Amazon Vendor Negotiation Q&A - Week 4 with Asha Bhalsod

Let's hit start. All right, I'm seeing people start to stream in. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to another edition of our weekly AVN Office Hours. See a lot of folks joining. This week we have Asha from Utopia Consultancy joining us. I'm very excited to have her. We haven't worked deeply together before, but I've been following her very avidly on LinkedIn for a long time, and this series has given me a great opportunity to work with a lot of folks that I haven't before. So Asha, really good to be doing this with you today. Do you mind giving the audience a quick introduction?

Yeah, absolutely. So thank you, Andrew, for having me. I am Asha. I am the founder of Utopia Consultancy. We're a specialist Amazon agency. We We have been established for over 6 years and we dominate quite a lot in the toys category. My background is I'm ex-Amazon, which I feel like lots of us are in this day and age, but I have had, you know, been in the Amazon ecosystem for over 16 years. I'm actually also the co-founder of Women in Amazon Business. So it's a huge networking group that we've created over the last 2 years and there's lots of more stuff that we'll be doing in that space over the course of the next 12 to 18 months.

That's amazing. Tell us more about your time at Amazon. What were your roles there?

Okay, so I was part of launching FBA into the UK market. So really early on offset and then went to work for some specialist projects that retail. So got a flavor of some of the challenges vendors had. That was a long time ago. Post that, I then went to work on the branded side, so firsthand experience those challenges and what the impact was at retail for us.

Got it. Awesome. Well, I'm really glad to have you here. I'm very familiar with eTopia and your work, particularly in the toy space. So excited to have folks get a chance to talk through your expertise. For anybody who isn't already familiar with Asha, in addition to general vendor full service and all of the things, she's particularly focused on AVS and ROI from those investments and how to get do trade between terms in your negotiation. So we have a lot of questions that you've all pre-submitted for that. But if at any time you have additional questions that you'd like answered, you can submit them here live. You can either drop them into chat or you can submit them anonymously through the Q&A tool in Zoom. So if you don't see it, it's in the menu bar. Just look for it. It should say Q&A, and then you should be able to ask questions anonymously there. But without further ado, just so we get as much input from Asha as possible, I'd really love to start with talking about how— sorry, one second. I had a list of questions up here and then it went away. So let me go grab that and stop embarrassing myself. But we do have a very long list of questions that I think is going to be a good place for us to start while folks think about what they want to ask Asha. So first and foremost, a big question that we have that a lot of brands have is about balancing strong sales with profitability. And I think every business owner knows that those things often exist at opposite ends of a, of a scale and that prioritizing one often means deprioritizing the other. But specific for AVN, is there a point when poor profitability overrides strong sales velocity for Amazon, and especially in their retail formula?

Yeah, this is a really loaded question, and it never has the quick or easy answer. So I'll try my best to address this. I always see Amazon as a channel that you have to measure across a length of time, and I always want to kind of dissect and say, where are you on that journey? For example, if you are a vendor that is at the launch phase out of your brands and products, i.e., year 1, year 2, year 3, you've got to expect that profitability is going to be challenged at this point because there's always going to be a level of overinvestment that you need to make, make sure that Amazon's net PPM is always highly attractive, which drives the Amazon algorithm. At this point, there is a bit of a turning point, I think, where your products and brands are in demand. Amazon now doesn't want to live without your products and brands. Let's remember, selection is key for Amazon, so we don't want to starve them of that selection. So you have a bit of weight, and this is where cost price increases that you can put through in making sure that your retail selling prices are the correct selling price that you need to maybe not give Amazon so much net PPM, This is where we start trying to find that balance in there. At this point, it's really important, I'd also say, to identify what are those key ASINs that are contributing to like the negative margin and making sure that while selection is key for Amazon, don't give all of your selection to Amazon that is eroding margin. So we talk about this whole profitability and sales velocity thing. Remember, you don't have to give Amazon everything all the time, and it's very much at where you're at in the stage of your Amazon relationship maturity. To understand where you can regain control as well.

I love the nuance in that answer. It's about where you are at in your own relationship with Amazon, but also about where in the product lifecycle your selection is, so that if you're in that year 1, year 2 launch phase, profit is challenged as you try to prioritize Amazon's PPM to make the algorithm do its thing, but that later on you have a lot more flexibility. Exactly. I want to dive into something you mentioned there about don't give all of your selection to Amazon. As a former vendor manager and as somebody who's been working on the other side of the table for a while, I absolutely agree with this. But I found that for a lot of brand leaders and sales leaders, this is a very difficult concept to accept or understand. And so before we move on, can you tell me a little bit more about what you mean by don't give all your selection to Amazon? How can somebody who is a hesitant sales leader trying to maximize sales dollars and purchase marketers think about that advice?

