Amazon Reviews the Right way with eComEngine

May 7, 2020

Meet The Speakers

Liz Fickenscher

Industry Liaison at eComEngine

Listen to the podcast

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

How the new Amazon Request a Review button works
Amazon’s restrictions on sending custom emails to customers and Liz’s advice to sellers who haven’t been restricted
Why Amazon customers prefer to give ratings instead of leaving reviews
Liz discusses why Amazon is opening packages for inserts and how this violates Amazon’s terms of service
Is Amazon biased on their scrutiny of sellers?
The power of a single review and how sellers can request and get initial reviews for their products
Liz shares why customers love reading reviews and how to spot fake reviews on Amazon
Liz talks about using LandingCube to offer discounts to buyers to help promote and boost Amazon sales
How to re-target customers after purchasing products on Amazon
Liz reveals the things she’s looking forward to in Amazon Seller Central and new programs that can help third party sellers

In this episode…

Amazon sellers are aware that good reviews for their product listings can potentially drive large volumes of sales. But for new sellers and those who have been in the market a while but have yet to make a single sale, getting reviews and that elusive five-star rating doesn’t come easy. Some sellers end up soliciting reviews illegally just to gain traction on their channel, but should Amazon catch up with them, they risk having their accounts suspended and product listings taken down.

So what is the best way to get relevant reviews on Amazon the right way?

Liz Fickenscher is an eCommerce specialist and she is this episode’s featured guest on Buy Box Experts. Tune in as Eric Stopper interviews Liz about the best strategies Amazon sellers can use to get product reviews, how Amazon’s Request a Review button works and why they open packages before sending them out. Also, discover the power of a single review and the best tips on how to retarget buyers after they’ve made a purchase. Stay tuned.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode

Buy Box Experts applies decades of e-commerce experience to successfully manage their clients’ marketplace accounts. The Buy Box account managers specialize in combining an understanding of their clients’ business fundamentals and their in-depth expertise in the Amazon Marketplace.

The team works with marketplace technicians using a system of processes, proprietary software, and extensive channel experience to ensure your Amazon presence captures the opportunity in the marketplace–not only producing greater revenue and profits but also reducing or eliminating your business’ workload.

Buy Box prides itself on being one of the few agencies with an SMB (small to medium-sized business) division and an Enterprise division. Buy Box does not commingle clients among divisions as each has unique needs and requirements for proper account management.

Learn more about Buy Box Experts at BuyBoxExperts.com

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:09
Welcome to the Buy Box Experts podcast we bring to light the unique opportunities brands face in today’s e commerce world.

Eric Stopper 0:18
Hey and welcome to the Buy Box Experts podcast This is Eric Stopper. Today’s episode is brought to you by Buy Box Experts. Buy Box Experts takes ambitious brands and makes them unbeatable. We’ve got a team of consultants. I am one of them to come and reach out to us go to bu boxexperts.com click on the free analysis button. You’ll be connected with me or a member of my team. And we will just subject your listings in your account to violent violent scrutiny so that you can run a better business buy box experts comm click on the free analysis button. Today I am pleased to be joined by Liz Fickenscher, industry liaison at eComEngine. Liz is a collector, a writer, a speaker and a friend. You can find her on webinars and blog posts and Many industry events, go and check it out on YouTube and on the eComEngine blog. Liz, welcome to the show.

Liz Fickenscher 1:06
Thanks, Eric. I’m happy to be here.

Eric Stopper 1:09
So I want to hit on the kind of the most critical things as of the date of this podcast. And I mean, specifically the kind of the review changes that Amazon has been making over the last few months. What is the state of everything I saw that request review button pop up, and a lot of people have been wondering what to do with it. Can you kind of give us the full rundown?

