TAS 201 How To Protect Your Listing from Hijackers and FIGHT BACK with Jon Haver

One of the most frustrating issues sellers run into on the Amazon platform is when they get some success under their belts with a great product and then wake up one morning to find that someone has hijacked the Amazon listing where they sold their product. It’s a black hat way that people without morals try to take over your listing with an inferior product while claiming that they are selling the identical product. It hurts your sales and could ruin your entire brand if you don’t safeguard your products. On this episode Jon Haver shares what’s happened to his listings and how he went about securing his products so that others cannot hijack a listing effectively.

It’s important to do what you can to avoid Amazon listing hijackers in the first place.

There are steps you can take to remove a hijacker from your product listing on Amazon once they’ve begun tampering with your brand. But there are steps that can be taken to prevent it from happening in the first place. On this episode Jon Haver tells the story of how his products were hijacked and what he’s discovered about the things you can do to keep them from having a desire to target your product as a hijacking prospect. Be sure you listen to this episode where Scott asks Jon all the details.

The role Amazon’s Brand Registry plays in preventing product hijackers.

If you’ve not registered your private label products with Amazon’s Brand Registry you need to do it today. It’s one of the ways that Amazon has created for you to give yourself some security when it comes to the ownership of your brand. You do some specific things to prove to Amazon that your products are indeed your very own branded products and Amazon places you in its database as the “owner” of that product. This helps with the eventuality of hijackers trying to take over your episode so that you can maintain control of your brand, product, and sales. Discover the steps to protecting your listing with Brand Registry on this episode.

A security system for your Amazon product listings.

If you lived in a high crime area in your city you would likely have a home security system installed to monitor your home. A security system doesn’t keep criminals from breaking into your home, but it gives you a warning immediately when it happens and might even notify the police. Jon Haver has developed a “security system” of sorts for Amazon listings to give you notification when a potential hijacker has jumped on your product listing. This enables you to take immediate action to protect your listing and your product brand. Find out how you can use Jon’s service to protect your product listings.

Receive a special Discount for being a TAS listener – www.ListingEagle.com/TAS (my affiliate link)

Would you like a discount on your own “watch dog” for your private label listing?

One of the most important things you need to do when a hijacker begins tampering with your product listing is to take action immediately. But you can’t do that if you don’t know that a hijacker has begun making changes on your product listing. What can you do to find out sooner? You can get your very own watchdog that will “bark” to let you know that a potential hijacker is on your site. Jon Haver has created a great software solution to enable you to take immediate action when a hijacker shows up and he’s giving a special discount to everyone in the TAS community. Find out how to get your discount on his Listing Eagle service, on this episode of The Amazing Seller.

OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER

• [0:03] Scott’s introduction to this episode about hijacking!
• [3:52] The previous episode with Jon Haver and how he’s come to address hijackers.
• [5:55] How Jon came to the point of selling his Amazon business.
• [9:00] Scott’s experience with hijackers.
• [9:31] How can you prevent hijackers in the first place.
• [10:50] How Amazon’s Brand Registry helps prevent hijacking.
• [12:55] What is needed on a website to help with the Brand Registry process.
• [14:03] The first steps when your listing gets hijacked.
• [20:25] Why you might want to lower your price to fight off a hijacker.
• [23:04] Scott’s quick summary of how to attack hijackers quickly.
• [25:25] How Jon has created a software solution to help with hijackings.
  
• [30:39] A special offer for TAS listeners. www.ListingEagle.com/TAS (my affiliate link)
  
• [35:13] Peace of mind for your brand and product listings.
• [37:36] Is there still a great opportunity on Amazon? Jon’s take on the question.
• [40:37] Scott’s summary of the issue.

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TRANSCRIPT TAS 201

TAS 201 : How To Protect Your Listing from Hijackers and FIGHT BACK with Jon Haver

[00:00:03] SV: Well hey, hey what’s up everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the amazing seller podcast, this is episode number 201 and today we're going to be talking about how to get rid of hijackers if you happen to get hijacked. Now if you don't know what hijacking is really quickly, it's when someone actually jumps on your listing. See, you don't own…

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[INTRODUCTION]

…your Amazon listing, all right? I know you think you do and I did too until you learned that actually Amazon owns that listing because you put it on their property, you're creating a listing in their catalog.

As long as you are the brand owner which is fine, then you're the only one that should be able to sell that on your listing. Now here's the thing, let's say someone buys your product and let's say three years down the line they want to resell it. They can resell that under your listing. Now it would have to be used or if they've never opened it then they can sell it as new. Technically, that's why Amazon wants that ability to do that because now other people that want to sell that can, on the same listing, because it’s the same brand. It's like if you bought something that was Nike and you wanted to sell on their particular item listing, you could do that as long as it's the same one and it's not counterfeit so it's okay to do that.

