Amazon Vendor Negotiation Q&A - Week 7 with Bruno Ferreira

Joining me today is Bruno Ferreira from Blue Dot eCommerce. Bruno, do you mind giving a quick introduction?

Yeah, so I'm Bruno. I'm founder of Blue Dot eCommerce. We specialize in helping vendors only in their internal operations. So we help them to make compliant SOPs, how to— we go to the level of detail because vendors really need some help, how to put the ASIN labels in the box to avoid chargebacks, how to dispute successfully for the PQ views, all of those things. We also train the teams. Sometimes we work with teams that when they come to us, they don't even know the platform, the Vendor Central platform, how to process purchase orders. So we do all of that work with them. So basically we just work internally with them in the selling part of the B2B business of Vendor Central.

Got it, understood. So really focused operationally on how to do really well at sending product to Amazon.

Yeah, that's why it was money.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's been a focal area for a lot of brands, particularly as they think about shortage claims and price claims. I've got a lot of questions for you, but I want to start with a general one. I think you're the first person that we've had who is really so specifically focused on, uh, inbounding to Amazon. From your perspective, what are some of the top things that you think brands should be bringing up at AVN related to those operations that you don't see brands talking about today?

Well, I will start with, with the catalog. I always tell people, it's your bread and butter. Just align your catalog, build it properly from the beginning, gain good habits, build strong processes internally for the catalog ads and maintenance. And success starts there. Think about minimum order quantity. If you don't do it properly, you will start receiving orders in units, but those units need to be multiples of the box of the master carton of the product. So there's always a lot of challenges. In my opinion, vendors should start aligning from the beginning, go to the foundations, go to the catalog, do it right when you start. It helps a lot. Mm-hmm.

And is that mostly, I think a lot of vendors view that as a self-serve process. How can they engage Amazon for help with that?

Well, that's another question, Andrew. So Amazon Vendor is a self-service tool. I always tell the teams that we train that ideally we don't need a vendor manager or AVS. AVS has a very specific role to help us, I don't see a vendor manager. He's not there to help us out to add new products to the catalog, how to complete the NIS form. So it starts there. It's a self-service. You need to, of course, the documentation Amazon didn't make it easy. You know that too. It's very rich in content, but if you don't have a guiding, someone guiding your hand through all the compliance and everything that you need to go through, it makes it more a big challenge. So if you do it right, if you have the proper training, add new items to the catalog, start building your catalog, you can do it yourself. Of course, there's NIS now are, I think, 67 different columns. Some of them are conditional formatted. Some of them you need to complete the information. If you are dealing with ASINs that already exist because you are the brand owner, but you just got to vendor now, and a seller or other vendor distributor was doing your brand, you might find that there's a lot of errors. People get confused sometimes. I did the change, but it's still not live. That's something for the AVS team, as an example, because probably the distributor or the seller had the buy box and he's the preferred supplier if it's another vendor. So there's a lot of details. And in that case, yes, AVS can play a role here and they really can engage and help with that. But if you're starting your catalog from scratch, it's not— if you have a guide in hand, it's not that complex to do. There's a lot of columns, but you as a brand owner, you should have all the information, all the documentation to complete the file.

Yeah, certainly. And I ask that if the sheet looks like what it did when I was still at Amazon, it's a very intimidating looking file.

It does.

That feels sort of low-tech for somebody like Amazon, and yet it sounds like it hasn't changed very much, but it's also not as hard to use as people, I think, perceive it to be because it's so scary looking. I'd like to point to that.

Go ahead. Sorry, Andrew, it makes it helpful. Amazon, yes, it looks like an Excel spreadsheet, but it's an Excel spreadsheet on steroids. It has a huge VBA codes on the back that will prevent you to complete fields that are not for that category. So the file actually helps a bit, but if you never engage with it, you never work with it, it can be a bit complicated. Yeah.

You mentioned that you should bring up problems that you can't fix yourself with, you know, your AVS. So if you're running into persistent issues or if you've inherited catalog issues from, you know, 3P data or something else like this. What are some examples of issues that you find brands can't solve on their own and that they need Amazon's help or escalation with?

