A very different and very tumultuous Q4 is behind us. But many sellers and brand owners may not know that they’ve left money on the table that can still be claimed. We hosted our friend Yoni Mazor, COO and Co-Founder of GETIDA, to talk about how to find that money and claim it before it’s too late.
FBA Discrepancies To Uncover
Amazon FBA is a great program. However, discrepancies can occur in several areas, resulting in less profitability than possible. If that isn’t enough, the amount of time you have to report a discrepancy and get paid varies. Here is an easy breakdown Yoni gave our viewers:
- FBA inbound shipments – 9 months
- Lost or damaged units – 18 months
- FBA customer refunds/returns – 18 months
- FBA removal orders – 18 months
- Weight & dims fees – 3 months
Yoni gave easy instructions on how to identify and reconcile FBA shipments and lost and damaged goods in Seller Central. It may be easy, but it’s time-consuming, which is why GETIDA exists, to make it easy to find each of these types of discrepancies and file the proper sort of claim to resolve them.
Mathematics
In regards to refunded and returned goods, GETIDA has data that shows that most of the time, inventory can be refurbished, resold, and reinvested, even if you don’t send it back to Amazon FBA. He recommends TradePort, a great company that performs reverse logistics to get those items back, inspect them, and send them to the channel that will be most profitable for you. Yoni did a little math for our attendees to show them how much more profitable you can be when you resell smartly.
Are You As Profitable As You Could Be?
Yoni showed us where Amazon fees can really sting. It’s very important not only to package your items as efficiently as possible but to watch the weights and dimensions recorded by Amazon like a hawk. Occasionally, Amazon will weigh and measure your items, and there can be mistakes. You don’t want to pay for a 100 lb, 50″ item when it’s really 1 lb and 5″.
GETIDA offers free tools to measure your profitability, and to track your weights and dimensions.
Selling Your Amazon Business
In a special bonus content section at the end of this webinar, you’ll hear Yoni talk about selling your Amazon business. When is it a good time? What reasons might someone have for selling their business? With all the talk of roll ups and growing companies buying profitable Amazon businesses, it was timely, and sometimes the start of the year is the best time to think about a big change. Yoni also gave a lot of great tips on the things you should do to pitch your business to a potential buyer, and the steps you should take to transfer your business to someone new.
Watch the video below, and read the transcript to make sure you’re doing everything you can to recover money Amazon might owe you.
Read the transcript
Liz Fickenscher (00:00:00):
Hi, everybody. Thanks for joining us for today’s webinar. I’m Liz from Teikametrics. I’ve got my friend Yoni from GETIDA with me today, and we’re going to talk about how Q4 is over, but you might still have money coming to you. Just a little bit about Teikametrics, we are right now optimizing over $6 billion worth of transactions for the largest brands on Amazon. We have a wonderful product called Flywheel. We are working on Flywheel 2.0, rolling that out to you very soon. We’ve got a self-serve tool. Yoni, welcome. Say hi to everybody.
Yoni Mazor (00:00:34):
Hi, everybody.
Liz Fickenscher (00:00:36):
Thanks for joining me today. Tell me about GETIDA again.
Yoni Mazor (00:00:42):
You got it, yeah. So in general, GETIDA we’re a technology company and our claim to fame is our ability to help Amazon sellers get the maximum FBA reimbursements that they’re eligible to get. So what’s GETIDA? Is it GETIDA, is it GETIDA, it doesn’t really matter, it’s an acronym. It stands for GET IDA, which in turn stands for GET Intelligent Data Analytics. It’s also a little bit of a tribute to the world of auditing because we’re an auditor, because the world of auditing when you see something, it doesn’t … If you dig in you usually find more things. So if you dig into the name GETIDA you find more meaning. So that’s a little bit of a tribute for the world of auditing. Essentially we are a global leader in Amazon FBA auditing and reimbursements for the simple fact that we play on a global level.
Yoni Mazor (00:01:21):
So if you sell on the Amazon US or Amazon UK or Amazon Germany, we can help you there as well. Not a problem. We are an award-winning company. We won the gold award from the American Business Awards for our dashboard technology, because essentially we connect between technology and services. Because once our technology finds an issue and discrepancies, our service team actually kicks into gear and opens cases on your behalf and manages all the back and forth flow with Amazon until things are resolved. And all the activity, there is an army of people working for you, you’re able to go into a dashboard and see the progress. Cases that have been opened, what’s the status of each case? Is it paid, not paid, is it pending? How much money was received in the past 30 days, 60 days?
Yoni Mazor (00:02:02):
So bridging between the human and the digital is something that we won a prize for and we’re proud about it. Also, as Ijust mentioned, we have a dedicated team of claim specialist working on your behalf. A big part of our team are ex-Amazon employees who used to work in the FBA reimbursement department. So we know what we’re looking for, how to present the issues, how to handle the cases and how to stay compliant throughout every step of the way. We actually track and monitor our recovery rate, and our recovery rate at the moment is about 70%. So for every four cases that we’re going to open on your behalf, about three of them will be paid and reimbursed. We like to make our solutions affordable for sellers of all size in any stage of the life cycle.
Yoni Mazor (00:02:43):
If you’re just beginning or if you’re the top 20 and doing over 200 million a year, that’s fine as well. Because we don’t charge any subscription fees. We don’t charge any retainers and no payment upfront. You can cancel and leave us at anytime, not a problem. And we only charge a fee from successful recoveries. It’s a model we call PPR, Pay Per Recovery only. So only if you’re were able to get money back that wasn’t available to you before, let’s say $100, our fee is 25%, so in turn it will be about $25. So the idea is that we’re going to go back on your account, usually it’s up to 18 months. Anything that was left behind, because you never knew, never even heard about this problem of discrepancies or even if you have your own team, but whatever they missed out, we’re going to be able to back you up and bring that value back to your pocket so it doesn’t go to waste. So that’s a quick run about GETIDA, the purpose, the meaning and the value.
Liz Fickenscher (00:03:35):
Awesome. A little bit of housekeeping before we get deep into the content. I see that, I think the roll in number has slowed a little and think most people are here now. So if you have questions, please pop them into the Q and A section of GoTo webinar. This session is being recorded and will be emailed to you probably later today, maybe tomorrow, but either way it will be there. It will be on YouTube. It will be everywhere. We’ll be pushing out on LinkedIn like we do. So again, please send your questions. Yoni loves to answer questions and he’s very good at it. So are you ready? Let’s do this.
Yoni Mazor (00:04:08):
You got it. Thank you. Okay, a small note about where you can find us. Of course, you can find us at GETIDA.com, but you can also find us in the Amazon app store. What does that mean? It means we’re an authorized solution provider with Amazon, so we have a double commitment. We have a commitment to you, the seller, but also to Amazon to make sure that we comply with their standards and rules, especially as it pertains to the private security, data policy, where is the data stored and processed, who has access to it? So this is also the first tip of the day, if you’re looking for a solution for your Amazon business, a good place to start is the Amazon app store. And why? Amazon has allocated $14 billion to set up this app store and vet the service and solution providers. Needless to say, Teikametrics, Teikametrics … How do you call it? Teika or Teika? I’d call it Teika, that’s my personal favorite.
Liz Fickenscher (00:04:54):
Teika.
Yoni Mazor (00:04:55):
Teika, right.
Liz Fickenscher (00:04:55):
But you can call it whatever you want to.
Yoni Mazor (00:04:59):
Yeah, it’s Japanese, so who knows, right? The Teika part. Yeah, so Teikametrics is also part of that, the app store. So if you’re looking for any solution and you’re not sure where they are, where they’re from, just visit the app store, it’s a good place to start with your journey on vetting solution providers. Let’s do the next slide. Okay. This is a quick overview of what we’re going to be touching today, in regards to FBA discrepancies and auditing and reimbursements. So high level, what happens is, once your products you ship them to Amazon, to FBA there is a fulfillment by Amazon centers. It creates a whole chain reaction of things that might go wrong. Okay. Some of them you might know about some of them you don’t, we’re going to touch the most important ones. There’s a whole myriad that we, over the years we have found and discovered. We’re doing this since 2015, so we’re celebrating about six years now.
