How did you get the GonxKillu dolls made?

I’m assuming you’re talking about these Nendo’s?

Sorry for bad lighting I was too lazy to turn on my light

They aren’t something that’s made!

My real dream is to get a handmaid dolls at least for Ki 🥺 like a dollfie bjd custom made, but I am not really in a finial situation to ever really consider it anymore! But you never knowww!

First you need the Nendo’s!

At least from what I checked from it seems the Nendo’s for Gonki are being re released, so you don’t have to pay a 80+ dollar fee for them!

The bodies are the main component, you can buy the base Nendo’s if you want or go searching for just the heads, but in order to make them! All’s you need is one of these!

These sellers usually also sell clothes for them! As well and you can usually get free shipping pre fast if you get a lot!

But if you’re in a tight budget spot I would just peruse Mecari, like I got my third Ki and first Gon with the bodies and some clothes for only 80!

I don’t think I’ve seen any Gonki’s since, but it might sometimes be cheaper even to just! Look for other chars or just the body sep! Dep on your budget!

If you are an artist you can custom draw your own faces if you want extra expressions! I wanted more face plates for Ki, and cannot draw so I just bought parts from other chars, or in some cases these Etsy sellers also sell faces! The blank ones to draw on! And the ones that have faces!

THE HARDEST PART IS PUTTING ON THE CLOTHES AGHHHHH

but other than that it’s a fun process and I love them so much 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭🤲🤲🤲🤲

What’s Up, Buttercup?

Everyone still recovering from the holidays or is that just me?  I’m really enjoying these quiet days of January.  My goal for this month is to organize.  I mean really organize.  I want my pantry to be HGTV worthy (we all know that won’t happen) with perfectly aligned and labeled containers.  Honestly I’ll be happy if each shelf just has a purpose.  We’ve been shoving stuff in there so haphazardly that you might grab confectioner’s sugar or Play-Doh.  I’ve got a bunch of the grandgirl’s art supplies and games on a bottom shelf, but they wander. I need to tackle the master closet as well.  It got a little out of hand over the holidays, and by holidays I mean Halloween through Christmas.  It needs some straightening.  It’s such a great space - there’s no excuse for letting it get messy.  I’m also organizing the card catalog storage in my craft room. That’s just fun.  It didn’t take long to fill the top two drawers with blocks of clay. It’s like spotting a rainbow every time I open them.  I’m filling the rest with ribbons and washi tape that I use for making cards. Polka dots and gingham in every color!

I’m loading more ribbon and some washi tape in the bottom two drawers.

Is that a cabinet full of fun or what?  It’s calling to me every day, asking me to come play.  I mean, this needs to be an Easter card, right?

I like this gal too.  I think she’s saying something like, “I haven’t lost all my marbles, but there’s definitely a hole in the bag.”

The sooner I get everything organized and ship shape, the sooner I can play.  I’ve got so many ideas for clay and for cards banging around in my head, I need to get them out! I have another problem though. My kids are so generous, and treated me like a queen on Christmas. I received everything from fresh canvases to paint on to a cordless glue gun (!!!).  Isn’t the cord always too short?  Anyway, I was thrilled with everything, but they also gifted me with Etsy, Sephora, and Amazon gift cards.  The Sephora card was spent Christmas night, I’ve always got a basket ready to go.  I usually have a shopping list on Amazon as well. No problem.  BUT, I love so many things on Etsy and I have so much to spend that I can’t decide on anything!  The pressure is too much!  It’s killing me.  I feel like I have to be really responsible with their hard-earned money, not a penny should be wasted.  I study things and decide if I can make it myself for less, or if I really even need it.  I can almost always talk myself out of it.  So far I have purchased some new clay cutters, a batch of jewelry findings - earrings posts, jump rings, that sort of thing.  Those are all things I needed.  Then I bought a cute bird house. I’m thinking ahead to spring and it’s going to find a home in the Crape Myrtle tree beside the porch.  Yes, I’m still working hard at luring all manner of furred and feathered friends to our yard.  It’s working too.  I’m hearing more and more bird song.  That’s good for my soul, so that was a mental health purchase.  But  I’m still swimming in Etsy money and I can’t decide if I should opt for home decor, jewelry. art, garden stuff, or what.   I’m stressing out!  I don’t deserve more than a $25 gift card because I’ll give myself an ulcer trying to make the right choice.  I will not waste one cent of my boys’ money and the burden is too much!  Next year I’m asking for socks.  I know, it’s a great problem to have.  I also know that I’m the only one worried about it.  My kids would scoff and say, “Enjoy! Spend it!”  I don’t know if it’s the Scots or the German in me that balks.  That brings me to another I-don’t-want-to-spend-it quandry.  When we moved here we knew we’d purchase new living and dining room furniture.   We found sofas right away, but I didn’t see a dining set that I liked (translation: a price I liked).  The whole fam damily was coming to visit shortly after we arrived and I needed a place for us to eat.  I poked around on Facebook Marketplace and found a cheap table with six chairs that the sellers were willing to deliver. Score!  It would serve as a placeholder, we’d all fit, and I figured when we found our new set we could pass it on.  Eight months later we’re still using that ugly table.  Mickey loves the chairs, I don’t. Here’s a snap from the day after Christmas. I was setting the table (not finished) for a brunch. I can’t remember why I took this pic, but having it on my phone saved me from walking in now to take a photo.  I’m lazy.