Well, the most usual errors we find that when a brand directly, or even if the product through a distributor but gets invited to vendor, what we usually see is that if that ASIN was already created by a seller, sometimes they don't have access to the complete information. I'll give you one of the major challenges are dimensions, weights. You know that on seller, they pay fees based on dimensions, on volume and all of that. So they try to reduce it as much as they can. But then if you go to the vendor side, then there's a big discrepancy in the dimensions of the master carton as an example, or the quantity of units per master carton. That will cause huge challenges for a vendor and it will increase the shortage claims. PQ views will go up because you are invoicing in master carton, they are receiving in units. When they scan it in the inbound process in the fulfillment centers, they don't know the product. They only use a scanner and they see the information in the computer. Recently, one of our clients, huge PQV, huge money on the table. And what we found out through our data analysis was that they set up the cataloging units and they were dispatching with master carton. So after analyzing the data, we actually found out that the biggest culprits were the ones that have more than one unit per master carton. So they told Amazon that that EAN was one unit. So just think about this, you have a pallet with 60 boxes, but the order was for 120. So the inbound, if it's not done properly, there's a pick queue view for 60 units. So align the catalog, Andrew, that's, we're getting to the same. If you do it right in the catalog, it will make it easier in the long run for sure.

Sure. Yep, that makes sense. I like the nuance there as well of when you're inheriting information from a distributor or a third party specifically that they're, they're Their incentives might be a little bit different than yours on 1P's side.

Yeah.

And calling out the, the relationship of dimensions and weight to fees, like there was a, a very natural reason for 3P to estimate in one direction and for 1P to estimate in another direction. Yeah. That's really interesting.

Think even, think about even programs like SIOX shipping on container, right? Sometimes the difference of 3 centimeters, and I hope our people in the US understand, so 3 centimeters can make a difference and make that box that needs to be signed to the, to the SIOC program. But it's coming from a seller that created it. They don't have access to that or they don't care sometimes. That's what usually happens. But then it comes to us and chargebacks start piling it up because this product needs to be in SIOC. It's not, so you need to do it. I will charge you back until you do it. So the vendor, we see this happening a lot, Andrew. When we're talking about ASINs that were created outside the vendor program, we see this happening a lot. Yep. Okay.

That makes a lot of sense. Great. We've been starting to get a lot of questions about VLT, vendor lead time. And it sounds like more brands are getting requests to address VLT, particularly if they've already done a lot of the work to improve terms and profitability, then Amazon turns their focus to things like confirmation rates, VLT, etc. As somebody who's super operationally focused, I've been saving this question for you. Amazon— somebody asked, Amazon wants us to lower our VLT, but we think we've done everything that we can. What are some other things that we might try that we haven't already thought of?

Okay, so the leading times are primarily decided by the system. So it allocates, of course, geographically the distance from your main warehouse to the fulfillment center. All of that will play a role, of course, and Amazon gave that to vendors. What sometimes vendors might not be aware of is that if you start with a lead time of 7 days, but consistently you're delivering in 3, 4, you will see a few months in the road that the system will adjust automatically. Remember that Amazon is, they just need the stock, they need it now. It's, they are customer focused. They need the stock there. If it's a high volume, they will need it quick, right? So the system will auto-adjust. To change that, Andrew, that's actually another thing for a vendor manager. Only he can go to the system and it's very hard. In my 9 years of experience, only a few times we managed to demonstrate to a vendor manager that actually, okay, we managed to do this good work, but now our warehouse changed the location. So I'm actually further away. So you need to understand that. But it's the system primarily deciding that. All, from what I'm aware, all vendors start with the lead time between 5 to 7 days. If you want to increase it, it will be a huge challenge. The vendor manager can help, but he will ask a lot of questions and he will probably have some issues internally to get it to. But if you continuously 3, 4 days and you're delivering it, then the system will adjust automatically. And Andrew, that's what happens sometimes. Vendors don't understand. Last year I was having 5, 7 days. If I get an order on a Monday, I'll have to deliver on Friday. But now if I get it on Monday, I need to deliver on Thursday or Wednesday. So it will reduce. If it sees it happen. You're on mute, Andrew, again.

