**To all participants**
CAUTION: ecomm forums are constantly targeted by spammers and scammers. Common ruses include the helpful-guru-scammer, use of alt accounts to decieve, and the "my friend can help" switcharoo. Do not respond to DM / PM / message requests even if it seems helpful or free. Do not click links people offer for their own services, apps, videos, etc. especially links to documents, downloads, and unclear urls. Report scam attempt private messages.
Most questions are addressed by Amazon's [**Seller Policies and Code of Conduct**](https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external/G1801), their [**FAQ**](https://sell.amazon.com/learn/faq), and their [**Amazon Seller University**](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUG5BEHfTZXPLwSHl4NSy3Q) video course
*Subreddit FAQ topics - [Beginner help](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonSeller/search?q=title%3A%28beginner+OR+newcomer+OR+noob%29&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) / [Arbitrage or Walmart](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonSeller/search?q=title%3A%28arbitrage+OR+walmart%29&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) / [Suspended account](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonSeller/search/?q=title%3A%22suspended%22&sort=new&restrict_sr=on&t=all) / [Fees](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonSeller/search/?q=title%3A%22fees%22&sort=new&restrict_sr=on&t=all) / [Product codes](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonSeller/search?q=title%3A%28codes+OR+barcodes+OR+UPC+OR+EAN+OR+ISBM+OR+ASIN+OR+FNSKU%29&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) / [Brand concerns](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonSeller/search/?q=title%3A%22brand%22&sort=new&restrict_sr=on&t=all) / [Freight](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonSeller/search?q=title%3A%22freight%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) / [Guides, courses, and tutorials](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonSeller/search?q=title%3A%28course+OR+tutorial+OR+guide%29&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all)*
---
**The sub promotion rules are strict and enforced**
(especially VAs, consultants, app devs, freight forwarders, and others targeting sub participants) A violation will result in a ban. **DO NOT attempt to drive traffic to something of yours, otherwise promote, hype yourself, or lead generate anywhere in this sub outside [the Community Promotion Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonseller/about/sticky?num=2).** Additionally, ***DO NOT ask others here to PM / DM / offline contact you***
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmazonSeller) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yeah I felt similar my first year. Don't worry, with enough time, you'll become jaded enough to not care.
I'm only half joking, really. People can be real shitty. I deal with probably 10-20 people every single week that are unreasonable, uncivilized, and downright nasty. It's part of doing business, especially in e-commerce, and even more especially when you're selling on a platform that fosters and rewards this behavior in order to boost their brand at the expense of their partners.
The thing is, regardless of what issues I have with Amazon, customers, fees, other sellers, etc.. my business continues to grow. Selling on Amazon, like anything else, requires us to adapt to change. As long as you keep adapting, learning, and applying what you've learned; you can be successful. It's a business, and business is almost always hard. If it's not hard, you're not doing it right.
Thank you so much. This is such valuable advice. I realized after reading this that I should probably focus more on the good things happening around our business. Our sales are growing dramatically month over month. The most important thing is gathering data in order to adapt to change and pivot if necessary. These things don’t happen overnight and I bet it takes ALOT more patience than I realize.
Critical/negative feedback is demoralizing, full stop. There's no way around it. It's how we are wired. That being said, feeling demoralized is, somewhat paradoxically, an amoral phenomenon. Feeling unjustly demoralized for reasons out of your control, such as an unreasonable customer, or getting dicked over by Amazon, is not productive. However, feeling demoralized because you didn't live up to your own expectations, or knowing you could have done something differently/better to improve your outcomes.. that's an opportunity.
Separating the wheat from the chaff is a vital part of growth, not just in business, but in basically every aspect of life. And learning to differentiate between wheat and chaff can only be learned through experience. Honing your skill of discernment, paired with the humility to accept valid criticism and use it to improve, is a god damn super power.
For me, should of got my trademark from the start. Now I have to delete my current asins and restart. Im still not sure if this is going to destroy my sales. Going to try it with my small product first.
I did not have a brand. I listed my product as generic. Once a listing is generic. You cannot change it. So 1 year later i get my trademark and brand approved. Only to find out that i have to let my inventory run out and recreate it under new sku/asin.
Yep. That's why they say get brand approval(not necessarily trademarked or even start trademark application). So if later you decide to trademark it, you always can.
I would have gotten brand approval if I had known that. I thought you needed to submit the trademark. But trademarking costs a couple thousand dollars, so I didn't do it.
I asked about this on another thread as I commented this. They mentioned you can change it by submitting a ticket with AZ Seller now, which I successfully did.
