Your Game Changing Solution to Negative Reviews

Subject:

To:

Sellerbites Readers

Date:

July 5, 2021

Happy Fourth of July Weekend to our American readers! We hope you all are staying safe and enjoying your long weekend. If you've been caught up in day-off festivities, don't worry, we'll catch you up before the work week starts

Key takeaways from prime day 2021 and how sellers can use this for next year
How easy is it for amazon to destroy inventory and why this is impactful to sellers
Your game changing solution to negative reviews

BIG IDEA

Reviewing Prime Day 2021 and Key Takeaways to Succeed for Next Year

Two weeks have gone by, and we've cooled down from Prime Day shenanigans. The last couple of years have been significant for Prime Day, but just how telling was it? One thing for sure is that customers were unhinged and spent billions of dollars in Amazon Prime deals and promotions, resulting in tremendous sales numbers - especially for SMSB

Shoppers spent $1.9 Billion on 70 million products during the Spend $10, Get $10 on small business promotion period.
Amazon reports the best-selling categories worldwide included tools, beauty, nutrition, baby care, electronics, apparel, and household products.
Spending during Prime Day was 6.1% higher compared to last year's October Prime Day.
Overall, online spending during the event surpassed $11 billion.

Definite strides in terms of dollars spent and goods sold, but Prime day's year-over-year growth weakened compared to previous Prime days. Before the pandemic, Prime Day was growing steadily with 50% growth rates. In comparison to this year vs. last year's 6% increase, it wasn't as shocking. That's not to say it wasn't successful. Tons of sellers benefitted from the 2-day sale in record-breaking numbers despite inventory uncertainties and policy updates.

TLDR: Prime Day went swimmingly and set record-breaking numbers, especially for smaller sized businesses but growth rates overall were not as significant

AMAZON IN THE NEWS

What Is Amazon Doing With Unused Inventory and Why Are They Throwing Away So Much?

An Amazon warehouse in the UK was exposed for marking a distressing number of items for destruction, including jewelry, electronics, and Covid-19 protection gear. It was reported Amazon gave a weekly target of 130,000 items, adding up to 6 million products marked for destruction every year. Of course, as sellers, we anticipate losing a percentage of our inventory, but to imagine its contribution towards so much waste is just a tad alarming. The investigation included the following findings:

Weekly target of 130,000 items to be destroyed
Nearly 50% of items marked for destruction were unopened in original packaging. The other 50% were product returns that were still in good condition
Electronic items go to waste management; all else was tracked to the landfill
Products included laptops, TVs, jewelry, headphones, books, facemasks

Many people are not happy with Amazon's heavy contribution to waste - turning inventory into masses of garbage in no time. Greenpeace has expressed its concerns with how Amazon is conducting its business and how its disposal culture is only adding to the problem - at these rates, government intervention will need to happen sooner than later. Amazon has responded with claims that they are working towards a zero product disposal plan to resell, donate or recycle.

ACTIONABLE ADVICE

How to Use This Amazon Feature to Reach Unhappy Customers and Remedy Negative Reviews

This is not a drill! Amazon has released a feature for brand registered sellers to reach their customers via buyer-seller messaging upon receiving negative reviews. Before this announcement, Amazon made it extremely difficult to contact these unhappy customers, and people were apprehensive about trying anything that looked like it might violate Amazon's TOS. With this new feature, it's official, and we have the green light. An announcement by Amazon stated the following:

"We're now offering a brand-only benefit that allows you to reach out to buyers who purchased your branded product directly from you, who left critical (1-3 star reviews) via templated emails that allow you to communicate with buyers via buyer-seller messaging we believe this will build brand trust and help establish stronger relationships between you and your customers" - Amazon

Go to Brands Menu and click on Customer Reviews
View 1-3 star ratings and click on Contact Buyer
Select one of the two options:

Courtesy Refund: Offer a full courtesy refund or replacement item

Customer Review: Check with your buyer to clarify any product issues based on their review

Keep in mind, this feature was only recently launched and is still working out some bugs, but we're not complaining - we're just happy it exists.

TRENDS & TRENDING

Why You Should Be Thinking About Your Back to School Strategy Sooner Than Later

We're right in the midst of Summer, which means that back to school is only right around the corner. With changing season, customers' needs and buying habits are shifting in anticipation of the new academic year. School may or may not look a little different for your region this year due to pandemic protocol, but one thing for sure is that people are getting prepared. For some sellers, it means doing their product research to accommodate selling trends for the fall, anticipating and preparing for inventory, and optimizing their listing page for the back-to-school season.