Yoni Mazor (00:05:53):
So this is the overview of the main ones and also a little about the rules of the game or time limits that is available for recovery. So the first one is the FBA inbound shipments. That’s the classic an entry level issue that every seller is aware of. Once you ship your products to the fulfillment center, let’s say you’re shipping 1000 units, and once Amazon is receiving the inventory and instead of receiving a 1000 units, lo and behold, they received only 990 units. So 10 units are missing. So once that happens, Amazon’s not going to automatically do anything for you or give you money. What they’re going to ask you to do is, and we’re going to touch it in a moment in the presentation, they’re going to tell you, okay, you have an opportunity to discover this, that it’s missing. Open a case with us so we can really investigate on our end. If we find the units, no harm done. If we don’t find the units, you’re going to get reimbursed.
Yoni Mazor (00:06:37):
Okay, we’re going to provide a financial reimbursement under their, what they call FBA Reimbursement Policy. Okay, and the reason why they have a policy and they actually reimburse you is because if they don’t, they’re going to have a major issue with their fulfillment by Amazon infrastructure. They invested hundreds of billions of dollars creating fulfillment centers all over the world for third party Amazon sellers and that’s the cornerstone of the trust. Because if you’re going to send a million dollars worth of inventory and they say, “Oops, we received it today, but tomorrow it’s all gone and we’re not going to give you any reimbursement or recovery or assurances.” Nobody’s going to send them nothing, not even napkin to Amazon.
Yoni Mazor (00:07:12):
So this is the fundamentals that are in place because Amazon is a massive large body, but at the end of the day, it’s very fair and it gives a tremendous opportunity for the sellers to prosper on the platform. FBA is just another component, let’s not forget there is also FBM, Fulfilled By Merchant. So nobody’s holding a gun against the head of the sellers to choose each option, you choose whatever’s best for you. But in any case, in the world of FBA discrepancies this is what we’re going to be touching on today in this webinar, I guess. So the FBA inbound shipments by the way, in the United States is limited to nine months. Okay, so the moment Amazon receives your shipment, you have nine months to take care of it if anything is missing. Okay, after nine months, expired, they’re not going to handle your case. Okay.
Yoni Mazor (00:07:55):
By the way, if you’re selling in the UK, I believe it is six or seven months. It’s a bit shorter. Okay, just a little bit side note about that. Then once your units are already inside Amazon’s warehouses, inside the warehouse, things can get lost, damaged, destroyed, disappeared, or overcharged and also between warehouses. If Amazon is moving your shipped products from Kentucky to California, California to Nevada, things like that, things happen there as well. And also between Amazon to the consumers, when orders come in, things happen there as well, logistically with FBA. Also, from the consumer back to Amazon, also known as refunds, customer refunds, and also from Amazon to the seller. That’s what we call also Amazon removal orders.
Yoni Mazor (00:08:39):
So all of these types of elements, any discrepancy found there is a window of opportunity of 18 months to get a recovery. Fairly long time, I might say, which is good. Amazon is very fair, they’re not saying you got five minutes to take care of it, if not, you’re done. They give you and your team 18 months window to take care of it and it’s your responsibility to do so. But also there’s another unique types of discrepancy that, it’s more on the financial side, less than the logistical side, it’s weight and dimension fees. So for example, if you’re trying to sell this phone cover and every time Amazon picks it from the bin, they package it in a box, and they ship it out, they charge a fee for that. They call it a pick and pack fee.
Yoni Mazor (00:09:18):
The amount of the fee is calculated by the weight and dimension of the product. So the larger Amazon thinks, or heavier Amazon thinks your product is the larger the fee. So if this phone cover is supposed to be less than a pound and less than 10 inches, they’re supposed to maybe charge you $2.5 only, right. And instead they think it’s monster size, it’s 10 pounds, 100 inches and instead of that, they’re charging you $10 every time they pick and pack an order. So your financially being overcharged $7.5 per unit, you sold 1000 units, $7,500 discrepancy. That’s the top of discrepancy that we’re talking about here. This is limited to three months, 90 days. So for the whole year Amazon overcharged, you let’s say $100,000 with pick and pack fees, which are associated with a winner dimensions and in the past 90 days, they only charge you $30,000, that’s all you’re going to get back $30,000. The other $70,000 is going to fade away.
Yoni Mazor (00:10:12):
So knowing the rules of the game and the timeframes is crucial, that’s what we’re doing this quick overview touch before we dive into the nitty gritty of things. Yeah, so that’s that for the beginning of the way. Okay, this is a quick run or a look about how it feels and looks like when you try to identify and reconcile FBA shipments. And of course, the first tip and advice here, and this is basic, this fundamental, if you know about it, great. Don’t worry, we’re not going to get stuck on this too much, but if you don’t know about it, this is how it feels and looks like. So I don’t know if I can move my cursor and if everybody will see, I don’t know, how does that work with GoTo meetings?
Liz Fickenscher (00:10:49):
Oh, do you want me to …
Yoni Mazor (00:10:51):
I guess, yeah. I mean, it’s okay. I single around the, yeah, exactly, that area. So once you go into the Amazon FBA shipments log, you’re going have a log of all these entries of shipments. So here, you just simply have to go over it, right, and with your eyes, look at how much you ship. For example, you see that classic example, got the, yeah, these squares. I don’t know if you can see it guys, but it’s small on my screen, is it big in your screen? Can even see the number that’s in there? But in any case, if you look closer, I promise it says 1000 units and the one on the right next to it, it says 990. Simple as that, you see, Oh, I shipped 1000, they received only 990, you have an issue here.
Yoni Mazor (00:11:26):
That’s the first red flag indicator and once you see that you just click on the shipment, you see on the left side is the blue area here next to the digit 1. Actually, you can also click on the track shipment, but once you click it, it’s going take you to this area below, and this is inside the shipment, you’ll see that ship 1000, located 990, discrepancy minus 10. And then you’re going to have this option, like a drop down menu, you’re going to have to choose is it missing, dash, please research. Okay, and once you click on it, it’s going to say submitted, that was a little red arrow. And then on the right, you’ll see there’s going to be a case ID.
Yoni Mazor (00:11:56):
Basic, entry level, if you never heard about this before and never did it, do it now. Q4, you shipped a lot of shipments in, this should be open to you to reconcile. Usually Amazon needs maybe a week or two, so it’s been a little while, and it’s still in between the nine months period. Q4 has finished, go check it out. You’ll find a few units missing, you did a few clicks, you got the money and boom money is in the bag. It’s in your pocket. Of course, if all of this is a headache to any of you guys, of course, there’s solutions out there, feel free to reach out. It happens to be that GETIDA is one of them, we’ll be happy to help anybody that comes our way.
Yoni Mazor (00:12:31):
Okay, this is where it gets a bit more sophisticated. All right. Now you need to reconcile all the FBA loss and damage inside the warehouse, in between the warehouses, in between all the customers and everything. So I can’t really go into the details of everything because it’s very complex. But high level, this is what’s going on. If you visit Seller Central, they give you the ground rules. How do I set things up? Okay. So they tell you, first of all, the claim window, as we discussed, you got 18 months. All right, and then they tell you, before you submit a claim, right, check your inventory adjustment report. So that’s one type of report you’re going to have to address and download.
Yoni Mazor (00:13:04):
Okay. And then in that report, you’re going have to find all the transactions that got lost, damaged and shipped out, all that good stuff. In other words, I’m telling you the first, find all the minuses, all the problems. Okay, that sounds fairly okay. And then the second step they’re telling you, it gets more interesting. Then they tell you, check manage FBA inventory report to confirm that lost or damaged items was found or restored or whatever. In other words, they’re telling you, now you found all the minuses, go check all the pluses maybe we found it. Throughout the way something got lost but then in a separate report something was found, and then you got to cross reference and eliminate that minus. So minus plus one is a zero, you’re good to go. After all that, whatever minuses that are still left, another layer, they got to inspect and audit, which is the reimbursement report.