Liz Fickenscher 1:33
Sure. So at the end of 2019, Amazon introduced that request review button. So you go into your orders, you go to a particular order up in the right hand corner, there’s a little button that says request a review, you click that it sends a message to your buyer that does not go through buyer seller messaging because they’re completely different mechanism and it’s an email that Amazon actually wrote. It’s not You can’t edit it, you can’t customize it at all. It pops in a picture of the product that the customer ordered. It also pops in a place where the recipient can leave seller feedback. So it’s a two shot product review, seller feedback is delivered to the recipient in their chosen language. And Amazon’s been super excited about it. So they approached us and said, Hey, do you want this, we want you to have this for free by five. So we worked with them. And we rolled it out to all of our users. And it’s available for all of our new users or potential users. And it’s just super easy. And what it does is just automates the clicking of that button, pretty much it doesn’t click the button for you, but it works through the same mechanism. And you can just sort of set it and forget it and you know, click the button a whole bunch.

Eric Stopper 2:51
Now this doesn’t replace, like custom emails that you can send to people after the point of purchase does it.

Liz Fickenscher 2:58
I think that you have to choose Either or as a seller I don’t I definitely don’t recommend requesting review both ways because that will definitely get your buyer seller message in trouble I think you have to pick one or the others. So we’ve got some people who have decided to stick with buyer seller messaging because so the old way let’s call it the old way with the old way because they’ve worked hard on their templates because their template is well converting for them. And they’re not ready to make the move yet. However, I don’t know if you guys saw it. I think you did. But last year, Amazon started restricting sellers from proactive buyer seller messaging they got this scary email that says you marry someone of the following and they didn’t tell you which one you did. I was having a conversation the other day and somebody said I was like getting a speeding getting pulled over by the cops and getting a ticket you didn’t know what for. So you either you did or you follow too closely or you’re in a stop sign or but we are going to tell you which one you

Eric Stopper 4:00
And show up in court on this day.

Liz Fickenscher 4:02
Right? So that restriction started out small seven days, you know, five days and then it launched into a full on 30 day restriction from proactive buyer seller messaging. And what we’re seeing now is that people who’ve been restricted more than once could receive a permanent ban from part of buyer seller messaging. So those folks are definitely using the request review functionality because it doesn’t go through buyer seller messaging. Amazon has said to us, yes, restricted people can use it because it’s not buyer seller messaging. So it’s a way for them to continue their outreach in a less personalized way, but still continue to send that out. And we’re actually seeing it convert pretty well. Or we don’t have hard data yet. I just have anecdotal stuff. But not only are a lot of our customers seeing an increase in reviews, but they’re also seeing an increase in positive seller feedback and what I think is You got an email as a human, and it’s got two sets of stars on it and you’re not going to like click one set of stars and not the other one are going to feel like you didn’t finish, I guess. So people have actually seen an increase in positive seller feedback as well, because that that email asks for both

Eric Stopper 5:15
interesting. Okay, so it could even be a play for just garnering some, some different types of feedback. Now, if you had to. It sounds like if you have to choose between the two, you would want to go with the one that’s more customized, though. And then just as soon as they start restricting you, you just move to the one that Amazon built.

Liz Fickenscher 5:34
Well, I mean, that’s not how I would personally

Unknown Speaker 5:38
say, what do you think?

Liz Fickenscher 5:38
I think that if you’re following the rules, and you’ve been asking for reviews for a while now and you haven’t been restricted, and again, you’re following the rules, and there are a lot of them and they’re in a lot of different places on Seller Central. But I think that right now, there’s no harm in using the old way. Using buyer seller messaging to send your customized emails, but I don’t I do know. And I’ve seen that there’s been increased scrutiny on those emails, I don’t think that the either the machine learning that’s flagging emails and buyer seller messaging, nor the folks that are actually manually reviewing them are all necessarily on the same page in terms of what the rules mean, I think that there’s a lot of interpretation going on. And I don’t know that there’s a like a memo or booklet or PDF that people follow

Eric Stopper 6:34
Jeff, a Jeff Bezos slack message.

