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In our new podcast series Small Business Bytes on This is Small Business, producer Andrea Marquez shares bite-sized insights from interviews with more than 100 US small business owners about pivotal moments, challenges, and lessons learned as they scaled their business.
In this series, Marquez explores how mindset is a powerful tool to guide long-term planning and overcome challenges:
- Know the problem you’re solving: Your why leads your decisions, your brand messaging, and keeps you going when things get tough. For example, Sean Brownlee founded Ravenox to create stable, meaningful jobs for veterans as they transition to civilian life. Teri Johnson created Harlem Candle Co to celebrate Black culture in the US through fragrance. Both found success by grounding their business in a clear purpose. Ask yourself: What pain point does my business address? And how does that connect to my deeper mission?
- Don’t wait for perfect: Trying to perfect your product before launching can stall your growth. When Val Fishbane of Spread the Love Foods launched early, real world customer data helped refine everything from the ingredients to the jar size. Consider starting small, gathering feedback, and iterating from there.
- Make your brand story personal: Storytelling builds emotional trust, but it needs to be rooted in something meaningful. Conchita Pleasant started Nefertiti’s Secrets after losing her hair during cancer treatment. She turned personal healing into a haircare brand focused on empowerment. Ray Phillips of Soap Sox created his product to help children in treatment facilities feel safe at bath time. These stories make customers feel seen and understood. Share the personal moment that sparked your business. Why did you decide to create this solution?
- Craft a pitch that hooks in seconds: A sharp elevator pitch should spark curiosity fast. Felicia Jackson (CPR Wrap) opens her pitch with a gripping moment of panic: watching her child choke and feeling powerless despite her CPR training. Matthew Tesvich (Skunk Skin) connects with humor and relatability: he jokes about his own stinky feet, then pitches odor-fighting socks. Present the problem, an emotional hook, and a simple solution, and try to do it in less than 60 seconds.
- Use social proof to build trust: User-generated content like reviews, social media tags, and customer photos and videos are powerful tools to grow your brand. Research shows that 70% of customers will consider user-generated content before purchasing a product. Create a branded hashtag, repost customer content (with permission), and add reviews or videos to your product pages or email newsletters.
To listen to all the episodes of This Is Small Business podcast, go to Amazon Music, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.
(Note: Episodes are in English.)
Starting May 29, 2025, we’ll begin to migrate all product and food safety compliance requirements from the Manage Your Compliance dashboard to the Policy Compliance page within the Account Health dashboard.
The updated Account Health dashboard streamlines compliance management; you can monitor policy violations, submit documents, file appeals and coordinate with Testing, Inspection and Certification providers for product verification, all in one place.
During the migration period, you must check both dashboards to view all of your violations. We'll guide you through this process with instructions on updated help pages and video tutorials when the migration starts.
The migration is expected to be complete in July, and we’ll notify you once all compliance violations are consolidated into the Account Health dashboard.
We appreciate your understanding as we work to simplify compliance management on Seller Central.
To learn more, register for our May 27 webinar and Q&A session: How to utilise the Account Health Dashboard (AHD) to view product and food safety requirements.
Change to Buyer-Seller Messaging options
We've updated our Buyer-Seller Messaging options to better protect buyer communication preferences.
Buyer-Seller Messaging allows you to contact buyers to complete orders or respond to customer service questions, however the tool shouldn't be used for marketing and promotional purposes.
To ensure messaging is only used for critical messages, we've removed the option to add "[Important]" to the message subject line and override buyer opt-out preferences.
You'll still be able to contact buyers with important messages about their orders. If the contact reason is critical to complete the order, your message will be delivered, regardless of the buyer's opt-out status.
For the best experience, we recommend that you use our message templates which automatically include order IDs, translate messages to the buyer's preferred language, and flag messages as [Important] if needed.
For more information, go to Contact a buyer using Buyer-Seller Messages.
For more information on what type of buyer messages are permitted, go to our Communication guidelines.
You can now set automated removal settings for your unfulfillable FBA inventory in Amazon's Singapore fulfilment centres.
When inventory in a fulfilment centre isn't in sellable condition (for example, is defective, damaged, or expired), its status changes to "Unfulfillable" and it's set aside for removal.
These settings should be available to you over the next four weeks. Once available, you are required to customise your Automated Unfulfillable settings, so that your unfulfillable units can either be sent to your return address or automatically disposed of based on your instructions.
If you don't customise your Automated Unfulfillable settings, we will notify you when you have inventory that requires removal. After this notification, you have a 30-day window to create a removal order for your unfulfillable inventory. If no action is taken within this timeframe, we will automatically dispose of the inventory in the manner that we elect in accordance with the Business Solutions Agreement at your own cost.
To update your settings, go to Automated Unfulfillable Settings.
For more information, go to Remove unfulfillable inventory automatically under Remove inventory automatically.
Help boost sales with A+ Content
Available to registered brand owners, A+ Content helps you share your brand’s story, encourage repeat purchases and potentially increase sales by as much as 8 per cent for Basic A+ Content and 20 per cent for Premium A+ Content. How? By helping you create rich content that showcases your brand and educates customers about your products’ features.
A+ Content helps your brand and products stand out from the competition, and connect with your customers, by allowing you to:
- Share your unique brand story using the Brand Story Feature.
- Build brand awareness and tell your product story with rich images, text, videos, Q&A, feature hotspot and comparison modules.
- Create enhanced product descriptions to highlight product-level features.
- Reduce customer returns and negative feedback by proactively answering their questions.
- Encourage repeat purchase behaviour by helping customers explore your other products and build trust with your brand.