Yoni Mazor (00:13:49):
They’re telling you, okay, all these minuses that be found now check this report, the reimbursement, if we paid you under our policy. And if we paid you eliminate those, and then whatever’s left, then you’re going to have to bring that to our attention. Okay. Then they’ll tell you, submit a claim. You open a case, and then over here they tell you how to submit the case. You’ve got to put the transaction ID, the information about the SKU. And then you open the case, they’re going to investigate. So once you do that, actually they internally are going to do the same things but they have access to more data. They simply do what, their house always wins like a casino, they have all the cards. And then might find additional information, and they’re going to present it to you and say, the recovery was not approved because it was here, here, here, there, and there, which is okay.
Yoni Mazor (00:14:31):
But if they’re not, there’s another explanation that minus needs to be addressed. That’s when they’re going to activate the FBA reimbursement policy and provide you a reimbursement. Once again, this is an elevator game and as you build, the volume becomes even more and more complex. As a side note, GETIDA was born as a company from our experience as Amazon sellers. Okay. We started small about 2013, but fairly quickly, we grew the business from zero to $20 million a year. Then we became a part of a larger group that altogether as a group, we did about 100 million and there’s simply so many transactions we couldn’t just download reports anymore from Excel because it was breaking the files. So we had to build two things, first thing is technology to handle all the mass data.
Yoni Mazor (00:15:10):
And the second thing is a dedicated service team which is equally important because finding issue is one thing, but managing it back and forth, that’s a lot of work. So we built these two capabilities together and that propelled us moving forward, and that’s very healthy and important for every organization to have. So you should build it in house if you can, if you have resources but of course, if you don’t, there solutions out there. As a side note, throughout our trajectory growing from zero all the way to 100 million, we utilized Teikametrics along the way, so we are forever grateful for the opportunity to use technology to leverage our game and elevate the game.
Yoni Mazor (00:15:46):
All right, so that’s the high level, how do you reconcile and address FBA loss and damage. So once again, if you do find an issue there and you submit a case and you get paid, or you have 18 months to look back, you probably going to hit two Q4’s, by the way. So this is a double run, double hit of Q4 of 2020, but also Q4 of 2019. So hopefully some of you will thank me later. All right, let’s do the next one.
Liz Fickenscher (00:16:10):
We actually have a couple of questions. Let’s tackle those before we move on.
Yoni Mazor (00:16:14):
Got it.
Liz Fickenscher (00:16:16):
One person asks that, I guess, when they’re submitting for reimbursement, they ask for an invoice for proof, but not only are they sellers, they’re also manufacturers. So what can they give as proof?
Yoni Mazor (00:16:28):
Right. So if they ask for an invoice and essentially you’re the factory, so you don’t really invoice yourself. So usually what does the trick is what they call a packing slip. You say, this is my packing slip, I shipped 1000 units and this is what it is and usually that should be should the trick.
Liz Fickenscher (00:16:41):
And is your service available for vendor Central Sellers or-
Yoni Mazor (00:16:46):
No. Yeah, just a different world, different track. Vendor Central, different reporting, different data, different game but if somebody has a challenge with that, they can reach out to us later. We can direct them where to go and finding at least some answers to that. We used to have a division for that, but it wasn’t as scalable to be honest, because every vendor uses different data point. It’s just a whole … It’s more boutique, if you like. So yeah, that’s a good question.
Liz Fickenscher (00:17:11):
All right, continue.
Yoni Mazor (00:17:13):
All right. Q4 is done, right guys. I want to say, and we’re going to have two Q4’s, 2020 and 2019. What do you do with all these returns, and especially the returns that Amazon deems as, on the status, they call it unfulfillable, right? Because you have two types of units in FBA, inventory types. You have fulfillable units, which is all healthy, but unfulfillable. So once you hit that status, unfulfillable, there’s two options for you as a seller. One option is to dispose and get rid of it, and lose everything. The other option is to do what they call an Amazon FBA removal order, where you remove the units from the fulfillment centers and send it back to your house or maybe another warehouse or whatever it is, and that’s it, then it becomes your problem.
Yoni Mazor (00:17:53):
So this is a point where we’re going to do some mathematical work here too, to figure out if it’s worth it or not. It’s all about the mathematics. If the mathematics makes sense for you and you can identify the opportunity, you should probably take action and you’ll be able to win. If the mathematic doesn’t make sense, it’s okay, at least you know about it and going forward, if it ever becomes relevant you should be able to do yourself a service and apply it. So some statistical information on this, so we found out from our statistics that close to 70, or maybe even 80% of the times, all that unfulfillable inventory that you remove from FBA, from the fulfillment centers they’re perfectly fine. That inventory is perfectly fine, nothing wrong about it.
Yoni Mazor (00:18:34):
Usually what happens is that some consumers are very sophisticated and if they want to return an item, they never touched it, never used it. They just change their mind. But if they tell Amazon they changed their mind, Amazon might tell them, “Okay, you want a return shipping label, we’re going to charge your credit card three or four or $5 for UPS label.” And they go, “Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, it’s effective. You can change the status, it is effective.” Immediately you get a free label. Some of them are more sophisticated and they feel comfortable basically making a switch on their decision why they want to return it and then they know it’s going to get a free return. So what happens is, when they say that in fact there was something wrong with it in any way, Amazon’s policy and golden rule, which I support for the most part is that the customer, the consumer is always, always right even if they’re clearly wrong.
Yoni Mazor (00:19:24):
Okay, so if they’re saying there’s something wrong about it, once Amazon gets the inventory back to the fulfillment centers, they’re not going to inspect it for you. They’re not going to verify that it’s all good, they’re going to say, unfulfillable and now it’s up to you to take action. So if you remove it and you find that everything’s okay, you can just repackage it, send it back to Amazon and back to the gaming and you’re good to go because, of course, if you dispose your inventory, you lost everything. You lost basically the cost of goods, right, and also the opportunity to sell it and make a profit. Okay, so high level, statistically speaking, most units are okay. They’re perfectly fine, and here’s a little bit of an equation where they try to figure out if it makes sense or not to take action on it.
Yoni Mazor (00:20:02):
So I’d advise anybody here to take an Excel file at some point and try to do this math. So here we have a little, it begins with a unit cost of $2. The cost of producing an item is $2, and then the second cost is a removal cost. It can maybe cost 50 cents to remove a unit sometimes more, sometimes less, but I’m taking the average. Inspection, you have labor, somebody in the warehouse is going to be touching the unit, inspecting it, opening it, checking it, or whatever it is. That’s going to add another layer of $2.5, sorry to $2. Okay, and then you want to resell it. You basically, you’ve repackage it, send it back to Amazon, it is going to cost you another $2 in labor. So now your fee and your cost structure changed from $2 all the way down to 6.50.
Yoni Mazor (00:20:41):
All right, let’s mark it up, Liz, real quick. So the unit cost was $2 on top, right, and then you add all these layers of costs in the bottom, and now it tripled to … It more than tripled to 6.50, right? So you applied more resources, at least financial resources and time resources into taking care of these unfulfillable units. Now let’s see what happens if you send them back to the game, back to Amazon. So let’s go back to the top. Amazon price is about $19.99-$20. Amazon fees, which includes selling fees and all the fulfillment fees, you’ll pay about, let’s say 32%. Okay, so net proceeds is $13.60 cents. Deduct $13.60 cents minus, let’s go to the left, 6.50, that’s your cost, right? That’s your new cost. And that leaves you with $7.09 cents after all the costs, all the additional costs.
Yoni Mazor (00:21:28):
So if you invest at 6.50, you got out of it about $7.09 cents, you more than doubled your money. Okay, granted, it’s not as good as a markup when the cost is $2 and you resell it for $20, and then you make a markup of, I don’t know, much, much more. But at least you’re able to get your money out plus profit. Now, if any of you invest in the stock market, I don’t know of any stock that you can surely know that if you invest money into it you’ll be able to double your money within just a few weeks. This might be the case here, if you do the mathematics and it makes sense. So for this particular example, the mathematics make sense, and of course, if the mathematics doesn’t make sense, and after all these layers of costs, you’ll find out that you’re in a minus, you might as well just cut your losses and let it get disposed and you move on.
