me five star reviews? Oh, get in trouble for that? Well, I
CJ Rosenbaum 11:02
listen, you can absolutely do it. But you may get busted. So here’s what we’ve seen happen, literally dozens if not hundreds of times, you start getting reviews, and Amazon we believe monitors Facebook and your friends and all that kind of stuff. So they link them to you. That’s review manipulation, and you’re bang and your account goes down for some period of time. And review manipulation is really serious to the folks over to Amazon. So I would say that is exactly one of the wrong ways to do it. Because those friends and family are probably also linked to you in different ways, by name by Facebook, email addresses, physical addresses, so I wouldn’t do it that way. I would just stay away. And the last thing you want to do now that we are in q4 is to rock the boat. So no, don’t do it that way.
Dave Kelly 11:57
Now, CJ, is it manipulation? If those friends and family legitimately purchased products from the listings on Amazon, and then gave reviews or seller feedback,
CJ Rosenbaum 12:10
all right, manipulation is like pornography. Okay. I’ll tell you why the United States Supreme Court like in the 70s said, you know, you can’t define pornography, but you know it when you see it, right. The same thing, like we don’t know in advance what Amazon is going to deem to be review manipulation or not. What I can tell you is from our experience helping 1000s of sellers and 10s of 1000s of listings, is that if you’re getting reviews, from friends and family that will link to you through like Facebook are other ways. That is a way that you get caught getting reviews, whether they did or did not actually buy the product. Now, it’s always better for someone to buy your product actually received the product before leaving the review the review, but I would stay away from friends and family specially this time of year you want to do that kind of thing. You know, come January or return you Arey. Right. Leave it for then. But certainly not now, as you’re in q4, good advice.
Tony from Tampa 13:13
Row you’re muted. But alright, so usually Thank you very much for your advice. And I just want to give a big shout out to my folks. And down here in Tampa. And you know, thank you, everybody. I’ll be taking all leave now. Thank you very much.
Rolando Rosas 13:27
All right. Thanks, Tony. Thanks for joining. That’s Tony from Tampa, man.
Dave Kelly 13:33
He seems to be in a pretty good mood. He must not have been watching the baseball game. Yeah, Tampa
Rolando Rosas 13:38
got didn’t didn’t get booted out of the bosox end up sweeping them out or what?
Dave Kelly 13:44
Yep, they close it out last night. So you gotta be feeling good about that. No, game five. Yep. We’re feeling good up here in New England.
Rolando Rosas 13:53
All right. Well, all right, Tony. Thanks for the question. Now, let’s go to number two. This is where we could easily easily see they spend the whole episode talking about this next one, intellectual property and trademark, what actually is not allowed to be used on Amazon. Like images and text and words and video, you know, I’ve read somewhere and this may be the case you can clear this up as well. If you post an image on Amazon, other sellers can use that image because Amazon Amazon themselves not the actual copyright holder. Amazon views this as a like, like a fair play. You know, I can’t remember the exact terminology but if you’re posting it on their website, they’re not giving you any exclusive rights to that unless there is some special copyright for that.
CJ Rosenbaum 14:47
Okay, so once you post something on Amazon, assuming you own it, like copyright, copyrights, kind of odd, like you don’t have to file anything at all to own copyright interest. In verbiage pictures, songs, anything at all, as soon as it’s created and saved in some type of media, you own copyright interest in it, you can’t go to court without filing it. But you don’t have to follow the government to own it. So when you post a picture of your product on Amazon, you’re waiving its use on Amazon. The problem arises when sellers start posting images and verbiage that belong to other people and companies by scraping the internet for photos to use for their products. And if you do that, even if you are like a photo shop, god, okay, it’s still a copyright violation. So those things you shouldn’t do at all, when it comes to trademarks to basically trademark is you just can’t take someone else’s logo and, and slap it on your product. If you’re not doing that, you’ve avoided like 95% of the problems. And there you go. You can’t take the McDonald’s M and slap it on your T shirt, or the Amazon logo and stick it on your product. That’s a clear mark violation. Copyright is really pictures and verbiage. You can’t copy and paste, even when it comes to like, you know, creating a warranty if you need a warranty, for your private label product, start with somebody else’s, and then just edit it spin the language of it. So you’re not copying and pasting.
Rolando Rosas 16:25
Well said, and do we did you want to add something Dave? We’re, you
Dave Kelly 16:31
know, you know, so. So we have our logo out there on listings that have been created by us, you know, so folks, Can folks take our logo and, and use it for their listings that they’re creating, if it’s not, if it’s not copy written,
CJ Rosenbaum 16:49
okay, so if you you own your your logo, you got it approved by the USPTO, right, or use Amazon Excelerator guys to get it. But you know, have a have a registered mark, I can’t take your mark and stick it on my product. Now, if I happen to buy a truckload of your T shirts, with your logo on are a truckload of your products, with your logo on it, then they’re genuine. And I could go ahead and sell those products on Amazon, use your logo, they’re already on the products, and there’s no violation. As long as when they consumers receiving the products. They’re getting all the same, you know, benefits that they would get if they purchased it from you. And that’s a whole body of law, called the first sale doctrine. But usually, isn’t
Rolando Rosas 17:34
that what Amazon goes by? Like you just said, that’s a buzzword for Amazon itself. The first sale doctrine isn’t that what they go by when it comes to what they deem fair play on their platform. It is
CJ Rosenbaum 17:46
the whole ball of wax sometimes. So here’s the first sale doctrine. It says that in the United States, you can buy and sell anything you want. You don’t need two brands permission. It doesn’t exist in the US, Europe is different. But the US I do not need the brand’s permission to sell. As long as that when the consumer receives it from me, they’re not receiving anything that is materially different than when the brand or an authorized seller delivers it. And it almost always will boil down to the warranty. Right? So then you get Okay, well, what’s the difference in warranties? Well, like, a money back guarantee is homogenous, and you get that anyway with Amazon. So that’s all the warranty says. It’s like toilet paper, who cares, right? But if the warranty is something like woofstock cutleries, fancy steak knives, and that warranty says that if you have a problem with a knife, we’ll take the knife back, we’ll send it back to Germany and have it retooled, you know third party sellers have no access to that factory. So the consumers not receiving the same thing. So that would be outside the first sale doctrine. That’s sort of what they’re looking at, is the consumer getting the same product benefits services, blah, blah, blah, as if it came from an authorized seller if they are good to go? If they’re not, you have a potential problem.
