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In our new podcast series Small Business Bytes on This is Small Business, producer Andrea Marquez shares bite-sized insights from interviews with more than 100 US small business owners about pivotal moments, challenges, and lessons learned as they scaled their business.
In this series, Marquez explores how mindset is a powerful tool to guide long-term planning and overcome challenges:
- Know the problem you’re solving: Your why leads your decisions, your brand messaging, and keeps you going when things get tough. For example, Sean Brownlee founded Ravenox to create stable, meaningful jobs for veterans as they transition to civilian life. Teri Johnson created Harlem Candle Co to celebrate Black culture in the US through fragrance. Both found success by grounding their business in a clear purpose. Ask yourself: What pain point does my business address? And how does that connect to my deeper mission?
- Don’t wait for perfect: Trying to perfect your product before launching can stall your growth. When Val Fishbane of Spread the Love Foods launched early, real world customer data helped refine everything from the ingredients to the jar size. Consider starting small, gathering feedback, and iterating from there.
- Make your brand story personal: Storytelling builds emotional trust, but it needs to be rooted in something meaningful. Conchita Pleasant started Nefertiti’s Secrets after losing her hair during cancer treatment. She turned personal healing into a haircare brand focused on empowerment. Ray Phillips of Soap Sox created his product to help children in treatment facilities feel safe at bath time. These stories make customers feel seen and understood. Share the personal moment that sparked your business. Why did you decide to create this solution?
- Craft a pitch that hooks in seconds: A sharp elevator pitch should spark curiosity fast. Felicia Jackson (CPR Wrap) opens her pitch with a gripping moment of panic: watching her child choke and feeling powerless despite her CPR training. Matthew Tesvich (Skunk Skin) connects with humor and relatability: he jokes about his own stinky feet, then pitches odor-fighting socks. Present the problem, an emotional hook, and a simple solution, and try to do it in less than 60 seconds.
- Use social proof to build trust: User-generated content like reviews, social media tags, and customer photos and videos are powerful tools to grow your brand. Research shows that 70% of customers will consider user-generated content before purchasing a product. Create a branded hashtag, repost customer content (with permission), and add reviews or videos to your product pages or email newsletters.
To listen to all the episodes of This Is Small Business podcast, go to Amazon Music, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.
(Note: Episodes are in English.)
Verify VAT registration requirements for European stores
In order to sell in our stores in the EU, the UK, Norway and Switzerland, you must provide valid VAT registration numbers, and your business information in Seller Central must match tax authority records. If this information isn't updated, your ability to sell may be restricted.
VAT registration is required if you meet any of the following criteria:
- You use Fulfillment by Amazon.
- You ship products between EU countries for business to business sales.
- You make cross-border business to consumer sales exceeding EUR 10,000 across EU countries.
- You exceed country-specific sales thresholds.
We recommend that you verify your VAT registration and ensure it matches your business information on Seller Central.
To verify you VAT for the EU, go to the VIES validation portal.
To verify your VAT registration for the UK, go to HMRC.
For more information, go to VAT Registration Requirements.
Starting July 28, 2025, you must complete battery safety compliance questions when you create or edit any Fulfilled by Merchant products listings that contain batteries or battery-powered items. This change helps ensure both customer safety and accurate product information.
When you create a listing, you’ll now see the following question:
- Are batteries required?
If you answer yes, you’ll then see the following questions:
- Are batteries included?
- What is the battery cell composition? (Examples: alkaline, lithium-ion)
You can find battery cell composition information on the battery, manufacturer's label, or product packaging. If your battery type isn't listed in List Your Products within Add Products, select other than listed and enter the composition manually.
For more information, go to Dangerous goods required information and documentation (hazmat).
Your Account Health Rating questions answered
Your Account Health Rating (AHR) helps you monitor your account health based on your adherence to our selling policies. The colour-coded score, ranging from 0 to 1,000 lets you know if your selling account in a particular store is at risk of deactivation.
In this article, we address some common misconceptions about the AHR:
1. I need an AHR of 1,000 to ensure that my account is safe from deactivation.
No. While the AHR ranges from 1-1000, any AHR above 200 is considered healthy.
There are four severity levels for policy violations: critical, high, medium and low. You can maintain a healthy account if you have non-critical policy violations, provided that you address them quickly.