Yoni Mazor (00:22:11):
Okay. Once again, if this is too much of a headache to anybody here listening to this or watching this, there’s solutions out there. We happen to have a partnership with a company called Tradeport, on the left side you’ll see, over there you see Tradeport USA. Essentially what they do is they master the reverse logistics. So essentially what you can do, you can send all your unfulfillable Amazon FBA units to their warehouses, and then they’re going to inspect the units. If the units are good to go back to FBA, they’ll send it back to FBA. But if the units are actually not FDA eligible they use a little scuffy, whatever it is, they’re going to liquidate it for you in other marketplaces. It could be eBay, it could be in liquidation.com or actually they have a physical place over there where they have local people coming in and buying it off like a Bazaar. So that’s another option, and they do, I think they do a rev share.
Yoni Mazor (00:22:58):
So only if there’s revenue they split gain. But the last thing is, the third thing is that, if they find that any unit is eligible for reimbursement, they’re going to send the GETIDA to us, the information and we’re going to be able to take action and get you a recovery. For example, you ship to Amazon this phone cover, our beloved phone cover. I don’t know, if you ever zoomed in you’ll see that it says, “My favorite people call me dad.” That’s the little pop socket that I have here, but that’s beside the point. Okay. So you shipped out the phone cover to Amazon, to the fulfillment center, and when you got it back, instead of getting this, you got this used plastic cup. So obviously you got the wrong item back and you’re eligible to get a reimbursement.
Yoni Mazor (00:23:35):
You present the evidence to Amazon, or we will do it for you if it’s coming through Tradeport, and then you’ll get your recovery. There’s also an opportunity to get reimbursements through this aspect. So once again, to put it into context, you’re going to be able to, all the removals that you did, unfulfillable units in the past 18 months, if there’s still any, you should be able to inspect them. And if they’re good to go to Amazon, send it back to Amazon, cash it out, cash out the money. Of course, if anything is eligible for reimbursement, you should be able to get reimbursed for it. So once again, you are aware of your opportunities and you do with the mathematics, and if it makes sense, do it, use it, flush yourself back with all this money. People always know what to do with money that comes back to them.
Yoni Mazor (00:24:16):
You can invest more into your next product launch or your next PPC campaign, and you can increase the bids, whatever it is you need to do to boost and empower your business. Okay, so this is the next one, unless there’s any questions you want me to address or touch, anything burning?
Liz Fickenscher (00:24:31):
Not yet.
Yoni Mazor (00:24:32):
Got it. Okay. Very good. All right, here, we’re going to touch an example that will eventually lead us to the weight and dimension discrepancies, but this is just to flush the brain a little bit with the skill and how serious it is, the weight of the pick and pack fees. So here we have a case study of a $5 million seller, right, they do about 219,000 in two weeks. That’s $440,000 in 30 days. That’s roughly about $5 million a year. All right, so lately, a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, Amazon has updated the interface. So this page that you’re seeing right now, this is the page everybody’s working for because it tells you how much you’re going to get paid, the net proceeds, it used to look different. Before it used to look like, I don’t know, like QuickBooks. Now it looks, whatever it is, I don’t even know how to explain it, it’s blue and red. It’s very strange, but it is what it is.
Yoni Mazor (00:25:18):
So everybody’s favorite part is the blue, but we’re going to focus on the red. So I apologize. So you see on the red, you have this fat thick area that was just as Amazon fees, very vaguely Amazon fees, and then a little bit above it, it says FBA fees. You see that? So if I’m just a regular seller and I looking at this, I would assume that, yeah, FBA fees are not even an issue, not even a concern of mine. Right, because FBA fees if you grab it to the right, it’s actually point B over there, it’s only a six … Yeah, selling fee is B, FBA fee is B that’s actually the selling fees. It’s only $496 out of 219 grand. Seems like immaterial, it’s 0.23%. But what we did for you here is, actually to raise the awareness for you guys, is to tell you that the thick far layer of Amazon fees there’s actually an FBA fee that’s a hiding over there and we extracted it out for you, so that’s fees type A, it’s actually a $43,000.
Yoni Mazor (00:26:12):
So $43,000 divided by 219,000, it’s about 20%, right, 19.68. So these are all the pick and pack fees, our beloved pick a unit from the bin and package in a box and ship it out, it’s a heavyweight champion of Amazon FBA fees. Okay. So this is a the case study to break it down in percentage what’s the weight of the fees and where does it really hiding? Let’s take the next slide. Okay, so high level recap. All right, so you add the 19.7% of fees of the pick and pack, and then you have the FBA fees type B which is all the rest of the fees. And then you have, don’t forget Amazon selling fees, for this particular case study it’s 15%. So which means that 35% of all the sellers revenue are in Amazon fees, which are burning through the margins, right?
Yoni Mazor (00:26:56):
Because if you look at the heart of it, for the fire, it takes you into the heart of 1.75 million is paid to Amazon and annual FBA fees. So I guess now though, I recommend any seller doing this analysis and seeing the rate they’re in, if they’re in 35, are they in 38, are they 28, whatever it is know your numbers. But once your number, your percentage rate, now think about it, let’s take this as an example, if I’m at 35%, what can I do to reduce that? All of a sudden it going to be 34%, 32%, all right? Or just 30%, because every point it’s going to be tremendous because you’re going to pay less in fees and it’s going to go onto your bottom line pocket, right. So that’s the mission here with this particular issue, so let’s do the next slide.
Yoni Mazor (00:27:39):
Okay, so tips for that, right. So now we’ve identified that the pick and pack fees are the heavyweight champion. That leads us to a very basic understanding. Now, the weight and dimension fees are … Sorry, the pick and pack fees are based out of a weight and dimension so the bigger it is or heavier it is the more I’m going to pay. So my mission is to make it smaller, lighter, and just be smart about it, right? So here we’re going to give an example, one seller may be sending an inflated ball, let’s say it’s a beach ball, so it’s like 30 inches and the dimension of 30 inches they charge you $10. While the same seller was, two different brands owners, one of them is in sending inflated, the second brand owner or else they’re competing for pretty much the same beach ball is sending it in deflated. So now it’s like five inches and it’s all good stuff, and they’re going to pay a different amount of fees.
Yoni Mazor (00:28:27):
So of course we have the soccer ball picture here with this bald gentlemen. So you can do an inflated or deflated, so if you’re strong enough to deflate it with the hands, you can do it if you want. But if not, yeah, you should probably use a professional pin. But in any case, the idea is very, very clear, do whatever you can to minimize the weight and dimensions of your product, because it can save you a fortune in fees. Right, a fortune in fees, and another small example is with the pair of jeans. If you send it in all opened up, it’s going to be humongous in dimensions. Or if you roll it up and put it a shrink wrap, it’s going to be to the minimal dimensions, it’s going to save you also a lot of money.
Yoni Mazor (00:29:03):
Now, this is a good moment to stop for a moment to think about the meaning of ecommerce, right? Because if you are selling your products in a different domain, let’s say brick and mortar, you’re doing wholesale, you’re selling it to Walmart to Target and they sell it on the shelf, I would highly recommend having a different production line for Amazon or for ecommerce. You know why, because the game is completely different. The days … Basically, in the world of ecommerce, you’re not finding for the shelf. There’s no war on the shelf, right? Because in brick and mortar, when you make a product, you want to make the package look shiny, beautiful, big and aggressive so you can elbow out the competitors on the shelf. You want the shelf space. Ever thought about potato chip bag, how big it is?
Yoni Mazor (00:29:46):
You open it, it’s full of air, why? You it’s needs space on the shelf, so it looks shiny and beautiful, and it encourages you to touch it, hold it, throw it in the cart and buy it. That’s the game of brick and mortar retail, which is cool. I have respected that game, it’s all good. But the game in ecommerce is completely different. Your shelf in ecommerce is your listing, okay, Amazon, that’s your digital shelf. So the way your images look like, the way the content is written, the enhanced brand content, your PPC campaign, how that’s laid out all of that is your digital shelf. That’s how you scream and shout to the consumers, click me, check me out, add me to cart, finalize the order.
