When I was first setting up an actual store for Carbon Fiber Gear, I went to Amazon to see what I could do about selling some of the unique products I was carrying on their catalog.  I found that they have a Seller Central program, where you pay $40/month and a tremendous 15% transaction fee (albeit – it does include the ~3% credit card transaction fees) to be able to sell your products on their store.

I thought it would be a great opportunity not only for me to get my products out there, but also for Amazon, since there was a decent number of products that weren’t on their store…and I have the mindset that Amazon wants to sell everything possible.

So I signed up to see how it would go.  While I wasn’t selling a ton of things through Amazon (in fact there were probably months I lost money), it was still ok enough for me to keep going.  My problem comes down to the fact that I ended up getting a few bad feedback, that were all promptly resolved…yet Amazon still decided to close my account down due to it.  Lets run through the what happened, and the 4 pieces of bad feedback I got out of the close to 100 transactions we made:

1. Customer orders a wallet late on 12/13.  It ships on 12/16 via USPS Priority Mail.  Without contacting us, she leaves a 1 (1 is the worst and 5 is the best) feedback rating because the product didn’t arrive.  Two days after she leaves her feedback, the product arrives.  She does not change her feedback, and we provide a seller response stating what happened.
2. Customer orders a iPhone case, it was damaged in shipping.  Customer leaves us a 1 rating feedback, and then contacts us for a resolution.  We of course offer to accept the product back for a replacement, unfortunately things sometimes get damaged in shipping, and it’s outside of our control.  The only thing we can do is offer the best customer service.  We never hear from customer, customer never changes feedback.
3. Customer orders a license plate frame.  It also ended up being damaged in shipping, and without contacting us, leaves us bad feedback.  We found out that we accidentally sent a prototype version of the frame that was prone to the backing falling off…the production version completely resolved this issue.  Without ever contacting the customer, or them contacting us, we sent him two of the new frames, along with a carbon fiber keychain, and a personal note explaining the situation.  The customer gets in touch with us, thanks us for everything we did, was happy with the new product, and goes back to Amazon to modify his rating and feedback.  That update I’ve yet to see in Amazon’s system.
4. Customer orders a carbon fiber money clip that ended up having a few minor imperfections in it from the manufacturer.  He leaves bad feedback, but does not contact us.  We get in touch with him, send him a replacement that we made sure was perfect, he is happy with the new product, and he updates his feedback and rating on Amazon.  We have not seen this get updated in Amazon’s system either.

Then there are 3 feedbacks that are perfect 5′s.  So out of close to 100 orders, we get 3 perfect ratings, 4 bad ratings – 2 of which were changed to perfects and 2 of which there was nothing else we could have done to try and fix the situation.  From my perspective we’ve offered the best possible customer service we could, we’ve sent feedback to the manufacturers we work with to ensure their products are perfect and they take the feedback we send them to heart.

Yet, even explaining each situation Amazon still closed our account…permanently…and forever, and we were told via e-mail…we were not given an opportunity to speak to anybody in person.  The response we got was:

Thank you for writing. We have considered your request for reinstatement and decided that your account will remain blocked.

A seller’s negative feedback, refunds and claims reflect a seller’s overall performance. High rates of these criteria generally indicate that buyers are experiencing unsatisfactory transactions.

Even though in reality everything we did was ok, and we didn’t happen to have the other 93 or so customers leave good feedback…so it looked like percentages of bad feedback was extremely high compared to good (4 to 3)…and it wasn’t even put into consideration that two of those had changed their feedback, even though I don’t see an update on Amazon’s side.

It just really sucks from our perspective, I was hoping to develop a great relationship with Amazon as we continued to grow…not only in sales, but also in the uniqueness of our products on their store.  I was extremely displeased with the sort of canned responses we were getting.  I mean we’re paying $40/month and we were giving them 15% of our sales, the least we could ask for is the opportunity to speak with a human.  I hope this isn’t an indication of where Amazon is moving as a company.

Anyways, that’s that, and so we close that chapter.  It’s also a reminder to not put all of your eggs in one basket, because you never know what can happen.  Running a business is a constant rollercoaster of ups and downs, unfortunately this was a big down!

For those of you that were caught up in the hype of American Gladiators re-launching, just to be disappointed, join the club. I had a ton of complaints about the show when I finally saw my first new episode. Then I happened to check my e-mail inbox where I saw the subject “AG Monologue”…and it was from one of my good, hilarious, friends Elliott Antal. This should be good I thought to myself. As always, Elliott didn’t disappoint…so I asked for his permission to repost it on here to share with the world. Let us know what you thought of American Gladiators by posting your comments.

• 45 minutes I’ve been at work
• 25 emails
• 1 coffee run

Sounds like I’m ready to run down some observations about the greatest comeback since Michael Jordan playing baseball…that’s right…the AMERICAN GLADIATORS!!! Or the ‘AG’ as NBC likes to slang it. If you have watched any of it so far this e-mail will make sense, if not then I hope this e-mail will make you search YouTube for any clips supporting or denying my claims.

• First off NBC played the celebrity card to try and get viewers tuned in, I don’t know how many people I ran into before the first episode aired that said, “Hulk Hogan is going to be a Gladiator” just to find out that the Hulkster is actually a glorified sideline reporter, and because the job is too big for one ex-WWF wrestler, they had to find him a partner in Ms. Ali.
• Second, I don’t remember the first ‘AG’ having so many damn in game interviews. I don’t care to hear the philosophies of some random blue contestant, I tuned in to see someone with a name like Titan sit on your head!
• Thirdly, the Gladiators. I think they grabbed these guys in a San Fran court house, I believe these are all witnesses in the ongoing BALCO investigation. And in Barry Bond’s defense, steroids by themselves do not increase an individuals ability, and not in Canseco’s defense, they do tend to kill some brain cells. Case in point, the Gladiator named Wolf…I’d hate to meet this guy in a dark alley….until I saw him in the rings event and learned that if I do meet him in an alley, all I would have to do is look for the nearest gym apparatus to climb on. The guy they call Titan looks like he’s been posing for the cover of romance novels chipping away at Fabio’s profits. By far my favorite Gladiator is Helga…I have $50 that says even the guys can’t get by her, I also have $100 that says she celebrates a victory by chugging a keg and smashing it on her forehead.
• Fourth, the new event. Instead of trying to fight a Gladiator out of a ring, like traditional wrestling, the ring is now elevated and rotates called EARTHQUAKE. This is another event in which steroids don’t help the Gladiators much, a sense of balance is something you don’t expect from a jungle living Gladiator called TOA.
• Fifth, where is the classic event. Am I the only one that noticed that the new ‘AG’ doesn’t have that human ball rolling event anymore? You know the one where they tried to roll into a pod and wait till smoke shot up their butt to record a point. NBC lost some major points by not bringing that back.
• Sixth, the Eliminator. This event can hardly be called the Eliminator, this is nothing like the original. Contestants get to frolic through some obstacle course that looks about as hard as any event you did during Field Day in Middle School (if your school had those). There are no Gladiators like in the original and it doesn’t even look as long. Which makes me wonder why these contestants are always so winded and cannot run up the damn escalator at the end of it…did anyone screen these contestants for athletic ability before they applied?

Well for those of you who waited for the return of a classic 80′s show and were disappointed…you don’t have long to wait. NBC will soon be destroying the legend of Knight Rider next.