Seven Sisters – Part 4: David vs Goliath
When the bags were ready to ship, the manufacturer inquired, "Do you want them sent to you or to Amazon?" Although the option of sending them directly to Amazon was tempting, as this was our initial experience with receiving mass quantities from the manufacturer, we wanted to guarantee the quality of the product. Our main focus was ensuring that our customers received only the best, so we ultimately chose to have them shipped to our home.
Upon their arrival, we eagerly opened the boxes to inspect the bags. To our surprise, all the bags were in really good shape. A few were slightly wrinkled from being folded up in boxes for months, but after opening a couple of them up, placing the inserts in the sides of the bags, the wrinkles started to come out.
As we worked on our listing on Amazon and prepared to ship some of the bags to the online retailer, we encountered a hurdle. When we tried to input our brand name, Seven Sisters, into the brand field, we received an error message stating that we must be a brand owner. It became clear that we needed to apply for brand ownership. Thankfully, we had already started the application to register our brand with the USPTO and had all the necessary documents ready, which we believed would streamline the process.
We were wrong. We were faced with the frustrating reality that changing the brand field on our listing was not going to be as simple as we had hoped. It was rejection after rejection for who knows what reason and then on our fifth application we were approved. Despite finally getting approval, we were still unable to make the necessary changes on Amazon. The overseas Amazon Seller representatives, who seemed to be based in the Philippines, were of little help. In over 24 phone conversations and 50 emails, we received conflicting information and unhelpful responses. Some representatives suggested that we would have to ship all our product back to our house and resend it at our own expense, while others completely missed the point of our issue in their replies. It became a daily struggle to try and resolve the issue, with no clear solution in sight.
Starting the process over day after day and no way of contacting anyone in the US for help. We even went as far as tweeting Jeff Bezos, fully aware that he would never see it. The stress was overwhelming. Then, out of nowhere, we received a call from Alex at Amazon, a "new business" representative based in Seattle, Washington. Although he wasn't initially aware of my issue, after explaining everything to him, he assured me that he would do his best to resolve it. And he did. Within 12 hours, my problem was almost completely fixed. We are still waiting for access to our Amazon Store front, designed specifically for brand owners, but we are now able to add detailed content to our page, making it look more professional. We are no longer just a generic presence on the platform. Now, the real challenge begins. How will we drive sales on Amazon?
