Vendor Summit | Maximizing Value from AVS (...and your VM)

Session Transcript

Paul Sonneveld
OK, let me introduce our next guest speaker. Bring him onto the stage here. This is Travis Chappell. He is the head of vendor services at VentureForge. He's got extensive experience both inside Amazon as well as top e-commerce agencies. So Travis brings really a unique understanding of how AVS and Vendor Managers operate and how to ensure that the actual investment delivers value for you. Of course, that's very pressing question when it comes to AVS. Asha sort of hinted at that in session number one. 

But I think the other thing that was really interesting as Travis and I were talking about this session is, how do you get the most out of your Vendor Manager? How do you get one? Can you get one if you don't have one? But if you have one, how do you get the most out of the Vendor Manager? Particularly if you're based in Europe and Vendor Managers seem to be more kind of thinly stretched than some of their US-based counterparts. So very much look forward to the session. Travis, welcome to the stage. Take it away. 

Travis Chappell
Thanks for having me, Paul. Appreciate it. And hi to all the listeners, all the viewers. And if you guys get some value out of this, then you can make some decisions. So, like Paul mentioned, I'm Travis. I'm head of vendor services at VentureForge. I am ex-Amazon. I started my career at Amazon. Yeah, in the UK slash European head office within the beauty team. So any information you need on any beauty regimes or any skincare regimes, I'm your go-to guy. But yeah, jokes aside, hopefully you find this a really informational session.

And yeah, let's get started. Cool. Let me just open up my screen. Excellent. So I think taking a step back is why strong relationships matter. I think every day in life also, you sort of know if you have a strong relationship, you get a lot more done. You have a bit of an easier process through tougher conversations and ultimately you find ways which work for everyone. So why a strong relationship matters with Amazon? 

First and foremost, it helps with faster decisions and approvals. So during times of catalogue fixes and escalations, it helps it move quicker. It helps your VM put you in touch with the correct teams at the right time and allows them to essentially champion you as a brand. Along with that, having them on your side allows for catalogue fixes when it comes to pricing claims. when it comes to chargeback waivers, when it comes to pricing issues, and when it comes to internal escalations through and-on cords, for example.So foster decisions and approvals is probably the first and foremost of having a strong relationship. 

Secondly, internal advocacy so when issues do arise and no doubt they will arise as we all know with one p um Amazon is on your side with it they ultimately sit with you in the driver's seat. They know that you talk the talk but you also walk the walk and you want the best for Amazon ultimately also safeguarding your own brand. So issues like pricing errors po gaps and compliance flags they advocate for you to their senior leadership team whether that be cat lead teams whether that be in stock managers whether that be pricing teams they ultimately on the side of you as a brand and help make the entire negotiation process and fixing process a lot easier. 

Throughout that you get to strategic alignment so vms will share category direction opportunities. Whether that comes through things like if you're in the baby program, for example, the baby wishlist, or if you've gone to the Stellar program or you're on the Amazon Launchpad program, VMs are a lot more receptive and a lot more open to sharing what Amazon's future plans are and how you can get involved in that and be at the forefront of it. 

Everyone sort of knows early adopters within Amazon's are generally the ones that get most out of the relationships with Amazon. And anyone that might be a little bit slower behind is either going to learn a lot from if it fails. So Rest in Peace, Amazon Pantry, for example, or the successes that's going to come of it. So any new deal programs that are coming out, any new opportunities in terms of funding is going to come out. And then any other opportunities in terms of advertising. So as we've seen, Spotify advertising, Netflix advertising, you're going to be at the forefront, the tip of the spear with Amazon. 

Also, during tough conversations, for example, when profitability tightens, operational issues occur, Amazon will be more than likely to loop you into those conversations with the respective points of contact. We've got a few accounts internally that have great relationships with Amazon and they have direct access to in-stock managers and pricing teams to fix any issues that might arise, even when it comes through to product mapping. 