See what I mean?  The table is really ugly - very shiny fake finish on top, but there’s room for all of us.  The menfolk all say they love the chairs.  I’m not a fan.  The color looks awful with our floors, but a rug underneath might help.  Probably not. It’s also kind of squatty in the space.  On the other hand - it’s solid, has apparently lasted decades, it’s in excellent shape, and I feel like I ought to find a way to like it. Can I chalk paint the top and then sand and stain those chairs?  What could I do to Nancify it? This is what I’ve been looking at.

I just can’t bring myself to spend on it.  Also, as much as I love those sets, I’m not 100% sure they’d look right in our space.  I’d be more sure if they were cheaper. 

If I said that we needed a new set Mickey would be in the car and ready to go test chairs.  I’m the one dragging my feet. It just feels wasteful.  There’s a big gap between wants and needs.  I want a pretty set, but I don’t need one.   The only thing I need is peace and bird song, and I’m working on that.   I think I’d rather have a fence in front of the tree line and a porch swing.  Oh geez, it’s my Etsy gift card all over again. I’m going to go take a bubble bath and read a book. I don’t want to think about money or stuff.  Why can’t everything just be five dollars?  This gives me heartburn. Sending out lots of love (it’s FREE!) tonight.  I hope that your year is off to a fine start and that your heart is full of hope for 2023.  I’m daring to think that it will be good to us.  I tend to start every year sure that it will be the best year ever, but the last couple have been determined to prove me wrong.  That’s why I’m setting my sights a bit lower, hoping that if we’re good to each other and focus on what matters - kindness, growth, love, peace - things just might turn out okay.  Don’t forget to be kind to yourself.  Make sure that voice in your head is a friend. And that’s a wrap. The bath is calling and I must go.  Stay safe, stay well.

Nancy

Going to answer a bunch of questions under the read more, since I took like 2 days off a LOT built up and I don’t want to flood anyones dashboards. If you sent a question in and have been waiting have a quick scroll and check! I will have to do two part I think ♡

Thank you and I apologise for the wait. I am just going to preface this for the future and say, I am not always going to be rapid at answering DM’s or Inbox, I do what I can, but I am not going to be on tumblr 24/7 and a lot of the times I am not on my laptop, I hope you can kind of understand and give me a little leeway! ♡ 

(That being said no one has been mean or impatient I am just super conscious of how long it takes me to reply... and I need to give myself some slack.)

Hey, I know for sure I have answered it somewhere but god knows where in the quantity of replies I have answered, if you are brave enough to have a look! I think it completely intentional on SJM’s part but definitely not for Gwynriel, if people think that scene (regifting and then reusing a thought) is romantic to each their own but that is not how it reads to me. I think as I said before, there is some projecting going on and it will definitely be explored in their book.

But in short, no I do not think reusing a line specifically using in Elain’s gift is a sign of Gwynriel endgame. But hey, that’s just me!

Oh 100%!!! They love chaos and I said earlier, unfortunately even bad publicity is considered good publicity. I doubt they care about the havoc, they are reaping the benefits of being discussed on all sides as apposed to just one. 

If anyone thinks the fact that a large portion of the fandom hate Elain is going to discourage her I’d direct you back to three years ago when people despised Nesta and she still got her book and SJM did not give one shit that she was controversial, she even said in a recent live she wanted her to be that way, to ruffle feathers.

There is lots of buzz indeed!

This kind of goes hand in hand with the last one I answered but yes I think she knew it would stir the pot! I think it is very intentional, just as the subtle additions of say Emerie in ACOFAS had a few people in a tailspin though perhaps not as much.

