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Know which of your products are best sold as case packs

MORE: Meta’s holiday marketing guide | Amazon: no forceful layoffs | Losing 7-figure sales to black hat tactics

February 18, 2023

ECOMMERCE NEWSMeta supports small business owners this holiday season through various initiatives

Creative: Gelline Nolasco, Holiday Season

The holiday season is here! It's a wonderful time for everybody—both sellers and buyers alike. According to Meta's most recent Global State of Small Business Report, 25% of small businesses expect higher sales between October 1st and December 31st of this year. So they made this marketing guide to help small business owners make the most of the holiday season.

🤓 Here's a quick rundown of their initiatives:

  • Create short-form video content with "Try My Reel." It's a series of templates designed by influential creators to show sellers how easy it is to create Reels. There are templates you can use to easily plug-and-play videos

  • The #BuyBlack Friday campaign is back! For three consecutive years, it has supported Black-owned businesses by giving them tips and mentorship during the holiday season. Meta's Elevate will also release a Holiday 2022 Starter Kit course for streaming.

  • 2022 Smallday Showcase. This partnership with the Meta Boost Leaders Network includes small business owners' stories about making the most out of selling online. Stay inspired by these stories. If they can make it, so can you!

With these, it's safe to say Meta's amping up their support for small business owners this holiday season.

HOT TOPICAmazon claims that there were no forceful layoffs

Creative: Gelline Nolasco, Amazon Layoffs

According to CNBC-TV18, Amazon denies laying off any employees despite reports that they did so to thousands of employees worldwide. Instead, they claimed that all these resignations were voluntary as part of their Voluntary Separation Program (VSP).

VSP's premise offers employees to resign voluntarily in exchange for benefits. Some of the benefits include a "lump-sum" payment equal to 3 months of pay, and one week of salary every six months of tenure at the company.

😕 So what happened?

  • Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), an organization that supports workers who face illegal terminations, layoffs, and other labor violations, filed a petition to the Union Labour Ministry. They asked for government intervention in the layoffs and described the VSP as unethical.

  • NITES' petition claimed that an employer couldn't lay off an employee on the company's muster rolls without approval from the proper authorities.

  • Retrenching employees who had at least a year of continuous service and not notifying them three months in advance or receiving permission from the authorities is a violation of Indian labor rules.

  • Amazon gave the employees 15 days to decide and submit their application forms.

  • When Amazon representatives appeared before the deputy chief labor commissioner in Bengaluru, they claimed only to let go of those who joined the VSP and took severance packages.

According to affected employees, they worry about the ambiguity of VSP's system. They’re not sure if it guarantees benefits or if everyone who signed up for it is covered.

BITES OF THE WEEK:

SELLER REFRESHERIdentify which of your products are best sold as case packs

Creative: Gelline Nolasco, Best Products

Did you know there's a tool that can determine which single-unit products you sell have the demand to be sold in case packs on Amazon? It's the "case pack product opportunities" feature. Case packs lets you ship items with similar SKUs in the same box.

📦 As explained in this Seller University training video, you can only access it if you're a professional seller and authorized by a Brand Registry brand. Here's how to do it:

  1. Log in to Seller Central.

  2. Go to the main menu and hover your mouse over "B2B", then click "B2B Central."

  3. Choose "Case Pack Recommendations."

  4. In the "Add New Case Packs" tab, a ranking of your products based on the number of orders from Amazon Business customers will appear. This number and ranking state the demand for a product sold as a case pack.

You can create a separate or consolidated listing for the item offered as case packs. Giving this option to shoppers would encourage them to buy wholesale, lowering shipping costs and price per item.

BLACK MARKETCan you imagine losing seven figure-sales due to black hat tactics? This seller knows how it's like

Creative: Gelline Nolasco, Black Hat Tactics

An Amazon seller has reportedly lost $7,000,000 due to black hat tricks, as originally written in this Medium post. This loss led them to announce bankruptcy on November 1, 2022. The seller had their massage gun design patented in February 2019 and launched their product on Amazon in July 2019. But in December 2021, they received a fake copyright claim and were suspended.

🎩 This would be the beginning of a series of black hat attacks on the seller, including but are not limited to:

  • Fake variation abuse reports

  • Fake infringement and adding restricted keyword complaints via an Amazon vendor account

  • Changing product attribute type to adult (e.g. sex_toys)

The seller chose to remain anonymous but reached out to the Amazon Seller’s Group headed by Ed Rosenberg for help.

👀A possible inside job?

  • The seller provided proof of buying reviews, and they're questioning how the bad people were getting the buyer's addresses.

  • This led them to think that they were working with someone on Amazon since they'd need a special API for tax invoicing and remittance.

  • They discovered that the scammer had adjusted referral fees so that he paid only 8% while other sellers paid 15%.

What’s even more pressing is this is not an isolated case. Someone commented on Rosenberg's post on LinkedIn that they had a similar experience wherein a Chinese seller was the suspect. These sellers are claimed to have agents in Pakistan and Bangladesh who offer these services using Whatsapp and Facebook groups.