Amazon Phone Scam, Walmart Drones, Prime Day Explodes

Amazon’s biggest prime day ever? Protecting yourself from scam artists? Drone wars? If you’re not caught up on all things Amazon, stay tuned for today’s daily digest.

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No Hype?

According to this article, Amazon just had its biggest prime day ever…but you may not have heard about it. Instead of touting the company’s total earnings ($3.5 billion!), Amazon chose to focus on the benefits their booming prime day had for sellers. This new spin is likely a response to mounting political pressure calling for Amazon to stop stifling competition. Bottom line? As long as there are no new regulations, pressure on Amazon will only help small business owners like us.

Holiday Prep

Buy Box Experts have a warning for Amazon sellers: get your product in now! With holiday shopping shaping up to be busier than ever, make sure to get your products to Amazon before November to curb delivery delays. If you’re worried about relying on Amazon, consider setting up FBM for that extra layer of protection. Also check out our episode on prepping for Q4.

A Gift From Amazon

Amazon recently announced that it’s making sessions from Amazon Accelerate available in seller university. This year’s event had great information, especially for new sellers, so be sure to check out these free resources. Just keep in mind that when Amazon gives us information, their end goal is to improve their business rather than yours, so take everything with a grain of salt.

Browser Changes

Are you still using Internet Explorer? Then this warning is for you. Come January 31st, 2021, Amazon will no longer support Internet Explorer. Make sure you jump to Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, or anything other than our old fashioned friend come next year.

Beware The Scammers

Unfortunately, the scammers of our world are taking advantage of the boom in online sales and, according to this article, posing as Amazon employees in an effort to snag your information. Hopefully we’re all well-versed enough in ignoring daily robocalls that this won’t have too much of an effect. But as a rule of thumb, if anyone calls asking for your information, hang-up and call back using the company’s legitimate phone number.

The Drone Wars Are Coming

Think you’ve seen it all when it comes to 21st-century deliveries? Think again. Walmart just signed a trio of drone deals in an effort to compete with the ever-monstrous Amazon. As technological advancements progress, drone deliveries are bound to become the new norm. Bottom line? Competition of any kind is great for third-party sellers. So let Walmart keep working to improve prices and consumer experience – we’ll all benefit!

Overall

For more news briefs, check out past episodes and look out for upcoming podcasts. And if you’re hoping to boost your ROI to a whopping 75 to 100 percent, check out Todd’s latest webinar where he breaks it all down.

As always, happy selling everybody.

Resources From This Episode

Outline of This Episode

[00:27] Todd’s introduction to this episode

[01:51] Why Amazon downplayed Prime Day hype

[05:50] Why you should send product in before November

[07:54] How to check out Amazon Accelerate

[10:17] A browser update

[11:28] Stop the scammers

[14:49] The drone wars

[19:03] Todd’s closing thoughts on this episode

Transcript

Todd (00:00):
Amazon phone scams, prime day explodes, Walmart drones, and much more stay tuned.

Announcer (00:09):
Welcome fellow entrepreneurs to the entrepreneur adventure podcast, where we talk about Amazon wholesale and how you can use it to build an eCommerce empire, a side hustle or anything in between. And now your host Todd Welch, what’s going on everybody.

Todd (00:27):
What’s going on everybody. Todd Welch here are your hosts, the entrepreneur adventure podcast. And today we’re diving into some really good news. This is going to be episode number 46. So to get all the links to the news articles that we’ve talked about today, entrepreneuradventure.Com/46. And before we dive into the news, if you are interested in finding out how I am boosting my ROI and finding products that are profiting 75 to a hundred percent, then you are definitely going to want to check out my wholesale mine and refined method webinar. And you can pick that up over an entrepreneuradventure.com/mine. M I N E. You can get all the details there purchased those recordings. It was over three hours of really good content where I dive into step by step, how I find these hidden products that we can just clean up the listings a little bit and make 75 to a hundred percent profit and have these listings all to ourselves for quite a long time.

Todd (01:40):
So definitely check that out, entrepreneuradventure.com/mine. All right. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and dive into the news.

