Welcome back friend!
Stand Behind It
My electric shaver died two weeks ago. 11 months old, $49.96 on Amazon. It still charges. It just hums and doesn't cut.
By 1:00 PM on a Monday I was talking to Philips. I didn’t even ask for a replacement I just told them what was happening. They asked for a receipt and a couple of photos. At 5:24 PM they had ordered me a new shaver and it arrived two days later.
A warranty is a contract. The contract I had for my shaver says 2 years. Philips could have made me prove my case. The receipt had my wife's name on it, not mine. They could have asked for the broken one back before sending a new one. They didn't do any of that. They just fixed it. It took them an afternoon.
In 1963 a law professor named Stewart Macaulay asked 68 business owners and lawyers a simple question: how much do you actually use the contracts you sign? The answer was: not much. When something went wrong they picked up the phone and worked it out. One purchasing agent told him: "You don't read legalistic contract clauses at each other if you ever want to do business again." Macaulay found the businessmen ran on two rules instead. Honor your commitments. And "produce a good product and stand behind it."
Now you. In this story, you are Philips. When a customer wants a refund on a product, give it to them. Even if it's past the return window. Don't read them the policy.
Produce a good product and stand behind it.
P.S. If you don’t believe in your product, what are we even doing here?
The IVS
Big thanks to SFTB friend Sylvia Vendraminetto for sharing this cool tip! Sylvia is an international speaker, brand ambassador and Amazon optimization expert specializing in buyer psychology and AI-driven ecommerce. She is also the founder of Ecomm Hero League - a group designed for brand owners looking to scale. Sign up here.
How Small Brands Can Outsmart the Giants
Competing with global giants and Amazon's own dominance used to mean having a huge budget… but 2025 changed that. Amazon's AI shopping assistant (Alexa for Shopping, formerly Rufus) has transformed how customers find and choose products, with shoppers who use it more than 60% more likely to complete a purchase during that session.
After a decade building ecommerce businesses, starting with a first six-figure Amazon FBA year run from a bedroom, and growing to over £2M in sales while helping 300+ brands, the biggest edge I've found for local brands isn't budget, it's speed. Big companies need quarters to test an idea and get sign-off; a local brand can decide on Monday, test by Wednesday, and adjust based on real customer data before a corporate team has even discussed it in a meeting.
The brands winning right now share three traits, and none need a big budget: 1) speed to test and pivot, 2) founder-led niche expertise no corporate manager can match, and 3) authentic relationships built through live shopping, micro-influencers, and real people showing up as the face of the brand.
There are also three fast, free moves any brand can make this quarter: 1) audit product pages by asking Alexa the questions your customers actually ask; 2) turn every unanswered customer question into listing content, since each one is a gap and a potential lost sale; and 3) diversify beyond Amazon. Building an omnichannel presence across Shopify, live shopping, social and more, so no single platform or algorithm can sink your sales overnight.
The real mistake local brands make is thinking they're competing with Amazon or big manufacturers. They're not. They're competing to become the product an AI shopping assistant trusts enough to recommend. That's a completely different thing entirely, and it doesn't require a Goliath-sized budget to win.
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Amazon News Week 38/52
Amazon is lowering the threshold that triggers mandatory commercial liability insurance in safety-sensitive categories, effective November 2. |
Amazon extended the deadline to submit deals for Prime Big Deal Days, giving sellers extra time to get offers approved. |
Amazon is asking select FBA sellers to submit per-unit bids to get placement in its two-hour Sub Same Day delivery tier. |
Amazon's Account Health Rating now gives credit for good customer service, which can shift scores for responsive sellers. |
Amazon is running an unannounced 10% discount for Prime members who reorder five qualifying items, and it's unclear who funds it. |
Walmart shortened its Walmart+ badge qualification lookback from 30 days to just 14 days for seller-fulfilled listings. |
The Deep Dive (Premium Content)
The Guy Who Worked In Amazon Seller Performance Wants to Help You
One of you is getting an hour with Chris McCabe.