So if you're mapping a brand or a reseller, for example, and you're hemorrhaging margin and that seller's based in the middle of the country and they sell on eBay and Amazon's matching them, you can have those tough conversations with Amazon and give them the reassurance that they aren't a legitimate seller. The products they're selling might not be real. They might be counterfeit. They might be out of date. And it just allows the tough conversations to flow easier. And time allocation. VMs give more time to brands that they trust and they enjoy working with. If you help a VM hit his KPIs, and you help an AVS hit their KPIs, they're going to be a lot more receptive to you hitting your KPIs and ultimately help you with that. 

Building a relationship with your brand specialist. So treat them as part of your team and not a ticketing system. They're there to support your brand. They're not there to own your brand. They're not there to make you millions overnight. They're there to help you on the journey, provide you strategic insights, and ultimately troubleshooting when the time is right. So treat them as part of your team and not a ticketing system. 

And provide clear priorities and outcomes. Amazon values clear priorities and outcomes. Where you want to be, what the time frame is, what the milestones and what the achievements are going to be to get that. So every week during your WBRs, your weekly business reviews, your monthly business reviews, your quarterly business reviews, and your annual reviews, set clear priorities and outcomes of what you want to achieve by when and what support you need from your brand specialist. And that will flow downstream into your VM and the respective teams. 

Structured input, not just vague requests to Amazon. Don't write a two-pager for a simple question. Just be straight to the point. Set up a call. Set up a straight email cadence and just ask them directly. Don't be vague. Don't be fluffy. Just get to the point. Amazon, any member in Amazon doesn't have a lot of time, so they value straight structured input. Use business reviews for momentum and not admin. 

Celebrate your wins, celebrate your successes, and also obviously focus on anything that might not have worked well, but ultimately use them for momentum and driving forward and not reflecting too much on the past. You can't always change things that's happened in the past with Amazon, but you can ultimately always dictate the future with the right inputs and the right requests. 

Brand specialists, their development leads to your development. Set up a cadence with them where you maybe take them out for lunch, or you set up a call with them that's not on email and just have a frank conversation. Say, look, what are your KPIs within Amazon, and how can I help you hit those KPIs? Ultimately, if they get the sense that you want to help them develop to get to a senior brand specialist or a Vendor Manager or a senior Vendor Manager position, they'll be more receptive to helping you hit your KPIs and grow within the category. 

Also, don't be afraid to acknowledge good work and celebrate their wins. If you have a direct access to their category leader, their senior Vendor Manager, or any other member within Amazon, celebrate their wins in any good work, any milestones of achievements for new product releases, any successful product releases, any successful brands that you may be releasing onto Amazon and running promos with, and you've actually seen some amazing results. Celebrate their wins and just give them the pat on the back to their senior stakeholders. It all adds value to you ultimately as a brand and gives their certain buy-in. 

Line on KPIs beyond the basics. Most brand specialists are going to have the KPIs of grow your catalogue count, run X amount of deals, get X amount of deal funding. Look deeper than that. Look at your net PPM targets. Look at your chargeback targets. Look at how you can minimise those targets and look at how you can do select distribution with Amazon or giving exclusivity, for example. All of these types of things are really going to get your brand specialist on your side because it's going to paint them better in the eyes of their Vendor Manager and ultimately their senior leadership team. 

Give them space to challenge you. If your brand specialist is seeing something in the market that you're not seeing, they do have access to a lot more data than you do within Amazon. So lend a soft ear, let them challenge you and take it on the chin. Don't just fight back. Don't just be defensive and put up guardrails. Ultimately, let them challenge you. And if it is a warranted challenge, act on it. It might be within your best interest. And ultimately, that's going to lead to the further successes on Amazon also. 

And I think paying for AVS is not a silver bullet. Everyone sort of thinks that AVS is the be all and end all. And as part of, well, an ex-AVS myself, it's kind of pains me to say, but it isn't a silver bullet. It's a collaborative approach. You're there to help each other. One hand feeds the other in these relationships. So an AVS won't magically increase your sales overnight. They're not going to wave a magic wand or look in their crystal ball and find opportunities for you to drive incremental sales. And you're not going to be making millions overnight. It will help you spot market opportunities, any gaps in your selection, which will ultimately lead into that. They're not going to magically make you millionaires overnight, sadly. 