At the end of the day SJM loves a good build up and twist, making the characters you are not expecting the big ones, Rhys obviously a big example, now Eris redemption ARC on the horizon. I think she cares little for what peoples judgements are because she know push comes to shove most those people though bitching will buy the book anyways.

(Example: The intense hatred for Nesta and now she is NY Times Best Seller)

She knows how to play the long game, this isn’t her first rodeo, shes created drama and tension, she has EVERYONE speculating and talking about it... Like I said it is smart business. We might not like the chaos but that is life.

Thank a million!♡ I am glad it has calmed you down, even if only a little bit.

I think everyone had that initial shock period for sure, but if you step back and actually read between the lines and compare it to her previous books there is not much to be worried about.

I am not sure about actually being related, hmmm, I feel like that would be a long shot. Though I do believe they will have a mentor/mentee relationship or something alike, the way those interactions were described felt that way to me personally. Although everyone will read a situation differently ofc...

I do think her connection to the Autumn Court, having red hair, and the random redemption on Eris are strangely in line. I think it is far more like she is connected to a Vanserra perhaps! 

I don’t mind, go ahead!

Honestly I think I have answered this already in full here with basically the same thoughts as you, but I would like to add these two newer little posts that are also relevant to this question!   THIS ONE ABOUT SCENT & THIS ONE ABOUT ELAIN !

I am so glad you too didn’t feel it was that big of a deal, I think moreover it is a bit of a whiplash because we have rarely any idea what is going on so outside of our own preconceived notions it was hard to pin point so unless we magically guessed right a lot was going to feel strange. 

I am not going to lie to you I got that feeling reading Nesta’s POV in ACOSF just because our only view of her really was Feyre and it was so different inside her head. But different doesn’t mean bad, I think people need to give him and chance and more than one singular chapter! 

I couldn’t agree more, I cannot wait to see his story and healing begin. ♡♡

Not that I have heard personally! Though SJM does have some siren pins on her board for sure, I have seen some Little Mermaid retelling theories that are sweet but I think that is more Gwynriel ship parallels than thinking she is actually a siren.

The only thing along these lines I have seen is the lightsinger theory! Hmmmm I definitely think there is something there for sure, something beyond her just singing well. I really need to do a re-read soon to see if anything was missed the first time round!

I am going to be honest with you, I have no idea. Like none, hahaha No theories, no recollection of when it occurs (I remember the line) just not when, so the context is a little vague for me... If I could remember when this was I might have a better idea, I am sorry! Perhaps on my re-read I will be able to answer better, or someone in the replies can for me!! ♡

Alrightyyyy that’s the first lot! 

I have a relatively new pixel art blog that's looking to start selling stuff on society6 soon and I was wondering if you're okay with saying about how much money you make from your shop in a certain amount of time? If you even keep track of such things in the first place. I've been wanting to see how much bigger artists are able to make so I know about how much I might be able to make. I'm a poor young adult so I really want to know how much an art shop helps out with money ^-^;

Sure, I’d be happy to talk about this.

I made about $300 combined last month across both my print-on-demand shops. That’s the best month I’ve ever had (and hopefully part of an upward trend, but could just be a one-off).

A couple things to note: 1.) I still need to pay tax on this money, so the actual pocketable amount is smaller. 2.) I’ve been doing this for several years, and it took me a long time to get to this point!

Everything you ever wanted to know about selling Print-On-Demand art 

(actually not nearly everything, but at least some things!)

There are a lot of print-on-demand (POD) services out there. A POD service means that you have a digital art file, you upload it to the site, and the site makes it available in an online shop. When a customer buys your art from the shop, the POD will process the customer’s payment, manufacture the item, and ship the item to the customer for you. You never actually see the product! It goes directly from the printer to the customer.

Some POD stores are society6, Redbubble, CafePress, Zazzle, and fineartamerica.com. There are probably many more! They don’t all offer the same products: for example, you can buy this dress on Redbubble, but not society6, even though I have the same file uploaded to both. Society6 doesn’t print on dresses (yet).

Which site should I use?

I dunno!  I use society6 and Redbubble, not because I’ve evaluated all the others and found them lacking, but just because I knew people who were using them.  And knowing someone who’s tried something and liked it made it easier to try.

Different sites have different audiences, so I’d look at a few and try to find which one fits you best.  Redbubble skews a little more tumblr, society6 skews a little more hipster, Fine Art America skews a little more art major. You want to sell your art where your audience is already buying things!