Now, the problem is people are starting to see success with a listing and then what they're doing is they're jumping on a listing and they're creating a counterfeit one. Okay. They're creating one that it might look just like it or maybe they got it from a similar supplier and now what they're doing is they're just jumping on there.

They’re really cutting in line in a sense to where they're taking over a listing by winning the buy box and for those of you who don't know by winning the buy box means that the first option that they'll have is buy through them if they're winning it and the way to win that buy box usually is by price. I'm not going to go into a ton of detail there about the hijack we’ve done other episodes on that will leave that on the show notes, but I invited on John Havre who actually has been battling this but he has been very successful, he has got about 100% success rate with getting rid of these hijackers.

He's also, after his wife kind of figured out how to do it, he's also came up with a solution which he's going to share with us today and talk a little bit about and he's also going to talk about how he has recently started to go down the road of selling his Amazon business and he's actually looking to build and sell these, he's not looking to hold on to them so we're not going to talk about that as well. Just wanted to say that I'm really excited to have John back on, he was on episode 158 we talked about brand registry and how to build a website for that and authority websites and all of that so if you're interested in that you're going to want to check out episode 158.

Again I'll leave these in the show notes. We're also going to have the transcripts to this episode as well, we include the transcripts now with all the episodes. You’re going to want to head over to theamazingseller.com/201 to get all the show notes and the transcripts to this episode. I'm going to stop talking now because John and I have a really great conversation talking about hijacking, how he was able to come up with this system to really get rid of them and also monitor them so now his wife can get sleep because she was up throughout the night with their newborn baby but she was also checking their listing and it was just becoming a hassle but they figured it out so he's going to share that with us.

Again this is John Havre and he's going to explain exactly what he's doing to get rid of these hijackers and hopefully it can help you so enjoy this interview that I did with John Havre.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:03:52] SV: Hey John what's up my friend how's it going my man?

[00:03:55] JH: Yeah, really good Scott, happy to be back on here and always happy to be chatting with you.

[00:04:02] SV: Yeah. I'm excited to have you back. A lot's happened. You were on episode 158 and a lot's happened since in your business and in my businesses and the podcast and all that stuff but really looking forward to catch up with you because lots happened.

[00:04:17] JH: Yeah it's been continued to be a very, very wild ride and it's a fun business.

[00:04:22] SV: Yeah it is a fun business but what we're going to talk about today is something that isn’t too fun and that is hijacking and I really want to hear how you started, well not how you found out because you found out when it happened to you, kind of how you figured out a way to fend off these hijackers and then we can also talk a little bit about this cool software that you created for yourself and now that you're going to be making it available here very, very soon. Why don't you lead us through how you got hijacked and then from there what you did to take care of that and then also fend them off.

[00:05:00] JH: Yeah. Sure thing. I started relatively recently within FBA. I started selling on September on FBA business in September and then I put the idea to building it up to selling it and that sale was going through and it almost didn't go through due to hijackers and I'll try not to swear on here but it is an incredible pissoff when you get hijacked. You're trying to build a business to support your family, add value with a decent product and then you get hijacked, man does it really piss-

[00:05:38] SV: Takes the wind off your sail that's for sure.

[00:05:43] JH: Yeah and so what had occurred was going through the sale process and being hijacked and with that hanging over I was very scared that that sale wouldn't sell and that the FBA business wasn't going to happen.

[00:05:56] SV: Wait a minute let’s cut in here real quick because some people are saying like what are you talking about selling. Like you're actually in the process right now of selling that FBA business right?

[00:06:06] JH: Yeah that's correct,

[00:06:07] SV: Let's lead people again a little bit to maybe people that are tuning in didn't hear the last time of how you acquired your FBA business, why don't you lead people real quick on how you actually did that, you don't have to go into great detail but just how you did that, how you got it running, you started making a profit and now you're selling it.

[00:06:25] JH: Sure thing, yeah so I had an affiliate website where I had been driving people to Amazon, using that traffic built my own private labeled FBA business off of the back of that traffic and then packaged both the website plus the FBA brand together and now we're going through the process of closing on May 1st with the sale of that business. Nice little kind of multiple six figure price tag on it, a very nice little business sale that's in the works.

