ZQ Magazine - Issue 05 / May • June 2022

Table of

Contents Our Brands Brand Spotlight: Animal Necessity

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Brand Highlights

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Informational Resources New Amazon Surcharges for Rising Costs

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A Guide to Listing Optimization

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Building & Enhancing Your Brand Presence on Amazon

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ZQ Community

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ZQ 101

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Charlie’s Corner

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Join Our Team

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Get in Touch

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A letter from the CEO Closing in on the halfway point of 2022 offers a great opportunity for reflecting on the successes and challenges experienced so far, and clarifying goals for the remainder of the year.

At ZQUARED, we’re lasering in on cultivating long-term relationships with our Brand Partners.

Our focus points are grounded in operating with a proactive planning mentality and further refining our strategies for each partnership. Additionally, we’re emphasizing inventory management, working to enhance our forecasting capabilities for improved accuracy. Though projecting inventory needs has always been crucial for running a successful e-commerce channel, supply chain issues caused by the pandemic make forecasting more important than ever.

As always, our number one priority is our people. Our Brand partners, employees and community are what keep us moving forward. We are so grateful for those in our circle!

Zach Cornett

Co-Founder & CEO, ZQUARED

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Our

Brands 5

Brand

Spotlight Animal Necessity is a successful company in the pet health category that focuses on delivering high-quality supplements to veterinary health professionals and pet owners around the world. Their Ocu-GLO® Vision Supplement, developed by board-certified veterinary ophthalmologists, is specifically formulated to support canine eyes.

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CHALLENGE

PLAN

Before partnering with ZQUARED, Animal Necessity’s growing recognition in the pet space began to attract unauthorized resellers.

They also experienced trademark infringement issues on the platform and were struggling to identify and remove rogue resellers to avoid misrepresentation of their products and brand.

In collaboration with Animal Necessity’s management team, ZQUARED put processes into place to quickly identify unauthorized resellers and created a plan of action for efficiently removing them. Additionally, the team developed a plan for streamlining their product catalog, optimizing their product detail pages, designing an Amazon Storefront, and implementing aggressive advertising strategies to encourage further growth and solidify Animal Necessity’s presence on the platform.

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RESULTS Since partnering with ZQUARED, Animal Necessity has experienced consistent sales and revenue growth year over year. A streamlined catalog, increased brand control, and optimized advertising campaigns all contributed to a positive trajectory for the brand. After working with ZQUARED for a period of time and experiencing such positive results, Animal Necessity made the decision to enter into an exclusive reseller agreement with ZQUARED based on trust and transparency. Today, ZQUARED and Animal Necessity enjoy a longstanding, mutually-beneficial partnership, experiencing continued success in 2022.

“ZQUARED helped us make reseller problems go away.”

Jeff Montgomery, CTO of Animal Necessity

EXECUTION The strategies implemented positioned Animal Necessity for growth on Amazon. The team tackled problems relating to rogue sellers, listing presentation, and advertising.

Additionally, ZQUARED worked with the Animal Necessity team to address a variety of issues, including duplicate listings, missing variations, and a disorganized product catalog inside of Seller Central.

“Everything about this organization is first class. My team couldn’t be happier and feel more secure since partnering with ZQUARED to manage our speciality pet heath line of products on Amazon.

I highly recommend ZQUARED to any business owners planning to clean up and/or grow their Amazon business”

Joe Fava, President & Co-Founder of Animal Necessity

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Brand Highlights For the months of May and June, we’re highlighting Sovereign Copper, Maximum Living, DrTim’s Aquatics and Dr. Olivia Naturals. We’re honored to be a part of the journey alongside these incredible brands.

Year Founded: 1999* Category: Supplements *Founding date of the parent brand, Sovereign Silver

Year Founded: 1992 Category: Supplements

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FUN FACT Originally founded in 1999 as Sovereign Silver, the brand, and its subsidiary Sovereign Copper, remains family-owned. The company leads the industry in the research and development of hydrosol products.