My pixel art does way better on Redbubble than society6, even though I’ve been active on society6 much longer and have a more established presence there.  My non-pixel art (this is one of my long-time best sellers) still does pretty well there, even though I haven’t done promotion for most of it in years. There’s just an audience there that likes it!

How much money will I make?

Profit margins vary from site to site, and from product to product. Society6 mandates a set price and artist profit margin for most products across their site. Redbubble allows artists to choose their own profit margins and prices. Probably other sites are a mix of the two. This tote bag is $20.00 on society6 (I get $2.00) and $23.98 on Redbubble (I get $10.65.). This iPhone case is $38 on society6 (I get $3.80) and ~$37 on Redbubble (I get ~$12).

Of course, it doesn’t matter what your profit margins are if you don’t sell anything.

How do I get noticed and make sales?

Short answer:  make art, and make a lot of it—often and consistently.

I can only speak directly of my experiences with s6 and RB, but probably other services are similar. (And honestly, the same strategy holds true for growing an audience on tumblr!)

If you have 30 pieces of art, it’s better to upload them one at a time (once a week for thirty weeks, or twice a week for fifteen weeks) than all at once.  Both s6 and RB have a community aspect, which means your art will show up in the feeds of other artists, or may be curated into collections by staff or volunteers. 

Every day that you upload a new piece is a day that someone might notice and promote your work.  

If you post thirty things all at once, someone who likes your work will probably only promote one or two of their favorites (and may even be annoyed that you’re dominating their feed).  If you post thirty things one at a time, that same person might promote every piece they see.  (They probably won’t see all of them.  It won’t be 100%.  But still, much greater visibility for you.)

I try to upload one new thing every week.  If I have a really productive week and finish three designs, I’ll usually hold on to the extras to give myself a buffer for future weeks.  If I can, I maintain a buffer of 3-5 designs.  It means I’m under less pressure to produce, and I can have more fun creating.

Anything else I should know?

Making money from art is hard!  And oh, gosh, there is constant self-doubt.  I follow some of my favorite (independent!  commercially successful!) artists on Twitter, and they still post about how discouraged they feel sometimes.  It comes with the territory, I guess.

Just keep going.  Show up for yourself.  Set easy goals and reach them.  Set hard goals and reach those, too!  Keep trying!

When I first set up a shop on society6 several years ago, my goal each month was to sell anything.  Any single thing.  When I was doing that consistently, my goal was to make $20/month.  Then $50/month. 

Have a dream goal in your mind, but a “next step” goal in front of you.  

For me, the dream goal is “I want to be able to support myself by selling art!” and there’s a dollar amount associated with that.  I’m not nearly there!  My next-step goal is “sell enough art in a month to pay my share of the rent” and I’ll achieve that by the end of the year.  The next-step goal after that is to be able to make rent consistently.

The dream goal keeps you going.  The next-step goal keeps you focused.

(You’re gonna do great.)