The A+ Content Manager makes it easy to set up and manage your content with preformatted module layouts, data-driven content recommendations and content duplication to add languages and product variations.
To get started, go to the A+ Content Manager in Seller Central.
For more information, go to the Complete Guide to A+ Content for Brand Owners.
Note: Guide is in English only
Through Amazon’s podcast, This Is Small Business , producer Andrea Marquez gets what she calls, “a front-row seat in a masterclass on entrepreneurship.” In each episode, she meets with small business owners from across the US to discuss pivotal moments they've experienced. Each episode focuses on challenges these business owners have faced, and what they’ve learned as they’ve scaled their businesses.
Below, Marquez shares, in her own words, some key insights and actionable lessons from the most downloaded episodes of 2024:
- Your email list is gold. Jenna Kutcher, Author, Podcaster and Digital Marketing Guru, didn’t just remind me that email marketing isn’t dead, she convinced me it’s the most valuable tool. Your email list is your direct hotline to your customers. Unlike social media, you own it, and no algorithm can take it away. Give people a reason to join your list, such as a freebie, a discount, or something else that they can’t resist. Then, don’t ghost them. Keep showing up in their inbox with helpful, fun, or inspiring content.
- Not all money is good money. Iman Cotton, Business Loan Officer with CDC Small Business Finance, dropped this insight: Loans can help, but only if you know what you’re signing up for. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Always ask yourself, “Will this loan help my business grow, or am I just trying to put out a fire?” If it’s the latter, rethink it.
- Networking isn’t about hoarding business cards. Robbie Samuels, Author, Business Coach, Biz Book Publishing Hub Founder & Podcast Host, reminded me that networking is about people, not numbers. It’s not about having the most connections; it’s about having meaningful ones. Follow up. Yes, I’m calling myself out here. Send a quick email or share a resource. No, it’s not weird. It’s thoughtful.
- Preparation is everything. Jay Clouse, Founder of Creator Science, stressed the power of pre-launch preparation. The little things, such as building a buzz and knowing your audience, matter so much. Start talking about your launch early. Use teasers, sneak peeks, or a waitlist to make people feel like they need what you’re about to offer.
- Marketing isn’t magic; it’s strategy. Liz Downing and Elena Fahrländer from Danish Endurance made one thing clear: Marketing doesn’t have to be flashy to work; it has to be authentic. Think about the story that your brand tells, and make sure it’s consistent across all of your platforms. Focus less on selling and more on connecting.
To listen to all the episodes of This Is Small Business podcast, go to Amazon Music, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.
We recently released our Brand Protection report, which demonstrates our efforts to stop bad actors and protect your business from counterfeit products through industry-leading technology and strategic partnerships.
In 2024, we invested more than a billion dollars and employed thousands of people—including machine learning scientists, software developers and expert investigators—to help protect customers, brands, selling partners and our store from counterfeit, fraud and other forms of abuse.
The report outlines the progress we’ve made, including the following highlights:
- In 2024, we identified, seized and appropriately disposed of more than 15 million counterfeit products worldwide, preventing them from harming customers or being resold elsewhere in the retail supply chain.
- Since its launch in 2020, Amazon's Counterfeit Crimes Unit has pursued more than 24,000 bad actors through litigation and criminal referrals to law enforcement.
- Through our continued investment in AI, our improved proactive controls blocked more than 99 percent of suspected infringing listings before the brand owners had to find and report them.
- Since 2020, while the number of products available for sale in our store has continued to grow, we have seen around a 35-percent decrease in the total valid notices of infringement submitted by brands.
- More than 2.5 billion product units have been verified as genuine through our Transparency programme, which has enrolled 88,000 brands worldwide, including Fortune 500 companies, global brands, startups and small businesses.
We remain committed to continued advancements and we will not rest until we drive counterfeits to zero.
For more detailed updates on our strategic areas of focus and the progress we’ve made, go to the Brand Protection report.
To report abusive customers or sellers, go to Report abuse.
Share your feedback with us after any support call
You can now provide immediate feedback to us at the end of a call with Selling Partner Support.
Previously, you had to wait for us to send you an email after your case was resolved to offer feedback. Now, you can remain on the line after the call ends to complete a brief satisfaction survey.
This survey makes it easier to share feedback immediately after you receive assistance. It's part of our ongoing efforts to improve our Selling Partner Support experience and identify areas for improvement.
Effective April 7, 2025, international sellers that ship seller-fulfilled orders on Amazon.com.sg from a location outside of Singapore must provide customers with one of the following options within five days of receiving a return request:
- Valid Singapore return address.
- Prepaid return shipping label.
- Returnless refund.
With this change, we’re committed to providing a resolution to customers within a reasonable time.
If you don’t provide one of the above options within five days, we’ll proactively issue a refund to affected customers on your behalf. This will be deducted from your seller account and the customer will be allowed to keep or discard the item.
To learn more, go to Return methods for international sales.
We've launched Amazon Brand Builder, a new tool that provides tailored recommendations to help grow your brand.
A strong brand builds trust, increases recognition, and creates memorable connections with customers, which can help increase sales.
When you use the Amazon Brand Builder, your brand will be placed in one of the following development stages:
- Launch Viable Selection
- Establish Brand Identity
- Grow Brand Awareness
- Build Brand Loyalty
- Strengthen Brand Recall
In this panel, you can also see the recommended actions that can help you advance to the next stage.
To access Amazon Brand Builder on Seller Central, go to Brands menu and then click Build Your Brand.
For more information about building your brand on Amazon, go to Build Your Brand.
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