Yoni Mazor (00:30:24):
Once you get that they’re sold, their conscious is sold, their users are sold because no matter what you’re going to do, are you going to try to make a beautiful box or packaging, they’re always going to get an Amazon’s boxes or envelopes with that little smiley, and they’re already sold so there’s no real reason to wow them. Okay. Because at that moment they just want the utility, if they’re buying a toy, they want utility of playing. If they’re buying a kitchen item, they want the utility of making their food or whatever it is, and you’ve already made the sale. So a nice, elegant and cute packaging will do the trick. And try to make it as small and light as possible, it’s going to save you a fortune, guaranteed. So this lessons on, yeah, go ahead.
Liz Fickenscher (00:31:01):
Well, and managing customer expectation through your listings is also part of that. For instance, if you’ve got a ball and the picture that you’ve got of the ball is inflated, but you communicate in your listing that it’s going to come to you deflated because that’s safer for the ball. It’s better packaging, it’s better for the environment, whatever you want to say, you can manage our expectation that way through the way you communicate in your listing, the way you communicate in your A-plus content and all that kind of stuff.
Yoni Mazor (00:31:27):
Brilliant, I like it. And the reason is touch your environment. Also think about it, the smaller the packaging, the less wasting the resources of the planet on your item level, but also the carton and these envelopes, whatever it is. It’s a great point. I never thought about that.
Liz Fickenscher (00:31:40):
Well, when you’re selling FBA, there could be several different orders or several different things going into the same Amazon box, if your thing’s quite big and it has to go on its own box, that’s inefficient in terms of the entire supply chain anyway, too. So the smaller you can make the packaging the better off you are.
Yoni Mazor (00:31:56):
Absolutely. Brilliant. Yeah, I’m going to have to add that layer if you don’t mind going forward.
Liz Fickenscher (00:31:59):
Go for it.
Yoni Mazor (00:32:01):
All right. Cool. So, yeah, this is the idea, pack it smaller, lighter, and smarter. We distinguished the purpose of ecommerce and what’s the opportunities that lay down there if you play it smart, especially if you’re a producer, you’re a brand owner, you have the opportunity to save and play smart. So hopefully this was brought to your attention. All right, the next one. Let’s do the next one.
Liz Fickenscher (00:32:18):
I also wanted to say one other thing. I did a webinar with Cynthia Stine, not too long ago. And we had a couple of comments from people who said that their actual dimensions on their listings had been changed by competitors or changed by bad actors or black hat people.
Yoni Mazor (00:32:31):
Yeah, you just spilled the beans on the next slide. We’ll touch it in a moment, yeah.
Liz Fickenscher (00:32:35):
Sorry.
Yoni Mazor (00:32:36):
That was good. It’s a perfect time. All right, guys, exactly like Liz said, and we need to deal with Cynthia Stine, so way to go. Essentially once you made sure you’re so smart, you’ve created your product to perfectly fit Amazon’s mold of a winner dimensions, that’s just the beginning of the way. Okay, this is another layer of complexity where you’re going to have to track the weight and dimensions and what at least Amazon thinks your weight and dimensions are over time. Because if not, they might change and there are few reasons for that. I’m going to touch what I usually call the civilian reason, which is, oops, right. And second reason is more militant and you touched it, so let’s start with the easier one, is that sometimes from time to time, it can be every few weeks, every few months, Amazon is going to send your item through a machine that they have, they call it a Cubic Scan Machine.
Yoni Mazor (00:33:26):
It’s a massive machine, they throw it in there. Now let’s say if your product is a handbag and they send it in, maybe there’s a strap that’s loose. So instead of your bag being 20 inches, that strap is adding another 30 inches, it distorts the dimension of the product. An intern in Amazon is going to update the information, the weight and dimension information of that ASIN and that is going to negatively affect you, and that’s an honest mistake. Okay. So the lesson is here that, as much as possible, always try to shrink-wrap and have it kept as nothing is really hanging loose. It’s something we also touched in the jeans, right, if it’s loose, they scan it looks massive. So that’s one reason that’s kind of a oops. Okay.
Yoni Mazor (00:34:05):
The second reason is, where you kind of touched, the dimension is where you’re being targeted by maybe a vicious competitor. You’re both selling the same product, maybe the same price points sort of, you’re both bidding war on keywords, whatever it is. So we found throughout the years, we’re doing this for about six years, that amazingly, astonishingly enough, some competitors takes your ASIN and they list it on their Amazon Seller Central account. They never offer it out. They never actually sell it. But what they do is very simple, they change and update your winner dimension information. So instead of one pound, it’s 100 pounds instead of a 10 inches, it’s 100 inches. So all of a sudden you’re being charged quadruple on the pick and pack fees where they’re still paying the minimal fees they’re supposed to pay.
Yoni Mazor (00:34:46):
And for a few months, maybe a few years, you guys are head to head and you don’t even know what hit you and you’re like, “Something’s off with my profitability, it’s not even a good …” There’s always a price war, sometimes it’s a race to the bottom. You’re going to get cashed out of the game where they’re going to have all the space in the world to continue in the run because they played you out. So once again, this is just two reasons, there’s a whole variety of reasons that can fall into place. So a prudent seller always checks, and you should check at least every 90 days, because like I mentioned earlier, you only a 90 day window of recovery if you find that an overcharge was down on your account.
Yoni Mazor (00:35:19):
And of course, once you find that there’s a discrepancy that is not in your favor, you got to take two actions. The first action is updated permission, so going forward, you stop the bleeding immediately, right, to make your account in a good health. And then like I mentioned, that you got to take the 90 and open up the request for 90 day recovery. If anybody needs a tool for that, free of charge, visit GETIDA.com/dimensions. It’s just a tracker you’re going to be able to to use and compare your data. Because if you’re a brand owner, you should know your weight and dimensions and also Amazon’s data. Let’s do the next one though. I mean, next slide.
Liz Fickenscher (00:35:52):
There are also services that I think you can find in the app store that tell you if any of your listing information has changed. So that’s a good thing to enable to seek and bounce that against the free list that GETDA gives you and you see [crosstalk 00:36:05].
Yoni Mazor (00:36:06):
Let’s jump to the next slide, I might have a window there. Yeah, actually, yeah. So good thing you mentioned, I want to say, your head of the slides, it’s pretty cool.
Liz Fickenscher (00:36:14):
Sorry.
Yoni Mazor (00:36:15):
Yeah, instead of a template-
Liz Fickenscher (00:36:15):
I should have looked.
Yoni Mazor (00:36:15):
So if you want something more sophisticated, you can actually just go to GETIDA.com and see on the right side, and number one over there, just click on free signup. And then you get free access to our technology and in our dashboard, and on the left side, our number two, you see where it says pick and pack, right? You click that, and this is going to lead you to this page. And in this page, you are already going to see Amazon’s data of each and every ASIN that you have, and then you can be able to track and monitor. Or if you have a lot of ASINs, you’ll see a number four over there, you can just export the chart, it’s going to have Amazon’s data prefilled over there for you. And then if you actually load it back into the system, and if you want us to help you with this, you’re going to be able to load it up.
Yoni Mazor (00:36:52):
And of course, if there’s any discrepancy that is not in your favor, we’ll take action. We’ll open a case to update the measurements, so going forward you’ll be okay. And going backwards, we’ll help you get a recovery. So we play with the slides a little bit, that’s that, let’s go back to the other slide because there’s another tool there that I want everybody to notice. Okay, so go to GETIDA.com/dimensions, that’s the weight and dimensions tracker button, in addition to that, you also find a profit or loss template. Because Amazon’s FBA fees and all the other selling fees are important to notice and keep track of, but probably just as important, your entire business structure, right? All the costs of doing business that you have, you should put it on a P and L, you should do it religiously every quarter. We used to do it every month, so it depends on your volume.
Yoni Mazor (00:37:37):
So this is a free template, a profit and loss template so you’ll be able to add all types of business costs under the sun, salaries, insurances, parking tickets, if you’re based in New York city, whatever it is that takes away from your business on a business cost level all the way down to see what’s the bottom line for you. How much you are really, really making on profit, as you need to have benchmarks for all these costs and all these fee structures and of course your net earnings, your profits. So once you have a good benchmark, then going forward, you tweak the levers of each mechanism and hopefully keep pushing your business today going up into the top. So professional sellers should always have these tools and numbers in mind, that’s your North star. So a free tool, use it. We used to use it and was so good that we actually use it to file and prepare taxes.