AVS won't replace your Vendor Manager. AVS is there for the day-to-day. They're there to do a lot of the grunt work more than anything. They help you do ticketing systems. They help you with the day-to-day actions that you might not have access to. They help escalate it internally. Ultimately, your Vendor Manager is the one that will be doing your AVN negotiations. They're the ones that's going to sign your chargeback waivers, and they're the ones that ultimately you do want on your side. 

AVS won't solve all the operational problems. You need to also solve the operational problems yourself. If you have packaging issues, if you've got PPVs, PQVs, or any internal metrics that aren't hitting Amazon's sort of best-in-class, such as confirmation rates or order-full rates, AVS doesn't fix that for you. They'll help you identify where the root causes are, but ultimately it's up to you and your supply chain and your warehouse management team to fix those issues before they get out of hand. 

AVS won't fix retail readiness without your input. So AVS will help you spot any gaps within your product display pages, your A+ titles and your bullet points, but ultimately it's up to you as a retailer to come proactively with those fixes. So sharp infographics, informational text, SEO-driven titles and bullet points. AVS can give you all the information, but ultimately it's up to you to action it and pass it on to AVS to implement. 

AVS isn't going to clean up cross-channel issues. They're not going to be there on the sideline championing you as a seller if you're selling to mass market and that mass market is driving price matching, for example. AVS won't be able to clean that up. They'll be able to give indications of where the price matching is going and the ramifications of that. Ultimately, that's up to you as a retailer to decide on selective distribution agreements, pricing mechanisms, Amazon exclusivity, and the lot. 

Then Amazon AVS won't magically fix bad profitability. Again, it's up to you to do so. One of the biggest, easiest fix in that is exclusivity, whether that's a six-month exclusivity to Amazon or full Amazon exclusive products. Ultimately, it is up to you to fix the profitability and not share it into mass market, like I mentioned, where price matching becomes an issue. If you don't fix the profitability, it is going to bleed down into your Vendor Manager, and you're going to have some really tough conversations when it comes through to AVN and the net PPM issues. 

Going on to your VM, what they actually care about in 2026. So predictable pricing and profitability. I think that is first and foremost. We've all been at net PPM discussions. We've all had straight payment requests. We've all had cost price reduction requests. But ultimately, selective distribution, SOA and margin is going to be the biggest piece If you can lock in funding agreements with your VM for hero events, such as Prime Day, Black Friday, end of summer sale, or you have selective distribution agreements where it's tiered pricing. 

Amazon will always want the best price in the market. And your VM will track that price through the net PPM metric. So they want predictable pricing and ultimately profitability. Not a profitable account, their cat lead is going to hammer them. They're going to hammer you. And it's just going to be a bit of a mess when it comes to relationship management. 

Retail-ready catalogue. So SEO, imagery, A+ reviews and ratings. Amazon wants the best for the customer. They're the most customer centric organization on earth. And little to say, the customer is literally always right when it comes down to Amazon. So they want sharp titles, bullet points that drives SEO discoverability. They want imagery that, at a glance, is going to find all the USPs of the products and ultimately secure the sale without the customer having to scroll too far. Especially in the UK, sixty five percent of shoppers are on mobile. 

The first thing they're confronted with when they land on a retail page is the imagery. So if your imagery is not sharp, it's not informative, it's not attractive. Chances are you're going to lose that sale to a competitor that is. And ultimately, that's going to hammer your Vendor Manager's sales, his profitability. And it's just a cascading issue. Same with the reviews and ratings. If you've got negative reviews and ratings, go through them. Look through the voice of the customer and identify any commonalities. Is it packaging issues? Do your products arrive with damage in them? Do the wrong products arrive? Is it the wrong flavour variation, size variation? All of those pieces are catalogue fixes that should be at the forefront of your operations with Amazon. 

Moving on to a clean supply chain. Stockouts, confirmation rates, and timely deliveries. All of these lead out to miss sales opportunities within Amazon. So if you can't supply the customer, it will go to competitors. You will miss out on the sales. Your Vendor Manager is going to miss out on his KPIs. And ultimately, he's going to come knocking on the door to close that gap. Also, on clear innovation pipelines, Amazon values NPD. Anything new that you can bring to the market, you don't need to do a whole range evolution, where it's something new and revolutionary to the market. It could be a new colour variation of your products. It could be a new size variation. It could be a new scent variation.