I want to take it right back to retail strategies, which actually Amazon exposes the weaknesses in businesses' retail strategies from the offset. You should never— well, as a sales leader, what I would expect is that you have very clear channel management going on. So you, you know, we always have an architecture of a catalog which has tier 1, which are our bestsellers, and that is absolutely what you should give Amazon. I would then carry on in tiering the catalog where you will have a point of difference versus your different channels and your different retailers and distributors that you're working with at this time. So when I talk about not giving Amazon all your selection, This is because you need to price protect and brand protect your products as well. And the only way to do that is to have that cohesive retail channel management strategy. Now, Amazon Vendor Managers don't need to know that. They can— you can always turn a blind eye and say, well, this is actually, you know, specific to those channels. You can make You can explain that. And if you do then have products that are not selling through well enough, you know, of course you've got the opportunity to upload and react very quickly to start getting them through the sales velocity quicker on the Amazon ecosystem. But I would always hold back. And as you know, somebody that has been a senior in this space, I would always be very keen to demonstrate that you have to have a coherent channel management strategy in place before you even approach any of your AVN negotiations with I love it.

So the starting with the main point you made there, which was really well expressed, that a big part of Amazon's value is exposing weaknesses and issues in your channel strategy. I've heard that from Flying Tiger as well, Nick and Kara, and it resonates really strongly because ultimately at the end of the day, Amazon expects you to have perfect channel management to your point. And anytime that you don't, they are going to take advantage of it to their, to their benefit, of course. And your last point about Amazon not needing to know that you're holding back selection is also critical. Amazon thrives on information asymmetry. And I think a lot of us assume that the right thing to do is to share and be a good partner, quote unquote. But at the end of the day, that's not a mutual point of view from Amazon at all. So be strategic about it.

Absolutely.

We got a follow-up question in Q&A here. Many other online channels tend to not take your product until they see great listings with many reviews on Amazon. In that case, do we— what do we do? Do we offer different variations of the same product or something else?

Oh, that's a tough question. I can talk about this in toys. In toys quite specifically, there are some retailers that are looking at Amazon to begin with, to see the ratings and reviews. But if you're already established in that category, you should already have exposure and experience to say that this is what it will do and demonstrate in that category. So data is king at this moment. I would take data about other products, other experiences in different categories that your brands and products will have, and refer back to that. Before you refer back through Amazon. The other alternative is give it to 3P, get them to list it on Amazon, don't manage it yourself.

Love it. That last point about getting it listed via 3P is an interesting one, and I want us to talk a little bit more about that before we move on. Are there any other thoughts you have specifically about how a brand can think about using 3P and listing a product via 3P as a 1P brand in order to deal with this?

Yeah, this is again another really— we could probably spend like hours talking about this and the pros and the cons. And, you know, everyone that comes to the table and says, you know, what is the right hybrid approach? Should we do it? Should we not? How are the vendor managers going to feel about this? We're in early 2026 phase of the Amazon ecosystem. We're in a position right now where Amazon is squeezing every brand for their profitability. It is getting more and more expensive to trade with Amazon. At the same time, just news yesterday about the seller fulfillment fees in Europe has increased. So 3P isn't as a quick win, a quick easy way of driving growth. Having said that, needs to be thought out and strategic. For example, if you want to create more control in your channels, maybe you would have a range of products that are sold only through 3P and not at vendor because there is risk of the brand eroding for many reasons it could be. So there's one example of a strategy that you can adopt. I also believe that you should have key 3P partners that you're working with that does list on Amazon. It's healthy for Amazon to have that because you don't also want to put all your eggs in just the Amazon vendor basket. So there is another strategy you can adopt, which is working with the partners that you trust that can sell on 3P, that are going to manage it correctly as well for you.