[00:07:02] SV: That's awesome and congratulations to you too by the way. That's an awesome strategy and to kind of wrap it up for people to and to really wrap their heads around how that looks. It's like you found a website that was already generating some traffic driving people to products on Amazon but as an Amazon affiliate so very low commission maybe 6-8% somewhere in that range and then from there you decided to switch out those products with your own products and then start building your own brand.

You’re getting external traffic and you're getting Amazon traffic and then from there. Once you were able to get that up and running now you said, ”Hey does anybody want to buy this?” And then be able to really get a multiple return on that really, really nice return. For some people listening this could be a business model on itself. I mean if you go out there and find these websites and then convert them to a private labeling business and then sell that?

[00:07:54] JH: Yeah.

[00:07:54] SV: And that's kind of your plan moving forward right?

[00:07:57] JH: Exactly my plan. Yeah and then right back to the hijacking, let me first start with what is the hijacking. We found out that someone had been on our listing, selling what we can only assume was a counterfeit lower quality product which would hurt us from both losing the sales but also get terrible reviews because they were buying a crappy product that were taking four weeks to get there. What hijacking is, is when someone claims that they have the same product for sale and jumps on your listing often at a lower price and then they could win the buy box and start stealing sales away from you with a crappier product. It really hurts the business both from a reviews plus loss of sales and we had resorted to some pretty extreme measures of fighting them off and it was tearing up at my wife's sanity with working on it every hour of the night kind of thing.

[00:09:01] SV: I can imagine and I've only had a touch of this happen to me on a couple of occasions, luckily I was able to fend them off with a little cease and desist letter that I was able to send and they did jump off but it was kind of scary because actually one time my pictures were changed so they went in and started to kind of edit the listing itself which kind of was scary but then I went in and I kind of changed everything back but to make a long story short, it's not fun and it's scary and you kind of went about it pretty aggressive way as far as getting them off. Let me ask you what could someone do before, now that you know what you know, what could someone do to prevent this from even happening if it can be done at all?

[00:09:49] JH: Yeah. Absolutely and I know you say it, anyone that… If you focus on being successful on Amazon, you will be successful on Amazon. This is just one of the bumps on the road. I know you say it all the time and I fully agree. What people can do up front is to help hijack-proof their listing is have a customized product or create some kind of unique bundles, not as easy as saying, ”I can find that exact product on Alibaba.” That's one and the second piece is getting set up with brand registry so having your website and to having your product correctly branded so that you can set up brand registry. There's a bunch of other stuff that you can do but really if you do those two things, you're setting yourself up to be in a pretty good position.

[00:10:43] SV: Let's talk a little bit about brand registry because I know that that doesn't fully I guess prevent it from happening it is to make it harder in a sense when you go to now to prove that you are the, I don't want to say, I guess I should say, like the legal seller. You’re the one with the rights to sell that particular product because you've brand registered it and whenever you brand registry or you enter brand registry, you also register your products as underneath that brand so first thing you need is a website right? I mean that's the first thing that you need. Talk a little bit about the brand registry process, just quickly to kind of get people caught up in how that works.

[00:11:20] JH: Sure, so what the brand registry process does is that, you apply to Amazon to say that I am the manufacturer of this private label brand and through having a decent website plus having images with your branding on the product they say, “We agree, you are the owner of this brand,” and they will register that brand under your user ID. It won’t stop people from jumping on your listing in the short term but it will mean that you do have the legal sort of backing within Amazon to fight them off over the long term. If your initial strategy is getting them off your listing has been unsuccessful, at least you’re in a strong position to be able to get them off over the longer term.

[00:12:08] SV: Yeah absolutely, and actually in episode 158, the episode that you were on, we talked about building a branded website, basic one all the way to an authority website. Anyone that’s listening that doesn’t understand what’s the authority website or your own website to really build out your content. That’s really what it is, you’re building your brand using a website and really as you grow you’ll want that but in the beginning you’ll want that basic website just to do the brand registry, and I know that you have a service also that helps with that, you've got some people on your team that actually do that now and they can find out more about that…. Head over to episode 158 is what I would say to do and you’ll find all of the resources there or on the show notes to this episode as well and we’ll go ahead and give you all of those resources for that. Yeah, really when you’re building out just a basic website though just again what is needed in that website just to give people just a quick glimpse of what that looks like.

[00:13:08] JH: It can be as simple as a one page website that has pictures of your product with your branding on it and some description of that product and then in an ideal world also includes some of your UPC codes with your skew numbers and that really helps with the brand registry process.

[00:13:28] SV: Okay, okay. I didn't have much of a problem with it. Took me a couple of days.