Anything that goes into the NPD pipeline and allows customers and the managers essentially to champion your products internally, drive additional sales and drive additional opportunities to new sellers or new buyers that they couldn't before. It's just going to help your case. Product exclusivity is one of the big ones, also. If Amazon knows that they are the only seller of that product in the market and it's just going to be pure profit, they don't have to worry about price matching, they don't have to worry about 3P, they don't have to worry about competitors actions. They're going to be a lot more happy with you and a lot more receptive to hearing your side of the story, especially during AVN negotiations. Exclusivity is a great leverage point when it comes to AVN negotiations. 

Issue transparency and proactive fixes. So be open with your Vendor Manager. If you've got a good relationship with them, take them out for dinner, jump on a phone call. Most of the Trust building comes from interpersonal relationships, not through emails. Everyone can be a keyboard warrior, and it's a lot easier to say no through an email than it is over a call. Give them out of stock risks. Also, exemplify when it comes to packaging changes. Are they going to be able to put your products through SIOC, for example, which is shipping on container, which is ultimately going to hit their bottom line and increase their profitability? Be proactive with these fixes. 

When it comes to voice of the customer and return rates, anything with low defect rates and actioning poor reviews is going to be important to your Vendor Manager. Poor reviews is going to reduce your sales velocity. It's going to reduce the amount of sales. And ultimately, if reviews are bad enough, you won't have opportunities to run deals on them. And if it really gets that worse, Amazon will suppress your buy box. So, poor reviews, action them as quick as you can and make sure that any positive learnings you double down on, and any poor reviews, you fix them as quick as possible before they get out of hand and Amazon has to take drastic measures. 

Internal alignment from the brand side. I think it's quite easy for a senior account manager to know everything about Amazon and the ins and outs when it comes to net PPM and chargebacks and operations. But you need to align your entire business on who Amazon is and what Amazon is and all the acronyms that come along with it. All the asks that come along with it. You might not be as a senior account manager or key account manager in the brand forever. So you need to upskill the rest of your company into speaking at the Amazon lingo and walking the Amazon walk, essentially. 

What great vendors do. I like to refer to this as the relationship flywheel. I think we've all been through Amazon and they've spoken about the flywheel for sales. So this is the relationship flywheel. So what great vendors do. They provide clear, concise communication. So to the point, one pages, ownership and accountabilities, and they provide milestones and deadlines. So like I mentioned previously, Amazon doesn't want vague requests. They want to the point requests. They want ownership and accountability. What do you need from Amazon to implement X requirements? What does Amazon need from you to implement? Why? When will it be done by? And how will you know it's been achieved through the milestone? 

So, create that report during your JVP with your VM and then with your vendor improvement plan with your AVS. So ensure clear, concise communication. Work on NPD release dates. So early visibility on new products coming down the line, it ensures smoother launches, and it also helps Amazon early buy-in. So if Amazon knows you've got some great NPD coming down the pipeline and you've got some historic data to back that up, so whether you've got a product that already sells really well in the market and you're just bringing in a new variant, a new size variant, a new exclusive variant that is going to be on Amazon, that's going to help Amazon's early buy-in. So your Vendor Manager will be able to place early POs You forecast overrides and also just ensure that NPD releases hit the day that you want them to hit without any delays. 

Also, focus on brand immersion events. At my time, it was, I don't want to name names, but it's one of the biggest beauty brands in the world, and they're French. So I'll just leave it at that. And they always used to have great brand immersion events where we could actually go and demo some of their new products. It would send us samples to the office that we could share within the team. The team could try it. They could actually write their own sort of reviews to you as an AVS and a Vendor Manager. And you could share these reviews with your brand to essentially ensure that before they do go live, you've got Amazon's buy-in on it, but you've also got some actual real-world applicable internal advice essentially on what's going good, what's going bad, and how you can tailor that onto your brand pages for when it does go live to mass markets. 