Liz Fickenscher 6:38
I don’t think there is because I think Amazon’s still trying to figure all this out. Right. So if you think about the history of product reviews on Amazon, Amazon, let people start leaving reviews in 1995, I think and that was before they let third party sellers onto the platform, right? So they were like, hey, we’ve got this online marketplace and people can’t pick up in touch. Look at and smell an item. So we’ve got to have some way for potential shoppers, to to know what people think of this particular item.

So then when

when they let third party sellers on the marketplace reviews were already in place, and of course, automatically the game started then the blackhat stuff started. So it’s gone through a whole lot of changes. I mean, if you remember way back in the day used to be able to send your item to somebody either for free or for a really, really deep discount and say, Hey, will you please review this? And that was totally fine. You just want

Unknown Speaker 7:39
to say Don’t remind me of the good old days, Liz the good

Liz Fickenscher 7:41
old days, right? I mean, I call that review gate right? Because that was such a huge shock. It was October 2016. And I had just actually come on full time with the comp engine. I’d been working with the comp engine for a couple of years but I just come on full time in August and October that hit and it changed the game all together. So then Amazon introduced the early reviewer program to kind of say sorry about that. But people were really taking advantage and they did studies and notice that the majority of reviews that were left in 2016, and 2015, were those incentivized reviews. So Amazon was like, well, that’s not gonna cut it, because we can’t just have all these reviews that are by people who got the product for free. How do we know that that’s real. And Amazon’s customer obsessed, right? So they want to create the best experience for the shoppers on their marketplace. So they thought we’ve got to do this a different way because this is not going to work. So they introduced early reviewer, they rolled vine out last year back to third party sellers. I don’t think it’s in action right this second, but that’s another option. That’s an Amazon approved like Amazon created way to get reviews. But this request review thing is also Amazon born and I think they’re pretty excited about it. And I think that right now that’s kind of that’s kind of the hot Yeah, there are plenty of people that are still using buyer seller messaging.

Eric Stopper 9:04
I, I have my my feedback five, the custom one is is still sending I have all my beautiful templates. And I haven’t been I haven’t been restricted or anything quite yet but i’ve you know, I’ve got my finger on the trigger there. So it seems to me so my my uncle is he just started heading up this, this program at Amazon basically trying to catch counterfeit sellers and trying to stomp out these unauthorized review bots and companies and his his sentiment, right is that it’s, it’s impossible to get on top of it. Right? It really like the task is just so enormously dynamic and people are so not willing to abide by rules that it’s just they’re literally just playing whack a mole and so it seems to me that There will always be these major shifts in reviews as Amazon is trying to get on top of it. And this might be asking you to look a little bit too far into the crystal ball. But what do you think the next biggest change is going to be? the requester review button was kind of big. But is it? Is it gonna be only only voice reviews? Right in the future only reviews coming through Alexa, what do you think?

Liz Fickenscher 10:25
I don’t I don’t think that that’s necessary. I mean, there aren’t quite enough people, I think with an Alexa device to make that a requirement. The fact that the request review thing is so different in that also, in addition to the fact that it’s a whole different way to ask for reviews, and Amazon wrote the email, etc, etc. Now, people can just leave ratings, right, so they don’t actually have to write a review. They can just leave a star rating on the product or star rating on your seller feedback and that rolls up and we have yet to To see how those things are going to be weighed. Are they going to be weighed? You know, the same as a written review? Or is it going to be less I suspect it’s probably going to be less. Unless they’re really moving toward a, we don’t really care what you have to say about it. We just want you to leave a star rating, which I think would be extremely unhelpful. I don’t think they’re going to go in that direction.

Eric Stopper 11:20
I mean, eventually, I hope for the days right where I’m opening my Amazon package and my my Apple Watch can sense how much dopamine is being dispensed into my brain and they could just automatically give somebody some sort of rating on Amazon.

Liz Fickenscher 11:34
That is entirely too creepy.

Eric Stopper 11:37
You know, big, big brother is is always looking out for you. Yeah, that’s kind of my thought.