Sorry, sorry, I think my microphone keeps disconnecting. What about the opposite situation where Amazon says, hey, your VLT is too high, we need you to lower it more?

Well, that, that might happen, and that's probably good news because you are a brand that Amazon actually considers And from my experience working on that in the past, Amazon will engage with you to try to reduce it. I've never seen a vendor manager to get a vendor blocked into a corner because he couldn't reduce the, the lead-in time. Of course, Amazon will always push for their side. But, and we tell this to our teams, one of the first lessons we learned in our training is how to say no to Amazon. Sometimes we need to say no, and if we can't make it, we can't make it. I hope that no vendor is just saying yes, that yes, we can reduce the lead time, and then it's not realistic because then chargebacks will start piling up. So always be realistic and demonstrate to a vendor manager if he's asking that question why it's not possible. And you can even set up with the help of the vendor manager different lead times. We made it, I made it once here in Europe. I don't know if it's still possible, but for different fulfillment centers, a vendor that was dispatching from Germany to different countries in Europe, and we managed to get through global listings different lead times for each country.

Got it.

Okay.

Yeah, that's great. I like your point that ultimately if Amazon is asking you to lower your VLT, it's probably good news because it is generally an indicator that your products are in high demand.

Ja.

Cool. I love it. All right. Another question that I've been saving for and that I've been asking for all of our EU experts, because I'm focused on the United States and I've been based here and all of my Amazon experiences here, I have a very America-centric perspective. And I find that most times that's okay since Amazon and US is Amazon's biggest market, of course, but it, it does lead me to have blind spots when I'm trying to give guidance to my clients. And so from your perspective, as somebody who manages European supply chains specifically, what are some ways that the US and the, and Europe's supply chains for Amazon should be treated differently by brands?

Well, it starts with the dispatch. So in the US, I don't know the percentage, but a huge volume of vendors are being— Amazon is collecting from them with all of the problems that arise with that. Here in Europe, we don't have that big group of vendors that are engaging with Amazon for Amazon to collect. It has advantages and disadvantages to have Amazon collect, but that's one of the major differences because I'm in the same boat as you are, Andrew. I am not as an expert in the US because there are some differences as I am here in Europe. But I know that this one is a big one to consider. And I advise my clients and I have big vendors that get invited to the program here in Europe. I always say just be cautious, ask for 3-4 months as a test period. Do not engage with high-volume ASINs. Because they might get delayed and you might get out of stock. And then we'll see. And then we'll read the data a few months ahead and we'll make a decision. But it doesn't work as well here in Europe as in the US, from my understanding.

Got it. Okay. That makes sense. A different program availability. What we need is we need somebody to come and who does both and can teach both of us the nuances.

Or sometimes Amazon here in Europe, Andrew Hamada is very busy with their fleet, uh, doing cross-border of the products. And that's another challenge for a vendor.

Yeah. So talk to me a little bit about that actually, if you don't mind, Bruno. So in the US we have some cross-docking and some, um, cross-border fulfillment with the North America Fulfillment Network, uh, into Canada and Mexico. But, um, everything that I've seen in the data says that this is much, much, much more significant in Europe. And both positively because it means your market is bigger, but also operationally much more of a struggle for things like compliance and getting product into the right places, et cetera. What are some of the top issues that brands should be aware of related to shipping between European countries and operating in a pan-European situation?

Well, of course, that being here in Europe, the pan-European group of Amazon, all the 9 countries, since they are in the Schengen space, there's free movement of goods. So that means that, and this only happens, Andrew, to vendors that are engaging with Amazon with one or two countries only. And for me, one of the biggest issues that come from there is losing visibility and traceability of their product. We have clients that come to us with questions, Bruno, I only have an account in Germany. Why am I receiving returns from Spain? Those questions are very hard to answer and we lose complete trace of the stock. Another important thing is regarding labeling. Think about labeling. If you have a product that was specifically designed to German market, you only need the label in German. Amazon is moving that product to Italy and of course that will cause issues in your brand. And then Amazon will come to you. We have complaints. It's not following the compliance and you get yourself into a place. Wait a minute, I never sold this to Italy. And then Amazon sometimes is not very open to help vendors to go through these challenges. But they do it. They won't stop. My suggestion for vendors that might find themselves in this situation is to try to get the vendor manager to have an open conversation and try to get separate accounts to each one of the countries on pan-EU.

