Ed Rosenberg 00:00
I sometimes they over enforce. Like, for example, you can have an insert which seems okay, and they, they would look at it like it's not.
Narrator 00:13
Welcome to the E comm Show podcast, I am your host. Andrew Maff, owner and founder of blue tusker, from groundbreaking industry updates to success stories and strategies. Get to know the ins and outs of the e Commerce Industry from top leaders in the space. Let's get into it!
Andrew Maff 00:28
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the E comm Show as usual. I'm your host, Andrew Maff, and today I am joined by the great Ed Rosenberg of ASGTG. Ed, how you doing buddy?
Ed Rosenberg 00:40
Doing amazing. So nice to be on.
Ed Rosenberg 00:42
Yeah, I'm so excited to have you on the show. Ed, I don't even know if you know this. I've known you. I think we're pushing like 10 years now, when I first met you, and then obviously now, asdtg is right around the corner. We're as of this recording. We're a little bit about a month out. Super excited to have you on the show. I always kind of start these off relatively stereotypically, and just kind of give you the floor. Tell us a little bit about your background, where you got started, how you got into ASGTG and then we'll take it from there?
Ed Rosenberg 01:12
Okay, sure, so I started as one of the first eBay sellers on eBay, going back, believe it or not, it's like 28 years. It's hard to believe they've been around so long. But I was one of the first eBay sellers, and I then moved I was doing private label. I did a lot of different businesses, eBay, Amazon. I did big commerce before Shopify became so big, and I was always interested. I always found it amazing how Amazon and really all these platforms, have total control over you, when just no one does anything, and no one says anything. And to me, it never seemed fair how that works. So in 2015 I became suspended, and I thought personally, how effective and how and how heavy handed it is. And so I just, I got, I got reinstated, and I decided to just open up a whatsapp chat, and that whole thing like exploded to what it is today. Basically, the idea was that if we have a community to of legitimate white hat American based sellers, doesn't have to be American, but American mentality based sellers, then we can compete with what was the open and public Black Hat international sellers, and eventually it came even into America, and that was the idea of ASGTG to help legitimate sellers, but they should have a fighting chance to to compete on a level playing field that the good guys should at least have a level playing field when we compete. And that was really the idea of the ASGTG.
Andrew Maff 03:09
Yeah. So it's pretty funny the timing of that. So when you and I originally met, which I was in house at the time, I saw you as, like, one of the original like, juggernauts of the Amazon space. And I was lucky enough at the time, I was working for Chad Rubin, who I still see as one of them. And the reason that I think that you were in our office at the time or something, was because we had the same problem. Chad had gotten the business, that gotten suspended on Amazon for like, a week because we changed a credit card and they thought it was fraud. It was ridiculous. And that was, like, 2016 2017 so around the same time, and I felt the exact same way, but I was more. I all of my brains only marketing. So I said, like, how do we diversify? And so that's why I've basically, since then, looked at these omni channel sides you went deeper into like, how can we fight against like platforms, like Amazon, to keep them from doing that, which is awesome. So tell me about how you started to get into like, ASGTG, the event. Like, when did that start happening?
Ed Rosenberg 04:15
Right. So before we go with the event, just to clarify, if you look at the chat history and the Facebook history. My goal is never to fight Amazon, as a matter of fact, to work with Amazon. That's a hashtag. As a matter of fact, Amazon invited me multiple times to headquarters to talk about these issues, and furthermore, many, many accounts have opened up through legitimate, direct channels, through Amazon. Who, what, really accounts would have been not open. So my goal is to make Amazon better. Which benefits Amazon and benefits the good guys and benefits, the buyers and benefits everyone. So it wasn't like a combative relationship. It from my perspective. You know, people can take it that way, but that my perspective, it was always, you know, hey, let's work this out. That's when, as far as the events, what happens when you run a community, or when you run when you generally want to help people, it becomes impossible to do it just for free, because, I mean, I have expenses, I have admins. So what happened was, over time, I just needed I love helping people. I love this concept, but it's not a nonprofit, even a nonprofit, would have to raise money. So in order to compensate for that, I needed to raise to monetize it. So I basically answered the needs of the community where people were willing to pay, and I found the compliance to be one thing everybody was looking to hire me. But besides that, I found the events a natural outgrowth of what I was trying to do by helping legitimate sellers survive on Amazon. And the event was, a natural outgrowth. And I enjoy, I'm a people's person. I enjoy meeting people, and we and I, and I'm based in Brooklyn, and Brooklyn is the number one for sure in the US, you know, group of large sellers. So, yeah, the need for it was actually after the PROSPER event. Was where I came up. That was the idea of the events, because there was nothing really on the East Coast, and it was just a natural lab, because I had the group, I had the name, and it just made sense to meet in person. And a lot of the relationships, people who have hired me, or people who have I became good friends with, came out of the event.
