Claim OwnershipSeller Performance Solutions
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This is the definitive podcast that covers performance and policy teams from the perspective of a former Seller Performance team member, and former Amazon employee Chris McCabe. Leah McHugh nails down analysis of listing compliance violations and presents viable solutions to troubleshoot product takedowns.
We created Seller Performance Solutions to help sellers better understand the inner workings of the team I worked on at Amazon, and to help 3rd party marketplace sellers cope with account and listing suspensions. We answer questions around things like, How does Seller Performance investigate a seller before taking them down? What do they need to see in an appeal, to reactivate the account for future selling? What are common mistakes that sellers make trying to get reinstated on Amazon?
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We created Seller Performance Solutions to help sellers better understand the inner workings of the team I worked on at Amazon, and to help 3rd party marketplace sellers cope with account and listing suspensions. We answer questions around things like, How does Seller Performance investigate a seller before taking them down? What do they need to see in an appeal, to reactivate the account for future selling? What are common mistakes that sellers make trying to get reinstated on Amazon?
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226 Episodes
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Is your Amazon business running on a "patchwork" of short-term strategies? In 2026, the margin for error on Amazon has never been thinner. Chris McCabe sits down with Cas Sanderson of Cartograph to break down the Amazon mistakes that quietly drain sales, waste ad spend, and put long-term growth at risk.
Amazon is no longer the same game it was two years ago. In this episode, Chris McCabe and Leah McHugh break down what they saw at Prosper Show 2026, and why the gap between top sellers and everyone else is getting wider fast. The biggest shift? There’s no real “middle” anymore. You’re either scaling with strategy, capital, and precision… or you’re getting squeezed on margins and falling behind. If you don't have a viable strategy for 2026, you're already behind the curve.
As black hat tactics evolve, sellers are finding it harder and harder to protect their listings. In this episode, Chris McCabe sits down with Shane Barker of TraceFuse to pull back the curtain on the increasingly sophisticated world of Amazon review manipulation, and discuss what it actually takes to win a dispute in today’s high-stakes ecosystem.
Is your brand ready for the "Agentic AI" shopping revolution? In this episode, Chris McCabe sits down with Matt Kostan from ProductPinion to break down how agentic AI shopping, Amazon Rufus, and LLM-powered search are reshaping ecommerce. They discuss what this shift means for Amazon sellers, brands, and listing strategy, including how to stand out when AI models are choosing which products to recommend.
Are you getting "mush" back from Amazon Seller Support? In this episode, Chris McCabe and Leah McHugh dive deep into the current state of Amazon Seller Performance as they prepare for the 2026 Prosper Show and MDS Inspire. The landscape has changed: Account Health leadership is shifting, and the escalation strategies of the past are being replaced by AI-driven decision trees. Chris and Leah break down why your current appeal strategy might be failing and what you need to change before your next submission.
Is your Amazon brand being managed by an expert, or a $2,000-a-month "ghost" agency? if you’re paying pennies for account management, you’re likely getting exactly what you paid for. In this episode, Chris McCabe sits down with Andrew Morgans of Marknology to discuss the trend of agencies slashing retainers to stay alive, the reality of offshore outsourcing, and why brands are finally hitting a "come to mama" moment with their in-house teams.
Think you know Amazon’s rules? Think again. In this episode, Chris McCabe and Leah McHugh break down the surprising results of Leah’s recent Amazon Policy Quiz. If you’re a brand owner or high-volume seller, the data is alarming: even experienced sellers are failing critical compliance questions that lead to immediate account suspension.
Is Amazon product search dead? Are keywords obsolete? Is AI about to rewrite the rules of eCommerce overnight? In this episode, Chris McCabe sits down with Bradley Sutton of Helium10 to break down the truth behind Amazon’s AI-powered search assistant, Rufus, and what the data actually shows.
Most sellers think they’re playing a "cat and mouse" game with Amazon’s TOS, but many times they're actually playing with federal law. In this episode, Chris McCabe sits down with Andrew Smith of Swapt to unpack one of the hottest and most misunderstood topics in eCommerce right now: how brands can encourage repeat purchases, improve customer education, and build long-term growth without crossing compliance lines. Questions for Andrew? Reach out at https://swaptqr.com/ or reach out to him directly at andrew@swaptqr.com Join us in NYC on Thursday, Feb 12 for an in-person, hands-on meetup built for serious brand owners navigating tighter enforcement and intensifying competition. See Andrew Swapt LIVE for his session on "How to Increase Customer Loyalty on Amazon." Tickets + details: https://luma.com/bgw413hl
Amazon enforcement is getting stricter, and a lot of sellers are still getting tripped up by the same avoidable compliance gaps. In this episode, Chris McCabe and Leah McHugh talk about what’s actually causing suspensions right now, why “longer appeals” often backfire, and how the rise of AI-generated advice is leading sellers to submit misinformation (including completely made-up “laws”) into cases.