Yoni Mazor (00:38:26):
We’re always on point on guard, we just finished the year Q4, taxes season is in, a great tool to use as well. So the formulas are in there and a lot of entry stuff are there, but of course, if you need to have more entries or you have weird types of cost, add it, no worries, same idea, what’s the bottom line? Now, we’re going to jump two slides forward, one we did and the next one, which is yours, I guess. Here we go. Oh, this is nice. You guys should reply to this, it’s very nice.
Yoni Mazor (00:38:56):
Okay. We touch a lot about opportunities as a potential FBM reimbursements and auditing, all that good stuff. This is the world that GETIDA lives in, and that’s our domain, but now we’re going to touch, maybe what is the aftermath of a good Q4? And hopefully the whole year of 2020, which if you really had a phenomenal year, which a lot of eCommerce sellers did have, there’s a whole world of opportunity that’s open for you right now. Because the past year there has been dramatic change in the game of ecommerce and especially for Amazon sellers. Okay. So before we dive into these points here of why and when to sell an Amazon business, it’s important to recognize the new players that came into the game, all these brands that acquire a groups that they’re raising millions of dollars or tens of millions and hundreds of millions.
Yoni Mazor (00:39:39):
I believe today it was announced there was another half a billion dollar raised by the largest player. What these guys did is they paved the way for the Amazon sellers to really have a great option to cash on their business. Because before that, I remember as a seller, we were doing phenomenal on Amazon, but we also had the fear of having all the eggs in one single basket, right. So of course we sold on eBay, we sold the Walmart. We sold on Shopify. We invested a lot of resources into it, but none of them really had the same explosive impact as Amazon and with Amazon we were making a good living. So we built a business, we’re making a good living out of it, but someway somehow you’re feeling, why am I billing all of this for if I can’t really cash it out because nobody understands what I’m doing?
Yoni Mazor (00:40:20):
That situation or reality is over, thanks to these roll-up companies. Right now, you can make a good income selling on Amazon and of course on other platforms. But if your talent and skill and might is in Amazon, you’re making good income, that’s a great start. Then you’re going to have a real viable option to build it for a few years, for example, and then cash it out for a good amount. And it is going to have a liquidity event, a positive event where you make a few million dollars into your pocket and it’s going to change your life for the better, right? Hopefully. So this is a great, great opportunity. So really having the eggs in one basket is a viable option. I’m not saying we should do it or not, it’s a whole different argument, but reality is, that for many players, it was okay.
Yoni Mazor (00:41:01):
Some players were two or three years in the game. They made a good living, say 100, 200, 300,000, maybe sometimes millions of dollars were making a net profit from their Amazon business. And then when they cashed it out, they cashed it out with a great price and are on they are off in the merry way to the sunset. Any case, just a few reasons as why and when to sell an Amazon business. So I want to give a little bit of a credit before I dive into this, full disclosure, I do have a podcast. I’m a podcast host and we did a segment on Amazon exits, and Fortunate is an investment banking firm that helped us with this program and I learned a lot. So I want to give credit because a lot of them is from the discussions that I had with them. So I want to give credit where credit is due.
Yoni Mazor (00:41:46):
Anyways, let’s touch the first dot here, the first example. So obviously you might think I’m making so much good money, a good income with this business, why should I sell? Okay, so you’ll find that in life that some people are more lucrative in opportunities available, it could be a salary, it can be an investment. Let’s say you have a private label business, you’re doing a half a million dollar a year in revenue, and you’re making 100,000 in profit, maybe even 200,000. It’s all good. But then you have a good offer from Microsoft, they’re offering you 200,000, same salary, but no raise for you. You don’t have to invest your money. You don’t have to deal with debt. You don’t have to deal with inventory. You’re like, “You know what? I want to think that job, or salary. What am I going to do with my business? You sell it.
Yoni Mazor (00:42:26):
Now you have an option, you don’t have to just cash out your inventory and leave it alone, you build something, has value, you cash it out. Or some friend of you, a friend of yours comes and tells you, “Listen, I got this great idea for a great startup and I don’t know what your category or whatever, you want to invest?” You’re like, “All right, I do. I’m so passionate about it. This Amazon game, I’m doing it for a few years, I did okay. Let me cash it out and take that money and all this value of built and start a new trajectory.” Maybe you’ll invest in an app or technology or real estate, whatever it is that’s available to you. So that happens in life, not every person in business are created equal. Okay. Also, you have region operational peak, but the business can still grow. In other words, you are the bottleneck, you’re doing 10 million, 20 million a year. Phenomenal, right?
Yoni Mazor (00:43:14):
Let’s say you’re capped out, you’re working 80 hours a week. You have a team of X amount of people and you’re just … You know that if somebody else comes in and they have the better structure or better experience, they can double or triple the business. So that’s a good position for you to sell because anybody that’s buying a business in they can clearly see an opportunity to grow, they’ll pay you very handsomely for it. So they’re going to pay you for that potential in future, you don’t have to even realize that potential they’re going to pay for you. They’re going to pay you for that potential and that’s that’s great. So in this example, people have to look in the mirror and really try to analyze what’s their role as the business owners, or founders, or leaders. And they max out on themselves.
Yoni Mazor (00:43:57):
And you also got to think about your employees as an organization. Employees, if they have an opportunity to scale up and improve their lives, hopefully they get better salaries in the future, better benefits, better bonuses, whatever it is that comes with success and glory. Okay, also, to consider if a product is in an evolve or die category. Okay, there’s constant pressure and risk, and more and more resources are needed. For example, electronics is a good example. If you have an accessory and you have a $5 million worth of stock, and it’s attached to an iPhone, like it’s an iPhone accessory and all of a sudden Apple did an update on their plug. Right now we have the lining plug, remember these little cables here, right? So all of a sudden they change it, and now your stuck with all this inventory, you have to update. Okay, you have to change all things because it’s the latest model.
Yoni Mazor (00:44:40):
So usually in electronics there’s always latest models, latest additions, you always have to constantly change it. So it’s evolve or die category. That’s what they’re called. So it’s hard for you to keep up, but nevertheless, where somebody that’s buying your business is a player in that category, it’s strategic for them, they’re built for that. No problem, they’re going to award you for this potential that you have in your business and your brand. Also the work-life balance, you’re overworked, you’re tired, you’re lonely, you want to reset your life. This was really amplified in 2020, nobody can really move anywhere or go anywhere. You’re making a good living, a good income, but you look in the mirror and say, “I’m always at home, I have a whole global team I never see them. I did well financially, but is this the life for me?”
Yoni Mazor (00:45:21):
If you feel like there’s a discord somewhere in your soul, you cash it out, life changing of a liquidity and then reset your life. Maybe you want to do something in teaching, something in travel, whatever it is, it takes people to places. So these kinds of decisions are viable. They happen, and that is also something that happens. Also, we touched on it, but this is, we’re going to put more focus on this, when you want to materialize your business value now instead of later, so you reduce the risks, you cash out on your investment. So obviously when somebody buys your Amazon business, essentially they pay you a multiple for your profits.
Yoni Mazor (00:45:52):
So if they ask you, what is your profit now, Mr. ABC? What was your profit for 2020? Hopefully it’s really good, the Q4 you took it outside the park. So okay, 2020 you made a million dollar profit. I willing to pay you for this kind of profit for three years ahead, I’m going to pay you, it’s what they call multiple, a three year multiple. I’ll pay you $3 million. That’s how they evaluate it so if you’re selling you’d say, “Hmm, I had a great year, but honestly I know that this business can do more, but not a lot of work involved but also risk. Things might go up. Things might go down. Economics is a battlefield, it’s a financial battlefield, never guarantees. These guys are willing to cash me out and pay me ahead of time and reduce my risk, I’ll take it.” Sometime it’s as simple as that, that a calculation.