Todd (01:51):
All right. The first article here is from CNN business and the headline reads. Amazon just had its biggest prime date ever, but this year it’s not hyping that up. Basically what it says here is we are thrilled that prime day was a record breaking event for small and medium businesses worldwide with sales surpassing $3.5 billion just on prime day and increase of nearly 60% from last year. Jeff Wilke Amazon’s CEO worldwide consumer set in a news release Thursday. So just think about that 60% increase from last year and just on prime day, $3.5 billion, which is pretty amazing. I hope you guys had a really good prime day out there if you’re already selling. Mine was, eh, okay.

Todd (02:45):
I seen a spike on the first day. The second day was about normal for me, and then it fell off the day, the couple of days after prime day. So for me, it was not fantastic. I didn’t run a lot of good deals and stuff like that. I just kept everything normal, kept everything flowing, seemed a little boost that first day, but then it kind of fell off from there. So not a huge increase for me, but according to Amazon, a 60% increase from last year. And the article goes on to say, but this year Amazon took a different tack in its annual announcement on results from the shopping event, playing up how small businesses benefit from prime day. Instead, the change comes as Amazon faces intense scrutiny from lawmakers about its power over independent merchants that sell goods through its website and other tactics that critics argue stifled competition.

Todd (03:42):
So Amazon, instead of trying to focus on sales, it’s trying to focus on how us third party sellers are making money on their platform, which is good that they’re boosting sales for us. But at the same time, we all know that Amazon kind of takes advantage of us a little bit as well. So that’s why they’re trying to focus on that, trying to make that better. And that’s where the political pressure is could potentially help. Hopefully there’s not a necessity for law, more laws piled on because that in the end is never good for anybody typically, except for the big companies like Amazon who take advantage of the laws, but the heat from lawmakers could potentially make them start paying attention to us sellers a little bit more, the sellers who are making them really the largest amount of money. They probably make more money off of seller fees than they do selling products to customers.

Todd (04:43):
So they need to pay more attention to us sellers. That’s a good thing. They’re starting to, at least they’re there talking about it. So hopefully that turns into actual action and making things easier for us sellers. I’m not saying that Amazon is bad platform to sell on, but they have a lot of issues that they could be doing a lot better. And if you sold on Amazon for any time, you already know that for sure, but really good news that Amazon prime day was a big success. It surprises me. I wasn’t expecting that because the hype was not as big as previous years. It just kinda popped in there like, okay, here’s the date? And then prime day happened. And for me, I didn’t see a lot of hype, maybe it’s because I don’t consume a lot of normal television and news and things like that.

Todd (05:32):
I’m more in learning about business and working on business and things like that. So maybe I just didn’t see it. So let me know in the comments, if you seen a lot of advertising and things like that for Amazon, but I didn’t see it. So I was surprised that they got this big of a pop, but really happy that they did.

Todd (05:50):
So the second news article is from PR underground. So this is more of a press release, but it’s kind of to reinforce what I’ve mentioned to you guys before buy box experts, which is a company here in Utah, where I’m based, Warns Amazon sellers to act now or face holiday delivery days. Amazon deliveries always skyrocket during the holidays, but increased online. Shopping due to the pandemic is threatening to tax Amazon logistics like never before with Q4 underway, the consultants that buy box experts are warning Amazon sellers to act now or jeopardize on time deliveries by box experts, founder and CEO.

Todd (06:32):
Joseph Hanson said that the average daily sales for Amazon since the COVID-19 outbreak are rivaling the biggest shopping days of last year to include black Friday and prime day Hanson said that the addition of holiday shopping is going to stretch Amazon logistics to the brink. The holidays typically increase sales by 30 to 40%. And that’s a normal year said Hanson. It’s very probable that in 2020 online holiday shopping could be twice what they were in recent years. So just reinforcing what I’ve mentioned in the past, get your product in now for fourth quarter, make sure you are ordering and getting everything in now in October, if you don’t have stuff already shipping in before November, you’re going to be too late. Amazon is going to get longer and longer receive times larger and longer shipping times. If you really want to protect yourself, you can set up FBM fulfilled by merchant as well.

Todd (07:34):
And we’ve talked about that in previous episodes. So if you want to dive into that more, go back to previous episodes where we talked about Q4 and getting ready for Q4, but that is going to be really important to get your product in early. Definitely take that as your final warning to get your product in right away.