Liz Fickenscher 11:43
He’s always doing something

Eric Stopper 11:44
and they aren’t right. So you and I were talking previously about the fact that Amazon opens your packages, and they look at your inserts.

Liz Fickenscher 11:52
Sure, and people are breaking Amazon’s Terms of Service on their product inserts. It says right in The rules do not ask for a positive review. Do not include any, like marketing information if you’re asking for a review on a product insert, because then that would be considered an incentivized review. So you can put a coupon right in your package, but you can’t ask for a review on that same coupon just like ask for a review, but you can say, please leave a review your honest opinion matters to us and take 20% off your next order. You can’t do that. And the reason Amazon knows I said, it’s one of two things. They open packages to take a look at the roof, the insert to make sure it’s TLS compliant, or they have employed psychics that can sponsor people with X ray vision. So it’s one of three things but I do know that people are getting dinged for non compliant product inserts. So they’re, they’re doing something where they can see it and they know what what you’ve done.

Eric Stopper 12:59
I’ve saw I’ve made a bunch of I’ve made a bunch of deliberately non compliant product inserts for some of my products just to see. So far so good.

Unknown Speaker 13:08
They fire.

Eric Stopper 13:09
Yeah, yeah, one of them is like a texting one, you text a number to a cert near you text a word to a number. And then I think I have an E book on that one that you can take advantage of, but then I have that person’s email address, right? Like, I just want to see, I want to see how much scrutiny they’re subjecting me to. And it seems a lot less than what everybody else is experiencing. Does Amazon like? Do they bias their their scrutiny that they’re applying to sellers or they go category by category?

Liz Fickenscher 13:39
You know, I thought Yes, at one point, but once the restriction started happening, and once I started really talking to not just our customers, but just sellers in the industry that have been suspended for reviews abuse, and I’m lucky enough to to understand more of that because Chris McCabe is a good friend and he is sort of let me know like, Hey, this is what’s up. And like, I don’t know if you’re seeing it. Are you seeing that? And we have good conversations about that to know what’s going on in the industry. But I’ve seen $12 million a month sellers get suspended for reviews abuse. Yep. I’ve seen. I mean, I don’t know if it’s by category, but they’re certainly not saying hey, you bring us enough money that we’re not going to suspend you, everybody is and I’ve seen people who are just like little mom and pop. Very few orders a month. I’ve seen them get suspended to

Unknown Speaker 14:29
service.

Liz Fickenscher 14:31
Absolutely.

Eric Stopper 14:32
So I mean, I’ve got a couple of questions and we can go a couple of interactions. But let’s let’s take the just reviews in general and just do a quick breakdown. You were reading something to me before we started recording about the power of a single review from zero to one.

Liz Fickenscher 14:48
So very deep deep in Seller Central and the early reviewer program information. Becky, our content manager who’s brilliant, dug up this little infographic that we can put in the show notes It says reviews can increase sales, but up to 3.5 times. So reviews can impact discoverability search ranking and customer trust. A product’s first review has been shown to increase sales by up to three and a half times.

Eric Stopper 15:14
So that’s that’s such a funny statistic to me. Because if I, if I have zero reviews on a product, I’m probably like, I’m probably not selling that many, you know, are they? Are they saying it’s going from like one product to four products? Or are they assuming you think that there’s maybe a little bit more volume for that skew?

Liz Fickenscher 15:35
Well, when you think about has been shown, I mean, how many times has that been shown?

Eric Stopper 15:42
Hmm. There’s a week. Yeah, we thesis there.

Liz Fickenscher 15:47
It’s definitely vague. So we don’t know if that’s like across the board. That’s a great big statistic to accident and got shared during the little infographic. And all of a sudden we’re like, whoa, whoa, hold on. Yeah, um, I suspect fact that it has been shown sometimes or at least once, at least once. Yeah. Because the industry sort of standard is that in order for your reviews to really pick up for you in terms of visibility is between 20 and 22. Mm hmm. So more than 20 not as many as 25. But that’s kind of the sweet spot where you really start picking up momentum. So just one review. I don’t, I don’t know.