👽👍

I know I don't have much to bring to the table yet as I am still growing this business but I thought this would be a good post for those always asking about home businesses or a side hustles all while still working a full time job. My daughter and I started this business two years ago and it is now bringing in around $1000 a month and still growing.A thousand dollars may not compete with some of the "we made it" posts that get added here but for most people asking questions about how to get started this might motivate a few to start. I also want to point out that my subscribers, followers, sales, that I am about to list are not high by any means. I hope this doesn't discourage anyone as well but help you understand that even with these small numbers we are making what many would consider a nice monthly side income to help out.This turned out really long, I am sorry and I hope this is usefulThe genesis This all started when we stayed at a hotel in Seattle a few years back and my eleven year old daughter and her cousin kept running to the bathroom to use a sugar scrub that was placed on the sinks. They must of used it at least a dozens times a day and as we left she asked to buy some. Once she purchased this small 1oz scrub for $7 I started to look at the product itself and the costs that went into it and mentioned "we could make this at home". She got excited and asked repeatedly over the next couple of weeks to make it, and then asked if it would be something we could sell. I looked sugar scrubs up online, found a couple facebook groups dedicated to this stuff and asked a few questions to get an idea of what I was looking at. Once we had a recipe we wanted to try we ran out and bought supplies, sugar, oils, jars, labels, all totaling about $50. We spent that night putting them all together, mixing, labeling, wrapping up so that I could take them to work the next day. I work in a building that has a lot of women who love this type of stuff and they're constantly bringing in their own handmade items such as quilts, sewing projects, baked goods, etc for others to look at and purchase. I grabbed all the jars the next morning and as I left my wife said "You really think you're going to make money off those?" I sold half the jars I took to work that first day for $97 to which my wife said as I got home "No shit, you actually made that much from those?!"Creating the product Once I got home that night I told my daughter that I think we have something here and we should make them nicer next time. I spent the next few nights searching wholesalers, suppliers, amazon, you name it, for cheaper jars, bulk sugar, oils, labels and started ordering. I found a nice plastic jar we could package them in, some labels, cheaper oils and sugars and we got to work on the labels ourselves. We spent maybe another $100 on everything and had a sugar scrub that we liked, jar, label, product.Selling the product I started selling to family and coworkers first, I think most people start there. I will say that I am lucky with work and some small sales. I work in a building that has a few thousand people and it's easy to show alot of people. Don't get me wrong this is not a gold mine, it brings me around $100-$200 a month from regulars and new. I don't want to discourage anyone reading this thinking that I jumped into a work goldmine. Once I had products at work I started to walk around our town, which is a little tourist trap in spots, and shopped our sugar scrubs. I also posted in the local facebook town group and asked if anyone would be interested in selling our scrubs in their shops and had one lady say she would love too. About a month later she said that she hadn't sold a single one, even though I had a friend tell me she walked in and bought one from her. She never put them out on her shelves so I told her I would just come pick them up and thanked her for giving us a shot. I did this for a month or two, work, facebook, family and then finally started to wander around town for a place to set up a table display. I tried to think of some parks, town squares, anything that would have a lot of people walking through and everything took a city license to set up. Finally I drove past a local Whole Foods style grocery store and said fuck it, I'm asking these guys if I can set up and without hesitation they said yes. That first table set up should of been embarrassing but I didn't give a damn, I set up anyway and sold almost every single scrub I had and even the ones from the shop that said she couldn't sell them. I am normally a very quiet person out in public and don't often initiate random conversations with strangers but I hit up every single customer that walked in with a big smile and said "All natural sugar scrubs today if you'd like to test them" We made a little over $300 that day!From there I started to ask them every Saturday if I could set up again and they said "Absolutely" I was there every Saturday for about two months straight when one of the managers came to me and said they wanted to carry our products in store. During this time we also started to add some more products to our table. We made some body butters, lip scrubs, pretty much anything my daughter wanted to try out. My wife finally said "If you're going to make things will you make me some candles, I hate spending so much for them." Over the next couple of weeks we added candles to our table and made about $400. The first day I set them out we sold every single one.Expanding our business This is where we are now, we have some of our products narrowed down and are now solid sellers, candles being the top one. For the last year we have been doing anything we can to get our products seen and anything to make sales. I sell them on our website, still at work, random friends on facebook, facebook sale groups, a few new small shops locally, and two in other states. I started to send our candles to anyone that had a following on instagram and found a couple of influencers with a decent following, anything to get them seen and grab new followers to the instagram profile.Growing pains and mistakes From the top of the article, my first mistake was doing