Welcome back friend!
The Most Productive Thing is Unscheduled Time
My job is coming 90% thinking. And I still catch myself wishing my day was 90% doing.
For years, busy meant working. Sourcing products, packing and labeling FBA boxes, driving to UPS, etc. The whole system measured output. I felt better when I was actually moving my body and doing stuff. At the end of the day when I’d shipped off 20 boxes to Amazon I felt like I’d accomplished something big. A good day’s work.
Now, I don’t do any of that. My job is to “think.” It’s to decide strategy. Check PPC, Answer e-mails and fight with AI. That’s what I do now.
So why is it so much more less satisfying than packing boxes? Why do I feel like I’m not moving the needle forward or getting work done?
Maybe that feeling was measuring motion, not progress. It’s easy to see boxes and easy to hold them and send them on their way. It’s not easy to see progress. Especially when you’re in it all day, every day. Even if the thing you did moves the business forward further than packing 20 boxes ever did, it’s still hard to see.
So now I protect the thing that feels the least productive of all: time with nothing in it. Just me and a problem. It feels lazy. But that empty space is where the decisions come from.
The IVS
Big thanks to our pal Chris McCabe for handling this week’s IVS. Chris is elbow-deep in Buy Box suppressions due to external pricing. If you have this issue (and many of us do), give him a call at +1 617 319 8767 or check our eCommerceChris
My F-ing Price Isn’t Competitive?
Amazon's "price matching" teams are stuck in overdrive, as you've probably heard by now. You get told to drop your price to match some random listing their faulty page-scraping found, and it chases the wrong products a lot. In some cases it's a rogue seller creating a fresh listing for your branded item at a steep discount on another platform, just to confuse them.
Amazon’s most insidious “feature”
Whatever the cause, Amazon often grabs inaccurate price info and builds enforcement action around it. Buy Box removals, ASIN takedown threats pending a price change, it's all on the table. You try to counter it, and they threaten to remove any listing that isn't priced equally across every online offer, in accordance with their pricing rules.
SFTB Note: We mentioned this last year - the FTC is actively suing Amazon for this issue
For example, one price-match result from their bots might flag your 10-pack because they found a "lower price" on a competitor site for a 2-pack. Yes, it makes no sense. You're ready for an easy, quick fix, and that fix likely isn't coming.
If they keep scraping the wrong quantity, flagging the wrong item, or matching your branded product against a copycat that looks like a counterfeit of your product from marketplaces like Temu, Shein, and the like, don't waste time on Amazon rep calls that go nowhere.
Spend that time better: push Amazon's escalation teams to lean on the "price matching" group. Start by taking screenshots of Google Shopping results for your UPC, circle the correct prices, and show Amazon that the "competitor" they're scraping is an incorrect match. If they force you to open a case, fine, open one, but don't be shocked when you're left waiting or reading copy-and-paste denials.
Jump into escalation mode right now, and understand that means emails to senior management, not "let's hope this next reply works" mode. You'll thank me for it later.
We've handled plenty of these this way, and if one email to one exec goes nowhere, try another. There's no time to waste, or wait, if Prime Day sales are on the line. So why keep calling Account Health over and over, hoping for a miracle cure? Email early and often.
Think You’re late to AI? You’re not.
The Deep Dive (Premium Content)
Every tool that claims it's "fully integrated with Amazon" means the same thing: it hits the SP-API. Which covers about a third of your account.
The other two-thirds is stuck in browser tabs. Coupons. Brand-Tailored Promotions. IP complaints. Reimbursement claims. Premium A+ creation. Subscribe and Save. SAFE-T cases. Vine. No API endpoint exists for any of it. Never has.
This is not a niche problem. Coupons drive launches. Reimbursements claw back five figures a year. IP complaints protect the brand. You've been clicking through all of it manually because there was no other option.
…But there is one. Claude for Chrome sits inside your browser and navigates Seller Central like a user. And there’s a lot of things it can do.
We mapped 95 of them…
Want the full Deep Dive?
It goes out in the newsletter. Subscribe free, share it with one friend, and every Deep Dive unlocks.