Hmm, got it. I hear different things from different people about how eager Amazon is to do that. In your experience, how is Amazon open to that conversation about having separate accounts, or are they trying to move everybody to like centralized management?

Well, they are in central management. But if you are a vendor and you only have an account in Germany, usually you need to pitch Amazon and think, just think that if you are a vendor and you don't have a vendor manager, it's your first year. You still don't have a vendor manager. They are pushing you to pay a percentage for AVS. So if you don't do it with them, it won't help really. So ask them, show them, because the first question is, why are you moving my products from Germany to Italy? Get me an Italian account. From my experience, it's possible. I will give you a rate, 50-50. It's one of those games, it's 50-50. If you pitch them well, if your vendor manager is engaged with you to grow the brand, to grow his business too. It will make it a bit easier. Just show them. And one of my first questions when I participate in these meetings is, well, if you're moving my stock there, then let me deliver it there. Get me an account there. From my experience, the answers usually come in the format, if I do that, I'll have to increase you the accruals. I'll have to increase you the agreements. And then it's always just go to your P&L, see if you can make it, because my suggestion is to always expand here in Europe to get pan-EU, all full 9 countries for sure.

Got it. Okay. Wow. That's a lot there. So just to make sure that I'm hearing it correctly, like there's a, like, call it roughly 50/50 chance that Amazon is going to be supportive of your desire for single country accounts versus the pan-EU model. And it seems like it's more likely they will say yes if it's going to unlock some kind efficiency or some kind of customer benefit, but that it often is going to come at a cost like different accruals or agreements, etc. But that the main benefit that you're getting there is more control over how that product gets fulfilled and that you potentially get better visibility to how your products are getting fulfilled cross-border.

Yeah. Okay, totally, Andrew. And think if you're thinking also in brand awareness and as a brand, because vendors our brands. As a brand, you need to nurture your brand. So if I was a brand owner and I tell this to our clients, if I'm selling to Germany but I'm receiving complaints from Amazon Spain, I would want to know what happened here.

Not to mention, you know, I experienced this in a very small degree because most of our clients speak English, but even just the, the additional friction of needing to translate both from an actual language perspective, but from a cultural perspective for even things like instructions on products and brand perception around like packaging design and things like this. I can see how that nuance gets lost if Amazon doesn't help, help you keep it visible and distinct. One thing that you mentioned as we, before folks started streaming in is you mentioned you have this three pillar model. About how brands can be successful at business. Do you mind just speaking to that again?