Eric Stopper 16:31
It’s not gonna it’s not gonna make or break the business. I’ve, I’ve seen a couple of different ones. So I’ve got four brands that I that I manage myself. One of them it was it was 15 reviews, and then we saw a double in sales without a double in advertising spend. had another one that was 12. I had probably 30% increase in sales with no advertising spend increase. And then I’ve heard that like once you cross 100 reviews, like your advertisements We’ll, we’ll pretty much convert, unless the biggest players in your category have thousands, right? Then you have to Super work on your offer. So the numbers seem all over the place and they seem to be category dependent. The bottom line though, it seems, is you gotta have some, you gotta have some reviews and there’s a there’s a pretty clean process to get those at least the first few few reviews for your Amazon products, a combination of the early reviewer program and then using a tool, you know, like why econ engine has to be able to solicit the I guess not solicit but to be able to request those reviews? Is there anything else that you that you would give our our sellers some some advice on how to garner those first few reviews?

Liz Fickenscher 17:48
Well, one thing that I always sort of start off with is that you have to at first, like from the very beginning, set yourself up to not get negative reviews. So you guys do listing optimization, yes, we do have a link to that in the show notes too. But if your listing misrepresents your product, you’re going to get negative reviews. So from the very beginning the birth of that product on the marketplace, you’ve got to make sure you’re listing your product, photos, bullet points, and everything properly reflect the product that somebody is going to receive. Because if they get something that they don’t expect, it’s not the color or the size they think it’s going to be. They’re going to leave a bad review, and people love to give you the bad news. So those negative reviews are easier to get than positive reviews are. People who are happy, just tend to just be along and be happy and use your product happily and not talk about it. So that’s why you ask them, Hey, how would you like to leave a review so that millions of people in the Amazon Marketplace can learn what you think about it.

Eric Stopper 18:55
Hi, I have some thoughts about consumer behavior here and I want to I want to see if you agree because the difficulty of asking for reviews is getting more and more difficult but we still have we still have the capability of doing it we’re sending emails are are we as customers just becoming more lazy? Or I feel like I trust reviews a lot and so I feel a lot more willing to give them because now I know in 2020 somebody is relying on on me as a customer to tell them Have you seen any any any major trends in this area?

Liz Fickenscher 19:33
Actually, as a shopper, yes. My husband bought me a T shirt from my birthday. And it’s, I wish I could I don’t have I washed it first dryer but it’s a it’s a kitten that’s attacking a ship and it’s like a kitten crack and kind of and he read the reviews and a couple people said this was not at all what I expected. It wasn’t a good screen print. The screen print was very small. So obviously There was some sort of wild counterfeit kitten and cracking t shirt bandit out there, dump it on that listing and providing some bogus product to FBA. But my husband said I was a little nervous about this because there were negative reviews that that said that the product was not as expected. It turns out the one we got was exactly what he was he expected. But I think that what I’ve seen also when I shop and I look at reviews, I noticed that I was looking at electronics products a couple weeks ago, and there were a ton of positive reviews, but they were all kind of worded the same. They all came in within the same two days. And somebody actually uh, like a shopper actually commented, I’m reading these reviews and they all sound like they were written by the same person and they all came in within a couple days. So I don’t trust these reviews and you shouldn’t either. And I think that a lot of that is coming from the the sort of general awareness that certain news news People have have been pointing toward the third party seller universe because I mean, when I got first involved with the convention, I didn’t know that there were third party Amazon sellers.