The Beach We Almost Forget Is Famous
Beach is pretty much all small shells.
One of the strange things about living somewhere beautiful is how quickly the amazing starts to feel normal. For us, Playa Conchal is literally the beach right out in front of us. It is the kind of place people plan vacations around, take photos of, and talk about when they get home. But because it is so easy for us to get to, we sometimes forget just how special it is.
The beach is made up of millions of tiny crushed seashells in shades of white, cream, and pink. That is where the name Conchal comes from, and it is what gives the water that bright turquoise look on a sunny day. It is one of those places that reminds me how easy it is to take your own backyard for granted. And I don’t think this only applies to Costa Rica.
Almost everyone has something near them that outsiders would be impressed by. A beach. A lake. A trail. A restaurant. A view. A small town. A farmers market. A piece of history. Something you drive past all the time without thinking much of it.
But someone visiting your area might look at that exact same thing and think, “Wow, you get to live near this?”
That is the reminder for me this week. Don’t wait until someone else visits to appreciate what is already around you. Go see it again with fresh eyes.
For us, that means walking down to Playa Conchal and remembering that the beach made of shells is not just “the beach nearby.” It is one of the reasons people fall in love with this part of Costa Rica and plan their vacations around a visit to it.
Amazon just handed you your customers' entire shopping cart. For free.
Credit: Jordan Gisch
What's offered: From June 1 to December 31, Amazon is dropping the paywall on its paid AMC datasets. The data point that matters most is Retail Purchases. It shows you what your customers buy on Amazon when they're NOT buying from you. Their other orders. The competitors they shop. What they buy right before and right after you.
(There's also more in the release: true customer LTV, organic vs ad-driven sales, survey data, Prime Video and Brand Store insights. All worth a look. But Retail Purchases is the one that prints money, so start there.)
What’s in it for me? You've been guessing what your buyers want next. This stops the guessing. You can see the actual products sitting in their carts alongside yours.
How you make money with it: Find your next product. If a big chunk of your buyers also order the same accessory from a competitor, that's your next launch. Validated demand from people who already trust you.
Steal customers. Build an audience of people who bought your competitor but not you. Run ads straight at them. A real list, not a guess.
How to get in (never touched AMC before?):
- You need an AMC instance. If you don't have one, request it inside your Amazon Ads account under "Measurement & Reporting." Free to set up.
- Once you're in, go to the Paid Features page and subscribe. Costs nothing through December 31.
- Don't know SQL? You don't need to. Use the prebuilt query templates AMC ships with, or ask AI.
Free data that tells you what to launch. Go get it before December 31.
The Extra Airbnb Night That Makes Your Trip Cheaper
Did you know that for some bookings, an auto-discount kicks in at 7 days?
If you’re staying for 5 or 6 days, see if a discount pops up when you select a week.
Say a host offers 25% off the week. 7 nights now costs the same as 5.25 nights at the regular rate, which means booking 6 nights costs you more than booking 7. Always price the night right before each mark (6 vs 7, 27 vs 28) and watch the total drop when you add one.
And a bonus at the 28-night mark. Airbnb sometimes stacks its own monthly savings on top, paid by Airbnb, not pulled from the host's payout. So a listing showing no host discount can still land cheaper at exactly 28 nights. Don't skip the "boring" ones at the monthly mark.
Ten seconds in the date picker. Either you're already optimal, or there's a free night sitting there waiting. Let us know how it works for you!
Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.
Naval Ravikant
BEER! Now that I have your attention… you probably would like the Facebook community.
This week in the Facebook group: In the GTA area? Free lunch & networking event for Amazon Sellers.
If you’re liking this newsletter so far, here's where we share more stuff like it:
- 🤓 Just getting started? Check out the Free Amazon FBA Course
- 👀 Need an ASIN Audit? The ASIN AUDIT OS
- 💸 Need less stuff on your plate? Top 10 Automations/VA Tasks
- 👔 Need an Accountant? Accounting Services
- 📧 Want some 1-on-1 time? Rob & Max
- 📣Interested in sponsoring the newsletter? E-mail [email protected]
To your success,
Rob & Max