Todd (07:54):
1All right, next up some news from Amazon and Amazon accelerate sessions now available in seller university. So as we mentioned in a previous episode from September 1st to third, Amazon had an Amazon accelerate conference, a virtual conference that you could have attended. And so I let you guys know about that, but of course, it’s always hard to make things like that all the time. So they have put all of those sessions in seller university. So I’m going to link to the seller university, as well as this news articles.

Todd (08:33):
You guys can check it out if you want. And I have not dug through all of these yet, but just looking at the headlines, they get some really good stuff, especially for new Amazon sellers. So if you’re a new Amazon seller, you’re probably gonna want to check this out and dig into some of, if not all of these they’ve got one all the way down to getting started fulfilled by Amazon. So learning about fulfilled by Amazon how help accelerate sales with advertising best practice for sponsor display ads, FBA inventory replenishment. So learning how to do that, improving FBA inventory performance, optimizing FBA, inbound, and lots of other what looks like really good stuff here. Now we want to take all of this and understand the source. So when Amazon is telling you how to run your business, understand that their goal is to make Amazon better, not make your business more profitable.

Todd (09:39):
So always keep that in the back of your mind, whenever Amazon is telling you something or offering something it’s not necessarily to make your business better, it’s to make their business better. So you always have to keep that in mind, but typically in the seller university, there has been a lot of really good stuff, a lot of really good educational stuff. So check it out. If something catches your eye, watch it and let me know in the comments, what you think of the content, if it’s any good hopefully it is. I would expect that it is, but pretty cool that they’re putting it in here for us to check out if we want to. So I wanted to draw your attention to that.

Todd (10:17):
Next up some more news from seller central, a browser changes for your seller central experience. Amazon is planning an update to our browser support policy in our effort to improve your experience.

Todd (10:31):
Starting on January 31st, 2021, we will no longer support internet Explorer. Personally, I didn’t think that they even supported internet Explorer anymore. I think it’s a kind of crazy that they were still supporting internet explorer but if you’re like that one person out there who is still using the old internet Explorer, we’re not talking about the new Microsoft edge, the old like internet Explorer nine, internet Explorer, eight kind of deal. If you’re that one person out there still using it, switch over to like Firefox or Chrome or Safari edge, something like that. Something a little bit more modern. Regardless, January 31st, you’re going to have to just thought I’d point that out here in case the one or two people who are still using that browser, listen to this podcast, go ahead and switch over. It’s not going to work anymore after January 31st.

Todd (11:28):
All right, this next article is from ABC eight news and the headline reads how to protect yourself from fake Amazon calls.

Todd (11:38):
And it goes on to say, Amazon customers beware with more and more people ordering from Amazon during the coronavirus pandemic scammers are finding ways to cash in on your orders. The better business Bureau said, con artists are posing as Amazon employees and calling about orders. Sometimes they’re even using the BBB’s phone number to do it. According to BBB, the scam is a prerecorded message claiming to be from Amazon and stating that there is a problem with your account, the message ranges from there’s a fraudulent charge in your prime card to you have an unfulfilled order for an iPhone, 10, the scammers, then go on to ask their typical things, asking you for your credit card information, account login details. And they’ll also ask to remotely connect to your computer, which is interesting. So they’re trying to connect to your computer that way they can grab everything from your computer.

Todd (12:36):
Anything that might be able to be a value for them, or they might even lock down your computers that you can’t get access to it. And then try to try to bribe you to get the unlock code or something like that. Unfortunately, this kind of stuff happens all the time. Not all that new, but what’s new is that they are trying to take advantage of people, ordering lots of stuff on Amazon and make them worried about their account. Something’s wrong. Try to scare you. It’s typically how it goes. You know, they’re, they’re from the IRS or they’re from your credit card company or they’re from your bank or in this case from Amazon. But it’s almost always the same thing that they’re trying to scare you somehow, that something is wrong. You’re going to lose money. Somebody’s stealing from you and they need your account information right away.

Todd (13:28):
Or they need you to verify your credit card number so that they can cancel the order or whatever the case may be. So just know that this stuff happens all the time. If you order on Amazon, if Amazon calls you and asks for any kind of information, just hang up or tell them, you’ll call them back and then go to amazon.com, scroll to the bottom, click contact, and call them using their number. Same with anything, right? If your credit card calls you your bank account calls you or anybody calls you. I never give any information. If somebody calls me, I always say, I will call you back. I’m going to look up the number on the website and call the company, make sure this is legit. Most of the time, if they’re asking you for information on a phone call and they called you, it’s probably not legit.