[00:13:32] JH: Yeah and if there's a bunch of, we won't delve again into too much details, but there's a bunch of resources at brandbuilders.io that people can go over and check out if they want to do it themselves or get the team to do it.

[00:13:48] SV: Yeah. Awesome I appreciate that. I've said the publicly I've hired your team to actually build out our authority website for the one brand and it's been phenomenal, we’re slowly starting to get some traffic and it definitely is some good quality content so I'm definitely a raving fan. Okay, now let's just say that we've done those things we think we're protected and boom,  out of nowhere we get hijacked. What's the first step, what does John do, what’s the first step?

[00:14:16] JH: Take a breath and not throw anything at the wall but no, it is an unfortunate part of the business. The very first step to do is to get notified. Doesn't do you any good if you don't know and that's really where, we'll talk about listing, but that's really where that tool that I had built came in to help. The key is to get notified as soon as possible that there's another seller on your listing.

[00:14:47] SV: How were you getting notified before you had come up with some type of solution?

[00:14:51] JH: Yeah. That's where my wife's sanity was starting to wane. We have a newborn and so when she was getting up in the middle of the night, when we're getting hijacked plus going through the sales process it's like, ”Holy crap, if we don't solve this hijacking problem this is going to derail the sale process.” And so she resorted to tracking throughout the night whenever she was getting up to take care of the little one or whenever she was just staring, she was starting to check all the time.

[00:15:21] SV: Yeah. I get that and you've got a couple of different reasons why you need to keep on checking that. Number one, like you said you don't want a hijacker because your sales are going to be lost and then what's that going to do is it's going to affect the sale that you’re going through right now with the person who's purchasing the business.

[00:15:33] JH: Yeah exactly. Every dollar profit is worth much more when you go through the sale process because it's been multiplied out with the multiple so each dollar was the lost profit was hurting. Getting notified was the pinpoint that we solved so now we simply get, as soon as it happens with minutes of it happening we've got a text saying that there's a potential hijacker on the listing.

[00:15:59] SV: Okay. Now what happens though… Let's say you didn't get that alert but let's say that your wife woke up in the middle of the night, and went out and checked and she found out there was a hijacker what was her first initial thing other than want to reach into the computer and strangle someone, what was the first action step?

[00:16:19] JH: The first action step is a quick email so the general strategy is rapidly escalating aggressiveness to the hijacker gets them off your listing quickly. That first email it doesn't need to be anything complicated, whether it's a cease and desist letter or whether it's just a simple kind of one paragraph email saying, “You're in violation of Amazon's terms and you're selling counterfeit products,” and then saying “You have x amount of time to get your products out off of this ASIN numbers or else you'll be getting a letter from our lawyer.”

[00:17:01] SV: Okay, okay that's simple, basic, right? Let's say that doesn't work?

[00:17:06] JH: 12 hours later follow up with a cease and desist letter, and then within 24 hours out of 15 hijackings we've had 100% success rate that they've…

[00:17:16] SV: Wow, nice. Really, so really just those two steps?

[00:17:20] JH: Yeah, and if someone's still there after 24 hours, we'll follow up again and just continue aggressive following up. There is the joke, two guys are crossing a river they get to the other side, get their shoes off and run into a bear and they say “oh crap”. The one guys starts putting on the shoes and the other guy asks him, ”Why are you putting on the shoes are you going to outrun the bear?” And he says, ”No I just need to outrun you.”

[00:17:46] SV: That's right.

[00:17:50] JH: That's the same kind of logic that these hijackers are applying. They're looking for the soft targets and as soon as they jump on your listing, if you add a note in their inbox within 30 minutes or less that, ”get off my listing or lawyers will follow up.” That’s rare for them and so they're saying, ”Let's go find an easier target, this guy's clearly not messing around.”

[00:18:17] SV: I think that's important, I mean speed. If you can get that done like really soon it's like you're watching or you have someone on your team or in your business that is looking out for people that are counterfeiting your product and by doing that like you said, it’s not the low hanging fruit for these guys they want to go after the ones that are easy targets. There's a lot of them out there, there's a lot of them out there. You're saying like 100% success that's crazy, that's really, really good.

[00:18:48] JH: I mean and there are… The Amazon recommended way is if that is unsuccessful there's nothing stopping a hijacker from staying on there other than they know that you're going to be fighting them. It's in their interest to get off and keep doing their shady business elsewhere but if that doesn't work, the Amazon recommended strategy is still in play and that is to have friends order the product, the offending product and get that product shipped to yourself so that you can then show Amazon why that product is counterfeit. The really big downside to that and why it's very frustrating as the seller is that it can be up to a four week process and so you don't want to be without your product for a week. I mean that's crazy.