consignment with that shop that didn't sell a single scrub. I said no problem to this agreement in the beginning because we were small and I didn't have leverage to say no. Lesson learned. She actually did sell a couple scrubs, I know this for fact because a personal friend bought one. I gladly took my product and moved on. Consignment can be fine for some but if you do so you will have to keep track with your inventory, their inventory and you will even have to promote your own product for them as they really stand nothing to gain from selling your product like they would if they bought it from you at wholesale.Influencers is where I messed up next. I started to send my products to people with influence and didn't have a clear idea of what I was doing and no way to keep up with demand and offers since we were just starting. I reached out to a team member of Garyvee's that I followed at the time to see if she would take a look at our product and give us some feedback. She received our package and then asked if we would want to be one of Gary's sponsors for his weekly email he sent out back then. Gary's old email, and some still do, contain a sponsor at the bottom that offers free products or a nice discount for one of their products. I thanked her and another member that sets this up but had to say no because there was just no way I could meet this demand or even cover the cost for shipping 150 of anything for free. Huge miss.The next influencer I sent the candles too was a hit but it was a selfish send on my part. I noticed she used a lot of candles and asked her if we could send her some of our candles to try out. She loved them and said thank you but didn't post about them. After watching Garyvee for so long I wasn't disappointed, I knew that I didn't do anything too special to get a nice tag or feature. It wasn't until after I sent them that I realized there was nothing special about what I sent her, just a random product thinking she would use her giant platform for my gain. Very selfish without realizing it. A couple days later I finally pulled my head out of my ass and customized the candles for her. I had been following her for a while so I knew her colors, her styles, her likes and made a set of candles with a logo that featured her brand and made my logo very small in the corner of the label, she loved them! She promoted them on her profile, talked about them on her live stream and even used one as a giveaway item. I have sent her a few new version now and honestly I have not been sending her enough candles, I need to double down on this one! TheSkinnyConfidential has been nice enough to feature us many times now and I could not be more grateful.Not buying what I need, when I need it. Once I knew which products were selling well and I was making consistently, I should of bought items to help make this process more efficient. Soap molds instead of pans then cutting bars individually, jars, lids, commercial equipment, anything to help speed up production. I have gone months in some instances before I nutted up and bought something that would of saved me countless hours of time and made me money quicker because of cost and fear. When you know you have demand for something you know you will use such as a larger mixer, premade labels, more jars, back stock oils, whatever, buy it!Facebook ads is another growing pain. I am still learning this one and not gaining much traction but I see results in other ways. I have been playing with them for about a year now and I am starting to see what's working and what's not. I have spent about $500 so far but I have not gained one sale from that $500. I have picked up some subscribers but no sales that I can tie directly to the ads whatsoever. I am also not spending enough per ad to really grab the best clients I imagine. I only spend at most $20-$30 per ad just to test audiences and creative.Learning patience and unknown blessings in going slow I always wish I had an extra $10,000 only to be thankful a few months later that I didn't have it. What I mean by this is every time I have said to myself "If I only had X amount I would buy so much of X right now". I can think of a thousand things I need at this moment to make this go faster but I have to remind myself that I am still in the beginning stages of this still and I am still learning. Not having that amount I would spend far less, something like $30 on new packaging that I wanted to order a thousand off, praising the patience Gods later because it turned out to no the right one, right size, right color, etc and only being out that $30 and not thousands. I am the type to go full force without thinking or testing properly and I have made several packaging mistakes that thankfully have only added up to very small amounts. I would of wasted thousands if I would of had it at the time. Throwing away $30 in product because I was impatient is easier to swallow than $3000.Successes One of our successes has been starting a youtube channel doing howto's on everything we do. I noticed that when I was learning how to make candles the videos on youtube were pretty bad and didn't include alot of pretty valuable information that a beginner should know. The top video in candle making even says in the video "I won't show you exactly how I make these because I don't want you cutting into my sale" I told my daughter "we can make a better video than that!" So we did! We are now at 3000 subscribers and that how to make candles video just hit 100,000 views! We could not be happier about that.Last year we missed out on all of the local farmers markets just because we started too late to sign up. This year I jumped fast and I have the licenses needed and I am signed up for all the big ones. This year should be very nice for our business.Shameless plugs If I missed anything please let me know, I will try to answer everything.I hate to plug my stuff but just to show what we have been up too, here are the links to every thing mentioned above. IG profile with pictures of our first products till now. www.instagram.com/standleyhandcraftedOur channel www.youtube.com/standleyhandcraftedour website www.standleyhandcrafted.com