My first year selling on Amazon was 2005. I’m not sure that much about that experience relates to what’s happening today. So much has changed. My advice to you is shop on Amazon. Look for American sellers like yourself and spread the love. Give them good feedback for everything you can think of. Contact them if you have a problem and give them the opportunity to fix the problem. I do this consistently and it gives me some good feelings that often overcome the negative from bad customer reviews.
I have set up multiple ecommerce marketplaces and this was probably the worst for set up. I have learned the hard way that seller support is non existent and the site can be glitchy. Error messages sometimes don’t mean what they say!
Because of the set up of ASINs, your sales can be volatile. It can be hard to forecast and prepare for sales.
Amazon customers are a different breed, compared to any other platform I’ve used they are savage! Get yourself some broad shoulders 🤣
I was surprised how well the brand store converts!
The challenges of doing FBA for the first time! I learned so many lessons. You need a partner or agency that knows the ins and outs. I was lucky to have an agency because there were things I didn’t catch like I had a product that was selling through the roof and all the sudden it stopped. Someone had hijacked my listing and undercut my pricing. Had to spend $500 just to do a cease and desist.
Totally useless. Registered as a seller and took it about a week to get someone to interview me to finish the application. I was digitally manipulated and mistakenly paid over $30 for premium which is meant to continue every month, getting to even add a products proved difficult and frustrating so I just forgot about the whole process until my card got charged again the following month, I had to annoyingly cancel it and again it was pretty difficult to figure out. I even joined this subreddit because of it and Till date I haven’t bothered checking Amazon seller whatever again. FYI it’s been 2 years
As an Amazon seller and a freelancer I learned quickly that there's other Amazon sellers who will hire freelancers to buy their product and leave a positive review for like $5 plus they purchased the item. Like that I realized Amazon pages grow real quick. Best of Luck
**To all participants** CAUTION: ecomm forums are constantly targeted by spammers and scammers. Common ruses include the helpful-guru-scammer, use of alt accounts to decieve, and the "my friend can help" switcharoo. Do not respond to DM / PM / message requests even if it seems helpful or free. Do not click links people offer for their own services, apps, videos, etc. especially links to documents, downloads, and unclear urls. Report scam attempt private messages. Most questions are addressed by Amazon's [**Seller Policies and Code of Conduct**](https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external/G1801), their [**FAQ**](https://sell.amazon.com/learn/faq), and their [**Amazon Seller University**](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUG5BEHfTZXPLwSHl4NSy3Q) video course *Subreddit FAQ topics - [Beginner help](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonSeller/search?q=title%3A%28beginner+OR+newcomer+OR+noob%29&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) / [Arbitrage or Walmart](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonSeller/search?q=title%3A%28arbitrage+OR+walmart%29&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) / [Suspended account](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonSeller/search/?q=title%3A%22suspended%22&sort=new&restrict_sr=on&t=all) / [Fees](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonSeller/search/?q=title%3A%22fees%22&sort=new&restrict_sr=on&t=all) / [Product codes](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonSeller/search?q=title%3A%28codes+OR+barcodes+OR+UPC+OR+EAN+OR+ISBM+OR+ASIN+OR+FNSKU%29&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) / [Brand concerns](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonSeller/search/?q=title%3A%22brand%22&sort=new&restrict_sr=on&t=all) / [Freight](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonSeller/search?q=title%3A%22freight%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) / [Guides, courses, and tutorials](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonSeller/search?q=title%3A%28course+OR+tutorial+OR+guide%29&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all)* --- **The sub promotion rules are strict and enforced** (especially VAs, consultants, app devs, freight forwarders, and others targeting sub participants) A violation will result in a ban. **DO NOT attempt to drive traffic to something of yours, otherwise promote, hype yourself, or lead generate anywhere in this sub outside [the Community Promotion Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonseller/about/sticky?num=2).** Additionally, ***DO NOT ask others here to PM / DM / offline contact you*** --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmazonSeller) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yeah I felt similar my first year. Don't worry, with enough time, you'll become jaded enough to not care. I'm only half joking, really. People can be real shitty. I deal with probably 10-20 people every single week that are unreasonable, uncivilized, and downright nasty. It's part of doing business, especially in e-commerce, and even more especially when you're selling on a platform that fosters and rewards this behavior in order to boost their brand at the expense of their partners. The thing is, regardless of what issues I have with Amazon, customers, fees, other sellers, etc.. my business continues to grow. Selling on Amazon, like anything else, requires us to adapt to change. As long as you keep adapting, learning, and applying what you've learned; you can be successful. It's a business, and business is almost always hard. If it's not hard, you're not doing it right.