FUN FACT Maximum Living’s first product, MineralRich, was developed after co-founder Dr. Ross Gordon became determined to find a better way to help his patients after observing the deficiencies they were experiencing.

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Year Founded: 2004 Category: Pets

FUN FACT Founder Dr. Tim Hunt continues to practice at the same companion animal veterinary hospital he opened more than 20 years ago.

FUN FACT Year Founded: 2006 Category: Supplements

In addition to being the founder and co-owner of The Wellness Connection, Dr. Olivia Joseph holds a Bachelor’s degree in Human Biology, a Doctor of Chiropractic Degree, and is board-certified in acupuncture and Chinese medicine.

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AMAZON News

New Amazon Surcharges for Rising Costs Due to rising costs tied to inflation, the war in Ukraine, and the ongoing pandemic, Amazon announced an additional a 5% surcharge for all US-based third-party sellers who use Amazon Fulfillment Centers to store, pack, and ship products. The surcharge went into effect on April 28. Approximately 89 percent of Amazon’s two million third-party sellers use Fulfillment Centers for their sales’ shipping logistics. Analysts anticipate sellers will raise the prices on their products to offset the extra costs.

The move follows an increase in seller fees announced in November, which came into effect in January. US inflation jumped to 8.5% in March, its fastest climb in more than 40 years, while oil prices have jumped 48% in the past 12 months.

The company emphasized that inflationary costs may continue to fluctuate and are unsure of how long instability will persist. As a result, the 5% surcharge may increase or decrease depending on economic factors. Although costs for the e-commerce giant have grown in recent years due to macroeconomic events and substantial investments made into the company, Amazon’s profits have reportedly risen nearly 200% since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Amazon’s relationship with merchants has been fraught in recent years, as sellers complain to regulators that the company’s power allows them to dictate terms. Amazon sellers are required to pay a $39.99 monthly fee to list their products on the Amazon marketplace, and the company takes an additional 15 to 30 percent of the revenue from each item sold. Sellers are also often required to pay for ads to drive sales. Yet, online sellers have few viable alternatives as Amazon covers 38% of the e-commerce market, trailed by Walmart with just 6%.

Stacy Mitchell, a co-director of the antimonopoly group Institute for Local SelfReliance, said Amazon was taking advantage of the moment in his statement: “Amazon keeps increasing its fees on the sellers

that have to depend on its platform.” He added that the new surcharge was merely a way to “take money out of the pockets of independent businesses and put it into Amazon’s coffers.”

In 2021, sellers paid Amazon approximately $103bn in fees, which make up 22% of the company’s revenue. However, Amazon takes a smaller surcharge at 24 cents per unit sold to cover shipping costs than its competitors FedEx (49 cents per unit), and UPS (42 cents). Understanding how the surcharge will impact sales remains to be seen; however, sellers seem likely to increase their prices, offsetting at least a portion of the extra costs to consumers.

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A Guide to Listing Optimization Amazon listing optimization is an essential part to the success of a seller’s business. Having an optimized product detail page helps increase sales, decrease ad spend, improve conversion rates, and enhance net revenue.

Brand Consistency The first step of optimizing Amazon listings is establishing brand guidelines that will be used on all product detail pages. Branding creates strong, positive awareness around a seller’s brand and products and helps build customer recognition, trust, and loyalty. Effective branding on Amazon can be established by using the same writing and image styles on all product listings, as well as by ensuring that the brand’s website and social media pages provide the same consistency.

Keyword Research Using relevant, highly searched keywords within a listing will help it to organically rank higher within the search results page. Amazon’s A9 algorithm provides the most relevant listings to customers based on their search terms and the front- and back-end keywords within sellers’ listings.

Front-end keywords are those that are visible within an Amazon product detail page in the title, bullets, and product description, while back-end keywords are found in the product listing setup within Seller Central and are hidden from customers. Though customers won’t see back-end keywords, they are exceptionally important to product ranking when Amazon’s A9 algorithm audits them to determine a listing’s relevancy.