Got it. That makes a lot of sense. So, you know, you're exactly right that Amazon, as always, is squeezing every penny out of every brand for their own profit. And yet at the same time, to your point, we just saw that earth-shattering, shocking announcement, in my view, that Amazon is lowering seller fees for the first time, maybe ever, in Europe. And that therefore you can think about those things in conjunction that, you know, there's different strategies going on the 1P3P side and that maybe you you should consider having trusted 3P partners to deploy that selection. That makes so much sense to me. Before we move on, I want to check with Nick and Scott. Do you have any, anything to contribute on that topic, and particularly from a U.S. perspective? You're on mute, Nick. Yes, I should unmute myself first. Just piggybacking what Asha said, you're absolutely right that you should have trusted 3P partners. Don't try and run your own 3P store in parallel with a 1P relationship. Amazon will take that very personally, especially if you are messing with the pricing for 1P through your 3P.

And then Nick, I think different markets have different nuances, right? In UK and Europe, you know, we can't control our RFPs. And so, you know, pricing is the retail selling price at the discretion. So therefore, I'd say it's very different in the UK and Europe. I'd actually say that the hybrid approach is a much more strategic approach. And actually, I don't think vendor managers in UK and Europe are that bothered by it anymore because they know it exists. They know it's a strategic thing. For them, it's about making sure that the bestsellers that are driving profit in the category and, you know, the sales velocity is increasing in the category because of these products. Aren't being moved to 3P. Now that to me would be commercial suicide if you do that, right? But there is a whole range of products that erode net PPM that you can move to 3P, for an example. And I think a vendor manager would smartly agree that that is the right strategy to do. They don't lose selection ultimately across the platform, but they lose the thing that's driving the net PPM lower.

Yeah, I super agree with the strategic value there. I mean, and certainly from a As a former vendor manager who was very motivated by optimizing his own numbers using whatever tricks I could, that certainly makes a lot of sense to me. Move selection out of my category or out of my brands and suddenly my average goes up. And yet at the same time, the reason I asked is because I asked for Nick and Scott is because I had a feeling that that difference still existed where in the UK and in Europe, vendor management in general at Amazon seems much more open to hybrid strategies being deployed both for their favor in my favor and your favor. And that makes it to Asha's point, a much more strategic lever for you to consider in your mix and that you have a lot more options and more flexibility to think about that in the EU versus in the US. The, I think it's called Amazon Standard for Brands, their policy. They are extremely strict about letting any 1P brand list 3P at the same time. And it can lead to things like POs getting shut down and whatnot. But with all that said, really that the point that both of you made about creating and finding a trusted approved 3P partner to help you is really the ultimate solution, I think, for the US and still potentially a good solution in the UK as well. I want to ask another question about the seller fee reduction in Europe, and I want to ask this for you specifically, Asha. A lot of folks immediately saw that on the 1P side and asked themselves, how can I leverage this? For my own negotiation. I'm sure you've thought about it. I'm sure your clients have thought about it. Any early thoughts from you about that?

So I haven't done any detailed analysis, right? But where we're sat right now, 3P without the decrease in Europe, 3P is actually significantly more dearer to trade than a vendor P&L. And we do this as a consultancy firm. We do this often. We don't— if we have a vendor, a vendor, we will always build a 3P P&L to make sure we know what we have in our back pocket and vice versa. And also to say to a 3P, you know, if you were a vendor, not that it's easy to get vendor accounts anymore, let me just make that clear. That's almost virtually impossible. But hypothetically, what would it look like? So having done a lot of work on identifying P&Ls in these two areas, 3P was already significantly higher. I, and without having done the analysis, I think the reduction in rates, I think we might bring it down by a percentage point or two. I don't think it brings it down significantly enough to tilt in its favor. Having said that, let's try to understand and dissect why has Amazon done this. We know why Amazon's done this. They're very much moving to reducing workforce, reducing retail workforce quite specifically. And knowing that 3P can be much more profitable for them. So by reducing their fees, it increases people and makes it more attractive again for businesses to trade by 3P.

Got it. That makes a lot of sense. If I'm a 1P vendor brand in Europe, then is there a way that I can leverage that in my conversations with Amazon this year? To your point about selection and 1P versus 3P being more flexible in Europe, I'm really interested in the answer because in the US that wouldn't be a conversation we could have at all. That's not a threat or a lever you can pull because your vendor manager can just say, no, we're just not going to order from you if you start listing. But on your side, it's different.