However, regardless of your AHR score, we may deactivate your account immediately if we suspect fraudulent, deceptive, illegal or otherwise harmful activity.
2. If I delete a listing that has a policy violation, my AHR will improve.
No. Your AHR will only improve if you successfully address the policy violations on your Account Health page, including any violations on deleted listings. Even if you delete a listing, you’ll still be able to address the violation via policy compliance.
3. If my order numbers drop, my AHR can fall below 200.
No. If your fulfilled order count over the last 180 days decreases, your AHR may decrease, but it won’t decrease below 200 unless you have policy violations. Maintaining policy compliance and quickly addressing any violations are the most important factors in keeping your account healthy.
For more information on how the AHR works, go to Account Health Rating programme policy.
Ensure compliance documentation comes from compliant
Starting on July 13, we’ll only accept product compliance test results from compliant labs that meet our safety standards. This change will ensure that all test results are accurate and help keep customers safe.
We’ve compiled a list of labs that don’t meet our safety standards. We recommend that you check the list before you request test results or submit product documentation.
The list of unapproved labs will be updated periodically based on our findings. If you submit a compliance document issued by a laboratory on this list, it will be rejected during our document review process.
For more information, go to Suspended validation labs.
For a list of approved labs, go to the Service Provider Network.
The countdown is on for Prime Day: July 8-11
Our annual Prime Day shopping event will take place July 8–11, offering Prime members four days of savings across categories.
It’s not too late to participate. You can create Prime Exclusive Discounts, vouchers or Sponsored Products campaigns any time before or during the event.
To learn more about Prime Day, go to About Amazon.
On July 8, 2025, we’ll update the Mediation Policy for our European stores to provide clear timelines to request mediation if your listing or selling account is deactivated.
To be eligible for mediation, you must have done the following:
- Submitted an appeal through the Account Health dashboard within six months of your listing or account deactivation
- Requested mediation within six months of the appeal outcome
- Had an active listing in one of our European stores within 12 months of requesting mediation
These changes will be reflected in our Mediation Policy and on our Requesting mediation help page on July 8.
In the meantime, you can review the changes in a PDF version of the policy, available in English only.
Your continued use of the selling services after the effective date constitutes acceptance of these changes.
You can view your delivery date-based reserve amounts as Deferred transactions on the Payments dashboard. A deferred transaction is a transaction that will be paid out to you at a future date.
For more information about this feature and how to download your report, go to View your reserves payments in the new Deferred Transactions report.
Based on feedback from sellers, we've updated our help content to include more detailed information about deferred transactions. To learn more, go to the following help pages:
- Delivery date-based payments policy
- How do I find my order payment in payment reports?
- What is a deferred transaction?
To provide feedback on this feature, email us at seller-payments-experience@amazon.com.
Change to Buyer-Seller Messaging options
We've updated our Buyer-Seller Messaging options to better protect buyer communication preferences.
Buyer-Seller Messaging allows you to contact buyers to complete orders or respond to customer service questions, however the tool shouldn't be used for marketing and promotional purposes.
To ensure messaging is only used for critical messages, we've removed the option to add "[Important]" to the message subject line and override buyer opt-out preferences.
You'll still be able to contact buyers with important messages about their orders. If the contact reason is critical to complete the order, your message will be delivered, regardless of the buyer's opt-out status.
For the best experience, we recommend that you use our message templates which automatically include order IDs, translate messages to the buyer's preferred language, and flag messages as [Important] if needed.
For more information, go to Contact a buyer using Buyer-Seller Messages.
For more information on what type of buyer messages are permitted, go to our Communication guidelines.
Resellers can now generate reviews with Amazon Vine
Our Amazon Vine programme is now available to resellers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Japan and Australia.
Resellers who are authorised by a brand enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry can now use Amazon Vine to generate reviews for their newly listed products.
Amazon Vine helps you build product awareness, boosts the sales of your slow and cold start ASINs, and helps customers make informed decisions about new products. To participate in the programme, you provide free units of your products to a selected group of our most trusted reviewers and they’ll post customer reviews.
To get started with Amazon Vine:
- Access Vine in Seller Central under Advertising.
- Enter an ASIN and click Begin enrolment.
- Verify your product information.
- Select units and click Enrol.
For more information about enrolment requirements and programme details, go to Amazon Vine.
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