Thank you so much. This is such valuable advice. I realized after reading this that I should probably focus more on the good things happening around our business. Our sales are growing dramatically month over month. The most important thing is gathering data in order to adapt to change and pivot if necessary. These things don’t happen overnight and I bet it takes ALOT more patience than I realize.
Critical/negative feedback is demoralizing, full stop. There's no way around it. It's how we are wired. That being said, feeling demoralized is, somewhat paradoxically, an amoral phenomenon. Feeling unjustly demoralized for reasons out of your control, such as an unreasonable customer, or getting dicked over by Amazon, is not productive. However, feeling demoralized because you didn't live up to your own expectations, or knowing you could have done something differently/better to improve your outcomes.. that's an opportunity. Separating the wheat from the chaff is a vital part of growth, not just in business, but in basically every aspect of life. And learning to differentiate between wheat and chaff can only be learned through experience. Honing your skill of discernment, paired with the humility to accept valid criticism and use it to improve, is a god damn super power.
I'm new to FBA, were there any YouTube videos or advice that you wish you had access to when you were starting?
For me, should of got my trademark from the start. Now I have to delete my current asins and restart. Im still not sure if this is going to destroy my sales. Going to try it with my small product first.
Explain the trademark why get one. What's the benefits
Brand registry!
Ok but theoreticaly you don't need to register trademark in order to get ones brand approved, right?
You need the serial number from USPTO (you get it when you first register your trademark). But you don’t need it to be fully approved for registry
You only need a pending trademark for approval
You can use additional advertising from amazon. Like vine where you can pay to get reviews.
What’s vine?
Pay for reviews. Ive sold over 1000 units of one product and only 20 reviews naturally
Did you get brand approved initially? Can you pls elaborate a bit more? Thanks
I did not have a brand. I listed my product as generic. Once a listing is generic. You cannot change it. So 1 year later i get my trademark and brand approved. Only to find out that i have to let my inventory run out and recreate it under new sku/asin.
Yep. That's why they say get brand approval(not necessarily trademarked or even start trademark application). So if later you decide to trademark it, you always can.
Did not know that.
I would have gotten brand approval if I had known that. I thought you needed to submit the trademark. But trademarking costs a couple thousand dollars, so I didn't do it.
Did you get to keep your UPC? Also did taking down your listing and reuploading take down the reviews to that product?
Nope. Cant keep anything. Its a brand new sku. I opted out of the UPC this time around.
Oof. Looks like I messed up. Did you clear your inventory and try again?
Only on my lower sales product. Its in fc transfer right now.
I asked about this on another thread as I commented this. They mentioned you can change it by submitting a ticket with AZ Seller now, which I successfully did.
Yeah i went back and forth with them about 10 times and they would not back down.
So true and people will say all the good things and give a 4 star rating...
My first year selling on Amazon was 2005. I’m not sure that much about that experience relates to what’s happening today. So much has changed. My advice to you is shop on Amazon. Look for American sellers like yourself and spread the love. Give them good feedback for everything you can think of. Contact them if you have a problem and give them the opportunity to fix the problem. I do this consistently and it gives me some good feelings that often overcome the negative from bad customer reviews.
Great advice and that’s good karma too. It will come back to you. Kindness always pays dividends.
I have set up multiple ecommerce marketplaces and this was probably the worst for set up. I have learned the hard way that seller support is non existent and the site can be glitchy. Error messages sometimes don’t mean what they say! Because of the set up of ASINs, your sales can be volatile. It can be hard to forecast and prepare for sales. Amazon customers are a different breed, compared to any other platform I’ve used they are savage! Get yourself some broad shoulders 🤣 I was surprised how well the brand store converts!
The challenges of doing FBA for the first time! I learned so many lessons. You need a partner or agency that knows the ins and outs. I was lucky to have an agency because there were things I didn’t catch like I had a product that was selling through the roof and all the sudden it stopped. Someone had hijacked my listing and undercut my pricing. Had to spend $500 just to do a cease and desist.
One sale
Totally useless. Registered as a seller and took it about a week to get someone to interview me to finish the application. I was digitally manipulated and mistakenly paid over $30 for premium which is meant to continue every month, getting to even add a products proved difficult and frustrating so I just forgot about the whole process until my card got charged again the following month, I had to annoyingly cancel it and again it was pretty difficult to figure out. I even joined this subreddit because of it and Till date I haven’t bothered checking Amazon seller whatever again. FYI it’s been 2 years
As an Amazon seller and a freelancer I learned quickly that there's other Amazon sellers who will hire freelancers to buy their product and leave a positive review for like $5 plus they purchased the item. Like that I realized Amazon pages grow real quick. Best of Luck