To identify the most relevant keywords, Amazon sellers should consider leveraging keyword research tools, such as Helium10 and Keywordtool. io. These valuable tools use a process called

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“reverse ASIN lookup” to identify which keywords competitors are using within their product listings and the overall effectiveness of those keywords on Amazon.

Content Title The product title is one of the most important pieces of SEO “real estate” on the detail page.

Amazon’s algorithm weights the keywords present in the title more heavily for SEO than other sections of the listing. Therefore, you should utilize the allotted title space carefully. Conducting extensive keyword research and including the most relevant terms is a good way to begin building an optimized title. Additionally, ensuring your title reads well and makes sense to a browsing customer is important. ”Keyword stuffing” – cramming as many keywords into a space as possible with little regard to the sensibility of the content – is a practice highly frowned upon, and can damage the credibility of your listing.

Bullets Bullet points should be used to provide customers with important product features and benefits, demonstrate product differentiators, and include relevant product keywords for additional SEO effectiveness. Writing clear, concise bullet points that anticipate the questions or concerns a customer may have is an important part of a polished listing.

A useful practice for discovering key pain points or benefits associated with your product is to read reviews on competitor listings selling similar products. You may find particular problems a competitor’s product has that your version solves, or you may discover a common user error that you can mitigate up front by providing clear directives.

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On the other hand, you may find a particular benefit that customers enjoy that should be emphasized in your content. The bullet points are a great place to provide these types of details.

Enhanced Brand Content (EBC) and Product Description Sellers have the ability to create either a basic text product description or utilize Amazon’s Enhanced Brand Content, also known as A+ Content.

The basic text product description is available to all sellers and allows you to provide information about your products in block-text format. While this area provides a good place for adding product copy that was not included in the bullet points or title, its limited formatting capabilities can make product descriptions cumbersome to read. If you have the ability to do so, utilizing EBC for a more visuallyappealing version of the product description section is ideal.

showcase features or benefits pertaining to your product in much more detail. According to Amazon, using EBC can help increase sales by 3-10%.

Images High-quality imagery is not only an Amazon requirement, but it can also significantly influence customers’ buying decisions. Amazon allows for up to nine product images per listing, which gives sellers an important opportunity to visually describe their product’s features and benefits and highlight key differentiators.

According to one study, over 75% of consumers are inspired to make a purchase through visual content. Applying this statistic to your Amazon listings, a significant portion of your resources should be allocated to aesthetic, professionalquality graphics. Capturing your audience’s attention and visually describing your product’s selling points are key to a well-optimized listing.

Enhanced Brand Content, or A+ Content, is a powerful feature available to brands enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry. This content type allows sellers to create modular displays with text and images to visually demonstrate the product’s selling points and features. Since the bullet point and title sections have a small character count allowance, the EBC section is a great way to

Customer Questions and Answers This section of the listing provides sellers with the opportunity to directly connect with their potential customers. By providing quick, concise, and accurate answers to common customer questions, a seller can increase a customer’s brand trust while addressing and mitigating concerns pre-purchase.

THE ZQUARED ADVANTAGE

ABOUT ZQUARED

ZQUARED helps Brand Partners ensure that product listings are set up properly, meet Amazon’s policies, and remain relevant in their niche. We provide our clients with custom Amazon branding guidelines that drive brand optimization through marketing and strategy execution, and we ensure all content is highly optimized across all product listings.

ZQUARED invests in brands who sell on Amazon and are poised and ready for growth. Born from a service mindset, our passion is partnering with your team to help you navigate the online retail space in a way never imagined. With more than a decade of industry-leading experience selling on Amazon, we form relationships rooted in collaboration to maximize value and achieve results.

Our teams leverage the experience of our dedicated experts to create, monitor, and audit product descriptions to ensure compliance, as well as effective keywording and product positioning.

To learn how ZQUARED can help you stay ahead in the Amazon game, request a comprehensive assessment of your Amazon channel from our Amazon Investment Partnership Team. You will receive audit results focused on your listings, category, competitors, reseller landscape and more with an individually-tailored strategic plan designed to capitalize on opportunities.