[00:19:32] SV: Now I've got other friends of mine that sell on Amazon and it just seems like sometimes other products are more susceptible to hijackers. I don't know why. What is the price point of your products, are they a lower ticket price or…

[00:19:49] JH: The one that gets hit the most is around the $30 sales price.

[00:19:56] SV: Really? Yes I would think that that would be as much of a target but I guess it is because it just depends on the product because I've got a friend that sells less expensive between like 10 and $15. I would think that they're easier because they don't cost as much to get and they can have them shipped a little lighter, they're not going to cost as much but they choose a $30 product, it's interesting.

[00:20:17] JH: Yeah. Seems to be all over the… Certainly I'd imagine the higher price point you'd be [inaudible]. Maybe I forgot to mention one item but with a strategy, assume as you get notified that you've been hijacked you never want to give up the buy box. That's one of the keys is to never let them get the buy box. We'll go down to even be selling at a loss to make sure you don't give up the buy box.

[00:20:43] SV: I was going to say and that's a great strategy actually but what do you do then? Do you like instantly when you send that letter do you also immediately lower your price?

[00:20:53] JH: Yeah.

[00:20:53] SV: Okay. That's like a two part process therefore that one step.

[00:20:57] JH: Right. It shows that it helps communicate that… Again we're not messing around. You're not going to get any sales plus you're going to have a fight on your hands. Move along.

[00:21:11] SV: Now, give me an example of that. If you sent that letter, if you're selling a $30 product what do you lower to like right away.

[00:21:18] JH: Whatever I need to do to continue own the buy box. I won't go down to necessarily compete on price but I will make sure that we continue to own the buy box. They come in at $20 plus $6 shipping. Probably I'll sell beyond in the buy box at that stage but I'll lower to maybe $28 to ensure that the buy box is still mine.

[00:21:43] SV: Okay. You determine that by what they're going to be selling that for.

[00:21:49] JH: Yeah.

[00:21:47] SV: Okay. Then you just lower a little bit at that time but you have to look for that as well. Now, have you had them actually take over the buy box and then you have to go ahead and try to get it back?

[00:21:58] JH: Yes. When they've lowered it substantially, so if I'm at 30 and they're going at 16 that seems to take over the buy box. Whenever, I don't fully understand the algorithm of who owns the buy box but certainly price is a big part of that. If they come in lower enough they will win the buy box and we will quickly compete on price to make sure that we're meeting that ownership.

[00:22:25] SV: Got you. Got you. That's critical. Now, have you ever had it to here they've taken up editing of the listing?

[00:22:32] JH: No. Never had that and that's where the brand registry really is key. Is that that editing, you can quickly correct that editing with your confidence core being higher or if you're brand registered.

[00:22:45] SV: Got you. Okay. That's an important part too to understand for people I think there is that hijacking or hijacked proof for your listing is being able to go through and make sure you're brand registered as soon as you can. That's huge. Then to lock down that content in a sense.

[00:23:02] JH: Yeah. Exactly.

[00:23:02] SV: Yeah. That's really good. If I'm hearing this correctly number one you have to be monitoring your listing like all the time. We always are, a lot of us are, depending on how many products you have. If you have a handful of products it's pretty easier to go in there and to look at things but you've got to be in there looking at things. Once you notice that someone's on there selling your product trying to compete with you on your same product then from there you send a letter immediately letting them know that they are not able to sell it because they are not the owner of this particular product. Then from there you also look at the prices if you need to lower the prices and you give them like twelve hours and then you give them twenty four hours if they don't respond from there.

[00:23:49] JH: That's correct.

[00:23:50] SV: Okay now, let me ask you this, sometimes you have someone that bought your product, they relisted because I don't need it. It wasn't what I wanted, I'm not going to refund, I'm just going to sell it or maybe I bought it off someone on Ebay and I'm going to re-list it. How do you treat that?

[00:24:04] JH: We haven't had that yet and that was kind of also part of this reason for the first letter isn't, it is maybe a little bit scary but is not for blown lawyer talk. We can't tell that but if someone writes back and says, “I just had bought it though  promo,” and again that hasn't happened yet but then that's perfectly legal. There's nothing, that's great, you're fully allowed to do that. That's also kind of one of the benefits of that first email not being very aggressive cease and desist letter by just kind of the, “Hey, we're watching you. Get off please because you're selling counterfeit,” then they write back it's not counterfeit, we bought it from you then that's okay.