Also focus on proactive fixes, so content updates, returns analysis, and packaging fixes. Content updates, like I mentioned in the previous slides, Amazon wants your IDQ to be best in class because ultimately that's going to drive conversion with the customers. Any returns that do come down the line from the customer? Is it something that's Amazon driven? Is it saying that's client driven? And how can you fix that to ensure the best results for customers essentially to continue driving sales and continue that sales velocity? 

And again, packaging fixes. Can you ship your products in its own container through SIOC? Are they made of renewable materials so you can get the climate pledge friendly badge? All these types of things are going to help you with your Vendor Manager relationship and ultimately your in-stock relationship too. They'll be singing your praises. And then productive quarterly updates so clear concise data internal goal focus and forward-looking ambitions so always come with data Amazon will always come with data so they would expect you to do the same. Any brands that don't come in armed with data ultimately just setting ducks and Amazon will destroy you with ask especially during AVN time. 

So come with your data know your segment share know your market share and essentially know your worth as a brand on Amazon and within the wider market also have goals. So align on these goals during JVP during your VIP sessions with your brand specialist and track them. It's not just a set and forget for the year and we'll get through to it on the next AVN. No, track the goals weekly, track the goals monthly, and really communicate that to your Vendor Manager. If they're not pulling their part on certain KPIs, call them out on it and keep the records of it. Especially during the time AVN comes about, that's your opportunity to whip them out and say, look, you didn't keep your side of the bargain. I kept my side of the bargain. How can we fix this and move forward? 

And then forward-looking ambition. It's always good to have goals. It's always good to have ambitions. Tie that to deadlines and milestones and celebrate those milestones. Take your Vendor Manager out for dinner. Take your brand specialist out for dinner or just send them a personalized thank you. Let them know that you appreciate the work that they do. And ultimately, that's going to pay off later on down the line when they need to do some tough tasks for you. 

And moving on to the final slide. So eight winning actions that you can implement tomorrow that will ultimately just help you as a brand on Amazon. So build an NPD and promotion calendar six to twelve months in advance. Generally, we know the historic dates of when Prime Day would happen. It's generally June, July. So market towards that for your promotional calendar. Black Friday is never going to change year on year, but ultimately develop a promotional calendar and sign any sort of funding in the back end towards that. 

Start looking at any ASINs you want within those deals early on and obviously make sure you price towards that. For example, Black Friday prices need to be the lowest price year to date. Don't go hemorrhage your margin early in on Prime Day or Spring Sale. Hold on to it and make sure you make the most out of it, and especially with an NPD pipeline. Let your Vendor Manager know what you've got coming down the line, whether it's six or twelve months, and get their early buy-in and excitement. 

Implement an Amazon hygiene check every Monday. That's looking at all your KPIs, your confirmation rates, your net PPM, your out-of-stocks, and just keep that internally as a tracker to make sure that you're not missing any KPIs internally that you know Amazon's going to come asking later on down the line in your weekly business reviews or your monthly business reviews. Create a dedicated Amazon toolkit for your brand team, whether that's a centralized SharePoint where all your product images are, all your titles lie, all your A+ lies, all your funding criteria lies. Just make sure that you have something internally for your brand team that they could dip in and out of. 

Like I mentioned, key account manager might not be there forever. And if they leave and you don't have a centralized toolkit, they take all that knowledge out. And essentially, you're going to be learning from scratch and you'd be stuck dead in the water. Provide Amazon with ASIN priorities. So any ASINs that might be overstocked within your side as a brand, try and push them through Born to Run. 

Try and get Amazon to do some opportunity buys or some forecast overrides on them. And then ultimately also drive that on promotions. You don't want to be stuck in a sense where Amazon's overstocked. Driving your products into markdown at fifty sixty percent of and diluting your brand image it's just not a place you want to be. So have a frank conversation with Amazon are they seasonal products are they exclusive products are they products that's meant for certain seasons and how can you leverage that to essentially drive incremental sales throughout the promo events. 