Rolando Rosas 19:09
Now what would happen, let’s say because this apparent especially a lot on the retail arbitrage side, you know, some Joe Tony from Tampa, for example. He goes to Walmart or Best Buy because you know, because they’re having a sale on on Samsung TVs. All right. And Samsung’s trying to liquidate them because they’re making room for the next year’s model. And it’s the same exact Samsung stuff that’s sold on Amazon. Can Tony from Tampa take Samsung Display TVs and say wow, these are like 50% off I could go buy a bunch of these and sell them on Amazon and make a killing. Is that legit?
CJ Rosenbaum 19:49
You know, if it’s a sample product, it’s probably not so what you’re really doing is selling a used product as new right now let’s say they have 12 of these TVs left over right and you buy More than all brand new on the same box, then you got to look at the warranty, right. And if they’re gonna get the same warranty that they would get buy in from you than if they bought directly from Best Buy or wherever you are good to go. Also, there’s an argument to be made, that if you’re drop shipping, like from Best Buy, you know, avoiding forgetting about Amazon’s drop shipping problems right now, right? You’re really a middleman that consumers actually getting it from Best Buy, well, then they aren’t getting it from an authorized seller. Therefore, it is within the first sale doctrine. And you’re good to go. Again, separating that from Amazon’s insane a pain in the neck drop shipping issues.
Rolando Rosas 20:40
Right? Right. So what you’re saying is dropship, from Walmart, or Best Buy, or any of these places, it’s the exact same product gets to the consumer, totally within the first sale doctrine. And if the same example where I just want to make this clear, Tony from Tampa goes over, and it’s the exact same Samsung TVs sends it to the consumer. Now when the consumer wants a warranty, does that seller need to honor the warranty and provide either replacement or something like that, in accordance with the with the warranty that stated in the box?
CJ Rosenbaum 21:15
Well, sometimes yes, sometimes no. Right? Depends what the warranty is some things a third party seller can absolutely deliver on like returning your money. In fact, if you look at most warranties, they’ll say like 30 day money back guarantee. All you guys have stuck with 90 days with Amazon. So actually your warranty is right. Right? Yeah. For anybody, they can use the TV, watch the Super Bowl, throw some beer at it, send it back in, they’re getting their money. Right? You really every product. And listen, we do this on both sides, you know, I am a lawyer, okay, I play both sides of just about everything, the devil you. So it’s almost always boils down to the warranty, and you got to look at it. And is the consumer getting the same thing from you that they would get from somebody else. And if you are a private label seller, you develop your own brand, right? Then you want to talk to us to build something into your products that takes it outside the first sale doctrine, like it’s all perspective, right? You want to sell their products, it’s in the first sale doctrine, you own the brand. It is outside the first sale doctrine.
Dave Kelly 22:26
I love it. I love it. That’s all great, great information. So the next thing on the list here, you know things, top five mistakes that sellers may be making when selling on Amazon. Number three is being unprepared. There’s hijackers. We have different manufacturers, as we’re talking about competitors. And Amazon takedowns. You know, what, what sort of activities should sellers be prepared for when, when they can when copycats or competitors are trying to get their their listings removed. And what’s been your experience when working with sellers on these sorts of events.
CJ Rosenbaum 23:06
All right, the number I love the graphics. Number one thing you got to have is your documentation. Like just after ready. As your sourcing documents, make sure you’re saving all the invoices, retail receipts, your manufacturing slips, you went to go visit the factory, you want to save everything in an organized fashion. So that if someone makes a complaint against you, they’re trying to take you down, you can respond really quickly and send it out the door. If you have listings that are being hijacked, screenshots are really great. Most sellers don’t do it. But you really should. I think there’s some software solutions out there that would automatically capture, you know, your listings, but you want to make sure that you can show what the listing should look like when it’s your product and your private label and your photographs, right. So that if someone hijacks the listing, again, you can immediately respond very, very quickly to Amazon, Amazon is looking for documentation to show that you’re right. I mean, every plan of action, all this rigmarole you guys got to go through just exercises in being persuasive to Amazon staff over in India to show that you’re right. And they should do what you’re asking them to do. So documentation documentation, really is the key to most of these things.
Rolando Rosas 24:27
And what besides the document, so the documentation so you have screenshots and I’m sure you’ve heard this from other sellers, I have the screenshots I may even have videos, but my God Amazon makes me go through the same copy and paste response all the time. Or sometimes the same case, they may ask me the same question three times in a row, although all the documentation is is there. What would you say to the sellers or people that are watching this? You know what what’s your advice to them? You know, maybe they’re frustrated with Amazon. What say you know,
CJ Rosenbaum 25:00
Keep Calm and writing kick ass plan of action, okay? Or keep calm and hire my guys to hire. Because, listen, I was part of a trip called India, the India sourcing trip or India sourcing dotnet. Well, the name Megillah invited me to go with them to India to look at products, you know, give a speech and that sort of thing. So while I was in India, I took a side trip to Hyderabad. And I went outside Amazon’s offices, and I, every time there’d be a group of people taking a break, I’d walk up to them say, Hey, my name is CJ Rosenbaum, I’d like to ask you some questions. You’re right, man. Oh, great. It was great. These guys like, Hey, we’re not supposed to talk to you. I’m like, Hey, I understand you’re not supposed to talk to me. But blah, blah, blah. And I get them yapping away and I did this for three days in a row until they kicked me off their site. Why am I telling you this? No
Rolando Rosas 25:52
undercover this guy’s no mustache? No, Tony from Tampa hat or none of that?