Yeah, well, it came from our experience. I've been— so I started managing accounts globally for vendors. I started from scratch with someone training me, and I have a passion for it. So what I can tell you is that those three pillars, when I started Blue Dot, I knew that I had to find a way to easily pass the message to vendors. And that's it. A vendor will be successful if he engages with the three pillars, communication, visibility, and traceability. The communication is very important. Remember that being a vendor means that you need the cross-functional team internally. That team needs to speak the same language. And that language needs to be the language of the AVS team or the vendor manager. There's a lot of friction sometimes. I've seen it happen even internally. If you don't have proper communication channels, processes, it won't make it easier for sure. I'll give you an example. A couple of years ago, a team that we were training, the finance team, when we were doing the finance modules, Amazon calls the price that they buy the cost. But internally, if you mention cost, it's your cost of goods, right? It's your cost of the product. So someone from commercial sent an email to the finance team asking for the costs for Amazon and received the list that of course was the cost of goods. So that list got uploaded to, with the NIS, you can imagine what happened, right? Another pillar is visibility. What we find through these years of experience is that vendors lack visibility on their business with Amazon. They get invited to be a vendor, Amazon doesn't train them, doesn't tell them the pitfalls, how to do it. They get some help in the beginning, in the honeymoon phase, but then the vendor manager usually will stop answering questions. What is this chargeback? How do I do this? Because it's not their job, actually. Their job is to help us to grow the business together. So they lack that visibility of the business. They, I'll give you an example. P&L, majority of our clients that come to us, they use the same P&L for all, for the total of the business. Bruno, we always use it. It works. Well, it doesn't. Amazon made it different. You need a very specific P&L for vendor. You need to take in consideration. If you're a new vendor, makes it a bit harder, but if it's your second year, you can calculate and we can help with that. You can come with a percentage of chargebacks. How much chargebacks can I expect this year based on last year? 75% of my catalog is the same. So not much will change. So start inputting all of those hidden costs because from what we know is that in the end of the year, think about the CFO of a big brand. He goes to quarter monthly meetings and he sees the numbers based on Celine and they look good. But when it comes to him in the end of the year to close the accounts, there's a lot of money missing and he never heard that in the meetings. So that slice of the cake missing is those hidden costs, is chargebacks, shortage claims, other fees that are not in that P&L that needs to be as accurate as possible so that everybody in the team knows and has that visibility. Traceability, and we discussed that before we got into stage. Amazon gives access depending on the module you're in, but the max data that they will allow you to go back is 24 months. Think about purchase orders report. You can extract purchase orders going back now to 1st of January, 2024. You lost access to 2023. So Amazon FinOps teams love to play the game of doing EPUB audits that can be on SOAs, can be on price mismatch, whatever they find. But they, this is my theory, Andrew, and they know that the vendor has no access to the data to actually confirm on their side. So that traceability needs to be in place. Part of the work we do with our clients is actually starting to build the main database. All of our clients that we started to work, that's one of the first tasks. We do the training. We all learn why it's so important to have a database. And that database will have all the data from purchase orders, remittances, returns, payments, deductions. Everything will be in that single file. It becomes a huge file depending on the brand and the size of your business. Sometimes you need to find a way to allocate it, different vendors with different capability. You can allocate it directly in your server, in a JSON file, whatever. We can help with all of that. But it's very important. And if in the past months, one of our biggest clients, we actually help with that. And we managed to demonstrate Amazon, actually, we already paid that. And if we didn't have that main database from 2022, there was nothing that we, we will have on our side to demonstrate Amazon that actually it's here, we paid, it got deducted. So communication, visibility, traceability, every vendor focusing on the sell-in part, not in the sell-out, needs to know and, and have these three pillars internally.

Yeah, I want to ask some follow-up questions about so much of what you just said, but before I dive into that, a key thing for folks on this call, and that we're communicating to all of our clients is that Amazon's data retention periods, to Bruno's point, are very variable and they're changing all the time. And what I think a lot of folks don't realize how closely Amazon is starting to manage that for partners. So for example, most of you on this call have probably by now heard about the SP-API fee increases that are coming in 2026. Yeah, those are very significant depending on your data volume. But as part of that same update, Amazon has actually changed their data retention policies to have a lot of nuance around when and how you're allowed to store historical data. It's not like they can ultimately stop you because if the data lives on your computer, what are they going to do about it? But they, they, they're essentially creating reasons for them to have a legal justification to say, we're not going to look at that data or consider it because it's out of scope, quote unquote. So it's it's really critical that you build your own store of this data over time so that no matter what Amazon decides to do, you have your own source of truth. And I love that, Bruno, the way that you call that traceability, because ultimately that's what it is, is it's about how are you actually able to understand what happened and how far back are you able to go?

