after watching some YouTube tutorials on online arbitrage, I finally decided to hire my first VA for sourcing and managing my new Amazon store.
They began handling my account in early Oct, 2023. As they were working I realized they were doing a lot of mistakes. They were working in English environment, but they would barely understand or write English. They were super careless, ignorant, would lie me all the time, and stop replying me when I would find their mistakes. They have lost some of my inventories. Now, they don’t reply or pay for those. In short, they are scammer! I decided to kick them out in early Jan this year. Fixed a lot of problems they created before leaving, but missed couple of them. Which has put me in big trouble now.
They listed multiple wrong products in my account, which I didn’t realize until recently. I started getting complaints in one of my listing, then realized I was selling wrong product. Yesterday, I got “Product Authenticity Customer Complaints”. Only last week, I removed a big inventory of a product because they were selling in wrong listing. I have all invoices and tracking IDs of the wrong product I was selling - name & product look very similar.
My 1st PL product is ready to be shipped, manufacturer is working on 2nd product. My 2nd PL account is ready as well, I have already filled for trademark for 2nd PL store.
Guys please help me out! I will lose about $20k if I can’t fix this.
You spent 20k and you don’t even know much about amazon. I would recommend you to spend money mastering the tools and products first. Also, my VA is from this company, she manages my PL ok, mistakes sometimes but nothing harmful, same as we all do.
Sorry to write this but is it also fair to say that you don’t know how to judge someone’s expertise and their personality while selecting them for your business and trusting them with thousands of dollars?
Not defending any scam agency or individuals who did you wrong, I am sure they scammed you as you said but it is equally if not more important to judge who’re you trusting your business with.
Thats the exact reason corporate companies have tough selection processes so they filter out people who have mentioned any kind of garbage on their CV’s.
Trusting someone without proper validation is equally wrong is my point of view regarding this.
Best you can do is fix what’s already has happened. I guess be careful going forward.
Firstly, refund all customers. Initially, ensure satisfaction for all customers. If they haven’t lodged a complaint yet, offer them a free replacement or similar through a message.
Hire the VA to find you products based on your requirements
Vet the products they suggest on the tools
Don’t give anyone your LLC, EIN details. Get your own US number. These guys haven’t figured out on how to scam your LLC yet. Once they do. It will be new can of worms
Use your own 3PL prep center.
Try to communicate with the companies.
I won’t blame only the VA’s alone. It’s unfortunately the tutors are teaching them these short cuts which is sad. It’s a great industry where an honest person can easily make good money.
I hope vou are still committed to this model. It can be a good income replacement or duplicator if done right.
To all the VA’s. Please learn your job and respect your clients time and money.
In my opinion, it’s better to start with a one-week trial and conduct interviews on every aspect. Through interviews, you’ll get a sense of each individual’s capabilities and character. Remember, not all people are the same; good and bad individuals exist everywhere. Good luck
Honestly don’t work with any of these VA’s that say they are an “expert” because they are not. I’ve been selling on amazon for 14 years and I wouldn’t call myself an expert, these guys will take a course over a few weeks and pretend they know everything.
You are the one to be blamed as you outsourced to early and you should not …Many people makes this mistake …
You only outsource when you know what you are doing so you monitor, and check ur team members work …If you dont know what they are doing then how are you going to check if they are doing the right thing or not? Tbh i dont blame them at all .Just dont take it in a wrong way, im here to advise u as a friend and dont worry we all make mistakes more or less g
Next time make sure that the Va is properly interviewed .Make sure that you train the VA and you keep an eye on everything that the VA is doing untill you are 100% the Va understood the processes then you can relax a bit g