Yoni Mazor (00:46:35):
Also, this comes to marriages, sometimes you need to break up a partnership, right? You finally go over the things and you can’t really get along anymore, so how else to resolve a business conflict or dispute? Imagine that, you had Amazon a business that does $10 million a year, that’s $2 million in profit. You guys are fighting, you can’t even look at each other in the eyes anymore and all the employees underneath you are suffering because you can’t really operate the business. So before that, what do you do? Or just cash in the business, everybody goes home. The messier you were with the fight even more worse. Now you say, okay, let’s sell it to a third party, whoever it is out there, and whatever is their earning we’ll split the kids, whatever the split is, 50-50, 30-70, whatever the partnership agreement is. And hopefully the employees will survive as well, yeah, whoever’s going to come in will fertilize the business and keep moving forward.
Yoni Mazor (00:47:19):
So also one of the reasoning why, and when to sell an Amazon business, and this is a touch of samples, there’s more and more and more. So just keep that in mind. Okay, prepare for selling a business. All right, so quick note, and I’ll brief your view on that. Things to consider if you want to sell your business. It could be to the big aggregators or to anybody that’s out there, but these are a key components that you should consider and probably set up. So create an SOP, a Standard Procedure Protocol for the entire business. So every single role, every single function has, it’s all written down on paper. And when anybody buys your business, essentially is buying your car, like a business or an Amazon business, it’s like a machine, or it’s like a car. It’s a vehicle, right? And the purpose of the vehicle is to make sales and make profit. So when you’re running the SOP down, it’s a writing manual, how to use it, how to use the vehicle, how to use the wheel, how to use the gas better, whatever it is, it’s all written down. So they feel very, very comfortable buying it, okay, they’re not just walking into the unknown.
Yoni Mazor (00:48:14):
So in addition to that, just create an org chart, an organizational chart with all the rules and structure and the flow of everything. Once again, as a part of the manual, also identify a mission statement. What is the mission of your business? Tell a clear story. What is the purpose? What is the essence of your business? If you’re selling toys, your purpose, your mission is to create the best quality toys, safest toys for this age group, and that group, whatever the story is, make it very clear. So obviously you can help your organization, so always when you’re challenged with any kind of an issue, you can always present this issue to your own mission statement. Because let say you have two options to resolve your issue and you’re conflicted, so you check which one fits more into the mission statement, say I’ll go with that one. That’s like your compass.
Yoni Mazor (00:48:53):
Okay, if that was your compass, obviously anybody buying it, they’ll connect to that compass, they’ll buy buyer business so that’s also very important. Also, we touched it before, you can use the profit and loss template, identify every single business cause, give them all the good, the bad and the ugly. Do not hide anything, okay. So that’s very important. But of course, also identify which types of costs can be potentially reduced. Okay. For example, you’re shipping air freight, all the time air to air, why, if you can do a freight … Sorry, if you’re selling it with airplanes, instead you can do it with the ships, you’re going to save a fortune, right. Air freight, was kind of an oxymoron in any case. Yeah, so if you identify any potential cost reduction but also identify which one maybe you’re likely to increase, so you give them a heads up.
Yoni Mazor (00:49:41):
Say, this right now the cost of production in China is X amount, but it seems like there’s inflation going on over there. Give a heads up, visibility is key. Okay, transparency is vital for a good exit deal. Okay, and also separate owners business costs, your own salary benefits and travel and bonuses, separate that. Because essentially when they’re buying it off your business, you’re going to get removed probably and they’re not concerned about your cost so you can add it back as profits. So for example, if you did profit of a million dollars a year in your business, but your own cost, a salary, benefits, all that good stuff is let’s say $300,000, you can present to them that the business is worth $1.3 million. You can add that 300,000, so they’ll pay a multiple for that because you’re going to get it removed. These costs are gone. They go back to the profit of the company.
Yoni Mazor (00:50:21):
So that’s very, very important, they call it SDE, Seller Discretionary Earnings. Okay, make sure to add back the SDE back into the mix and add it to the mix. All right. Let’s do the next one. How value is calculated. The true potential future earnings is the goal, like I mentioned, right? What is potential earnings of this business and for how long? So what is the business earning now, will it maintain? And what’s going to in the future? So it creates this equation of EBITDA, which is earning before interest tax depreciation and amortization, basically your profits, right? At times yearly multiple, do the buyer believe that they can replicate the success for a year, two year, three or four year, five year, whatever it is. Okay, that’s the fundamentals of things to secure a deal.
Yoni Mazor (00:51:08):
So you should probably, to get a better valuation, you should identify clear options for business and earning growth, we discussed that, right? So if you can identify it, present it to them and then you acknowledge it, and say, “Yeah, we can actually achieve it,” it’s going to improve your price, your value. Also, identify if your business is seasonal, cyclical or evergreen, it’s very important. So even if you’re a seasonal business, they might pay a lot because they’re strategic. They’re happy to be a manufacturer of mini Christmas tree, they’re okay with that, for example. That might increase or decrease, it depends with the buyer, but identify, whatever it is, identify it. So hopefully if you meet the right buyer, are they going to pay you more for that. Okay.
Yoni Mazor (00:51:45):
What is the distance between your business and the competition? Is there a clear mode? Meaning, do you have a competitive edge, which is very clear. It can be a patent on the design, on the utility, it can be even your listing. You have 10,000 reviews and the next runner up has 2000 reviews, more value to the business. Okay, so identify those as well. That’s your distance between you and the competition, so you’ll get a better premium for that as well. And also, obviously, I guess it goes with that thing, so a strong and clear pitch just creates a higher value. As long as you can really clarify what is going to be in the future for these potential buyers, and it fills their profile, is going to get a good evaluation. Hopefully you get a good cash out. Let’s do the next one, we have what? Six, seven minutes?
Yoni Mazor (00:52:29):
Okay, let’s do some boosters guys. For Q4 booster, there’s been a disaster with FBM fulfilled by merchant discrepancies. FedEx UPS and the post office packages that never got delivered, they got messed, they got late delivery. There’s opportunity to file a claim. We cannot help with that, so let me put it out there, but you can just visit the websites and file a claim. You see number two here in the middle, there’s a stack of envelopes. I literally got this image from a client a few days ago, telling me, “Look, these all checks I got back from the post office, all the discrepancies.” Okay, so you give them the tracking ID, tell them I never got to this, this and this. This is missing, whatever it is, you’ll get paid. So if you got a thousand of these that got lost, you paid UPS or FedEx or a post office $10 every shipment, that’s $10,000 that can be returned back to your pocket. So there’s opportunity there.
Yoni Mazor (00:53:15):
Refund booster from Q4 has been a disaster, take action. Identify, clam and cash out. All right, let’s do the next one.
Liz Fickenscher (00:53:22):
So that is an additional service that you know about that you recommend?
Yoni Mazor (00:53:26):
It’s not a service it’s for the sellers to do on their own. I’m not too familiar because it’s very tedious, you got to find every shipment, the tracking what happened. But if you find that it never made it to the destination because of that, you deserve to get your money back. So this is A, to raise the awareness. B, just visit their websites and they have a mechanism for that. And I know for a fact that Q4 has been disastrous, there’s been a lot of these cases. If it was minuscule, I wouldn’t bother, but I know that it’s been a big issue for many sellers because also FBM was more prevalent until Q4 of 2020 than prior years, because of all the FDA restrictions, ACE and restriction of quantity and stuff like that. So I’m touching this little refund booster element.
Liz Fickenscher (00:54:06):
Excellent. There were a couple of questions about merchant fulfilled orders and how to find that. So we’ll look into that more for those of you so just feel free to email me. I’ll help you.
Yoni Mazor (00:54:17):
All right, let’s do the next one. Okay, this is where actually we can help, and this is where we live if needed. But once again, as I discussed, you’ve got 18 months to look back. High level of discrepancy rate on a yearly level with FBA can range between one to 3%. So if you do about a million dollars, your discrepancy rates can range between 10 to $30,000 but it’s up to you to take action and get it. Also, if you open cases with Amazon and they ask for the documentation, like we discussed, somebody, they were asking for an invoice or a package slip, make sure to provide it. Because usually they want it for a high ticket claim. It could be a few hundred dollars, maybe a few thousand dollars. So you’re able to go back 18 months, so you’re going to hit two Q4’s at this point, do it. I highly recommend it. It really positively affect the bottom line.