[00:24:49] SV: Yeah, I know it is. Of course if it says it's new then it has to be sealed and in the package. If it's open it got to be sold as used so again it could be something maybe someone received it as a gift and they don't want it for whatever reason but yeah, that can happen. I just wanted to be clear on that. Is that pretty much the process though that you've following and you've been successful with justifying those two steps.

[00:25:10] JH: Yeah, that has really been it with hijack proofing as best we can and then fighting as aggressively as we can, as quickly as we can is the key so far to success.

[00:25:24] SV: Okay, now let's walk now into you coming up with a solution because your wife was up at like different hours of the night with the baby of course but obviously probably still thinking about I got to check this throughout the day and all that. What was the thinking behind that? Now, you and I personally had some conversations about this because I was having friends that were having hijacked and they were frustrated because it's just a frustrating thing. Wanting to be able to find a solution so they don't have to keep monitoring that and then when they do have it, having something in place that they figured was going to be sent to Amazon so this way here you can have a plan in place and a strategy in place. That's when you and I both started talking about because you were saying like you know what I think I have got a way that we can do this but I'm just not sure how to get it developed when we do we got to see if it can all work…

Then we had a beta group go through it after you and I both kind of talked about it and I was really intrigued by it and I thought it would be a great service. It's kind of like creating a watchdog or some type of monitoring system. Almost like you're monitoring your home for a break in or something like that. That's kind of how I was thinking of it. That's when you came to me and you said, “You know what I think we could possibly do something. Let's look into this because you're kind of already thinking about how it would work. Talk about that process.

[00:26:43] JH: Sure. Yes. Exactly right around where the idea was out of desperation and an opportunity with that this is a problem and we got to solve for ourselves and talking with and throwing it around with some smart people such as yourself and then some developer friends and say what can we do here that get's us notified as fast as humanly possible and then how people walk through the process of fighting off the hijacker and then with your insight plus awesome group of people that came over did some beta testing plus the developer. Got service up and running. Now we're just about to launch and we'll do an exclusive launch with your audience but it really focuses on speed of notification so you get email plus text as soon as you get hijacked so that you can start that and then helps you walk through that process.

It's kind of security monitoring but then it also is your guide to help you get rid of the hijacker even if you never experienced it. That first time you get hijacked you kind of sitting there, deer in the headlights, “what do I do, I got to do some research” and then fight them off, whereas this helps people monitor so you know as soon as it happens but then also helps walk people through that process.

[00:28:09] SV: Yeah. Why don't you walk through exactly like how it looks and the name of it is Listing Eagle, correct?

[00:28:15] JH: Yeah. That's correct.

[00:28:15] SV: I love the name. Love the name. Why don't you walk people through kind of like what it will look like when you hook this thing into your listing.

[00:28:26] JH: Sure thing. Sign up and then there's a bulk upload option so you can upload all of your products and then you enter a few details around your email and your cell phone number and you'll get an email everyday saying that Listing Eagle is monitoring and everything checks out okay, there's no hijacker activity on your listings and then as soon as it detects something it will both send you a text and an email that one of those listings have been hijacked. Right now we're checking within ten to fifteen minutes every listing so that no one gets to sit on there for very long. As soon as you get that you can go over and then we help walk through that process of executing that.

[00:29:13] SV: How do you help walk through that? Again I'm kind of going through the process. I kind of already know this but I want to walk through it as if someone doesn't know how this will look. Let's say I get that notification, now what does Listing Eagle do for me to help me walk through that process?

[00:29:28] JH: Yeah, you can click on… We got set up so it kind of has the full workflow. To get that first email custom created for that listing with the information you've already uploaded with yourself and your brand that you just click on a button that you've automatically copied in the email that you need to send off and then you click over to Amazon and contact seller and then paste in that email and then the twelve hours later if that person is not going, he'll get a reminder to send the next cease and desist letter which again is going to automatically created it specifically with the ASIN number and so it's, we try make it as sort of one click, trying to walk through the whole process as possible.

[00:30:17] SV: Yeah. That's awesome because I know some people would be like, including myself, would be like okay I know that they are there but now what do I send them and what's the process and what should I do? What's worked for you? You're kind of using what's worked for you and putting that in a sequence so this way here all you really need to do is click a few buttons and it'll populate and then copy and paste and send.

[00:30:37] JH: Yep, exactly.