Track category movements weekly. So there's some great data internally where you get great tools internally that provide some great data where they can show you your market share, your sales share, and also your competitors market share and how you can fine tune that by your product releases, taking part in certain promos or further on down the line, different kind of advertising mechanics. Track it weekly, not monthly. You'll be really thankful that you did. 

Create a risk register for Amazon. So any products that might be going out of stock, any products that might be held at port or are stuck on the water coming from the far east or whatever it is, create a risk register with Amazon just to give them a bit of forward notice that things might not go well and allows you to create an action plan together to overcome those hurdles if they do arise. 

Line your finance team to Amazon terms. Most finance teams don't know what net PPM is. They don't know what the accruals are. They do not know what net receipts are. So align your finance team to Amazon-friendly way of doing things. Are you calculated what the ramifications of them are if you don't hit them and essentially get one team mentality for your brand versus Amazon? 

And then finally, share post-event learnings for every major promo, particularly on Christmas and Black Friday. Share anything with your Vendor Manager that's gone really well within your brand, what you've seen in the wider market when it comes down to product sales or market penetration or any other exclusives that might be selling in other retailers and you might want to put into Amazon as slight exclusive also. Any post-event learnings, Amazon will prize because they always keep a focus on Amazon-friendly things. If you can do it as a wider market sort of activity, Amazon will share it internally and you'll get that extra buy-in just to show that you are a collaborative vendor and you are a collaborative band. Cool. Thanks very much, Paul. 

Paul Sonneveld
Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you so much, Travis. You've covered a lot and you've gone at a really good pace. I think that was just about right. Not too slow, not too fast, persistent and allowing us to extract maximum value from from your expertise and knowledge. So thank you so much for that. I'm just going to remove the slides here and I'm going to open up for questions. We've got a number of great questions. And for those of you who haven't had a chance to ask your questions, feel free to just pop it in the comments or in the chat window here. Some of you watching the stream maybe with a minute delay or so, so we'll wait on that a little bit. 

But before we get into some of the more formal questions, I actually wanted to ask you about business reviews. You mentioned earlier at the start of your presentation, you got to make sure you make the most of them, right? It's not an admin meeting, But what does a good or what does great look like, right? If you're an Amazon Vendor Manager and you're having a business review meeting, I'm assuming you're talking like QBRs or whatever the frequency there is, what does good look like from an Amazon perspective in terms of what they want to see from their vendors? 

Travis Chappell
First and foremost, it's coming with the right data, not just coming with a sense of feel and, oh, this is what my gut tells me is happening. Come with the data. Are you seeing competitors come into your market share? Are you sort of seeing in the wider market that customers aren't buying certain products because the trend might have died, for example? I know within sort of like toys categories and games categories, there are a lot of trends which are excited and driven by social media and they might be the hot topic today. They might not be the hot topic tomorrow. 

So I think come with the data that you know and you trust. Know your point within the actual category. Amazon Vendor Managers do also enjoy a challenge. If they just come to a review and you just speaking to them and they're like, well, this vendor doesn't really know what they're talking about. They want to be challenged. They want to know what's happening in the wider market. As big as Amazon is as a company, they've got a very narrow lens when it comes to retail. 

So come armed with what's happening in the wider market, what you're seeing from your other retailers and what other competitive actions they're coming into. So, for example, if you know If I can name them, John Lewis, for example, are going on to promo. And you know, for example, the dates they might be doing it. If you have a good relationship with your Vendor Manager, I wouldn't put this on email. I'd set up a call with them and just say, look, I know these competitors yours are going into promo at X, Y, Z times. How can we combat that and ensure the best for you ultimately? 

I'm assuming most brands will have a dedicated Amazon team. They'll have a dedicated mass retail team. They'll have a convenience team. And it's not always an us-versus-them mentality. But ultimately, if you're not driving your channel, you are going to get questions from your own senior leadership team. Come with your data, come with your market insights, know your marketing position, and ultimately also look forward. What do you have coming down the pipeline? Do you have any exclusivity? Do you have any seasonal products? Do you have any promos that you want to run? I'm armed with the things that your Vendor Manager wants to hear, essentially. 