Todd (14:23):
So never give your information out over the phone unless you initiated the call and you’ve got the phone number from official documentation or their website or something like that, to make sure that you’re not getting stamped. So just wanting to let everybody know that this kind of thing is going on out there. If you do order from Amazon and just make sure you protect yourself, be smart, never give your information out to somebody who calls you.

Todd (14:49):
Alright, and last but not least coming at us from cnbc.com. Walmart signs, trio of drone deals as it races to play catch up with Amazon. So some really interesting information here, the drone Wars are coming. If you’re a star Wars geek, you will get that reference. That’s kind of cool. The drone Wars are literally coming. They’re not going to be fighting each other, but they’re going to be fighting to deliver products to us. So real quick, Brent Morgan is one of many Americans who have had a Walmart package dropped off at his home during the coronavirus pandemic. Yet his delivery did not fit the typical mold, a drone flew overhead and drop the bag in his front lawn inside. There was an at home COVID-19 test kit

Todd (15:45):
The Aerial delivery in Morgan’s Las Vegas neighborhood is part of a new effort by Walmart to understand how drones could expand its on demand deliveries and help it better compete with Amazon. Over the past month, Walmart has announced three deals with drone operators to test different uses for the drones. It’s teamed up with fly treks to deliver groceries and household essentials in Fayetteville, North Carolina, it plans to launch another project with zip-line a company best known for its medical drone deliveries in African countries like Ghana and Rwanda for on-demand deliveries of health and wellness products early next year. And it’s testing deliveries of at home COVID-19 kits.

Todd (16:32):
With quest diagnostics and drone up in Las Vegas and Keck. Waga a suburb of Buffalo, New York. So really cool that this is going forward, especially if you’re a tech geek like myself, drone deliveries and things like that. It’s just going to be coming here in the near future. As drones get cheaper, battery life gets better and they’re able to deliver this stuff for cheaper potentially than what a van or ups or FedEx could deliver it. Or maybe it won’t be cheaper. Maybe it’ll be an upcharge, you know, an extra like two 99, three 99, deliver it within an hour or two hours or something like that by drone who knows in the beginning, it probably will be like that. And then that’ll go away. Right? That’s usually how it works. Amazon, you know, had two day prime deliveries and that was a little upcharge or a lot of websites add that upcharge for overnight two day shipping, things like that.

Todd (17:38):
Amazon got rid of that made it totally free. And then they had same day delivery, which was an upcharge, but then that became free. And then they have four hour in certain areas and now that’s free in a lot of cases. So all of this technology, as it advances, it becomes cheaper and cheaper or gets absorbed in the cost of things, right? We’re not actually getting free delivery, we’re paying for it. It’s just being rolled up into the prices that we’re charging or that we’re being charged to purchase these products. So really cool that Walmart is moving forward with competition with Amazon. We’ve talked about that in the past. We need that competition to keep Amazon honest and keep Walmart honest at target is making a play as well. Ali Baba, as we talked about in the past also is making a play and competition is what makes for better prices, better experience for consumers and overall just a better deal for everything.

Todd (18:44):
And Walmart’s also going to compete for us sellers, right? Same with target and other places. Potentially. They’re going to compete for us sellers, trying to get us over to their platform and sell on their platform. So that will help us in the sellers world as well. So just competition is good all around.

Todd (19:03):
So there you have it that wraps up the Amazon news. Again, entrepreneuradventure.com /46 for all the links that we talked about. And if you want to check out the Amazon wholesale mine or refine method, you can check that out. Entrepreneuradventure.com/mine, M I N E. And you can learn the secrets on how I am finding products with 75 to a hundred percent ROI. So definitely check that out. Entrepreneur venture.com/mind. And with that, that wraps up this episode. I’m your host, Todd Welch signing off happy selling everybody.

Announcer (19:45):
This has been another episode of the entrepreneur adventure podcast. Thanks for listening fellow entrepreneur and always remember success is yours. If you take it.

Entrepreneur Adventure is now Amazon Seller School