Are you losing thousands in daily revenue due to an Amazon ASIN deactivation? In this episode, Chris and Leah dive into the "compliance trenches" to discuss why so many Amazon sellers are failing their appeals in early 2026, breaking down the most expensive mistakes sellers make when hit with restricted product flags or safety concerns.
Is ChatGPT helping or hurting your Amazon appeal? Many sellers are now using AI tools to scrape the web for information on how to handle specific ASIN takedowns or account suspensions. They treat ChatGPT like a crystal ball, asking it to predict the viability of an appeal. In this episode, Chris McCabe breaks down this alarming trend of Amazon sellers outsourcing their judgment to ChatGPT and then acting surprised when Amazon sends back a boilerplate denial. AI tools scrape the internet. The internet is full of confused sellers, failed appeals, and bad assumptions. If you base your strategy on that, you’re stacking the deck against yourself.
Is your Amazon Account Health strategy simply "waiting it out"? In this episode, Chris McCabe exposes the dangerous reality of the "180-Day Roll-Off" strategy. Many sellers believe that if they ignore a violation for six months, it simply vanishes. The truth? That violation is likely sitting dormant in your history, ready to trigger a suspension the moment a new complaint comes in. We are seeing Amazon teams pull data from as far back as 2023 to justify suspensions today. If you are sitting on your hands or clicking "Acknowledge" just to clear your dashboard, you are painting a target on your back.
Amazon doesn’t “keep reviewing” your appeal. They decide whether you’re serious, competent, or confused, and they decide it fast. Once you submit a weak, rushed, or inconsistent appeal, your case drops into the generic-denial lane. From there, every follow-up gets skimmed, recycled, and dismissed while your sales bleed out during Q4 and beyond. In this episode, Chris McCabe breaks down why changing strategy mid-appeal, outsourcing blindly, or sending AI-generated filler destroys credibility with reviewers and quietly eliminates escalation leverage.
Sellers keep calling Amazon Account Health hoping for clarity, yet the more they call, the more confused they get. In this episode, Chris McCabe breaks down why sellers are getting stuck in an endless loop of mixed messages, contradictory guidance, and copy-paste appeal denials that explain absolutely nothing.
Cyber Five is finally behind us — and for once, the sky didn’t fall. In this episode, Chris McCabe breaks down what actually happened across Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the peak week that followed, and explains why abuse attempts were lower this year, how Amazon’s internal teams seem to be improving their detection game, and why seller-led reporting is becoming a real force multiplier inside the marketplace. He also digs into the problems that did surface, suspicious refund spikes, targeted negative review attacks, and illicit keyword injections, and what sellers must do to escalate those issues correctly without wasting time on dead-end Support cases.
This Holiday season, enforcement teams are in full zero-tolerance mode, and sellers are getting hit for mistakes they didn’t even realize were violations. If you think “gray areas” still exist, or that Amazon is too busy to notice what you’re doing this week, you’re already in trouble.In this episode, Chris McCabe breaks down exactly what Amazon is cracking down on this Black Friday: abuse reports that boomerang back onto your own account, sloppy listing edits made under pressure, appeals that miss the point, and compliance shortcuts that get flagged instantly during peak season. When enforcement is this aggressive, one wrong move can drop your top ASIN (and your Q4 revenue) with no warning.
Too many brands are going scorched-earth on Amazon and it’s blowing up in their faces. In this episode, Chris McCabe explains why aggressive tactics against resellers, sloppy counterfeit claims, and “secret” removal services are triggering enforcement actions against the brand itself. Chris breaks down where sellers go wrong: unproven counterfeit allegations, missing test-buy evidence, misuse of Brand Registry, and blind trust in consultants who won’t disclose their methods.
Evasive listing tweaks are triggering suspensions at record speed. One tiny change to a title, one “quick fix” from a VA, or one unnoticed ASIN edit can flip your entire account from green to red overnight. In this episode, Chris breaks down the exact behaviors setting off Amazon’s enforcement systems: misbranding, hidden detail-page edits, restricted-product evasion, illicit ASIN merges, brand registry mismatches, and competitor-driven sabotage you might not catch until it’s too late.
Some sellers are finding out the hard way that Amazon’s AI has no idea what their products are. Chris and Leah dig into what’s really breaking down inside Amazon’s compliance system, how bad categorization, automation, and silence from support teams are creating a perfect storm right before Q4.
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