Paul Sonneveld
Great answer. Great to set high expectations in terms of what good looks like there. Okay, let's pick off a couple of questions here around AVS. I'll start with Philip's question here. It's a long one, but I had a very similar one. So Philip's saying the biggest issue we've had is with the churn, right? Multiple contacts over a two-year period. Each have a very different level of responsiveness, proactivity, general quality of service. Any advice or hacks on how do you drive more consistency in the way of working and the service delivery across the AVS service when you have multiple point of contacts and the like? 

Travis Chappell
So to be honest, Amazon's adopted a philosophy of HWT, hands off the wheel. So, hands off the wheel essentially is they're trying to push you to use the ticketing system. They try to use self-service, self-uploads, all those types of things and a lot of offshoring. So I think first and foremost, if you have a good AVS, make sure that you say you've got a good AVS, you've got a good working relationship and speak to your VM about that. We've got some brands internally that key fundamental of every single AVN is that they don't want their AVS changed. That is the first thing they always go in and say, look, you guys are going to have your ask. Our main ask is we do not get rid of our AVS because we like them because of X, Y, Z. 

I think when it comes to level of responsiveness also, it's getting them excited about the brand. If an AVS, for example, is based in India or halfway across the world, they might not know your brand within the local market context. They might not know that you're a heavy hitter within the local EU market. Getting them excited about your brand, getting educated about your brand, getting them informed about how big your brand is, what impact it drives within the wider market, ultimately is going to get them excited. And the more excited they get, the more responsive they're going to get. The more responsive they get, the more outputs you're going to get. 

So I think it comes down to a brand educational piece. It comes down to a product educational piece. But ultimately, if you do have a great AVS and you want to hold on to them, weave that into your AVN negotiations and make that a non-negotiable that you want them locked in for another year. And again, if you don't like your AVS, for example, make that a conditional piece. You'd like your AVS changed. You'd like your VM changed. But always back it up with data. It can't just be an impulse sort of decision or an emotional decision, you need to back it up with data, whether it's good, it's bad, or it's ugly. 

Paul Sonneveld
Which relates to the second question here around how do you track I think intuitively, particularly those that have lost their Vendor Manager, that sort of holding onto the AVS as sort of a last resort to have some mechanism into Amazon. But if we start to look at this more from an investment point of view, now there are serious dollars that are being spent on this service every year. In your view, what is the single most important KPIs vendors should be tracking to really get a gauge of, are we actually getting a return on this investment? 

Travis Chappell
I don't think well I know there isn't a specific sort of number where it's like oh Eight out of ten of the times, this is the positive part. Yes, they're doing a great job. I think it comes down for a feel of it also. Are they replying to your request? Are they actioning your request within a respectable SLA time? It's not taking them two weeks to implement fixes or reply to mails. I think it also comes down to the crux of your vendor improvement plan. 

So if you don't have a vendor improvement plan with your AVS, that should be something that is a non-negotiable within JBPs. The vendor improvement plan lines out what actions your AVS wants to achieve for you within the year. So either that be increasing your selection, increasing your profitability, getting involved in XYZ deal events and hold them accountable to that. If they're not pulling their weight and they essentially dropping the ball, that gives you a way to track your, if they're worth the investment, essentially. I know it's quite easy to track the investment when it comes through to net PPM, for example, or chargebacks or different kinds of accruals that has a tangible value against it. But when it comes down to AVS, it's more what they do for your brand and what results they drive for your brand. 

So I wouldn't even be scared to keep a tracker internally of, how long it takes them to action simple requests. You could do some tests internally. You could ask them to action a request, and you could go through the self-ticketing system also and action the same request and see which one takes quicker and ultimately use that as a bit of a leverage point. If it takes you a day to fix it on your own through a ticketing system, but it takes the AVS two weeks to fix it, Obviously, there's a big delta between the level of effort. So sadly, there isn't a numerical value that you can really do it. It's more of a feeling of it and actually output results orientated result. 

