About Jason Boyce & Ave 7 History

This process known as “The Amazon Flywheel” effect has only accelerated over time. Amazon’s exponential growth continues to dominate the eCommerce landscape attracting more competitors.  Combining  increased competition with the fact that Amazon automates more processes with imperfect bots and it’s a recipe that creates seemingly endless headaches and painpoints for sellers on the platform.

Amazon became a gold rush for everyone from resellers, retail arbitrageurs, and legions of private label sellers looking to launch the next great product.  Amazon has also been a place that’s made a lot of ecommerce fortunes. As stakes rose, so did the willingness to cut corners, resulting in a combination of unsafe products being sold on Amazon that lacked proper compliance and safety testing to blackhat tactics used by sellers to gain a competitive edge. None of which was good for consumers, nor well meaning sellers who play by the rules.

The need to generate product reviews to gain “social proof” gold is partially behind every sale on Amazon, and it began with massive giveaways that escalated into blatantly illegal practices of buying fake reviews to post on the site. In addition, sellers discovered discontinued ASINS and attempted to rebrand them to “launch” their product with hundreds or thousands of preexisting, yet irrelevant, reviews.

Amazon continued to update its algorithm, platform, and policy to prevent abuse of the platform, as well as restrict sellers from being able to make simple updates to their listings. This included incorrectly flagged products as pesticides, suppressed listings for including harmless keywords, and account suspensions if it was believed that one Amazon account was associated with another (even if it was not). Again Amazbots are imperfect and create continual headaches for small business product brands.

This increased complexity in every aspect of Amazon selling, make it more difficult for brands to list, edit, advertise and promote their products to potential Amazon shoppers. As Amazon Advertising grew in popularity, eventually becoming a necessity, so did the complexity and types of ads, advertising strategies, and the need to manage a multitude of traffic sources to a brand’s listings. 

As Amazon’s complexity grew, so did the need for a team to manage it. In the golden age of Amazon, hiring a kid out of college to throw up your product listings, outsource some product graphics, and run a few ads was possible. Those days are over. As a constant innovator, Amazon continues to release new features, make updates to its platform and roll out policy changes, all of which require sellers to stay completely up-to-date and informed or risk suspension or loss of sales. It also requires a full team of experience Amazon operators.

The challenge with Amazon is that it requires the highest level of execution at every level to maintain profitable growth: from SEO to copy, graphic design to ads, and inventory management to customer service. In order to be successful, a brand owner must understand the three levels of execution and know that capacity they have in terms of time, team and talent to be able to execute at each:

1) Knowing What to Do

2) Knowing How to Do It

3) Being Good at Doing It

While a brief search on Google can tell you what you need to do, and in-depth videos on YouTube can even show you how to do it (provided they’re accurate, up-to-date, and within Terms of Service), the key to success is being good at executing the task with excellence. This leaves sellers with three options for managing their Amazon Seller account: 

1) Do it Yourself

The challenges with this option are obvious. There simply isn’t enough time in the day to keep up to date with the changes and master all of the skills necessary to ensure that your product listings and account are optimized at the highest level. If you plan to run your business, develop new products, source them, and deal with imports and supply issues, all while handling every aspect of Amazon, there is likely little time left for things like eating or sleeping.

2) Do it With Help

While many brands and sellers resort to outsourcing contractors or part-time VA’s, there is a need for quality control that can only be achieved if the seller knows what to look for and understands what’s expected. Lack of formal training can result in outsourced talent making changes to your account that can hurt more than they help. If you’re not completely aware of all of the best practices or policies and can hold a contractor or part-time employee accountable, the likelihood of mistakes is unavoidable. And unfortunately, Amazon is a very unforgiving platform.

3) Have Someone Do it For You

As most sellers have discovered, trying to do everything yourself or even with the help of some part-time staff does not provide a necessary and complete solution. As Amazon agencies explode in numbers, it has become increasingly difficult to identify who is not only qualified to manage your account but represents a legitimate company that abides by Amazon’s Terms of Service and established best practices. In short, brand owners are looking for a partner with an established reputation that they can trust.

At Avenue7Media, we have combined decades of experience, hired top talent, and invested relentlessly in our processes, team, and technology to provide consistent results for our clients who become partners in their success on Amazon. From our innovative technology to our experienced operators, Avenue7 combines the passion for your success with intricate knowledge of how the Amazon algorithm and platform works.

If you’re looking for Amazon Account Management Services team you can rely on, reach out to us to set up an initial discovery call to learn how we can help you grow profitably on Amazon and beyond.