I would never recommend anybody to start your negotiations like that. It really depends on where you're at with those negotiations. What is the tone? How far you've gone? What is the win-win? And I always encourage anybody that's listening and anywhere that I have spoken over the last, you know, 16 years of my Amazon space journey, you always have got to find the win-win in the Amazon partnership. This is not about just you winning. This is about how Amazon also wins. So you can't enter negotiations not having that in the forefront of your mind. Now, they also want to win, and they don't want to lose your brand or your products. That's— let's make that clear. I don't think people quite clearly understand that. They don't— and you as a vendor manager yourself, Andrew, you know, how comfortable would you be to go to your cat lead and say, yeah, I've just lost that entire P&L? You just wouldn't do it. So we've got to find the win-win. So going back to, would you use that as a lever? I'd keep it in my back pocket depending on how ugly the negotiations 10, but going back to that channel management strategy, and maybe it's a lever that you pull to say, okay, I understand that these products are driving the net PPM lower because that's the base of any AVN discussions anyway. And what we'll do is we'll move that to 3P. That's where you see the reaction and what happens on the back of it. I would never use that from the first starting point. It would probably be kept as close to the end as possible.

Thank you. I really appreciate the nuance and the prioritization of the tone in these conversations. I think a very common refrain that I am just as responsible for advancing is that Amazon negotiations are very data-driven and very quantitative and rational. And for the most part, they absolutely are, much more so than almost any other company's negotiations. There's still a human being involved. And especially on the Amazon side, that human being is a W-2 employee who is in a job, or I guess not a W-2 employee, a salaried employee who is thinking of this as a job and as a step in their career. It is not their business. It is not their selection or their products. And even unless, even if they are completely aligned with Amazon, Amazon's success is not 100% their success. And so you always have to consider that the tone of the negotiation, the relationship that you have with these people, even if it's temporary, does in fact matter.

Yes. Yeah.

You mentioned something really interesting about comparing 1P and 3P P&Ls in the background and showing that 3P is generally significantly higher in terms of fees for Amazon and less profitable for your brands in Europe. We had a question that I've been looking for someone to talk to give an answer to. What tools are you using or what techniques are you using to get to ASIN-level profitability for 1P or 3P?

Excel, believe it or not. Why overcomplicate everything? Excel and having really good analytics brains in your business. That's all I'm gonna say to that because I don't think it needs any further clarification. Know your numbers, right? You should know how many units you're selling. You know what your COGS are, you know what your terms are. You should know what your seller fulfillment fees would be or based on weights and dimensions. You know what the referral program is. It's actually quite easy to see. You don't need anything further than Excel.

Yeah, keep it simple. You know, you're not going and signing up for, you know, crazy tools or huge expenses that at the end of the day, you're getting a start with the basics of units sold, cost to price, terms, etc. for the 1P side. And on the 3P side, there's plenty of fee calculators.

So why, why overcomplicate it? This is literally what I say. And all respect to anybody that is selling a tool that does it, just need an Excel spreadsheet.

Yeah, absolutely. And I don't take it personally. We do make a tool that does it, but I am actually, actually super aligned that in general, all analysis should be done in the fastest, most comfortable place first and foremost. And it's not until you find that those tools and environments aren't getting you to what you need, that you need to look elsewhere. All right, let's keep going. We've got quite a bit more time left, which is awesome. You mentioned that one thing you're good at is, is helping brands understand where and how to move money. From their investments with Amazon on the One Piece side between buckets and maybe to places that are more advantageous for them or for Amazon. This year, going into 2026, are there any types of investments that in your experience you've seen Amazon valuing more than others?