Our Amazon Investment Partnership Team will perform a comprehensive audit of your Amazon channel strengths and weaknesses. You will receive audit results focused on your listings, category, competitors, reseller landscape and more with an individually-tailored strategic plan designed to capitalize on opportunities.

For more information about how ZQUARED can enhance your Amazon selling capabilities, request an assessment of your Amazon channel, or send an email to partners@zquared.com.

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Building & Enhancing Your Brand Presence on Amazon When you envision a checkmark on a sneaker, a gecko on a commercial, or the slogan “taste the rainbow,” did a brand immediately come to mind? Brands like Nike, Geico, and Skittles have established such widely recognized branding that many of their commercials never even mention their brand name at all, and still instantly resonate with the audience.

For selling on Amazon, carrying over and implementing strong and consistent branding is key. With an influx of sellers flooding the platform, strong brand messaging provides a way to make your product line a standout. Strategically designing your branding to resonate with your target audience can be the line that establishes a success or a failure.

THE 6 KEY COMPONENTS OF BRANDING Branding is the process of creating a strong, positive awareness or perception of a company or product. The elements that contribute to brand recognition can be broken down into six key areas: 1. Brand Identity Brand identity is “who” the company is and what makes them recognizable to consumers.

This identity includes elements such as logos, design, slogans, taglines, color palettes, font, and presentation. Presentation is how all elements of brand identity come together to form a tangible aspect of the business such as website, social media, product packaging, and advertising.

2. Brand Voice Brand voice is the tone of voice a company uses when speaking about itself and its product offering. Consistent brand voice helps to humanize the brand, creates a connection between brand and consumer, and helps the brand stand out amongst competitors.

Brand voice can be established through auditory voice or written text and serves as

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the brand’s personality. Using the same tone throughout all marketing collateral helps create consistency that customers will come to recognize and expect when interacting with a brand on any medium. Examples of brand voice include Chanel (sophisticated, luxurious), Ford (tough, all-American) and Old Spice (humorous, masculine).

3. Brand Targeting Brand targeting entails identifying which market segment and type of consumer a brand is trying to reach. Market segmentation allows companies to place their offerings in the right area of the marketplace so that consumers are more likely to find and interact with their products. Understanding which market segment to target helps a seller drive consumers to their Amazon listings, which could ultimately lead to higher revenues.

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After choosing which segment of the market to target, consumer segmentation is based on identifying characteristics of ideal customers.

These characteristics can include age, sex, income level, geographic location, interests, preferences, purchase history, and more.

Amazon sellers must know their customers to ensure they are properly positioning their products in the marketplace.

4. Brand Positioning Brand positioning refers to how a brand differentiates itself from competitors and how it is viewed in the eyes of consumers within their target market. Sellers can leverage a variety of brand positioning strategies to influence consumer awareness and loyalty by understanding the wants and needs of their audience. For example, brands can set themselves apart from the competition through personalized marketing efforts, toptier customer service, or by selling a product that has more advanced features than other competitors on the market.

5. Brand Values Brand values define what a company stands for and what customers can expect when they choose to interact with that brand. When a brand abides by its values, it sets a standard of expectation that builds consumer confidence.

Today, a brand’s presentation and adherence to its mission along with its contributions to society is becoming increasingly important in the eyes of consumers. According to one study, 84% of Americans believe that businesses have a responsibility to bring social change on important issues.

6. Brand Promise Brand promise is defined as the experience or value a customer can expect to receive each time they interact with your company. Much like brand values, clearly defining company standards and then demonstrating those standards to your customers helps establish trust and commitment.

Why Is Branding Essential on Amazon?

Creating a consistent, appealing, and engaging brand on Amazon is essential to standing out amongst the oversaturated crowd of competitors. Sellers should devote time and resources to creating an Amazon brand strategy that includes recognizable product packaging, competitive pricing, cohesive marketing content, and attentive customer service. Ensuring that their Amazon presence aligns with all other customer touchpoints – i.e. website, social media, retail presence – creates the opportunity for brand recognition across all mediums.

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Founded in 2010, ZQUARED is ranked as a top 125 AMAZON SELLER with over 75k reviews, 100% of which are positive over the last 12 months.

