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- Aggregator paid $200 for a 1 star review; $10K loss
Aggregator paid $200 for a 1 star review; $10K loss
Gather around folks…..
It’s story time 📖

Quick backstory:
I use to work in an aggregator (sacrificed everything to join them…. bad move 😞)
I was employee #14….. they grew to 120 employees in 6 months…. but I was the only employee with any actual Amazon selling experience 🤬.
They had raised over $250 million…. watched it burn within a few months 🔥
They became the first aggregator to be acquired…. the brands couldn’t be salvaged 😞
In one particular meeting they were discussing a new launch….
It was a pretty big deal because they had acquired a new brand and were 100% in charge of the launch (bad idea 😞).
I asked them about their launch strategy:
"Well Paul, it’s very simple……we will get a few vine reviews and be aggressive on PPC”
It wasn’t a bad idea…. as they had enough money to be careless and still benefit.
We had an “All Hands Call”….. the whole company was on the call and the big focus was on this launch.
They had some super impressive slides showing how they have optimised every aspect.
They felt amazing…..I could feel the “back-patting” and “high fives” through Zoom 😞
I sat back…. ‘cos I knew some Amazon issue will wreck their plans…
‘Cos selling on Amazon is like juggling chainsaws….. it’s all fun and games until you lose a hand.
They launched the product 🚀
But they forgot about one simple thing……
A bad review can wreck a PPC launch.
Their launch strategy was foiled by a one star review….
They had paid $200 per review from the Vine program.
And the first review was 1 star…..

The team was distraught……
‘Cos they leant that PPC is a lot more expensive if the ASIN only has one review…. and it’s one star 😞.
This made PPC too expensive…even for an aggregator.
They thought about it….
Had tons of meetings about it…..
Took 3 weeks for them to decide…
They were going to call back all the stock, re-label it and launch as a new ASIN.
Not a bad idea.
But would cost the brand over $10,000 in expenses (relabelling, shipping, etc).
How it should have been handled:
Action Plan: Find the customer, find the issue and get ten 5 star reviews to beat it….. One star reviews are part of the game
I said this to the team and they were too upset to hear me…. they were worried about losing their jobs (needless to say all 120 employees would be unemployed in 4 months).
Because…..
They never understood:
You can remove 1 star reviews…. you just need to know how.
So let me introduce to you Joe Nilsen, from Tracefuse
(Known him for years and he has the war scars from selling on Amazon…. he is the “smart guy” I like to keep around).
Now I use to run a launch service and reviews are one of the key factors.
So when Joe told he can remove them I said, “that sounds blackhat”.
That’s where I was wrong….
Joe uses a machine learning system that is 100% TOS compliant.
And when I looked at some of his case studies and clients….
It was evident….
His stuff works 👊 They can remove negative reviews without putting your account at risk.
Maybe if the aggregator had used this service they would still be around….. doubt it 😞.
But they at least would have save $10,000.
How much would you save?
Chat to Joe…. you won’t be disappointed 🚀.
Thanks for reading
- Paul
PS. Book a call with their team and let me know what you think
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