Yeah. So I would also say depending on, you know, we're a global agency, but we focus heavily in UK and Europe. So we know that the term sports are very different in different places. Let's start by addressing head-on the importance of pan-EU management. Businesses are still not astute to the fact that Amazon want pan-European relationships. They don't want fragmented relationships in different markets. And very quickly, just by opening up markets like Ireland, Sweden, Poland, which is easy to do, small investment for a brand, that could make the ABN negotiations super seamless and super easy actually to manage just by offering that to Amazon. On the back of the question that you're asking, there are lots of investment pots that they'll ask for. What I actually find frustrating is I feel like ABN negotiations have become lazy. Lazy from Amazon's side. Lazy in the fact that they don't come to the table and say, here's all the programs that you should be part of, or here are all the programs that your competitors are part of, or here are all the programs that you would benefit from being part of. What they just say is, we want more money, cost price discounts, and that's it. So quite often, having come from the Amazon ecosystem and having negotiated terms for a number of years, I always find myself saying, so what programs can I be part of? What's new? What's not new? And they always go back to the same things. AVS. And I know that that is another whole loaded webinar that we could do just on AVS. PIP. PIX. In Europe, we have SuperPIX. These are basic term pots. Now, I always look at my total investment in Amazon in what's going to drive incremental growth. Why are we, you know, VIRs used to be a big thing. Volume incentive rebates used to be a big thing. And I always thought, why would we give cash to Amazon for just placing orders that they were going to place anyway? What we should be doing is using that money to drive sellout, which will ultimately, ultimately lead to driving more net receipts, which means I hit my goals. So when I look at my total, total terms package with Amazon, I always ask the question, are these investments going to help me drive sellout? Yes, Pix is going to help me drive sellout. Yes, SuperPix is potentially going to help me drive sellout. AVS, a big question mark on if it's going to help me drive sellout, but we also know that it's more and more difficult to get things accomplished without an AVS these days. So I'm not answering your question, but I am answering your question, Andrew Hamada, here, which is Look at your investment part and what is it going— what are you going to be able to use to drive sellout?

I think you answered it perfectly, actually. I mean, I think otherwise we're just going to end up with a bunch of "it depends" answers all day because it always does depend, of course, right? And finding anything more substantial than that means making some assumptions and some— but I appreciate particularly the pan-EU point. And how valuable to Amazon expanding into the missing EU countries could be if you are not there yet. I know that we have a lot of clients who are, you know, mainly in EU5 or they're mainly North America focused and are considering slow expansions into Europe. And that kind of guidance could make a meaningful difference to their strategy, particularly if, to your point, places like Ireland, Poland, and Sweden are relatively inexpensive to add to the list. I love your point about programs as well and thinking about how to evaluate those things. Like focusing on sellout is such a good, simple tenet to keep in mind because there are so many different things that Amazon is going to ask for. They're going to tell you that they all have a benefit and high ROI. And the— at the end of the day, if it's not driving sales to customers, sellout drives sell-in for Amazon. So that's how you need to think about it.

And I've always adopted that mindset. The brands that understand that you need to be a sell-out business on Amazon rather than a sell-in business are the ones that succeed quicker because driving sell-out is always going to lead to an increase in net receipts. There's no way, you know, Amazon want that product. Simple as that. Sell-out is there.

Exactly. Unfulfilled demand is like Amazon's worst nightmare or one of their worst nightmares. And so you show them that there's a lot of demand for your product and they will come to the table asking you for it.

Yeah.

All right. A tactical question here from the audience. What is the difference between a CSA and an MCP? In 2025, we used MCP in what seems to be the same bucket or pot of funds, but they changed the term to be CSA this year.

CSA, to be really honest, Andrew, I'm not sure I know the complete differences, and I'm not sure I'm sure even Amazon would probably be able to tell you the difference. Do you know this, or does Nick or Scott, do you know the differences between this? No.

I love it. One word. I also don't know. I found that in general Amazon seems to use a bunch of different terms to describe the same thing, particularly when it comes to VM agreements, because there's no standardization. I had never heard the term CSA until 3 or 4 years ago. And before that, it was always net PPM guarantee, margin true-up agreement, and various other terms that no longer seem to be used, but they all meant the same thing. It always comes down to the specific details of how those agreements are constructed regardless of what they're called. And so the, the ultimately the, the focal areas are probably the same, like what selection is included, how long is this agreement for, what is the true-up period, and what is the actual PPM or margin target. Market.

Yeah, and look, I think I have come across CSA before where it's— what it's doing is asking to protect that margin. So it could be— and you're right, the term is margin protection as well. But also, I've yet to come across any brand that would want to tell Amazon that they will guarantee their margin at 35 points or 40 points or whatever that is. Who would do that?

Why? Yeah, it's terrifying.

Why would you do that?

Yeah, the, I only heard this was a thing recently. But yeah, Nick, if you want to chime in. If you're a vendor manager and you can get one of those agreements brought home to your category leader, you're preparing your promo doc. GMM, you have slain the mammoth and you're dragging it home.

Yeah, I agree.

