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Amazon’s acronym language explained

October 22, 2020 Leave a Comment

New sellers can get lost in the abbreviations

By: Kayla Forrest

Amazon loves to use acronyms. They are apart of Amazon’s love language and are used daily. This is something that you may notice when interacting with Amazon or even reading through the Seller Forums. Numerous Amazon acronyms are commonly used and we’ve gathered a few that every seller should know. This list has been compiled for you and will hopefully help you navigate Amazon. Especially for you newer sellers out there.

Amazon acronyms from A-Z:

3P – Third-Party Seller
A third party seller uses inventory they have purchased to sell to consumers on Amazon

AMZ – Amazon
The acronym is a more simple way to say Amazon.

ACOS – Advertising Cost Of Sale
This represents the percentage of sales that was spent on advertising.

API – Application Program Interface
The code that allows software programs to communicate with each other.

ASIN – Amazon Standard Information Number
All products on Amazon will have an ASIN.

ASP – Average Selling Price 
The net sales divided by the number of products sold will get you the ASP.

AWS – Amazon Web Services 
A subsidiary of Amazon that provides cloud platform and API services.

B2B – Business to Business 
Unlike business to customers, the service is for business to business.

BB – Buy Box 
This is the box where buyers see the button to purchase products.

BOGO -Buy One, Get One (Free)
This is a great promotional deal that allows you to offer two products for the price of one.

BSM – Buyer-Seller Messages 
The messages between the customer and the seller.

BSR – Best Seller Rank
The rank of the item in a category.

DP – Detail Page
The page for the product.

DSP – Demand Slide Platform
This represents the display advertising service.

EAN – European Article Number
A 23 digit number for retail products in Europe.

EBC – Enhanced Brand Content 
The detail page description and show enhances content like images.

FBA – Fulfilled By Amazon 
The program where Amazon is responsible for storing products and shipping them to buyers.

FBM – Fulfilled By Merchant
The seller is responsible for the inventory storing and fulfilling orders.

FC – Fulfillment Center 
Amazon’s storage facility where orders are fulfilled.

FNSKU – Fulfillment Network Stock Keeping Unit
Amazon’s unique identifier used to label units in the fulfillment centers.

GTIN – Global Trade Item Number
A unique 14 digit number used globally to identify products and services.

IP – Intellectual property
Property that is protected such as trademarks, patents, copyrights.

ISBN – International Standard Book Number
A 13 digit number to identify individual books.

MAP – Minimum Advertised Price 
The price is determined by a manufacturer. Sellers will be instructed to not sell the product below that price.acronyms as explained by Riverbend Consulting.

MCF – Multi-Channel Fulfillment
Inventory that is stored and fulfilled by Amazon but the order is from another sales channel.

MSRP – Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price
This is to keep prices similar for different stores, sales channels, platforms, etc.

ODR – Order Defect Rate
A performance metric based on the percentage of orders with defects such as A-to-z claims and negative feedback.

OOS – Out Of Stock
Items are no longer in stock.

OTC – Over The Counter
Products that do not need a prescription to purchase.

POA – Plan Of Action
When seller accounts or ASINs are suspended, Amazon frequently requests a Plan of Action from the seller explaining what happened – and how they will stop it from happening again.

PL – Private label
Sellers may have a brand but have a manufacturer. These are the suppliers’ products but they do not make them.

Q1 – First Quarter
The portion of the year including January, February and March.

Q2 – Second Quarter
The months of April, May and June of each year.

Q3 – Third Quarter
This includes July, August and September of a calendar year.

Q4 – Fourth Quarter
Busy months for retail. Q4 includes the last three months (October, November and December) of the year.

QA – Quality Assurance
To ensure the desired quality of the service and/or product.

SC – Seller Central
The seller portal for the Amazon marketplace. Amazon Seller Central

SFP – Seller Fulfilled Prime
The program where sellers must meet Amazon’s Prime requirements.

SKU – Stock Keeping Number
The code to identify a product.

SLA – Service Level Agreement
The agreement details the expected level of service.

TOS – Terms Of Services
The rules and regulations that the seller must follow.

UPC – Universal Product Code
A 12-digit code is associated with the barcode of a product.

VAT – Value Added Tax
For products sold in the United Kingdom and Europe. This is a consumption tax levied on products at each and every point of sale in which value was added.

