SOS campaign at work. A look behind the scenes at Amazon Accelerate. Today, a group of MDS members sat down for a closed-door conversation with Amazon executives and VPs across several departments, including Jenna Owens, Katie Scott, Mary Beth, Sunny, Claire and others. My biggest takeaway: Amazon wants to hear us out. There is a shared interest in helping sellers succeed and grow on the platform, and these conversations are an opportunity to help leadership understand what that looks like from the operator’s side. When we started SOS earlier this year, the goal was to bring more visibility to the challenges being discussed every day inside MDS. Rising fees, increasingly complicated policies, and the difficulty of continuing to grow profitably are influencing how sellers reinvest, launch products and diversify their businesses. We wanted those experiences to reach the people who could act on them. Since then, we’ve seen some tangible progress. Our collective push through the ads boycott helped secure an additional $10,000 in ad credits for affected accounts. At Accelerate, we also heard whispers that Amazon has paused bringing additional accounts into the program that prompted the boycott, a change from the original plan for a blanket rollout by the end of the year. More recently, we raised concerns about a new feature allowing customers to leave negative feedback alongside refund requests. After we brought it to Amazon leadership’s attention, we saw that feature removed within two weeks. Today’s meeting was a chance to build on those conversations. We discussed reviews, competitor attacks, the challenges of successfully launching products, and the impact of increased fees on sellers’ ability to invest and grow. We also talked about creating more effective channels for experienced sellers to flag problems and communicate directly with the right teams at Amazon. That last piece is especially important. Beyond addressing individual issues, we hope to establish an ongoing dialogue where seller feedback can help inform decisions, rather than only reaching leadership after something becomes a bigger problem. We also heard that a broader conversation about fees is coming. We don’t yet know what that will bring, but it is encouraging to have the opportunity to explain how those costs affect real businesses and what sellers need to keep growing. Thank you to the Amazon team for making time for a candid, constructive discussion. And thank you to everyone in MDS who has shared their experiences, supported SOS and helped us bring specific examples to the table. Your support is helping turn conversations inside this community into conversations with the people who can make a difference. There is more work ahead, and we’re going to keep building on this.

Back from our MDS Singapore Summit and finally shook off the jet lag. The key takeaway - Diversify or Die Our first ever Summit in Asia was exceptional. Members learned a ton, I got so many thank-yous afterward, and it’s always a great feeling coming home from one of these events knowing people got real value and that we helped their businesses grow. Dropping a quick video with my recap & takeaways from the summit. Also, let me know how you like this recap format. Give me some support and maybe I’ll start doing more event recaps like this. TLDR Build a meaningful second channel Choose the right channel Don’t do it alone

Was great to reconnect with MDS member #4