CJ Rosenbaum 25:56
Nothing, not two months in advance to set up meetings. They gave me the big you know, no way. Right. And so I did it anyway. And but this is what I learned. The people who are reading your plans of action, the people who are clicking the blurbs to send back to you approving your POA asking for information. They are all as far as I’m aware, young people straight out of college, they call them frackers they have the greatest job available to them, which is working at Amazon. And they really are trying to do the right thing. Like they haven’t been indoctrinated in a negative way at all. So keep calm, you know, don’t write anything nasty. If they ask for information about this particular issue, give it to them in concise language that’s documented, and they’re trying to do the right thing first for Amazon, then the consumer and I used to say you know, it’s down here for sellers, but it’s really not okay, the people who are looking at these things are trying to do the right thing overall. They certainly have quotas, although I couldn’t get anyone to tell me what the quotas are. So if you can see with the end of their shift and not gonna have a whole lot of time, so be calm and write a kick ass concise, well documented plan of action just keep at it. It makes
Dave Kelly 27:17
sense. As CJ you you had a name for those folks for those folks right out of school that are in India that are working for Amazon. What what did you call them
CJ Rosenbaum 27:26
freshers like restaurants like fresh out of college? They call they call themselves freshers freshers.
Rolando Rosas 27:31
Oh, yeah, if you go to college, not freshman’s, not no
CJ Rosenbaum 27:35
fresh out of college, fresh college graduates. If you go to our YouTube channel, I got about I don’t know, maybe a dozen, a dozen and a half videos of inside information from Amazon, you’ll see pictures of me, you know, with the guys that were in there, they got their Amazon badges, I got a guy like rotting away on his dirt bike. You know, also people think they’re all box. They’re not they’re real people. They work the algorithms, spit out reports, the freshers review the reports, and then their responses, they pick and choose blurbs. But if they decide like something doesn’t fit, they have a lot of discretion to go above and beyond sort of the script. And they don’t like the script, they had the ability to ask for changes to it. And listen, Amazon’s a remarkable business because they run things, you know really well on a very broad marketplace. So just keep calm and, and be persuasive.
Rolando Rosas 28:32
You know, one of the things that we’ve been using more now that we’ve been doing social media and stuff is the usage of video, when we get to a lot of the back and forth. Sometimes when you’re talking about documentation, we found that using video as a way of documentation to either from a technical nails, this is not happening, or this is supposed to happen, or this is not showing up or that the other we find especially you know, when you get this back and forth, sometimes that documenting it with a video short video a minute or so helps move things along much more quickly. Because there’s a lot less debate when it comes to Oh, where this should be or what the error message or whatever is. Here it is. Here’s what happens when I click or here’s what happens when I download or here’s what happens when I upload. Or here’s what happened when I’m trying to change something. This is the error that we’re getting. And you there’s really no debate it is it’s your screen. It’s your computer, it’s your account. Here it is. And that seems to shorten the amount of back and forth that we see with their support folks, especially the India team.
CJ Rosenbaum 29:35
Yeah, I think I think that’s genius. We’re doing it on a much more limited basis. Usually if you’re comparing a product to a product and trying to show the differences and while it’s not violative of anyone’s intellectual property rights, but yeah, picture says 1000 words and a video is even more I also think, you know, since you are you’re dealing with live people, I think of video and photographs connect on a visceral level, you know, so that is that’s the way to go. Watch the way the future you can educate you can transfer a boatload of information in a very short period of time with videos. I think that’s brilliant.
Rolando Rosas 30:07
Well, and, you know, but we could probably spend another hour on this one, because there’s a lot of issues to tackle with Amazon, anybody that’s been selling on the platform knows that Amazon can be a beast to deal with, especially with all of the hires they have. So it looks like in the queue, we also have another question from Gary, and we’re going to be able to bring in Gary as well and present him to you as well with our new technology. So Gary, welcome to What The Teck? What’s your question for Mr. CJ?
Guest Speaker Gary 30:40
Hey, guys, can you hear me? Yeah. How are you doing?
Rolando Rosas 30:45
All right. Where are you checking in from today?
Guest Speaker Gary 30:48
I’m checking in for the cloud. Rolando. Oh,
Rolando Rosas 30:52
what do you know what server you’re on? Are you in some particular server or anything like that?
Guest Speaker Gary 30:57
Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to say because of security reasons.
Rolando Rosas 31:03
You’re good. You’re good, Gary.
Guest Speaker Gary 31:06
All right. Anyway. Hey, CJ, I got a quick question for you. I got exclusive distribution rights to Robo coffee, energy drinks, but I see all of these other sellers on Amazon selling them. Amazon has not replied to my emails about it. What can I do?