Well, we have, we have clients at the moment, and it's a monthly update. We have clients now that have access to data from 2021. And they are very happy and they totally understand now the importance. I had a quick call recently with one of our first clients and he mentioned this was one of the points. It was like, Bruno, it was amazing because that file has everything that we need, any question. And it's very useful sometimes even because think about the AVN. You sit with Amazon and they might show you data that goes way back than the one that you you have access. But if you build, if you prepare yourself to go to the negotiation with the history, they will listen to you in a different way because they will see a vendor that actually speaks the same language, that they, they are seated in the same room, in the same table, even if it's online, but they are engaging and checking what happened in the past years, not just last year and 2 years ago. Because a vendor manager can come to you and say, well, you know, I need to increase your damage allowance because your return rate went from this to this. But what if I say, well, okay, but I've been paying 4% or 8% damage allowance in the past 6 years. And only last year you told me that I increased the return rate. But look at the numbers, 2020, 2021, I was paying you 8%. But the actual return rate was 2%. So why don't we call it even? And this is all back and forward conversation, but if you have the data from our experience, it helps a lot with the narrative.

Yep. Yeah, exactly. I think it surprises a lot of brands, particularly if they aren't super experienced with negotiation with Amazon, that Amazon, even though they make a lot of unrealistic requests in their proposals, that they're ultimately rational and they have to be when responding to you and your pushback. Because if the data that you both have access to says that what they're asking for isn't actually possible or would be overly damaging to your business, then they only, they only have two options. They can either say, too bad, we're going to be unreasonable, or they can change. Um, and Amazon more and more cares a lot about being perceived as reasonable when these things get leaked to the press and whatnot, as they inevitably do. So I have a hard question for you, Bruno, and one that I struggle with with my own clients. It's easy if a brand already has that data and they've been doing all the right thing all this time, but building up that historical data and then they can push back with their own data-driven narratives. But if a brand hasn't already been doing that and say, for example, you are, you know, you just joined the brand, you're 6 months into the role, you're entering your first AVN, you don't have the ability to go back in time and change anything. And Amazon is coming to you with a bunch of data-driven requests. What can you do, if anything, to try to push back without your own store of data?

Well, include that ask in your list of asks and tell Amazon, tell the vendor manager, I cannot continue the conversation. I need the data. You are showing me this. I need to have the means and the process to confirm that. Of course, it's not easy. And I always tell this to the teams that we train. Vendor managers, AVS, support teams, it's humans. Let's all stop thinking that it's a machine. Yes, Amazon is a machine, but there's people there. So engage with them, create a relationship, speak the same language, communication. And if you have to put that in an ask, saying, okay, I can agree with this, but I will need you to help me to get full data from 2022. Because they do have it. They do have the access. You just mentioned that the SP API. And I was very surprised a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if you noticed, but there are some reports now that we only have 4 months of data access. I hope that at least they are creating a model of I'll give you 4 months included in your plan. But if you want to move to this plan, I'll give you 24 months because at least that will be an option for vendors. I hope at least they will consider that. So there's not an easy answer to that. And if they didn't start building that main database, I don't think unless Amazon will help them to get, they won't get it. But there are ways at least to build something, think about because Each vendor has two systems, the web interface for vendor and they have their own ERP. And depending on the ERP that you're using, if you did it right, if you know what it is to be a vendor, you need to know that the finance module is one of the most important. What am I saying? I'm saying that it's not just to create the invoices to Amazon, launch the debit notes, launch the agreements. If you build your ERP properly, it will help a lot with that data too, because everything is there. Because if you have an invoice and you have a shortage claim, you'll have a debit note. If you agreed for Black Friday and SOA rebate per unit, you will receive the debit note. You have an agreement copy. If you put all of that in the ERP, at least you will have some basic data that will help you to have visibility. And then you can go and calculate your return rate. All of those KPIs you can monitor, but to have this main database the way that we help our clients to have, unless Amazon helps, you won't get it.