Paul Sonneveld
I do hope that none of our audience are ever in a situation where the AVS takes two weeks and the case system takes a day. That's going to be a very painful conversation. Now, for whatever reason, there may be a time where you actually do have to decide to cancel AVS. Maybe it's a financial affordability question. Maybe you're just generally not convinced anymore. But what is the one specific service or where's the biggest loss in terms of the value I will no longer have access to or the data that I can only get by AVS? 

Travis Chappell
And it comes down to the fundamentals of how you use your AVS. Do you use your AVS just as a person to do tickets or raise requests? Or do you actually ask them for actionable insights? What's happening in the wider market? What's happening in the wider category? What type of key KPIs are being looked at? So during my time at Amazon, selection was the main thing. In 2020 to 2023, the years of selection, hammering as much selection as you can. Whereas now, profitability is the main driver. And actually, Crapping out, obviously, hopefully we all know that acronym, can't realize a profit. They're crapping out old selection that isn't profitable and they're focusing more on profitability. 

Being able to identify those KPIs as early warning signals, I think is quite an important piece. That's one bit of data you'll probably miss. But ultimately, if you're not using your AVS for the way that they should be intended, and you just use them as a ticketing system, and you're not really going to miss them, you might just miss the turnaround time on things if they do action quicker. But when it comes to data access points, I think if you have a good relationship with them, they'll give you, they might not tell you directly and they won't tell you on email, but they might tell you on calls and in person what the category direction is, what the category is looking for from vendors and ultimately how to hit those sort of KPIs. So I think it's, if you have the right relationship with them, it's almost like having a mole within the system within Amazon. 

Paul Sonneveld
Makes me just think about the sales process and the discovery aspect of it. And, you know, how good are you at discovery when you're talking to the AVS, just to slowly sort of extract information, all those peripheral things that you will never find written down somewhere.

Travis Chappell
And, ultimately, they'll never put it on email because there's paper trails on that. If you can, jump on a call, drop the hints, meet in person. People are a lot more receptive to share certain types of information. Everyone knows that Amazon robot that just says, sorry, computer says no, have a nice day. Ultimately, if you can get in front of them and you can have a call with them, they might be a lot more receptive to sharing certain types of information. 

Paul Sonneveld
Absolutely. Last question, going back to Philip here. This goes back to the point where you're talking about when you meet with Amazon, make sure you have the data, make sure you know your data points, and you mentioned market share. Now, sometimes market share data in particular can be quite a challenge due to obvious inaccuracies and various tools. They use different techniques and estimations and the like. Where do you go to for market data, market share data in terms of where do you look to for your source of truth? 

Travis Chappell
It's a really good question. So Philip, I'm not too sure which tools you've used, but internally we use Prism, and we've seen great results with that. yes there is always going to be caveats with market data because if you're not part of the source of truth you can't always hundred percent trust the data but in our sort of experience we've seen that there's a five to ten percent discrepancy which allows you to make a very informed decision instead of just going with guesswork. 

So prism's great if you ever want to walk through on it feel free to reach out if anyone does also reach out we can walk you through that and then nielsen data. Obviously, Nielsen's quite expensive but their data directly comes from the brands, directly comes from the retailers, and ultimately you can treat it more as a source of truth. But ultimately, it is always going to be a little bit of discrepancies because the data is harvested and mined through the categories, through the subcategories. And if brands and competitors' products are miscategorised or they are categorised within the wrong subcategory, that is going to drive the inaccuracies ultimately. So, unfortunately, there is no crystal ball source of truth, but something like Prism and Nielsen data are probably going to get you ninety percent of the way there. 

Paul Sonneveld
Thank you. Appreciate the advice there, Travis. Some great tools to check out there. With that, I just want to thank you for taking the stage today, talking about how we get more out of AVS and how to build great relationships with your Vendor Manager. I really appreciate you sharing your insights today, and thank you so much. 

Travis Chappell
Anytime, Paul. And thanks, everyone, for listening and viewing. And if you ever need any advice, any inputs, feel free to drop an invite on LinkedIn, on VentureForge, an email, and we'll get started. Sounds good. And thanks a lot for having us again, Paul. Really do appreciate it. 

Paul Sonneveld
Thank you, Travis. 

Travis Chappell
Cheers, everyone. Take care.