CJ Rosenbaum 31:29
All right, well, there’s a lot of things you could do, what you’re talking about is brand protection. Okay. So we defend 1000s and 1000s. of sellers. We also represent hundreds of brands right now. So the first thing you got to do is make sure that your coffee is outside this thing called a first sale doctrine. Okay? Now, particularly with coffee, I’ll throw some things out there. If you have fulfilled by merchant, then you can argue and you can really create a storage environment for your coffee that keeps it fresh, and tasting great and preserves the caffeine level and whatever. And therefore other sellers cannot match the way you store your coffee, and your your fulfilling by merchant. So it’s never going to FBA. And that might be a good mechanism to engage in your brand protection and take it outside the first sale doctrine. If you’re using FBA, that argument goes out the window because yours coffee is stored in the same place as everybody else’s. If you’re if you’re using FBA, you want to add something to your warranty, you want to add some copyright material to it, maybe a link to a certain portion of your website, build like sort of a lifestyle brand into your coffee, where you’re now taking a rather generic product like coffee, but adding something to it that other sellers cannot deliver, nobody else is permitted to sell your copyright material. So add some tea or coffee about how this is the best coffee in the world. Here’s the lifestyle in the cloud. And the goal is to find some way to take your coffee outside the first sale doctrine. So then you have the legitimate ring, the legitimate means to get rid of sellers, then it’s like a multi step brand protection process. My partner Rob Segal manages that area of our practice, you gotta monitor every acent, you got to send a really clear, effective, polite and courteous cease and desist communication. And that will get rid of like 60 to 80% of the hijackers. And then the ones that remain assuming you have the goods on him because your products outside the first sale doctrine, how to make a complaint on Amazon. So you have a practical 100% success rate when you do do that. But you want to avoid making complaints as much as possible. You don’t want to needlessly harm a seller. So it is monitoring, effective cease and desist communications, and then knowing how to make the complaint but only when you have to.
Dave Kelly 34:00
That’s great advice. That’s great advice. So you’re saying play nice, be firm, and turn up the heat when necessary. But don’t don’t jump to a boiling point.
CJ Rosenbaum 34:13
100% accurate. We probably talk to you anywhere from a half dozen to a dozen sellers a week. And they say hey, listen, I’ve got 300 units left. I’ve got five units left. Can I have a licensing agreement? Can we work something out? Right? Sometimes brands will actually buy back inventory because they don’t want anybody harming the brand. And most brands are very, very thoughtful. They don’t want to harm Mom and Pop selling out of their basement. Right. So as the brand you want to make sure you first you have legitimate means to get them off meaning it’s outside the first sale doctrine, monitor c&d complaint, and the monitoring system gets a little bit hairy because you got to monitor first time violators right versus guys do come back, I won’t sell my sneakers. And then they’re back on. So we actually have a separate website for it’s brandprotectionamazon.com brandprotectionamazon.com Because we saw guys who were doing it really, in a really bad way and really harming sellers. Needlessly, we do it with a scalpel, you’ll always have legitimate means, and you should always, always, always be courteous to fellow sellers is the right thing to do. And they can really drive up your ODR rate if they want you if you treat them poorly.
Rolando Rosas 35:32
Oh, yeah, yeah, man. Just get in a go to lunch with any group of Amazon sellers. And you hear horror stories about that how competitors, you know, will do things just to spite you, you know, and give you negative reviews. But CJ, I’ve also heard that if you have a way to prove that these are competitors, putting in inappropriate or fraudulent reviews just for that, you can get them removed. Not a very easy, not a fast process, but that can be done.
CJ Rosenbaum 36:04
Yep, we used to see, it comes in waves. You know, first there were like, false, bad reviews, right? Like giving you a one star, one star, one star sort of destroying you. And then they were purposely written five star reviews that were written well, or verbiage to show that they were fake review. Yes. Right. And then it’s all circular, right? Like all the knowledge kind of comes together, this whole friends and family thing, right? So if a brand, needlessly put sellers out of business, they can ask their friends and family on Facebook and everyplace else to trash you. Right? And Amazon doesn’t trace it backwards that way in terms of review, manipulation. So the bottom line is treat everyone with courtesy, professionalism, respect, but be firm. And most importantly, be clear why the sale of your products is outside this thing called the first sale doctrine.
Dave Kelly 37:04
Really good advice. Really good advice.
Rolando Rosas 37:07
That was That was awesome. Let’s congratulate our our bot here, who came in Gary, Gary, the tech bot, Gary, wonderful. We’re gonna send you back to the cloud lets you keep all of our trade secrets or your trade secrets in this case, Robo coffee up and running. And thanks, CJ for taking Gary’s question today. All right, like everyone. All right.
Dave Kelly 37:35
So next on our list, CJ is number four contracts in Amazon. What are some common mistakes made by companies when it comes to contract and forcement? By Amazon?
CJ Rosenbaum 37:50
Oh, boy, a lot of companies think you could take Amazon to court, I’m gonna sue them, I’m gonna sell them you can’t? Okay, you just can’t. The contract is really clear. It’s called the Business Solutions agreement. And everybody in every company selling on Amazon has not only agreed to the BSA, when you signed on, you agree to all the changes that Amazon puts on without notice. And that contract says, you have a dispute with Amazon, you go to arbitration at the American Arbitration Association. So I want to sue, I want to sue you can’t arbitration is generally better for smaller claims. It’s not really good when you start getting into like, you know, the three, four or 500,000, the million dollar range, but it’s stuck anyway. So that’s probably the number one contractual misunderstanding that we get. And I’ll throw another thing out there. For those of you who have your own private label brands or your own brands, you should reorganize your company in a way that one company owns your brand, and your trademark and your copyright interest and all that happy stuff. And another company is the one who has a contract with Amazon. Because if you have one deal with Amazon, you can’t use a lot of tools, right? But if you have an IP holding company, that company has no relationship with Amazon. And that company can use the court system because I gotta tell you the worst case scenario is if you have to go after Amazon for a million dollars or more in an arbitration, because Amazon could insist that you use a panel of three arbitrators, okay, which means you’re not just paying one person to listen to you, you’re paying three, and then you’re paying those three people to talk with each other and actually quintupled the cost there. If you’re suing in a federal court, your tax dollars are paying for the judge. So big arbitrations, you really get hurt. In terms of the cost, you don’t save anything on legal fees. Your costs are through the roof of the tribunal, but it It is what it is, you know. So that’s the number one that was a really long winded answer
Rolando Rosas 40:04
and have discretion on the arbitration part. Have you seen Amazon sellers, successfully mount claims against Amazon, we just talked about Amazon, Amazon themselves during arbitration.