Andrew Maff 07:09
Yeah, and, I mean, that's awesome, because you, you know, you have, like, Accelerate, which is the big one that from Amazon. But it to me, that event always feels scripted. I would say, is probably the best way to put that, like it definitely feels like there's, there's a subtle agenda, obviously, behind everything that they're doing so but it's still a good event. Then you have prosper, which has been around for years, but to your point, like there's really nothing on the East Coast. And I live outside Philadelphia right now, so that drives me crazy. I hate having to fly five, six hours to go to these events all the time, and it's become a huge event. I mean, I know you have, like, almost 1000 sellers that go to this thing every year, and, you know, even, even, I think prosper, doesn't even hit those numbers anymore. So you're, you know, bringing it to where they're at is fantastic, and it's, it's just a single day. So what made you, you know, typically, these conferences, they're like, three four days long, and they're kind of exhausting. Is your goal with it? Of like, let's just focus on quality content, get it out in 24 hours, and then everyone can kind of go back about their business?
Ed Rosenberg 08:12
Right. So, yes, so first of all, to your point, Amazon accelerate is limited to Amazon, yeah, and it's very scripted. And which, which makes sense, it's a public company, and it has to be scripted, yeah, well, to me, which, what I don't like about Amazon Accelerate is that they don't let a seller that was suspended come and they specifically. A lot of people have reached out to me saying, Let them come. And how you supposed to have a conversation and a dialog with someone, if you only let the guys who like you or the guys have had good experiences, kind of hard to improve. So if Amazon choose this, I would love if they can answer that question. But what happened to ASGTG and prosper is that it became e Commerce event. So it's still Amazon focused, but almost 100% of the sellers who are going to be attending are selling on Tiktok, or selling Latin America, or selling on eBay and Walmart. Now, I think whatnot becoming big and and all these Omni channels. Why it's only one day is I mean, first of all, logistically for me personally, like I'm not an event. It's not like it's just one thing, which I love doing once a year. I'm not looking to expand this to like a different city and a different platform every at least not for now so and there are enough sellers on the East Coast who are willing to drive in and drive back that it answered the call, and I personally, like, I love the cost event. I think it's the number one Amazon sellers event. But one day for me is enough. I don't need more than one day.
Narrator 10:14
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Andrew Maff 10:46
Yeah, no, I completely agree. I mean, well, I'll be obviously at asgtg this year with you, and then I have to, I have, like, a little bit of a weekend break, and then I got to get on a flight to go to both inspire and prosper right after that. And I'm like, Man, this is a week and a half of exhaustion, which is, it'll be fun, but, I mean, you're I got to give you kudos, because the overall community is amazing. Like, I also follow you on Twitter x and you obviously have the Facebook group, and you're posting all the time about anything and everything that happens on with Amazon compliance, even some stories around issues that sellers have had and what they did to solve it, like it's, it's just an amazing community that you've built. So it's, it's so cool to kind of see it come to fruition, because you see a lot of there's a ton of companies out there and other like people in the space that start something like it, and then it kind of fizzles off because they end up, like trying to overly monetize it, and it becomes a little fake, and you've just, you've stuck to the community, and it's, it's just awesome. So it led to this great kind of obviously event. So being heavily on the compliance side, at least lately. So 2025 now into 2026 What do you see is like, kind of the more common issues that sellers are having right now?