How One Pillow Manufacturer Is Putting Amazon Fraudsters to Bed, One Scammer at a Time

In 1990, my dad set up shop with my mom, selling this pillow with a hole in the middle.

He’s a dermatologist, and made the pillow to provide relief to patients of his suffering from tender ears caused by a condition called Chondrodermatitis Nodularis Helicis (CNH for short).

They’ve been in business ever since then, and up until this year when my husband and I bought the business from them, they did everything exactly the same as they did back in 1990.

That means no advertising, marketing or sales channel changes in almost 30 years.

So, my husband I took over in January and have since changed everything (it is 2017, after all!)

We updated our website and joined BigCommerce in January of 2017.

From there, we put ads on Google.

Then, a few months ago, we started selling on Amazon.

That’s when our sales doubled!

My parents were shocked. “That’s the power of Amazon!” I told them.

We were going to be the next big Amazon success story –– I just knew it. And then, our listing was deactivated.

Someone else had the lowest price.

“OK,’ I said to my husband, “that’s impossible. Nobody else can have the lowest price for this pillow, because nobody else has this pillow. My dad invented it. We have the lowest price, because we have the only price.”

I was freaking out.

It was the first time either of us had ever experienced fraud — and I had no idea what was going on.  

But that was then.

I’ve since learned that the kind of fraud we were subject to is a huge problem on Amazon.

I’ve also gone through all the necessary steps each and every time to make it stop. And for my business, I have it down to a science.

Let’s start with what not to do.

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What Happens When You Call Amazon About a Fraudulent Seller?

After that first incident, in my panic mode, I called Amazon customer service.

At that point, I had tried to do everything I could within seller central.

Nothing was working. So, I picked up the phone.

They wouldn’t tell me anything about the other seller.

I supposed that it made sense, after all, it’s private and it could be “somebody else’s business,” in theory.

But we’re the only ones who make this pillow, remember?

So I told Amazon:

“This person says they’re selling my product and they can’t be! Nobody else has my product. It’s my own product. Nobody has it.”

To be fair, they were very calm about the whole thing and let me freak out over the phone. They asked me to explain the issue entirely –– and that they’d look into it. So, I did.

Here’s what I told them:

Another seller listed my item

They used my picture with my hand on the pillow

They used the description that I wrote myself

They had *our* customer service number on there

And worst of all, they lowered the price to $5.47 –– when the cost is $59.95.

Let’s get transparent on the pricing part.

Our pillow costs us $20-something to make it. There’s no way somebody could have made a similar or knockoff product for even close to $5.

Of course, they weren’t saying it was a knockoff.

They were saying it was the real deal.

Our product.

Our custom-made, copyrighted product.

It was frightening, but Amazon was able to take that seller down decently quickly.

Problem solved, right?

Wrong.

As soon as that seller was taken down, a few hours later another one popped right up again. It’s part of the scam.

Beware the Amazon Seller Scam

Several years ago, Amazon had a big push to become a global marketplace, and so they opened themselves up and made it super easy for international groups or people to sell and open up a store on the platform.

Essentially, almost anybody, almost anywhere, can sell on Amazon within minutes.

It goes like this…  

One scammer somewhere in the world says to a want-to-be Amazon merchant:

“Pay us a certain amount of money, and we’ll set you up with a store on Amazon. You pay us and we’ll set you up with a store with 20,000 items for sale. People buy the items from you, and all you have to do is drop ship. You never actually hold any items in stock at all.”

Now, I can only assume that somebody has a program which allows a “seller” to select many items at once and set a price that’s some very low percentage of the price that is originally on there.

It’s why our $59.95 pillow was listed at a little over $5.

I say that this is the case because when you go to the storefronts of these fraudulent sellers, they have hundreds, if not thousands of products listed, all at insanely low prices.

I’m at the storefront for HairWOW. You can see at the top left this newly launched store has 114,976 products! Including mine. Hopefully lots of other vigilant sellers are also reporting them. You’ll need the link to this storefront page to put in the email you send to Amazon.

The products they list alongside might be related, or not.

In our case, there was the CNH pillow, plus a lot of other bedding, and then a lot random stuff.

It’s almost always the case, however, that the scammers will target ‘Just Launched’ items, from genuine sellers with few or no ratings.

Yep, there’s my product, being “sold” by another seller and me. HairWOW is on top because of their lower price, and I’m second. If there was another lower price before mine, I would be bumped completely off the page. If that happens, just repeat all the steps in this article with each fraudulent seller. Usually the seller will be Just Launched, as in this case, and offer free shipping.

This has something to do with the way Amazon lists products.

If I’m a new seller (a genuine one) with no reviews, and I’m ‘competing’ as it were with two scammers, listing my product for a fraction of the price, then even though none of us has any reviews, the scammers will appear above me because their offering is less expensive.

Why Does the Scam Work In the First Place?

The scam works in part purely because of the sheer size of the Amazon marketplace.

Even if Amazon had a team dedicated to tracking down the scammers, it would be incredibly difficult to catch them all at launch.

In practice, the scam works because:

Before shoppers buy one of these fake items, they’re told it will ship from inside the U.S.

Then, as soon as they place the order, the fake seller changes the shipping information from U.S. Post, to China Post, and attaches a tracking number.

How do they attach a tracking number when there’s no product to send?

Yep, it’s fake, too.

Why put a tracking number in the first place?

Amazon pays sellers every two weeks. Items posted from China take between three and four weeks to arrive.

The plan is that they’ll get paid in two weeks, then, when in four weeks time the customer hasn’t received their item, that customer will complain to Amazon.

The customer will be refunded by Amazon, but by then, the fake seller has already been removed, and set up shop as somebody completely different.