[00:30:39] SV: Yeah. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about what we're going to do here. What are we going to do here for the TAS listeners? This is brand new, it has been in beta, we had a small beta group go through it and use it and got all the kinks worked out of it. Now what we're going to do is an official release for just a week for the TAS listeners. If you're listening to this, then you're going to want to definitely check this out if you're interested in getting your listings monitored because you're going to get a really sweet deal. Why don't you talk a little bit about this launch that you're doing right now for the TAS audience and then after the fact, if you're listening to this later it's still cool, you can go over and you'll still get a nice little discount.

[00:31:24] JH: Yeah. Sounds good. Super appreciative of the support that you help provide and then the beta test that came through. Awesome feedback from them to how to make it better. It was through one of them around that idea of the auto populating the notes and that was a pretty good simplification. For the next week due to appreciation for the TAS community we got a substantial discount for anyone that goes to listingeagle.com/TAS and there you can get signed up. The bottom of… the fewest SKUs offer is very reasonable from a security monitoring standpoint. It's certainly not… It's one more tool in your tool kit and it's not meant to be massive priced product that you're going to worry about. It's just nice addition to help monitor and lock in your business. For the next week the TAS community can head over to listingeagle.com/tas and then throwing in substantial discount for the community plus you can get access to our ultimate guide on both how to hijack proof your listing upfront and then the process that we use to fight off the hijackers.

[00:32:48] SV: Yeah, I love it and I mean when you and I first talked about this before it was even a product or before even it was service we really talked about like what would it look like. I remember you asking me like, “Do you think this is something that people would want?” And I'm like, “Yeah, because this is like if you're living in a high crime area, you're going to want an alarm system for your home.” Amazon is kind of like that in a sense because it's your business and people can come in and now as they please unfortunately Amazon technically owns that catalog page, we don't. We just sell on that listing page because we created it but anyone else with that same brand can sell on our listing. That's what hijacking is and what people are doing is they're jumping on. They're jumping on saying, “I have the same product” and they really don't. That's a problem.

I think this here was a great solution. You had the expertise as far finding a developer and finding a way to really systemize this to make it easier process and also be helpful. That's when I said if I can jump on board I would love to and be able to then open it up to a beta group to then help test it and tweak it because there is other people in my audience that are more susceptible to being hijacked just because of the product type. I'm fortunate right now that I have not but that doesn't mean that I won't be using this service because to me it's something that is like… You would not put a lock on your front door. You just would do it. Right. I just think it's preventative maintenance in a sense to where you don't have to deal with that.

Anyone that does want to check this out definitely, definitely check it out. ListingEagle.com/tas and from the time this is airing right now for a week you'll get a substantial discount for being one of the first official Listing Eagle subscribers. Definitely, definitely check that out. If you're listening to this later it's still fine. You're going to get a nice little discount as well. Just to be 100% honest and clear and upfront I am an affiliate with this program because I helped actually in the process and now I kind of vested in it so I really do believe in it and that's the only reason why I would want to be a affiliate for that. If you want to join through my link you will get a discount and you'll buy me a cup of coffee of course which all you guys know I love. Is there anything else that you want to add with the software or just the process in general?

[00:35:24] JH: I mentioned at the start but it's, anything you mentioned as well around. It's home security kind of peace of mind for your listing and something that it allows you to focus in on the value added work of building your business. That's what really attracted me to being able to try and provide a solution here to get people to hopefully… People being, my wife stopped worrying about the hijacking and really focus on the value added activities that we can be doing to continue to build the business. I'm happy with the feedback, very appreciative of your input into the process to try and create something here that will help people. Exciting process, excited to get the audience into here even more feedback and even make it better.

[00:36:16] SV: Yeah and that's great too for people to understand too as you're building something, like you're listening to the users now with the beta group and now with people that are subscribing after this airs. Then you're constantly refining and tweaking and listening and then making it even better. That's really important so definitely if you're using it John wants to hear like what would you want improved? What would you want added, what would you need more information about to make it more user friendly? Whatever it is, he's totally open to listening to that stuff. Yeah, like I said just go over and just check it out and see how cool it is because I do believe that you'll see that if you've ever been hijacked or heard other people being hijacked it's something that you definitely want to look into. Maybe you can just give it a test drive and see how it works. How awesome is that to be able to have your phone on you and then have something alert you immediately so you can get on it as soon as possible.

That's really, really cool stuff. John, I want to thank you once again. This has been awesome. If anybody wants to look at getting a website built for their brand as well you can also check out brand builders and what is the actual URL for that John?

[00:37:26] JH: It's at brandbuilders.io.

[00:37:29] SV: Okay. We'll put all this in the show notes too so you can go ahead and head over to the show notes to this episode. We'll have all this linked up and just again. One last thing I'd like to say or maybe ask you John, you've been at this FBA thing a little while now do you still think there is a great opportunity on Amazon right now as we sit?