Eric Stopper 21:11
Yeah, you would have never checked the date of a review, you know, like five, six years ago, neither would have I

Liz Fickenscher 21:18
know, absolutely not. But BuzzFeed news and Vox and verge and Consumer Reports and a lot of different news outlets are giving a lot of attention to bad actors on the marketplace blackhat tactics. And I know that a lot of our friends get called all the time to comment on what’s going on at Amazon and they like to put news out there that informs the public and part of that news is third party sellers and what third party sellers go through. So I think people it’s definitely not were in a perfect world right. Shoppers would help police the marketplace on behalf of third party sellers, right? They would call out those bad reviews, they’d report those bad reviews to Amazon say, Hey, you know what, this looks bogus to me. Why don’t you look into this and I’m a customer and your customer says so, you know, in a perfect world, that’s the way it would be. And I have dreams that someday it will be that way. But and you have this look on your face. Like that’ll never happen, but I think it’s closer. It’s closer than,

Eric Stopper 22:22
you know what I’m thinking, right. Like, Amazon knows when I leave a review. Google knows when I leave review Facebook, golly, they know when I leave a review. So when you sneeze Yeah, so much. Yeah, bless you. Um, so my, my thought here is that they should be we should be able as, as e commerce, business owners to be able to gather emails that that that only target people in our market who are willing to leave reviews, right? Wouldn’t that make sense like we should be able to delineate and find that kind of inference. About a person think

Liz Fickenscher 23:00
of all the ways that could be corrupted. Think of any way you could think of that that could be twisted in a bad way to hurt other sellers and be a bad actor on the marketplace. It would be done. I mean, for a long time, if people left a review you could see exactly who left the review you could rely on them. Right You know, in feedback five, we when we pulled in product reviews, the it was right there was we had buyer review match and something we marketed and then Amazon said, you know, we should probably be more careful with customer data. So buyer review match went away and we were like Sorry guys, but Amazon doesn’t want you to know who left you were review. You know, you can see the user name but somebody can change their name to right right. I hate this product. My name is I hate this product. And here’s my long review about how much I hate this product.

Eric Stopper 23:53
Man the it would be purely selfish. Yeah, cuz you would have me You could even create a liquid Like audience and not actually target those same people. But you know, there there may even be and this is just kind of anecdotal guys, but you could target somebody based on the fact that they like a certain show on Netflix because it correlates with the fact that they’re going to leave a review, right? Like it, we could eventually get to the data analytics level where ecommerce companies are capable of doing that. But you’re right, Amazon’s protecting the data. If it ever does, if it ever does get released like that. It’s gonna be a scandal, probably.

Liz Fickenscher 24:32
Oh, heck yeah. Because I mean, their government rules about data protection. So

Eric Stopper 24:39
yeah. Well, let’s let’s shift gears for a second I want to talk about there’s a lot of tools out there that we talked about on a webinar together. I think there’s there’s lots of stuff on the past podcast that you’ve done. Recently, you and I have both kind of become aware of landing cube and there are a few services like them. But there’s is the one that seems the most intuitive to me. I interviewed Thomas and got a got a glimpse into the tool and I now have an account and I’m trying it out. But essentially what it does is it takes outside traffic from Facebook and Instagram ads. Typically, it routes them to a landing page that looks very much like Amazon. And there’s a spot there that you can claim promotional codes for. And then it takes you to Amazon. I’m wondering, what are what are your thoughts about using a tool like that? Is it a redundant step in the process? Should we just take away all the extra steps? What do you think?

Liz Fickenscher 25:36
Well, I think that what landing cube does is very, very cool. And we’ve known them for a while now. The page doesn’t have to look exactly like an Amazon page. They can actually create any landing page you want. And I don’t think it’s a huge issue. I don’t think Amazon Amazon’s ever going to really complain about driving traffic to Amazon

Unknown Speaker 25:58
never under no circumstance Yeah, so

Liz Fickenscher 26:00
I think that that’s I do think that you need to be careful about the kind of promotional code you use and the amount of discount that you give, because correct me if I’m wrong, but if an item is discounted more than 20%, it’s not a verified purchase reviews. So if somebody follows the yellow brick road and goes and buys your product, and they buy it at more than a 20% discount, and then they leave a review, then it’s not a verified purchase review, and it doesn’t waste much. Yeah, it’s a total waste. So I would be careful about the type of discount you offer and how much of a discount