Ed Rosenberg 12:01
So I think ever since, probably the last three years, the number one is the supply chain not being accepted by Amazon. And what, what that is, is that if you resell an item that Amazon either considers high risk or there's been, there could be a police report. It could be so if you sell, let's say, item you know, get gonna take any any specific brand, and then you sell that brand, and you have nothing to do with the police report, but you're selling from a supplier that can't be traced back to the source, so now you're guilty, even though you're innocent, and it's very unfair, but Amazon has to protect the brand, and they have to protect their platform. And what happens is that they if you don't have the supply chain, back to the brand, or at least back to an excellent supplier, so if you go back to, let's say, Tech Data, or some kind of a very, very authorized supply, that's the same as going back to the brand, yeah, even if you're if you buy from Walmart, right? You know if you if it was purchased from Walmart. So you know that you're not going to ask Walmart to get their supply. That's ridiculous, but you have to get back to a point where it's 100% unfortunately, a lot of times, Amazon seems to get it wrong. And my suggestion to Amazon has always been that if you want, if you're not happy with that supplier, then fine, don't accept that supply for the seller. Let's say why they got to suspend the whole account, why they got destroyed the whole business. And Amazon seems to take draconian action on bad information, and that's the unfortunate space many resellers have found themselves in that they ran out of business and either with a tiny, tiny infraction or was no infraction at all, and now Amazon took it as an infraction, and that is why my suggestion is that it's you really can't sell any item, any branded goods that can't be traced back to supply, even if it's a pinch. Because a lot of people say supply is not going to give it to me. I always tell them that. Ask them, Can I have it, if it would save my business? You know, it's a small chance that will happen, but you need to have some kind of backup, that something, not a backup, some kind of guarantee that if Amazon asks for the full supply chain invoice, if you get audited, that they would give you a documentation, because, if not, you're going to be out of business. So I would say it's the supply chain by far.
Andrew Maff 15:04
Would you say it's mostly affecting resellers, or is it also affecting private label?
Ed Rosenberg 15:10
Right. So, so it's, I would say it's almost 100% resellers. And even for the resellers, it's for the brand names. So now for private label. If you would ask me, what private label is a little different, because, for the most part, not 100% but for private label, if you're good, you stay on Amazon, and if you not perfect, so then they would suspend, which is how I like it. I like it that it should be merit based, and sometimes they over enforce, like, for example, you can have an insert which seems okay, and they would look at it like it's not so sometimes, and there's no due process to work it out. So there are definitely wrong suspensions or over enforcement by private label. But what's good about private label is many sellers like, I know I would be shocked you don't have so much today, like the good guys who are following the rules, doing everything, mission, boom, get suspended, I don't know, but you do get it for the good guys in the resellers, because they don't control everything. So they could have gotten it from a bad source, or Amazon could have viewed it as they got it from a bad source.
Andrew Maff 16:24
Yeah, what are you finding is, like, the best way to combat that?
Ed Rosenberg 16:29
The best way to combat the well, I guess I always saved, and, sorry if you're, let's say an insert. So just don't do inserts or double and triple check. But I would say that if you're doing everything right and you're still suspended, I don't mean the reseller part. I mean the private labels, I would say a little controversial. I would say best is probably having a big social media following, like on x and as I mentioned, my name is a lot of large sellers have gotten messed up by Amazon. I've gone to Twitter, and I've got and I've just posted this story, and the next thing you know, on LinkedIn and posted this story, and which is not really fair, because a lot of you know that's the reason why I do a lot of those videos, is because a lot of people don't have that following or the English is not as great, so it works better if it goes through me, and when I do those videos, a very high percentage of them have gotten, magically, gotten reinstated.
Andrew Maff 17:38
Oh, interesting. Yeah. Oh, wow. I mean, that makes a sudden sense, and that's awesome that, like, you know, you help basically spread this message of, like, these people are getting unsuspended or getting suspended for what seems like not a really good reason. And, you know, seller supports always been a nightmare for since Amazon's been around, what's your you know, when things like that happen, it's, I mean, it's detrimental. Sometimes businesses have to just completely shut down because they can't get back up and running in time. What's your opinion on diversification and looking at other marketplaces outside of Amazon or leading into building a brand through either shop, fire, big commerce or something like that?