For more articles using these acronyms visit our website. Have questions about managing your Amazon account? Call us 877-289-1017


Kayla at Riverbend

Kayla focuses on appeals for Amazon account and ASIN reinstatements. Kayla has 4 years of Amazon experience where she worked in Seller Support and as an Investigation Specialist. In those roles, Kayla dealt with escalations and focused on FBA, intellectual property rights, as well as brand and product gating. When not helping clients save their Amazon accounts, Kayla can be found gardening or cooking with her two children and husband.

Filed Under: 3P, Account Health, Amazon, Amazon Appeal, Amazon seller, Amazon Seller Central, ASIN, FBA, General, SFP, USA, VA, VIP Tagged With: 3P, ACOS, Amazon, Amazon Acronym, Amazon seller, Amazon Seller Central, ASIN, DSP, FBA, ISBN, ODR

Best practices for sending and receiving international payments safely

July 8, 2020 Leave a Comment

Guest Contributor, Payoneer

Over the last decade, the digital payments landscape has undergone a significant structural shift and has continued to grow with popularity worldwide. Whether you’re paying for a received product from a global vendor, or transferring payroll to a remote employee, it’s important to know how to protect yourself when sending and receiving overseas payments. Here are some of the best practices for sending and receiving international payments safely.

Online payment platforms can help you make this process even easier. However, regardless of the convenience, moving funds digitally can be an easy way for criminals to steal your information so it’s crucial to know how to handle these payments beforehand.Digital payments made safe

Here you’ll discover some best practices to send and receive international payments safely.

  1. Lock Your Device
    Whether you’re using a desktop computer or mobile device, do make sure that it’s completely secure. Update the device’s operating system and any software or applications that you will be using to transfer the payment. Double check that your anti-virus program is up to date and running correctly and make sure you’re not being targeted by financial malware that could possibly steal your personal information. Furthermore, never use public computers or shared devices when transferring funds.
  2. Always Check Payment Details
    Even if you trust the individual or business that you are sending a payment to or receiving a payment from, it’s critical to verify all the information, including full name, account numbers, email address, phone numbers, etc. Do note that once a transfer has been made, it can’t be undone. Reviewing transaction details is also crucial for receiving payments – a bogus sender can use your personal information to steal your information.
  3. Create Strong Passwords
    The best passwords can help thwart any type of attack so the stronger it is, the less likely that a scammer will be able to hack your account. We don’t suggest using your birthday, address, name or other easily obtainable personal information. Instead, use a mixture of characters including numbers, different letter cases, and symbols. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) can also help protect you from scams by letting you know right away if someone is trying to access your account.
Summary

With today’s advanced technology, fraudsters are getting better at convincing victims that they are legit, so it’s important to remain alert. These vulnerabilities attest to how important it is to use a payment provider that is trustworthy and secure. For efficient, safe and secure cross-border payments, open an account at Payoneer.com today. See below for more about sending and receiving international payments safely.

 

MORE ABOUT PAYONEER’S SERVICES:
Send and Receive International Payments Safely with Payoneer

Payoneer’s cross-border and all-in-one payments solution enables businesses, freelancers and sellers worldwide to pay and get paid globally as easily as they do locally. The security of customers’ payments is Payoneer’s number one priority, and so you can trust that your funds are safe when working with us and continuously communicate with our customers in order to quickly detect suspicious activity. Payoneer offers a variety of safety methods that keep bots and hackers from reaching a user’s account.

  • 2-step verification* – This helps ensure that no malicious actors are able to hack your account.
  • Bot-locating software – Tracks bot activity on our website according to typing speeds and mouse movements.
  • Duplicate-site tracking – Tracks duplicate sites when attackers try to fool users into visiting the fraudulent site and entering their login details.
  • Proactive user–account searches – Multiple cyber-intelligence services are used to proactively search both the clear and dark web for compromised customer account details, meaning if a user’s login information is found, the user is immediately notified, and their password is changed.
  • *Currently, 2-step verification is available in Europe and certain other countries and is expected to be fully rolled out in the coming months.

Send International Payments with Payoneer Make a Payment – Need to pay a remote team member, supplier or contractor? Payoneer’s Make a Payment Service enables you to pay them using your Payoneer balance, whether they have a Payoneer account or not. If your client is a Payoneer user, it’s completely free! If not, you can simply pay them via bank transfer. Make a Payment allows you to send payments to more than 200 countries! Pay your Remote Contractors – Send individual payments to your contractors* for one-time projects or schedule automatic, monthly payments for ongoing work. You choose what works for your business. Send payments via credit card, bank transfer, or ACH bank debit.

*Currently this service is only supported for businesses located in the United States (subject to eligibility). We are working on supporting businesses located in Canada, UK, Europe, and Australia.