Yep. Okay. I like that. I want to just pull out the two points there because I think they're really good. The first was, um, ask your VM for the data that they're looking at. I feel like so many brands don't ask, um, and I think it's because we've trained ourselves to your point to think of VM and AVS as machines as part of system that isn't going to give you anything. It's just there to extract from you. But you're exactly right. These are people, they're human beings, and they're rational. And they understand that if they're going to make an ask of you that is based on data that you can't see and they don't share it with you, then you're never going to be convinced. And their only avenue is to use their power to force you into a situation. And that may still happen. Amazon is going to do that sometimes, but it is not their default and certainly not their preference because they They understand that long term, if they force you into doing things over and over and over again, that your desire to grow in that channel is going to decrease versus say Walmart or Target or Home Depot or Shopify or what have you. And so yeah, really thinking about asking the VM for their help and getting their input is, is a smart one. And then the second one that you called out here that I want to highlight is using your own ERP data because you might not have your own Amazon historical straight out of Vendor Central or Retail Analytics or their own financial tools, but you should have own historical financials. And by creating a model that shows what is the difference in the current period, uh, between our financials and Amazon's financials, you can then make assumptions about what your historicals were. And that can often be your best bet for getting detailed financial data to drive your negotiation strategy as somebody who is new to the seat or who doesn't have that historical access.

Yeah, it, it, it helps. And we had to work with vendors that we didn't have that many database. They were 10, 12 years vendors and we managed to get something through the ERP. But what we also find through our experience is that even the ERP needs to be different. It can be the same ERP, but you need a new layout for Amazon vendor. It will help a lot.

Awesome. All right. We're running short on time here. And so my last question for you, sir, based on any AVN conversations you've seen so far this year, What is— what does Amazon seem to care about so far this year in Europe?

Well, the same as the past 2, 3 years, Andrew. They, they are still unwinding from, from COVID It, it feels it was so many years ago, but everybody remembers Amazon invested heavily in new fulfillment centers because the growth was exponential from one week to the other. So they are still coming out. Of all of that. From what I've seen, and it's still very recent, the conversations with brands that I had about AVN, but they are still pushing the damage allowance up. Let's be fair, some vendors are still paying less than they should, and then some other vendors are paying more than they should. It's always a game. Once again, get that traceability, that visibility, work the data, prepare yourself for the AVN. I think Amazon this year will probably continue to very strongly push vendors to help them improve their operational and logistic costs. Because think about that, Amazon built the business on making profitable a centimeter square in a shelf. In my opinion, they might try to start reducing the way that they manage, sorry, they will start changing the way that they manage the fulfillment centers. So you know that your sell rate, your product sell rate is very important. You need to have a coverage. So far, 4 weeks from my experience, at least here in Europe, if you're a brand of small items, they will try to reduce that coverage. For maybe 2 weeks. That's my opinion. I haven't seen it happen, but they will probably try to push vendors to reduce. What that will cause is that vendors will probably this year start to receive more returns for overstock. What we suggest to our clients and what we work with them is to once again work the data, get the sell-through rate of each one of the ASINs and Just take it serious. And a funny story just to end, pay attention to the bulk buy orders. If you're a vendor and you're receiving bulk buy orders, do not accept it before checking the stock on hand. And you know why, Andrew? Because from what I've seen, Amazon now is playing this game. If you accept a bulk buy order and you pass a 15% discount because they are taking 1,000 units instead of 100, each time. Amazon, 3 months later, will return the stock they bought more expensive because they can return it for oversock. Okay. There are ways to find this. We've been working with our clients. We found a way we can, and the process that we implement is very quick. We build a dashboard and if stock on hand for this product, the sell-through rate is 20. They are asking 1,000 in a bulk buy order, but they still have 100 units. Reject the bulk buy order, do not accept it.

Got it. That's a super interesting callout. Oh, Amazon.

Yeah.

Using bulk buys in order to then later return higher cost overstocks. That's, that's pretty tricky.

It is. It's a funny game.

Yeah.

Yeah.

As I often say to my clients and my prospects as a former vendor manager, sorry about that. But it is what it is. All right. We are at time. So as we wrap up here, thank you very much, Bruno. I appreciate your super operationally focused take. Thank you. For anybody here who is interested in following up with Bruno and has more questions, please reach out to him on LinkedIn. Bruno is very prominent there. You can also find him on his website at bluedotecommerce.com, and he is ready to help with his three pillars, help you either address AVN or just get your Amazon operation in better shape in general. We'll be back next week with more questions and answers. Please feel free to submit new questions online through our anonymous form. Otherwise, have a great rest of your week, everyone.

Thank you, guys.

Take care.