CJ Rosenbaum 40:16
Oh, yeah, all the time. According to Amazon’s outside counsel, my firm handles 75% Of all the arbitrations for all the sellers against Amazon. And we are really, really happy with the results that we get at arbitration. And yeah, we don’t win every case, nobody can say that. Right. But by bringing in arbitration, you’re getting a whole nother set of eyes, you’re getting Amazon’s lawyers, and they are really good smart people, you know, we fight each other and we kick each other in the you know, what, you know, from time to time, you’re also getting their internal team over to Amazon to look at the issues. So.
Rolando Rosas 40:55
So you can, you can do discovery with that, and get documents that you otherwise wouldn’t get. Or
CJ Rosenbaum 41:01
in the smaller cases, the discovery is quite limited and expedited arbitration, which is up to 50, grand discovery can be very, very limited. If you’re not an expedited discovery is a lot more open. But most I gotta say it most of the cases resolve, okay, if you’re right, if you’re right, and you can’t resolve the issues with plans of actions and escalations, and, you know, right into, you know, then Bezos now jassie. Right, arbitration is is your only mechanism forward. And I’m really happy with the results that we have. They negotiate fairly when you’re right, your resolve, and when you’re wrong, right, if you’re totally wrong, you golfer of an arbitrator, and you roll the dice and I got a case, we call it the spa say case, right? So our client was totally wrong, right? He was buying and selling iPhones, and Amazon claimed that they were counterfeit, they weren’t really iPhones. And before before we were involved, okay, our clients sent in an invoice for spac, gray iPhones, only the word space was spelled s p a s e, rather than S P A. C E. So it’s spase. Yeah. So you know, we thought we were dead in the water, but client needed to proceed. And you know what, I pulled it out. I won with an invoice from Apple that had space gray spelled wrong. So Wow. I’m not saying you can always do that. But listen, you lawyers over at Amazon, you know what I’m talking about? Never forget spot, say, because you should resolve cases with our sellers, let them get back into business without pushing the envelope. Because sometimes I will kick your butt, even with a fake invoice.
Rolando Rosas 42:52
I love it and no holds barred. And you know, there are different firms that have different approaches when it comes to the legal side. And Apple is known to be very ruthless as well, when it comes to Amazon and Trump, and I’m sure they probably put the pressure on Amazon to try to do everything possible as well to not have anybody on Amazon. But you know, there are there are there are things that Amazon will allow. I wanted to see if you can speak to that a little bit as we’re talking about Amazon and things that you can do like they again apples will clear cases I you know, any seller that tried to put anything related accessories cases, what have you, it doesn’t matter chargers, the iPhones themselves. And Amazon themselves has tried to make it even harder in for those those sellers to be on the platform. But how would somebody if we’re using that as a benchmark, then probably clearly the highest benchmark there is around Amazon, and iPhone. How would somebody get that on that platform?
CJ Rosenbaum 44:00
Which one is he listen, you want to you want to do some analysis before you start dumping money into inventory. Like there’s no reason to go toe to toe against Apple. They will make complaints. They will they will refuse to withdraw their complaints. Their law firm I think is K and L Gates like a monster law firm. These guys get like eight 900 bucks an hour. Right? I certainly believe in dispute avoidance. Right? So if you’re looking at a great source of products, do some research check the forum see if other sellers are having a problem like Samsung headphones for like two years like there were so many sellers just getting screwed over by Samsung making complaints. There are other really small brands who are just overly aggressive. So if you’re not going to make a boatload of money, and there’s a chance that it’s going to be a boatload of aggravation. Look for something else. And I’m a big proponent of developing your own private label brand develop your own IP rights get your own mark suck. But I would just say, if you can avoid the fight you do it, do some research in advance. And then, you know, everything we do as business people is risk versus reward, right? You’re gonna make a million dollars by selling one pair of air pods, do it, grab the million dollars and run. Okay, you’re gonna make 46 cents and risk your business going down the way. Okay? Look at everything that way.
Rolando Rosas 45:29
And I think that the other thing while we’re still parked on this Amazon thing that comes up is the the map. What this is a lot of both on the seller side, as well as on the Amazon side and the manufacturing side actually say Amazon quite clear their view on that. But a lot of folks in the industry in our industry, as well as even other industries, I talked to other sellers in you know, perfumes and you know, toys, and they’re the manufacturer has a MAP policy or some some type of authorization policy for Amazon. But sellers either go in anyways and sell it, or sellers that are below the said map pricing for that particular manufacturer, and they come in and start making a lot of noise about it. Can you talk about that?
