Meet Maurice, an Amazon-native brand owner in the toys category doing $6M/yr in revenue. Over the past years, Maurice has invested millions of dollars into building his business. Hundreds of thousands of children have enjoyed the toys he has sold.

One of the brand's top products—a toy ball—quickly worked it's way up to selling 350 units a day on Amazon. But then Maurice started seeing negative reviews on his listings.

"I wouldn't ever think there would be an issue, it's just a ball…and it's a it's a very popular toy that it's been around since I was born. It's the simplest toy."

Maurice Mann

The product loses nearly 100% of sales

"Maybe your first 2-4 bad reviews you might think it's a competitor because sometimes they do that. It's just the nature of the business, and you can't stop that.

But when you see review upon review, and then I myself order samples from Amazon and have friends do the same, and you see what customers are writing is true—you can't hide behind that.

And then it slowly trickles down. You know, I was selling at a point 750 units a day during the holiday season. And then it's over, and we're selling 300 units. And then it just trickles down until you're selling 5 units a day.

You can go from 350 units to 120 units per day in just 2-3 days. It can happen very quick"

Maurice Mann

Over the course of just a few short weeks, Maurice lost nearly 100% of his sales as his product rating deteriorated. What happened?

Despite best practices, bad products reached customers.

When initially finding his suppliers, Maurice ordered samples from a number of suppliers. His chosen supplier had great samples which he approved before ordering mass production. He was also working with many other inspection companies to check his products before they were shipped.

Despite the high quality sample and some pre-shipment inspections, the supplier allowed poor quality to seep into the final production run.

Maurice starts working with Movley.

That is when Maurice decided to seek Movley’s help with quality control.

Our quality engineers used our data and insights to build a new checklist for his toy ball product. Over several months of partnership with Movley, Maurice was able to perfect and relaunch his product listing which now has a rating of 4.7 stars, up from 3.5 stars.

"I've been through many inspection companies. They don't really care about your [products], and you don't really have a team to speak to. You're also not getting [process and checklist] suggestions.

Now our listing is 4.7 stars…We couldn’t have done it without Movley."

Maurice Mann

Maurice was so pleased with the results, he brought over many of his other products and has seen improvements across the board.

Amazon is more important (and risky) than ever

Amazon is essentially synonymous e-commerce. In fact, 37.8% of the US e-commerce market is owned by Amazon ⁽⁴⁾. With millions of customers, and low barrier to entry, it is among the most attractive places to sell your goods. But those low barriers to entry mean stiff competition. It is estimated that around 3,700 new sellers join Amazon every day⁽²⁾ with nearly 2M active sellers.

With competition this fierce, you don’t have a lot of margin for missteps. Did you know a product with a 4-star rating will experience a 50% conversion rate drop vs. if it maintains at least a 4.5 star rating⁽¹⁾? What can you do to maximize probability of maintaining good product ratings?

Your strongest moat in a competitive marketplace?

Strong Product Reviews.

95% of customers read reviews before making an online purchase⁽⁵⁾. The best way to take advantage of this behavior is to be vigilant in maintaining the best product experience possible. If buyers have positive experiences with your product, they will be more likely to leave positive reviews.

But how do you protect your good reviews? A dentist will tell you it is easier to prevent a cavity than to fill one. The same is true for product reviews. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Enter inspections.

Inspections, rapid fire

What are inspections?

An inspection is when a trained individual goes to your supplier's location to check your products for defects. This can be done pre-production to check your raw materials, mid-production, or at the end of production. The most popular type of inspection is a pre-shipment inspection done after production is completed.

How often should you be doing inspections?

An industry best practice is to do inspections on every purchase order. For more complex products or larger orders, it may make sense to do multiple inspections on each order.

Why should you be doing inspections?

Let's look at direct costs first. The cost of a bad order or even a small mistake (e.g. mislabeling, un-scannable barcodes) on a single order can be devastating to your business. Review decline. Lost orders. Account suspension. Returns. Warranty Claims.

It's not just the direct costs but also the indirect costs. A customer will tell 16 other people about a bad brand experience⁽⁶⁾. Your brand may lose long term potential customers.

Maurice’s story is not unique. We hear every day about Amazon businesses that were greatly impacted by one bad batch. Some of which even close their doors after several years in business.

Inspections are Inexpensive

You might be wondering—how much is an inspection? A typical inspection costs around $300/service-day. Many inspections just take one service-day, and for larger orders with more complex products, it may take more.

The cost of an inspection should be accrued into your Cost of Goods (COGs). On an order of $10,000USD, a $300 inspection is negligible at just 3% of COGs while ensuring good quality. On larger orders, the cost is even less!

Just catching one bad order can easily offset a decade or more of inspections across all of your purchase orders!

Get Better & Easier Inspections with Movley

As a team of former 6, 7, and 8-figure consumer brand sellers, we originally built Movley based on our first-hand experiences. Our platform makes it incredibly easy to store your products and book inspections on every purchase order.

How It Works

1. Add Your Products - Tell us about your products. We’ll ask you a number of questions such as product materials, logo printing, dimensions, labeling requirements, and more. You can add this information once and it’s always stored in our platform!
2. Book Your Inspection - Once you’ve placed your purchase order, just input it into our platform.
3. We’ll Review - Our team of quality engineers will make recommendations on what the inspector should check for based on our insights & data. Then, we’ll coordinate with your factory to setup a date of inspection.
4. Get Your Results - Once your inspection is complete, we’ll deliver an inspection report within 24 hours. Simply view the results in our platform, and work with your supplier to resolve any uncovered issues.

Footnotes:
1. https://datahawk.co/blog/how-product-listings-impact-amazon-conversion-rate#:~:text=We%20found%20that%2C%20on%20a%20median%20basis%2C,star%20rating%20has%20a%20coefficient%20of%200.183
2. https://www.junglescout.com/blog/amazon-statistics/#:~:text=5.,billion in selling partner success
3. https://www.junglescout.com/amazon-seller-report/
4. https://www.statista.com/statistics/274255/market-share-of-the-leading-retailers-in-us-e-commerce/#:~:text=As of June 2022%2C Amazon,retailer by a considerable margin
5. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/01/13/2366090/0/en/Brand-Rated-Nine-out-of-ten-customers-read-reviews-before-buying-a-product.html
6. https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2019/09/24/50-stats-that-prove-the-value-of-customer-experience/#:~:text=Customers tell an average of,experiences in store and online