He charges $500 for it. He spent years inside Amazon's Seller Performance team, reading appeals and deciding who got their account back, so he knows what they actually want to hear.
Tell him what Amazon is doing to you: ASINs, marketplaces, dates, what they have said so far…
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Making Easy Difficult
Celebrated Chase’s 12th Birthday. 9 years in CR.
One of the annoying things about living in Costa Rica is that almost anything involving the government takes a couple of tries. The rules change, or whichever agent you get that day decides something should be different.
Right now we are trying to get the boys their Costa Rican passports. We have a consultant helping us, and as she says, they love to change things.
We had a certificate for their Costa Rican social studies course, the one that says they completed the classes required for citizenship. We sent it in.
Oh, you need a stamp.
Yes, there is a stamp on the front.
Nope, you need one on the back. You pay for it at the bank.
Ok, it's about a dollar. Marsha pays it.
Oh, actually the price went up today. It's $1.20 now.
Ok, pay it again and make three copies of the receipt.
Oh, they only accept an official receipt from the bank. We paid online and have the online receipt.
Oh, I think the process has changed. Let me confirm who needs to sign a new one.
Sooo, you get the idea. Making easy difficult.
A lot of bankers and government workers here don't really care about common sense or getting things done. They care about checking a box or following a rule someone else handed them. So we are still working on the certificate. I can't imagine being our consultant, whose whole business is dealing with this day after day.
I Asked AI What A Seller’s #1 Fee Leak Is (Check It Right Now)
You've heard this one before. Check it anyway.
I asked my AI one question this week: what's the number one way sellers lose money to Amazon fees, the thing anyone can check? It came back with the answer you’ve heard before. Amazon has your product recorded bigger or heavier than it is, so you pay one size tier too high on every single unit.
It's silent because it hides inside your normal FBA fee. And Amazon only pays back the last 90 days.
I ran the check on my own catalog. Three versions of the same product, same box, same contents. One is billed as Small Standard. Two are billed as Large Standard. $1.17 a unit apart.
Here's the check. Type "Fee Preview" into the Seller Central search bar and download the report. Five columns matter: longest-side, median-side, shortest-side, item-package-weight, product-size-tier. Put your packed unit on a kitchen scale (yes, a kitchen scale), grab a tape measure, and compare.
Small Standard ends at 0.75 inches on the shortest side and 16 oz. If Amazon has you over either line and you're not, that's the Small-to-Large Standard jump, $0.31 to $1.51 a unit. Over 18 inches on the longest side or 20 lb is bulky, $1.96 to $4.31 a unit.
The shortcut: sort by size tier and look for the same product sitting in two tiers. That's the smoking gun.
Found one? Type "remeasure" into the same search bar, file it, then ask for the last 90 days of fees back.
Do it before the next scan changes something else.
(better yet, get AI to do it)
Land Sunday, Work Monday, Skip the Jet Lag
Timeshifter is a jet lag app. You give it your flights and your normal sleep times, and it hands you an hour-by-hour plan for the trip: when to get bright light, when to avoid it, when to take melatonin and caffeine, when to nap. The plan starts before you leave and runs until you're adjusted.
The science behind the app is decades of sleep-lab research on the body clock, mostly about when you see light and when you don't. Timeshifter's chief scientist, Steven Lockley, spent over 20 years on the Harvard Medical School faculty, and the company says the app runs the same algorithms NASA used for astronauts and mission controllers.
Their own numbers: across about 130,000 post-flight surveys, travelers who followed the plan were 14 times less likely to report very severe jet lag. Self-reported, so treat it as directional.
The play. Download it, build your plan before the next long-haul, and follow every cue even when it feels wrong (yes, even the nap).
If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative.
David Ogilvy
CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN! Now that I have your attention… you probably would like the Facebook community.
This week in the Facebook group: Have you connected your Amazon account to the SP-API?
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To your success,
Rob & Max