CJ Rosenbaum 46:20
Yeah, this is a great question. So back in 2007, when Antonin Scalia was still on the Supreme Court, he was the deciding vote, right. And they had a map pricing case. And what the United cases Legion L E. G, I N was a leather goods company. And the United States Supreme Court said that a map is a map policy is a contract, right? So if you signed an agreement, that you would not advertise the product underneath the given price, you’re going to be held to that contract. But if you didn’t sign the contract, if you’re not a party to that deal, then boom, there is no map pricing. Unless the product has to do with something. The government wants to inspire like life saving medicines or research and development. Right? So you’re selling like plastic cups here. Right? And they say you can’t do it because of the map pricing policy. But you never signed the agreement. No good. Tell him to go jump in a lake, you’re good to go. It won’t be enforced by Amazon. It doesn’t exist way back. 207. United States Supreme Court, if it’s you know, something that’s really life saving, which most doesn’t, most of what we do is not going to cause anyone’s demise, or really save a life. Right? Right. So Map pricing if you didn’t sign the contract, mostly out the window.
Rolando Rosas 47:43
And really good advice. And Amazon themselves. So the that’s the construct around the map and Amazon. So Amazon, really what you’re saying is they won’t honor map enforcement, which is the other side of the coin, where different manufacturers assume that they have a map program, and that Amazon will honor that and unforced that. Is that, is that what I’m hearing you say? They will they won’t I?
CJ Rosenbaum 48:09
I don’t think in any, it might be 10s of 1000s of sellers by now. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Amazon, enforce any MAP policy against anybody that’s purely like manufacturer and a signatory to the contract. Okay, you know, Amazon routinely will disregard anything with the word distribution in it or distributor. And that’s what these guys in India told me and one of the one of the times I walk up there smoking cigarettes, I introduce myself, I get them talking. And they basically said that they were trained by exclusion, right? So if a complaint has the word distribution, authorization, or any form of that word, they basically throw it in the garbage. Right? Well, yeah. So if you claim, let’s say, you’re trying to do brand protection the wrong way, you’ll like counterfeit, and unauthorized, they’ll take that complaint, throw it in the garbage, because they had the word authorized, even though the counterfeit complaint, you know, might be totally valid. So if you’re a brand manager, right, don’t ever use the word authorization or distribution. Focus on what really is your claim that holds water. That’s some of the things that we learned from India from cross examining Amazon’s executives dealing with their lawyers, you know, we get information from all over the place. And that’s one of the things that we learned it was kind of mind blowing that like, well, you know,
Rolando Rosas 49:30
what I want you to I want you to rewind what you just said already, let’s use a pro tip with what CJ just said. Pro tip, CJ, let’s hear that again.
CJ Rosenbaum 49:46
Okay. If you are in the game of protecting your brand, or you are a brand manager, and you have to assert a complaint against Amazon, you have to make sure you focus on what the substance of the complaint is. Don’t use any x Is your verbiage at all if it’s counterfeit, it’s counterfeit. Okay, if the consumer is not receiving the benefit, that’s what you say, okay, but don’t include the word authorization or distribution in your complaint, because Amazon will just take the whole thing and throw it in the garbage.
Rolando Rosas 50:15
Awesome. That’s, that’s well put, that’s a lot of brands and private labels out there. There you go, you have a very good pro tip from an expert who’s dealt with 1000s of cases on Amazon. And I want to Well, this last point, on Amazon, I heard you say on a webinar a while back ago, especially for sellers, this is not for sellers, a tip for sellers. If you’re bringing goods from overseas from China, and you were talking about the factories in China, that they they tend to copy things that private labelers are doing. And you had pointed out that you could send goods to a black box factory, or warehouse in China, to try to give you one layer of protection from both Amazon who’s known to try to find the better goods out there and bring it into their own basics. Brand, as well as other importers that want to bring those products in goods into the US.
CJ Rosenbaum 51:18
So this is one of the things that’s so awesome about our communities that everyone shares information. So this was not my genius, I am certainly not a genius. And I’m rarely the smartest guy in any room. So at global sources in Hong Kong, I can’t remember the guys name, he was talking about this. And we all know Amazon tries to find your suppliers and steal your products and that sort of thing and cut you out of the loop. So he identified this and he had clients doing it where let’s say it was like a watch and a watch band, right? He’d have the body of the watch built in one factory, the watchband created in another, they go to the black box factory, who puts it together that then ships it to Amazon. So if Amazon reverse engineers, if they’re not getting anything, and it doesn’t have to even be an assembly factory could literally go from the manufacturer, to the black box factory, and then they ship it out. And then really just a fulfillment center with no information or knowledge, right. That’s just your source. Protect your source from the biggest bear in the room. That’s that’s Amazon.
Dave Kelly 52:20
I love it. Very helpful. Very pro tip pro tip.
Rolando Rosas 52:25
All right, here we go. Let’s roll another pro tip number two, whoo, CJ, let’s just give you that little snippet again, about the black box factory.
CJ Rosenbaum 52:40
If you don’t want Amazon to know where you’re getting your products from, have it go from your source your products to another warehouse, from that warehouse, get it over to Amazon this way, they can never trace it back to where they’re actually coming from, or at least you’re making a little bit more challenging.
Dave Kelly 52:56
In the shadows,
Rolando Rosas 52:57
hiding in the shadows. Oh, love it. Love it, love it. Go for it. Dave
Dave Kelly 53:01
CJ, we’re gonna wrap up our list with number five of the top five mistakes sellers are making on Amazon. Number five is as sellers not understanding your rights, what rights the sellers have when it comes to litigation or legal action involving Amazon.