Unknown Speaker 26:39
Yeah, the

Eric Stopper 26:40
the tool seems great to me. We we need more data to understand like the conversion rates of those different paths. One of the questions that that I’ve had is in regards to like the whole purchasing journey for a customer, right, some of them, some of us, we see Facebook ads, Instagram ads, maybe we get returned Get it on Google, or we’re searching for a movie and we see it in there. And then eventually we get to Amazon. And there’s a purchase. And then I don’t know how to retarget after the point of purchase, I understand that there are some ways

Liz Fickenscher 27:11
you can technically there are companies that try for you or they try to create a look alike audience. I don’t know. Though, if people are using superheroes against us, I’m very reluctant to encourage anybody to try to actually retarget their, their shoppers or to identify who their shoppers are. Amazon doesn’t want you to have that data. So any clever way you figure out how to do it, you’re actually breaking the rules. And I’ve spent too many years telling people to follow the rules and believing very strongly that you should because that makes it a better marketplace for everybody. I know. I seem like a Pollyanna when I say that kind of stuff. But come on. I mean, if everybody’s a cowboy then it’s the total outlaw wild west, right. So it’s a huge marketplace. There are rules. It’s your job as a seller to follow them. rules. However, if you have a Facebook audience, and you send that Facebook audience to your fabulous new product, and you’ve been talking about your fabulous new product, and you’ve got people that are liking and loving your posts, there’s nothing wrong with saying putting up an ad or sending a post to a group or, or something and saying, Hey, did you buy it? If you did, it would be super. If you’d leave a review on Amazon. It’s sort of a spray and pray approach. But I have sellers that have done it and they’ve actually gotten some reviews from it. So it’s not as data driven. It’s not as technical it’s definitely more of a soft sort of attempt it the the worth in value of it is debatable. Definitely sure. But, um, but that is a way to do it, that again, Amazon’s never going to punish you for sending traffic to them. So if you send them there and they buy it and you say Hey, you guys that I told this product about if any of you bought it, please Review, you don’t say and still don’t break the rules don’t say leave a positive review. Because Facebook talks to Amazon. I know that for a fact, just based on stories that I’ve been told by people that because one of the rules, right is that you can’t leave a review on a relative or a bosses or friends, right

Eric Stopper 29:22
price name IP addresses, stuff like that. It’s all tracked

Liz Fickenscher 29:26
whether or not they’re friends on Facebook. And there are other ways too, I talked about, I can’t remember her. She’s a vlogger. And she was talking about her mom bought a product and she verbally said, Well, if you bought it, you know, leave a review. They’re not friends on Facebook. They didn’t email about it. But the mom left a review and the review never made it on. Oh, man. So like, I don’t know.

Totally watching Totally.

Eric Stopper 29:59
Um, well Well, Liz, I mean reviews this has been kind of the this is this has been the Paul Revere kind of time you’re going out, making sure that everybody has the right information. What are you what are you most excited for in the in the coming months for, for Amazon sellers and for just selling online in general.

Liz Fickenscher 30:16
I’m excited for people to be able to send all of their inventory back into FBA very soon, um, without talking too much about what’s going on right now. But if you look at the date, you know, a lots going on in the world. I am excited for some clarity in terms of service. I’m excited for more advocacy for third party sellers. And I’m excited for new programs that I think are going to come soon that make it easier for third party sellers to be successful in the marketplace.

Eric Stopper 30:47
Is that a is that a hint? Do you have Do you have some inside scoop that you’re not allowed to tell us? I can’t say anything Well, that’s all right. So stay tuned. Go to ecomengine.com. That’s ecomengine.com, they are a trusted partner of ours. Love what they’re doing over there. Liz, thank you so much for coming on the

Liz Fickenscher 31:07
show. Love you guys. Thanks, Eric.

Outro 31:10
Thanks for listening to the Buy Box Experts podcast. Be sure to click subscribe, check us out on the web, and we’ll see you next time.