Ed Rosenberg 18:20
So it, I find that it's, it's, I think it's made mainly for brands, not so much for reselling. I find selling, say, Revlon, as far as I've seen them, maybe not. Maybe for sure, you know better. But I found that for brands, it's priceless. And I would say for the first time in my long e commerce career, it's, there's, there's two things. There's actually a few things about change that made diversification much better. Because number one is a lot of the younger people, like my children, are buying on temu and on the for them, Amazon is like, just another website. Like, yeah, you know, from for my generation and above, it's like Amazon. There are a lot of people who just buy on Amazon, but the younger generation, they would buy in Teemu, they buying Tiktok, Shein, for sure. And I even like the shop approximately. I like Shopify, like it used to be buying on a website like the big there's a big tech advantage that my credit card was saved, my address was saved, and everything was there. That's no longer an advantage for Amazon, because Google Chrome saves everything. But even even without that, yeah, shop app and two clicks, two clicks, I check out any website. You know, Google, everything's connected, so that that advantage Google Pay, so that that advantage, the tech advantage no longer, and then the Customer Service Advantage. And also, I don't see, I think it's better on a lot of the websites, because they throw in a lot of extras. So like, if you buy supplements from a website direct. I mean, you know, it's legitimate, but even if you buy from the directly, from the website, versus from the from the brand that sells on Amazon, the brand that sells on Amazon, they're paying 50-40, cents of every dollar to Amazon. And the petrified to break any of Amazon tools if you're buying a Shopify, you know, you sort of, it's much, right? They're paying much life, and they always throwing extras. And I just find it, I find it cheaper and better and like, if I need paper by tomorrow, I'm going to buy it on Amazon. But if I need anything else, a lot of these specialty items, I find I don't see an advantage, and if anything, sometimes a disadvantage, on Amazon. And the younger generation would ever saw Amazon versus store, they just see Amazon versus Tiktok. So for them, like Amazon just another website, and I think it's the best time to diversify.
Andrew Maff 20:53
Yeah, with Amazon, obviously, mostly on the MCF side. Now being able to fulfill out of Tiktok. Are you seeing more of those resellers start to diversify and lean into Tiktok, since it's not so much brand building, as much as is just getting in front of the right audience?
Ed Rosenberg 21:09
Yes, I do. I do. I think Tiktok shop is the real deal. And I think eBay is making a comeback too, by the way, and they have the users and eBay, Walmart, they have the stores. They provide something different. So I do, and I do agree that wanting your own reality with today's metrics on any platform is a challenge. You can't be late. You can't make mistakes. Nobody, nobody is into you know, you can make one mistake. You can't really make mistakes. You got to have a perfect system. You got to have everything labeled properly, and you got to have packaging type. And so MCF really solves that. And if you, if you, you, and there's also 3PL which I've gotten to have amazing software. So I would say that like it used to be someone who didn't know what he was doing to send it to FBA in Dubai. Now, if you don't know what you're doing, you could still, if you don't know what you're doing with my shipping aspect, you can still, you could just send it to the 3PL, and they're all hooked in. The systems are all talking to each other. Now, because they all have three PL, do a lot different software talks to each other. And you could, you could run a Shopify and do major, major, major money like you could. It's not a shock for me if I hear guys do millions of dollars a month, nothing on Amazon.
Andrew Maff 22:36
Yeah. Very interesting. Ed, very, very, very appreciative of you being on the show. I don't want to take up too much more your time. I know you're super busy. I'd love to give you the floor tell everyone where they can find out more about you, and, of course, more about ASGTG.
Ed Rosenberg 22:49
So you could connect, I'm very easy to get astg.com, if you have a compliance issue, have probably the best team in the industry that's worked on most cases. And it's not just Amazon. There's Tiktok issues, there's Walmart. In a lot of cases, we don't take because they're impossible. We don't want to take something we can't provide value. But regardless, you should definitely join the community. It's humongous. The Facebook group alone is that, I think at 82,000 82,000 the email list you can join at different levels, and it's all free, and I would love for you to join. The event is March 5. It's a lot of fun. It's a unique community. There are a lot of sellers there who only come to that event. So gives agencies and sellers an opportunity to meet sellers they would not meet at any other event. And you can contact me on LinkedIn, on X, on Facebook, and we'd love to speak to you.
Andrew Maff 23:54
beautiful Ed, thank you so much. I will see you march 5 asgtg, thank you everyone. Yeah, everyone who tuned in, thank you as well. Please do the usual thing, rate review, subscribe all that fun stuff, whichever podcast platform you prefer, or head over to the E commshow.com to check out all of our previous episodes. But as usual, thank you all for joining us, and we'll see you next time. Have a good one!
Ed Rosenberg 24:16
Thanks!
Narrator 24:19
Thank you for tuning in to the E comm show, head over to E comm show.com to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform or on the BlueTuskr YouTube channel. The E comm show is brought to you by BlueTusker, a full service digital marketing company specifically for E commerce sellers looking to accelerate their growth, go to bluetuskr.com now for more information, make sure to tune in next week for another amazing episode of the E comm show!