Receive International Payments with Payoneer Receiving Accounts – Payoneer’s receiving accounts enables you to receive local bank transfers from companies and top marketplaces in the US, UK, EU, Japan, Canada, Australia and Mexico, all directly to your Payoneer account. Your receiving account acts just like a local bank account, so you’re essentially receiving an international payment via a domestic wire transfer. Just provide the details of your accounts to your clients and then they can easily send you a payment as if they were around the corner.

Request a Payment – The Request a Payment service makes it simple for you to send your client a bill directly from the Payoneer platform. Invoice your client a payment request and they can pay you directly online within minutes using the payment method of their choice. Have your client choose from several ways to pay you, either via local bank transfer, credit card or ACH bank debit.

It’s that simple! Marketplaces & Networks – Get paid from companies and marketplaces like Upwork, Airbnb, Amazon and more, as well as from thousands of Payoneer partners, directly to your Payoneer account. Simply choose Payoneer as your preferred payment provider, receive funds from an endless number of companies and withdraw to your local bank account or at ATMs worldwide.

Once you’ve received payments from abroad, Payoneer allows you to easily access your funds via the following methods:

  • Payoneer Prepaid Mastercard® – With our Prepaid Mastercard®, you can use your card anywhere Mastercard® is accepted, including online and in stores or withdraw at ATMs worldwide.
  • Withdraw to Bank – You can withdraw your funds from your Payoneer account to your local bank account in local currency.

Riverbend Consulting would like to thank Payoneer for contributing this article to our blog.

Filed Under: Amazon, Amazon seller, Funds, Global, Inventory Sourcing, Supply Chain, USA Tagged With: Amazon, Amazon seller, Bank, Digital funds, Diversify, Funds, Global, Payments, Safety, Supply Chain, Tools

Amazon taking up to 30 days to review price gouging appeals

May 8, 2020 Leave a Comment

Both preemptive and suspension appeals are lagging for weeks

By: Lesley Hensell

Price gouging appeals to Amazon are lagging. Therefore, Amazon sellers under fire for price gouging could be waiting up to a month for a response from Seller Performance.

This shocking development comes after Amazon suspended or threatened to suspend thousands of accounts for alleged price gouging violations. Riverbend Consulting can confirm that one of our clients received approval of their Plan of Action yesterday – after almost 30 days of waiting.

Since mid-March, a growing number of Amazon third-party sellers have been warned for price gouging. In some cases, their individual ASINs have been blocked from the platform. After a few ASIN-level warnings, sellers then receive requests for a Plan of Action within 72 hours. The plan is to address violations of the Amazon Fair Market Pricing Policy. 

In some cases, Amazon skips all the second chances. They then take the seller straight to a suspension or block of their selling privileges.

price gouging appeal to amazon

Why is this happening?

Since Amazon is under pressure from the public and government regulators to stop price gouging during the current health crisis. Some state and local jurisdictions make it illegal to raise prices on essential items more than 10 percent during times of disaster.

Unfortunately, Amazon’s enforcement of its Fair Market Pricing Policy has been an unmitigated disaster in its own right. Many sellers have been warned or suspended for ASINs where they did not raise their prices or raised prices commensurate with their increased inputs for COGS, labor, transportation and more.

At Riverbend, we’ve seen several appeals for price gouging that have received answers after two to four weeks. In addition, for some suspended sellers, Amazon Seller Performance is sometimes rejecting the POA but not emailing the seller to let them know. So if you’ve had a price gouging appeal lingering, contact Account Health Services and ask for a status. You might just find out that you need to submit an updated POA.

If you’ve been hit with a price gouging appeal, call on Riverbend Consulting. We can help. Let’s talk 877-289-1017 or visit our website.


Lesley HensellLesley is co-founder and co-owner of Riverbend Consulting, where she oversees the firm’s client services team. She leverages two decades as a small business consultant to advise clients on profitability and operational performance. She has been an Amazon seller for almost a decade.

Filed Under: Account Appeal, Account Health, Amazon, Customer Serivce, FBA, General, POA, Price Gouging, Seller Central, Seller Performance, USA Tagged With: 3P, 3P seller, Amazon, Amazon FBA, Amazon seller, Appeal, Copyright, Deactivated, Documents, Inventory, POA, Price gouging, Reactivated, Suspended, Suspension

Location matters: Who is writing your Amazon appeals?

May 4, 2020 Leave a Comment

Some tasks are far too important to send overseas. Know who is writing your Amazon appeals.