CJ Rosenbaum 53:20
Okay, when it involves Amazon, specifically of Amazon as your target, we already talked about this, you have to go to arbitration. But your rights are not limited if you have somebody else screwing you over. So if it’s like a seller verse seller, dirty tricks, and they’re costing you money, you have every right to go after them in a court if you need to. Okay, if you own a brand, and someone is selling stealing your sales or copying your logo or somehow stealing food off your plate, you have the right to use the court system. So the prohibition against like court and the limitation on your mechanisms only applies if Amazon is your target. It doesn’t apply the other way around. So we represented a guy who sold sports gear. I think he was in New Jersey, New Jersey or Pennsylvania. And he was buying his products from the Dallas Cowboys. And another entity that has to remain anonymous. I can’t reveal it. Right. And the Dallas Cowboys and this other entity started making false counterfeit complaints against them. And he’s legitimate guy who was losing like $100,000 a month.
Rolando Rosas 54:30
Right was legit product. So essentially it legitimate NFL licensed product.
CJ Rosenbaum 54:35
Legitimate NFL legitimate Dallas Cowboys. Right. So Google it Google, Google Rosenbaum famalaro and the Dallas Cowboys. Okay. So as long as it’s not Amazon, you have all the same rights that you would in any other business environment. Again, in order to go to court, you really have to look at your damages and are they enough to warrant the costs Right. But your rights are only limited when it comes to Amazon as a potential defendant, not anybody else. Okay, your rights are still the same if somebody else is messing with you, and you don’t have to take it lying down.
Rolando Rosas 55:16
Right. And on that front regarding the law non Amazon portion of it. So if you have, like you said, in this case, was the Dallas Cowboys coming after you, although you are selling licensed product, right? And could you then take it to them? For because a sense, I would assume that your listings is taken down? Sales are dropping? The claim is false in that it’s saying it’s a counterfeit? Can you take Do you have any rights as a seller to Hey, wait a minute, that’s not right. Is it? Do I have any rights when it comes to that somebody putting in some false claim like that, when you’re completely in the right, and it’s not counterfeit product?
CJ Rosenbaum 56:01
100%? Yes. 1,000% 10,000%? Yes. In fact, you can also use that as leverage. So let’s say the Dallas Cowboys make a false counterfeit complaint against you. And that causes your listing your account to go down, it also tarnishes the value of your Amazon based business, right? There’s a huge market right now to sell your Amazon based business. And if it’s worth, you know, 100, clean now it’s worth like 80, right, that cost you value. So when they make a false counterfeit complaint, this is also why you should never make false counterfeit complaints. You have claims for defamation, you have claims for defamation per se, which means it goes to a business, you also have a claim for interference with your contract with Amazon. These are all legitimate claims. So no one makes a false counterfeit complaint against you. Our first line of attack is to use it as leverage, right? Say, Hey, listen, we don’t want to have to sue you. But you made a false counterfeit complaint. They’re always like, well, they’re unauthorized, I’m like, but your complaint was counterfeit. Right. And it’s defamation, because that can subject you to prison. So use that as leverage to get the complaint off your account. And if you’re losing a lot of money, you know, three, four, or 500, grand or more, yay, sue the Dallas Cowboys. I did it.
Rolando Rosas 57:28
And what happened? When I can tell you
CJ Rosenbaum 57:31
that I can tell you that you can read about it. If you Google, Rosenbaum found LuLaRoe my awesome partner it was before Rob made partner and the Dallas Cowboys. I can also tell you that I’m really happy with
Rolando Rosas 57:48
other than that, it’s so it take it there was some settlement. Right?
CJ Rosenbaum 57:53
All I can tell you okay, you remember after not? Where’s Dick Cheney? Where’s Dick Cheney? I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the vice president.
Rolando Rosas 58:02
Yeah, so I get it. So but so so in terms of rights, anything, let’s say more than using doubts, but something like that, where an entity comes out and files the complaint with Amazon says, Hey, you guys are selling counterfeit, which is almost always the first line of defense with the bigger brands. That’s usually what they say. And we usually what they put out, and sometimes it’s legit, right? You’ve been in this ministry for a long time. You’re like, discussion have been selling counterfeit, right? Like we’ve seen some stuff like in China, that’s stead of saying tide it says TIDs you know, and all this other stuff, all this knockoff stuff. But if it’s not a knockoff product, it’s not it’s legitimately the same brand or licensed in this case, you were saying the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL? If, if that’s their complaint, because they’re trying to knock you out of the game, rather than than it really be a counterfeit, then you can come back and probably get some money for that.
CJ Rosenbaum 59:01
Yes, you can. Yes, you can. 100%
Rolando Rosas 59:06
All right. Wow. Wow. Interesting. super interesting. Super, super interesting. Well, I think what we’ll do is let’s let’s summarize those top five for the folks that are watching us today. Or maybe they’re watching us on the playback the top five mistakes, let’s go through them. We’re just going to list them off. Number one is when it comes to reviews, do not manipulate those reviews. You’ll get in big trouble probably get thrown off the platform, not probably you will when Amazon catches you number two, give me the number two number two improper use of intellectual property and trademark don’t take the M the the yellow m from McDonald’s and slap it on your listing or do something to manipulate that logo because you will get in hot water. Stay away from doing that. And try to use your own images and video if you can, or others stuff that’s in the public domain that’s got the ability to use that. Number three, let’s go to number three, be prepared, hey, we’ve been on Amazon, I don’t know probably going eight years. And being prepared ahead of time planning, strategizing always pays off, because crap happens. And if you’re not ready for some of those events, hijackers takedowns. And the rest, you will spend so much time when it all goes down, that it will tie you up, and probably waste a ton of money. Number four. And by the way, on number three, you want to have a good lawyer like CJ to help you with that if you don’t, if you don’t have a good plan of action, their team does a really good job on that. Number four, expecting Amazon to enforce contracts, this is something that we went into great lengths about today, don’t have that expectation. Amazon does not honor MAP policy, authorized agreements, or anything like that. They’re only concerned about the agreement between you and them, which is called the BSA. So anything that’s inside the BSA, that’s what you want to look at. Otherwise, Amazon really doesn’t honor a lot of stuff that’s outside of it. Number five. And probably one of the more important ones on here is understanding your rights if we’ve learned, you know, you do have rights when it comes to selling on the platform, as well as things that happen externally from the platform, such as other sellers or manufacturers that may be plagued making false claims against you. And then you have rights as well, to take them to take legal action on those claims. So if you don’t know what those rights are, or need more legal advice, you want to talk to this handsome guy that’s right below me and his firm. That’s that is probably that not probably that is the premier law firm when it comes to Amazon issues today. They know you’re there, I’m sure I don’t even know I don’t even have to ask you. They those lawyers over at in Seattle. Probably know your name that your first name, they probably just see that oh, it’s CJ. Oh, what does he want to?