Yoni Mazor (00:54:58):
Let’s do the next slide. Okay, just if you’re wondering, what else is there in terms of FBA auditing and why you might need help. So look at this chart and if any of these issues or discrepancy tufts are not recognized, it probably means that you’re leaving money behind. This is the stuff that we look for. So you can have a look, of course, if you need help with that, and if you want to take the tears away, GETIDA can take over and hopefully we’ll change it into money. And we’re only going to get paid if we’re successful in getting you that value back. All right, so that’s a quick look on that. Let’s do the next one. Okay, in the last case study, before we finish the whole session today, this is the positive impact of good auditing and reimbursement.
Yoni Mazor (00:55:38):
So this is a case study of a $18 million seller, they sold about 300,000 units of which 9,000 units got affected, which is about 2.8%. GETIDA will help them get back $151,000, which boosted the bottom line by about 10.92%. Okay, why? Because if you look at the bottom, the gross profit before GETIDA was about 1.3 million, we added about another 151,000, which boosted the bottom line by about 11%. So that shows you the positive impact that would go to auditing on the net profit, which is really dramatic. But if you look on the left side, let’s not forget, we discussed selling Amazon business. So if $151,000 was added to your profit and you’re selling your Amazon business, and somebody is willing to pay you a multiple of three for your profit, this $151,000, all of a sudden it’s worth $450,000 because they’re buying that earning, right.
Yoni Mazor (00:56:27):
They’re paying a 3X, 4X, 5X, whatever it is. So if you’re wearing the hat of a seller, opportunity there to make more, every dollar can be worth three or four or $5 if you’re selling your business. And if you’re buying a business, if you bought an Amazon business, you can look back 18 months. And if there’s anything that has been left behind, the seller has simply neglected to cash out on everything that’s available for them you can do that, get that money back, and you’ll have a better ROI, return on investment. Let’s do the next slide.
Yoni Mazor (00:56:54):
And of course, if you want to give it a little try, we prepared a special offer for Teikametrics followers. You can just visit online.getida.com/teika500, or Teika500. And the first $500 we’re going to recover for you will be absolutely free. We’re not going to charge you a penny. So you can try this out, if you have a good experience, you want to stay, that’s fine. After you got your $500, you want to leave, that’s fine as well. The purpose and mission here is really to help and bring back something that wasn’t available to you before. And of course, only for successful we get paid for that. So we’re always happy to indulge the Teikametrics followers and users, and let’s do the last, last line. And if you need any assistance, any questions we didn’t touch so far, we missed out, my direct email is YoniM@GETIDA.com. Feel free to reach out, but you can also visit GETIDA.com, we have a chat box. We have a friendly staff, we’re here at your command. So I got another two minutes left, I hope I did it on time.
Liz Fickenscher (00:57:48):
You did great. You did great. We do have a couple of questions. One is, they heard that Amazon takes some precautions to the cases that are open ticket, or refunds for reimbursement, sometimes suspending listings. Is that correct?
Yoni Mazor (00:58:04):
We never experienced that. First of all, just as a backdrop, we’re an authorized provider. We know how to play the game. This is actually a good point why maybe additional help will be useful for you, because if you played it the wrong way, maybe it’s your language, maybe you keep on pounding and they keep telling you, no, you keep on trying, stuff like that. That’s not going to reflect well on your account, so yeah.
Liz Fickenscher (00:58:24):
Well, in that process, you walked people through where there are three different reports you have to look at before you file a claim. If you go after Amazon for money, they’ve already paid you, that’s going to tick them off pretty bad.
Yoni Mazor (00:58:33):
Yeah, yeah. And if you keep on doing it … You got to understand Amazon, you’re just wasting their time. They could be spending their time with another seller that’s providing accurate cases every single time and they’re okay with it, they’re paying them. They don’t want to keep it telling you, no, no, no, no, no when another seller needs real help, they need to get paid a reimbursement. They can get the money back, and Amazon is okay with that because, guess what, are they going to take the money back, buy more inventory, generate more sales, invest more into PPC, it all goes back into the marketplace. And that’s how Amazon wants the seller to be at, in that level where, touch and go, touch and go, accuracy, precision, don’t waste our time.
Liz Fickenscher (00:59:04):
We have somebody on the merchant fulfilling front that says, when shipments are purchased from Amazon, we cannot dispute a loss through the carrier because the shipment’s not theirs. Is that something that some of your clients are experiencing?
Yoni Mazor (00:59:17):
If you’re asking for the money back from Amazon, I don’t think Amazon is going to give you a refund. You’re going to have to go back to-
Liz Fickenscher (00:59:22):
Actually the carrier, they’re saying that the carrier won’t let them dispute a loss because its Amazon’s shipment.
Yoni Mazor (00:59:28):
I can double check on that. I don’t believe so because it’s pretty straight forward, you pay $10 to post office, you give it to them, they scan it in and they never updated on the tracking, they should be able to provide a refund. You might also get mixed results when you’re reaching out to the post office, maybe try one more time with another service, I mean, customer service provider or a team member and check it out. But yeah, it shouldn’t be an issue. So it’s a thin balance, but you saw the picture of the checks, I believe that was purchased through Amazon but double checking is okay. I’m going to double check on our end, so if you want to reach out, you can email me, but also double check with the post office. It’s logic, I paid you $10 to ship this, nothing happened, please process a return. Usually what they do, I showed you the envelope, they send a check-in.
Liz Fickenscher (01:00:19):
Awesome. And finally, the profit tool, is that behind the login. So you sign up for free and then you can access, or is that on the website?
Yoni Mazor (01:00:29):
The template? Yeah, that’s on the website, you don’t have to have a sign up. So you go in and you just you provide your email, we email it to you, so you have it.
Liz Fickenscher (01:00:36):
Okay, great. Okay.
Yoni Mazor (01:00:38):
Yeah, there’s no pay me wall, they call it or a paywall or whatever they call that.
Liz Fickenscher (01:00:44):
Got you. All right. I think that, it says when we open a case for reimbursement of removed item, Seller Central usually comes back automatically with that item as defective, not eligible for reimbursement. Sometimes we’re able to do rebuttal successfully, and we always provide evidence, but lately they refuse to take evidence into consideration.
Yoni Mazor (01:01:01):
Yeah. I just want to touch that for a second, just for the sake of accuracy. So I don’t want to disappoint anybody, but FBA fulfillment removal orders that you take back from the FBA fulfillment centers and they’re clearly damaged by the customer, there is no eligibility. Amazon’s not going to give you a reimbursement for that. So that’s where you’re trying to tell, Hey, it’s damaged by the customer. They’re going to keep telling you in our policy, there’s no coverage for that. Unfortunately. Really, unfortunately, but this is Amazon game. This is part of the cost you have to absorb to have customers and all of these customers, but nevertheless, there’s elements where you can get paid off.
Yoni Mazor (01:01:35):
Like I mentioned, if you’ve got the wrong item back, clearly an issue. If you’re supposed to get 20 units in the box and you got 19 units or one unit missing, clearly an issue. Or missing parts, guys, this is important, maybe that may be a golden key for you. Let’s say you are selling, just for sake of example, a Sony PlayStation console, okay. They send them back to the console, but they send in two remotes but the actual console, lo and behold, never came back. That’s missing part. So you’re eligible for that. Or if you are selling a watch and it comes with a beautiful presentation box of all these other types of straps and colors, you got the watch back, but all these other straps and accessories and parts are missing, you should be able to get a reimbursement for that as well. So I hope that’s been any help to whoever’s out there.
Liz Fickenscher (01:02:18):
Great. Thank you so much. It’s always a pleasure to have you. Everybody, thanks for attending. Again, this will be emailed out to you. If you’ve got questions about reimbursements or how to get the money that Amazon owes you, contact YoniM@GETIDA.com or Lfickenscher@teikadev.wpengine.com, which is kind of a mouthful. So you can email info@takenmetrics.com and they’ll find me, or find me on LinkedIn too.
Yoni Mazor (01:02:46):
Yeah, social media. Yeah.
Liz Fickenscher (01:02:48):
Yeah. All right, my friend, I’ll see you soon. Thanks everybody, and have a fantastic Tuesday. And happy selling.
Yoni Mazor (01:02:57):
Have a great year everybody. Happy selling. Bye-bye.