Even if they succeed in getting a small fraction of those sales to work, the scammers are making money. The customer wastes time, but they eventually get their money back.

In the end, it’s the seller who’s losing out, because:

The customers are angry

Trust is broken

They might never want to buy from you again.

This has been the case with us a few times, and when I speak to customers who have been scammed, the conversation goes something like this:

“Hey, I haven’t received my order.”

“I’m sorry. I have no record of you buying from us.”

“I only paid $7.00”

And so I explain what’s happened, and usually they say, “Well, that sucks. Can I order now?”

But it’s a waste of everyone’s time.

Is There Anything Amazon Can Do to Fix This?

Probably.

Making sellers jump through a few more hoops before being able to list items would be a start.

Placing some restrictions on new sellers would help to curb the scammers, or at least slow them down.

But honestly, the way we’ve dealt with things on our own has been really effective, and if it can save you the hassle of going through what we went through, then I would be all too happy to share.

How to Stop the Amazon Scammers

There’s a bit of policing you’ll need to do yourself when it comes to taking down the scammers, but it’s totally worth it.

1. Keep checking your inventory.

If you have just a few items for sale on Amazon, then the first thing you ought to do is go to your inventory page on a daily basis — I do this multiple times a day — to make sure you’ve got the lowest price.

I’ve got my pillow, and I’ve got my extra pillow cover.

Those are my only two items. So I know that I should have the only price on Amazon.

There’s a little green check mark by each item saying, “Yes, you’ve got the lowest price.” I know if that’s the case, I’m fine.

This screenshot is of my inventory page. I checked it this morning and put a red box around the area I was looking at. I wanted to see check marks by both products showing I had the lowest price because I should have the only price, since no one else has my exact product. My extra pillow cover showed I did not have the lowest price, and instead showed someone else had it listed for less. Amazon puts a link there for me to click if I wanted to match their price – which tells me there’s a fraudulent seller out there (or maybe more than one) listing my item.

If you no longer have the lowest price, and you’re the only one selling that item, there could be problem.

If somebody has significantly undercut you on a similar item, do some research before going in guns blazing.

2. Get as many reviews as possible.

If your product has lots of positive reviews, it will help to keep you up high in the listings.

It’s also more work for scammers to fake reviews right after launch.

3. Be open and honest in your product description.

The other thing I do — since it’s my product that I own and manufacture — is to address scamming right there in the product description.

Here’s what I say…

“Beware fraudulent sellers! They don’t have a cheap knockoff version, they do not have a version at all. There is not an item, this is a scam.”

Explaining to people what’s going on –– that if they see something that seems too good to be true –– that it probably is, that helps a lot.

4. Send an email to Amazon.

The third thing –– the most important thing –– to do is to send an email to Amazon.

You don’t want to flood them with emails, or you don’t pester them with phone calls (it doesn’t work) but you do need to reach out.

The email is [email protected] — just send them one email per day.

If you’ve got a lot of fraudulent sellers on your account every day, just pick a time of day and then send them an email.

Here’s the format and process that I use.

Compose an email to [email protected]

Subject line: Possible Fraudulent Sellers

In the email body, put the name of fraudulent seller’s store, with a link to their storefront

Do this for however many fraudulent sellers there are

Underneath, say, “We believe the above sellers are engaging in fraudulent selling activity. Please investigate.”

Presto. They will sort it.

This is what it looks like:

To: [email protected]

Subject: Possible Fraudulent Seller

Body:

Seller Name: HairWOW (or whoever it is)

Link to their storefront: (paste here)

We believe the above seller is engaging in fraudulent selling activity. Please investigate. Thanks!

And then you wait. That’s all. If there are multiple fraudulent sellers, you can just list them all in one email.

Bonus tip: Lay the smack down!

Because I believe that everyone should be held accountable for their actions, I also go to that fraudulent seller’s store and click on the button that says, ‘Ask Seller a Question’, and I hit them with my standard shaming paragraph:

“Didn’t your mother teach you not to cheat people out of their money? Don’t you know you’re hurting people’s businesses? This is not a victimless crime. Shame on you.”

I have no idea how many times that’s worked, but it makes me feel much better.

I hope that helps you to navigate this more seedy section of Amazon, and that you won’t get discouraged from selling on what has to be one of the best platforms we’ve ever used — after BigCommerce, of course!

Want more insights like this?

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How One Pillow Manufacturer Is Putting Amazon Fraudsters to Bed, One Scammer at a Time published first on http://ift.tt/2wGG0YJ