Exactly. And this is what was shocking to me about hearing how many people were getting asked for CSAs or margin protection, especially last year. And so not to sound like a broken record and just continuously hammer this point home, but, um, if at all possible, do not sign a CSA or a margin support agreement. To Nick and Asha's point, there is very little benefit to you. There might not be any benefit to you. It's literally 100% beneficial to Amazon and it opens up a lot of potentially abusive behaviors. Uh, and, uh, margin and profit leakages that, um, you will now have way fewer levers to actually deal with because Amazon will have a legal document saying that they are entitled to a check from you for a certain amount of money to make themselves whole. Um, we, the only reason I've heard that a lot of people, um, ended up signing these, um, this past year is specifically in order to get cost price increases through related to tariffs. Um, Apparently, especially stateside, Amazon was completely unwilling to sign or even evaluate a cost increase related to tariffs unless you were willing to sign some kind of CSA or margin support agreement. And while I have heard of brands successfully escaping that, it was not an equal experience, and it seems to depend a lot on your individual brand's relevance and strategic importance to the category, as well as the relative profitability of your selection and the tariff impact.

I also think it's very category dependent, right? We know that the consumer electronics category in the Amazon space is so highly sensitive on margin, whereas, you know, something like in apparel where margins are relatively high, you might not get bullied into signing these agreements.

Yes, absolutely. Oh, and then Bernard joined us from the chat pointing out that it is just a different structure about how those are structured at the ASIN level versus the vendor code level, but otherwise they seem to be the same. Love it. All right. Amazon is pushing a brand for lower VLT. What, if anything, is the relationship between VLT and PPM?

If you can't meet your VLT targets profitably, your PPM is going to tank. So it's volume profit trade-off in my opinion. I would probably lean towards a hybrid fulfillment model at this time to balance both. That's probably what I would do.

Love it. Nick, Scott, anything to add there on your thoughts on the relationship between those metrics and anything brands can do to think about that? No, frankly, Asha nailed it. Yep. Cool. Sometimes the answer is simple.

Yep.

All right.

If we want to elaborate a little bit further on this, we've got to remember what Amazon's operations model is. It's just-in-time. So if it's just-in-time, it means that there's tighter inventory cycles completely, and Amazon wants to reduce their holding costs. So that's where the strategies of hybrid models are so, so important at this point.

Yep, exactly. Just-in-time, they don't want to hold a lot of inventory, and the second that they are holding more inventory, the more expensive it is for you, the more expensive it is for them, the lower your PPM gets, and therefore That I think is the main relationship. Ultimately, if you have a low VLT, Amazon has to hold less inventory and they can, they like it better because it aligns with that JIT model.

So I have heard through the grapevine on something, which is I think one of the terms that certain categories will be pushed on is to, there'll be a term potentially added on next year which will be to vendors that are consistently in overstocked positions and do nothing about it.

Hmm.

Those— so if, like, if we take a step back again and try to understand why would they do it, it's like a working capital type of term where what will happen is any brands that consistently overstock and don't do anything with that, i.e., discount, take it back, burn it, whatever that may look like. I think terms negotiations with those vendors, there'll be difficult conversations about adopting a new term and a new policy about working capital in there.

Yep, makes sense. Free cash flow priority, and therefore they're going to want return rights or destruction rights or anything else that allows them to free up cash flow. Really quickly, I apologize for not explaining this in the first place, but VLT stands for Vendor Lead Time, and it is Amazon's measure of how many days it takes from the time that you confirm the PO to the time that it is fully received in Amazon systems. Actually, I'm not sure about that first part. Can someone keep me honest? Is it starting when they confirm the PO, or is it starting from when the ASN gets transmitted?

ASN transmitted.

Perfect. Thank you. Okay. I knew it was, I knew it was something in there, but I haven't been in operations for so long that I wasn't confident. And so reading between the lines, it is about both your operations and Amazon's operations, because you can influence vendor lead time through having distribution close to Amazon fulfillment centers by having really efficient operations by, you know, being really on top of scheduling and all that other kind of stuff. We could talk about that forever. But A big chunk of it is dependent on Amazon. Once the product gets to their fulfillment center, they have to do the receiving, and that can go fast or slow depending on a number of factors, some of which you can control and can't. Nick, I saw you go off mute. Did you have something to add there? Yeah, I was going to add to just looking at your VLT stats, you know, if it's causing Amazon any kind of heartache, you know, being too long of a time, it's probably going to come up in your ABN. Whether it's the new terms that Ashok was discussing, or them just trying to increase freight or just make it less favorable to you. Any kind of deficiency in your stats like that, especially on a key stat like VLT, you can expect them to use that against you. Yeah, it's good to have that kind of operational discipline just to be in a good position as you get to AVN. A lot of money on the line there. Yes. All right. We've already started answering this question, but I want to ask it explicitly and get everybody's take. What other tactics is Amazon commonly using these days to pressure vendors?