CJ Rosenbaum 1:02:08
We do we you know, we have a really good working relationship with Amazon’s outside counsel, the firm called Davis Wright Tremaine, senior guy, our senior guy over there is guy named John Gould mark, he’s a really brilliant guys a good guy. He’s a good lawyer that we fight, toe to toe a lot. We also have some good working relationships with some of their inside counsel. And it just comes from, you know, not engaging in a lot of BS. You know, you got the goods, you got the goods. Right.
Rolando Rosas 1:02:38
Well put today. And CJ, if folks want to get in touch with you and your team, about the any of the issues we talked today, where could they where should they go? Alright,
CJ Rosenbaum 1:02:51
I’m old school, I like to talk on the telephone and have the back and forth communication. So the toll free is 8779seller, and 8779seller, my email address is CJ@Amazonsellerslawyer.com. Sellers is plural or singular. And our website has a big fat case submission button at Amazonsellerslawyer.com. But again, call I really do prefer the back and forth interaction. I’m really cool giving away information. So 8779sellers, our toll free number,
Rolando Rosas 1:03:28
and I understand you have one of the most extensive libraries out there on information for free. So if you’re just starting on this or further of an advanced seller, you’ve got a ton of articles and videos addressing many of the pressing issues when it comes to being on Amazon. Yeah, I
CJ Rosenbaum 1:03:46
think we’re over a couple of 1000. Now we, we generally publish around two to three per day, we have an insanely awesome video editing team. And as new information comes in, we try and get it out there. And it’s on our YouTube channel. It’s on our website. And if I could, if I can offer your viewers something on the house, yes, go there. There. There are a lot of courses out there about how to sell. And I took what we have and created one as well. It’s at Amazontrainingcenter.com. And, you know, if you send me a note, I’ll send you a link you can get on there for free and take a look around then give me your feedback. You know, say this is great or you know, this part kind of sucks. Your feedback is very, very valuable so we can get more and more quality information out there.
Rolando Rosas 1:04:36
That’s terrific CJ, what a wonderful nugget for those that are listening even after the playback because this is going to live on for probably years. And people are going to be able to look up that resource. And while we’re talking about resources and material and knowledge. If you liked this material we brought you today bumped the like button, because that lets us know that we’re on the right attract with the information that you want to see. We invite you to send us a suggestion, a comment. If there’s something that our team thinks that you know, our audience can benefit from, we will bring it in a future segment in our our podcast. And before we go to Oh, yeah, no, we got trivia now. Right?
Dave Kelly 1:05:21
So yeah, so So we open up our show today with a two truths and a lie. It all related around Amazon, CJ. So I might toss this your way, and see if you can give us an answer. So let’s take a quick review two truths and a lie. Two of these statements are true. Yeah, this fake which is which, number one, is it true that the fastest delivery record for same day prime delivery is 23 minutes. Number two, it took Amazon five years before recording an annual net profit for the first time. And number three, Amazon’s first customer got a building named after them. Two Truths and a Lie CJ, what do you think?
CJ Rosenbaum 1:06:04
Well, I thought it was seven years. So I’m gonna go number three, I don’t think there’s any consumer who got a building named after him or her. Not going number three being the BS one. All right.
Dave Kelly 1:06:14
Let’s reveal it. Let’s reveal the answer.
Rolando Rosas 1:06:18
Oh, J. CJ, your logic was good. But it ran against a brick wall today.
CJ Rosenbaum 1:06:27
I got seven not the smartest guy in any room. I know how to help sellers.
Rolando Rosas 1:06:32
Oh, the lie is it took Amazon five years before recording an annual net profit for the first time. Because that longer.
Dave Kelly 1:06:43
I was gonna say it might be it might be longer than five years.
Rolando Rosas 1:06:48
So it took them 10 years. The truth is it took them 10 years instead of five. Yep.
Dave Kelly 1:06:55
And look at him and look at look at them now. And that was probably all built into the to the model from what I understood. Take a loss, shut down all the brick and mortar and then dominate the the retail space.
Rolando Rosas 1:07:10
They got a lot of help from COVID this year or last almost two years now on this. So I know I like my packages coming in on time and it’s getting faster and faster. So I’m sure millions of others are doing the same around the world. So CJ, you’ve been wonderful sport today. Love it, all the nuggets, all the tips that you have provided us today, a lot to chew on a lot to think about a lot of value. So I really appreciate you coming on. I also want to take thank our other guests, Tony from Tampa. And I want to thank Gary the the robo coffee founder from earlier this afternoon. So as you if you’ve stuck around all the way to the end, we’ve got a bonus for you right here. Where are we going to this right here? Over here, Dave and I’ve got some interesting videos for you to check out the entrepreneurship journey, my journey on getting global tech off the ground and getting it to its 20th year that we’re celebrating here very soon, as well as the future of work. We will wait for you in both of those episodes. See you
Recent Comments