By: Lesley Hensell

Who is writing your Amazon appeals? Should a virtual assistant (VA) on the other side of the globe write an appeal letter for your Amazon account?

In far too many cases, if you hire a company to help with your appeals, that’s exactly what happens. VAs can be extremely valuable to Amazon third-party sellers. But they are typically not well-suited to writing ASIN or account appeals.

What makes a great appeal writer?

At Riverbend, we have built a large team of consultants and account analysts. Our recipe for appeal writing success is as follows:

  1. Domain expertise. Our team includes professionals with backgrounds in investigations, retail and warehouse operations, online selling and more. Most have worked at Amazon here in the United States, in Seller Performance, Account Health Services or Seller Support. Many have sold on Amazon. All understand how businesses run in the United States, as well as how Amazon sellers operate. 
  2. Interviewing and problem-solving skills. An effective appeal to Amazon isn’t just about telling Seller Performance what they wish to hear. Rather, it truly solves the underlying business issues causing complaints or problems. Our consultants speak with clients and suss out the problems. They advise our clients, answer their in-depth questions, and work together on real-world, effective solutions.
  3. Strong language skills. Certainly appeal writing is serious business that requires a full command of the English language – written and spoken. In addition, a knowledge of the colloquialisms of the marketplace in question is a huge plus.
who is writing your appeals
What are the gaps for overseas appeal writers?

When companies rely on overseas VAs to write appeals, it can cause a wide range of problems:

  1. No phone support. Sellers should have phone and email access to the person who is writing their Amazon appeals, so they can explain the issue, ask questions, and arrive at a solution. Email support – direct with the appeal writer – should be a given. If a seller doesn’t have the ability to speak with the consultant or another well-versed team member, how can they get answers to important queries?
  2. Language skills. It’s difficult enough appealing to Amazon without language challenges.
  3. Lack of a big-picture vision. Overseas VAs are typically finding a sample past appeal they think might be close to the client’s situation. Then they cut-and-paste together a document that may or may not be relevant. This is not a recipe for long-term success – especially since it does nothing to solve the underlying issue.
  4. Lack of in-depth Amazon expertise. Overseas VAs typically have not worked in Seller Performance or Seller Support. They don’t know paths to escalate – which are critical these days. By using US-based, knowledgeable resources, you are much more likely to gain insights into your account and a positive result.
Look out for bait-and-switch

Service companies of all sizes and types pull bait-and-switch scams on Amazon sellers. A salesperson or account manager convinces the Amazon seller to sign up for their services. After that, one of two things might happen:

  1. Some companies give Amazon sellers form-letter appeals that were edited by an overseas VA to fit their situation. This customization is based solely on the notes take by the salesperson. No conversations ever happen with the appeal writer.
  2. Other companies use their more highly paid consultants to write account appeals. But if they sign clients up for ongoing account monitoring or ASIN appeals, those appeals are created by overseas VAs. Sometimes, US-based resources run interference so that clients don’t realize what is going on.

Why would someone do this? Simple. They are saving a lot of money on labor costs. Ownership makes a whole lot more money for sub-par service by untrained overseas resources.

The service you deserve

How can you know if you’re receiving quality service from skilled consultants?

  1. Look at the company web site. If a company has solid Amazon expertise, team members should be proudly featured online with details about their backgrounds.
  2. Only hire a company where a US-based team member answers the phone. Therefore, if you cannot get a human on the phone, run.
  3. Ask where the consultant working on your account is based. 
  4. Ask when the consultant will reach out to you by phone or email. Ensure you are going to be contacted by the consultant – and not by a go-between like an account manager or a sales rep.
  5. If your service firm uses VAs, ask which tasks this group handles. Reasonable answers are tasks like Amazon customer service messages, reimbursements, listings audits, and other similar functions.

We are HERE for you and your business! Meet our team. Let’s talk 877-289-1017 or visit our website.


Lesley HensellLesley is co-founder and co-owner of Riverbend Consulting, where she oversees the firm’s client services team. She leverages two decades as a small business consultant to advise clients on profitability and operational performance. She has been an Amazon seller for almost a decade.

Filed Under: Account Appeal, Account Health, Amazon, Customer Serivce, FBA, General, Quality Control, Seller Central, Seller Performance, USA, VA, Virtual Assistant Tagged With: 3P, 3P seller, Amazon, Amazon FBA, Amazon seller, Appeal, Copyright, Coronavirus, Deactivated, Deactivation, Documents, Fake, FBA, Inauthentic, Inventory, Reactivated, Shipment, Suspended, Suspension

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