I want to use the word bullying, but I don't know if it'll go down well. Crap. Look, okay, I take it back to a point in my career where we couldn't agree on terms, so they just stopped placing orders, and it was about who needed it the most. Did Amazon need the stock or did the brand need Amazon's POs? And this, you know, if we're— if you're going to go down that road, you need to know that the seniors in the business are on board with that strategy, which means there may be 2, 3, 4 months of no purchase orders being raised because because you can't agree to this. This is again where you have to have hybrid 3P potentially adopted before you go down this road. But the worst-case scenario, yeah, Amazon will stop buying, or Amazon will scrap out the ASINs that are delivering the negative net PPM, or where you're not offering the cost price discounts that they want, and they'll stop purchasing those as well. That's the worst case scenario in my opinion, Andrew.

Yep, where Amazon is not ordering. I do love that you are articulating that that's also a lever that brands have to pull as well. And that I think I struggle with this because as a vendor manager, I am looking at a portfolio of 500+ brands. There was always somebody who was going to not confirm POs as a negotiation tactic, probably does And so from my perspective, it was a very common thing and an expected mechanism. And yet when I talk to a lot of brands, to your exact point, that idea is shockingly unpopular with or not even willing to be considered by many brand leaders. And I think that that's a potential mistake. It can be—

I totally agree with you on that because— sorry to interject here, but You've got to regain control of your negotiations. And if the ask is ludicrous, are you going to keep jumping in bed with the ludicrous, or are you going to try and regain control?

Yeah, absolutely. What a great way to put it. It's about reframing the control of that conversation and the negotiation. And so many brands, I think, are used to playing defense when it comes to AVN, where they haven't started thinking about it until Amazon sends that first proposal. And then they're suddenly responding to the things Amazon has asked for instead of advocating for their own needs and strategic value.

Yeah. And isn't it fascinating also, you know, how businesses don't adopt that mindset that you've got to find a win-win. And what I find ludicrous is businesses that are mature in the Amazon ecosystem have got, I don't know, 10% growth, 20% growth, 30% growth year over year. But they want to keep their terms flat. And that comes from leaders at the top because they want to increase their profitability. To me, how is that win-win? Yes, the cost to serve Amazon naturally is going to increase, which is going to deplete profitability. But if you want to continue growing your Amazon business, there's got to be a half a percentage point, a cost price decrease on a certain range of products, investment in programs that the vendor manager genuinely sees the benefit in you adopting. It's got to— you've got to find a win-win. But I find it insane about the amount of terms negotiations that happen where the account manager is just stale because they've been told from the top, you can't increase your profits, you can't increase your total terms. And then they go away and give something like, I'll tell you what, we'll give 60-day payment terms or 90-day payment terms as your tiny little win. But that, it doesn't really do much for the vendor manager as well.

Yep. I think that's a great place for us to end, you know, reminding everybody that it is a win-win situation. And that, like we've hammered, I think in every one of these sessions so far, it is really about bringing your own needs and your own priorities to the table and aligning to Asha's point, your leadership and all of your other stakeholders so that you actually have levers to pull and that they understand how and why those levers might need to be used. Because otherwise you're, you're stuck. If you don't have the ability to do things like confirm fewer purchase orders on select selection or otherwise, you know, have some ability to influence a negotiation, then you're stuck responding to Amazon forever. All right, we are at time. Any last thoughts for our audience, Asha, Nick?

I will say good luck with terms negotiations for 2026 and know your numbers. Do not enter negotiations being reactive. Know your numbers, know what you want to achieve, know what you want to grow to next year, and make sure that that is correctly balanced with the investments that you're going to make with Amazon.

Yes. Thank you so much for joining us today, Asya. I really appreciated your insights and the pan-EU perspective in particular. If you have more questions for Asya or would like to engage her or eTopia for their expertise on AVN or anything else that you you need. Their website is utopiaconsultancy.com. Their contact information is right here with their phone number as well as email, etc. And Asha is very active on LinkedIn, just like me, so please check her out there. Thanks very much, everybody. Uh, look for a follow-up email from me with the questions and answers from today, and otherwise, I would look forward to seeing you next week. Thank you again to all of our speakers.

Thank you.

Take care,