[00:37:49] JH: Absolutely. As competition grows we all need to up our game but also increases the opportunity as far as there will be a winner and… There will be a stand out brand in all of the different products that are sort of being easily sold as FBA products or private label products. The only thing that competition does is it raises the floor to being moderately successful but it doesn't change how successful people can be. As Amazon grows, it will continue to grow and we all just need to continually be better.

[00:38:36] SV: I agree and same thing with the software tools, it's the same thing with building niche websites or authority websites. It's like it does come down to quality. It comes down to quality and when you have competition it raises the game, it raises the bar. Was it easier a year ago? Yeah. Was it easier two years ago? Yeah. Things always get harder but it doesn't mean that it means it's not possible or that it's way too saturated. It's like the Google slap that's happened, how many different times. It used to be easy to link websites. Well, now it's not easy anymore. You got to find other ways, creative ways to build better stuff so that way it can perform well in that environment.

I hear that so much John. I hear so many people saying but, “Scott isn't it saturated now, isn't too much competition.” The answer is there's a lot of competition but there's still a lot of opportunity.

[00:39:26] JH: For me the thought exercises, if somebody is starting right now that is going to be more successful than me in a year. Probably… Right there’s probably somebody else that hasn't started. I've got a head start right now that a year from now is going to have a bigger FBA business. Why shouldn't that be me? Someone is going to do it, why not us? Why not the person listening?

[00:39:50] SV: Yeah, I agree. All right John. I will let you go but this has been awesome. I want to thank you once again as always it's great talking to you. It's just great to hear how far you've already come in such a short period of time in the FBA space. Having or not having a business and then buying a website and then converting that to a private label business and now having a sale just about ready to finalize here. It's pretty exciting stuff. I can't wait to catch up with you again and hear what your next venture will be and how you did it. That will be cool. That will be another episode.

[00:40:24] JH: Right on Scott. Always happy to talk to you and again thanks again to you and the community. Awesome job on building by far the best community online. Well done.

[00:40:34] SV: Thanks John. I appreciate it and we'll be in touch man.

[00:40:37] JH: Right on. Bye.

[00:40:38] SV: Okay. There you have it. Another great conversation with John Havre, I want to thank him once again and he always brings really, really a lot of value. He's a smart guy, a lot smarter than I am and when it comes to this stuff it's really cool to have someone in your corner that you can talk and figure these things out and really talk through a big problem like this in coming up with a solution. I really again just want to say thanks John, thanks for everyone listening and giving their feedback as well, all the beta testers for Listing Eagle when it was in it's beta phase. Now that it's kind of open to the public if you want to take John up on that offer and get in at a really, really low price head over to listineagle.com/tas. Once again I am an affiliate for that because I am part of it. I actually walked through all of the different stages of this that I would want into it that I think other people would want to see within it so I do feel as though I was part of the building process in this and feels good to be able to see it kind of come to life.

Again I am vested in this and I do believe in it. Definitely check that out if you're interested. All of the show notes to this episode and the transcripts are over at theamazingseller.com/201. You can get all of the show notes, all of the transcripts just in case you missed anything or if maybe you're driving. You can just head over to that when you get put here whether it's at your job or maybe it's at you home when you get back from that run. Whatever it is. Go over and check that out theamazingseller.com/201 and you can grab all of the goodies over there. That's it guys. I hope that this is helped. I hope at least it shows you exactly what you need to do in order to get rid of hijackers but also how to protect your listing the best that you can before they even come around because they are looking for easy prey if you will. They are looking for the easy targets.

First off you want to make sure that you cover yourself there and John talked all about that but he also talked about in depth on episode 158 which will also be linked up in the show notes. That's it guys, that is going to wrap it up once again I want to say thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen. I know you have a lot of choices out there, a lot of you have been leaving iTunes reviews, letting me know how much you're enjoying it so I appreciate each and every one of them and each and every one of you and all of the comments, the emails and everything you guys are sending thank you so much. Just again just want to say thank you, it's really really awesome to hear from you.

That's it guys, that's going to wrap it up. Remember, I'm here for you and I believe in you and I'm rooting for you but you have to, you have to… Come on, say it with me and say it loud,
“Take action.” Have an awesome amazing day and I'll see you right back here on the next episode.

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LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• www.TheAmazingSeller.com/158  – Previous episode with Jon Haver
• www.BrandBuilders.io – Jon’s website services website
• www.ListingEagle.com/TAS – (affiliate link) get your discount on Jon’s notification service.

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