OUR PURPOSE ZQUARED invests in brands who sell on Amazon and are poised and ready for growth.

WE-COMMERCE Putting the “we” in e-commerce. ​​ ZQUARED, we are a team of professionals At who understand the opportunities, risks and challenges on Amazon. With nearly 40 years combined experience as Amazon sellers, our primary goal is helping you multiply your success by serving as an extension of your team to maximize results. From distribution to advertising strategies, we have solutions proven to grow your brand.

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YOU GROW, WE GROW—TOGETHER Built on the belief that all boats rise with the tide, our services are based on this principle.

ZQUARED invests time, money, effort and energy into brands poised for success with the expectation of a worthwhile result— because we go all-in, growing together and winning when you win.

OUR MISSION

Our mission is to invest in brands who sell on Amazon and are poised and ready for growth by forming partnerships built on trust and rooted in relationship to maximize value and achieve results.

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OUR VALUES UNPARALLELED CULTURE ZQUARED’s motto is “we—not me”, and we strive to build an unparalleled culture by incorporating this attitude into every aspect of our workplace, empowering a team built on communication and trust with a service-based mindset to get the job done.

FIRST-RATE EXECUTION We strive to provide unmatched quality when servicing each of our Brand Partners. By intentionally being proactive, prepared, and in constant pursuit of improvement, our promise hinges on delivering top-quality results in all aspects of our work.

ENTHUSIASM Our partnerships are more than transactions—we invest in people and brands who share our drive and enthusiasm, deepening partner relations while collaborating to execute expert-level growth strategies.

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OUR HISTORY With more than a decade of experience, we’ve learned what it takes to win on Amazon: ultimately, people matter more than products, and investing in people first leads to growth and profitable Amazon brands.

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Originally named Advantage Nutrition, ZQUARED brothers and Co-Founders Chad and Zach Cornett set out to establish a brick-and-mortar retail company with an emphasis on health and wellness. They pivoted when they realized e-tail, particularly Amazon, was taking off, recognizing brands needed help navigating the everchanging e-commerce landscape.

Charlie Meyer was ZQUARED’s first official hire, and he’s been with us ever since. Our people are our foundation.

ZQUARED three time its origina basement footprint w and growi 50+.

WORKING OUT OF CHAD’S BASEMENT

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HIRING OUR FIRST EMPLOYEE

PLANT IN ST.

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2019

D has moved es since leaving al spot in Chad’s t, doubling its with each move ing to a staff of

Inc. recognizes ZQUARED as one of the fastest-growing privatelyheld companies in the United States, while the St. Louis Business Journal names ZQUARED on its “Fast 50” list.

TING ROOTS LOUIS

HARD WORK PAYS OFF

2021

AND BEYOND

ZQUARED hires Jeff Bush as President, positioning the company for continued growth

READ MORE!

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OUR PEOPLE

A united team is always behind something big. We work hard, laugh a lot, push the brainstorming boundaries, and have the best holiday parties in town.

MAY Rachel Greco Rachel joined ZQUARED in 2017. As the Assistant FBA Lead, she oversees the training of new hires as well as the daily assignment of projects in the Amazon FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon) department of our warehouse.

Recently, she’s been focused on creating an in-depth video to better prepare and inform new hires to get them up and running quickly on ZQUARED’s FBA team. Her work will help streamline the hiring process in her department to keep us moving forward smoothly.

Outside of her role at ZQUARED, she is passionate about everything music. She is the lead singer in a band and also utilizes her talents as a DJ part-time.

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OUR CULTURE Founded by brothers, ZQUARED’s roots as a family-oriented company run deep. Our “we—not me” team works together to achieve common goals while supporting one another individually, both professionally and personally. We intentionally invest in what matters most, and people are our greatest investment.

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MEET THE TEAM Meet the people at ZQUARED and share the vision and values of our community. We’re driven by the idea that results are driven by relationships, diligence and enthusiasm.

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Charlie’s Corner WHAT IS LEAN? At ZQUARED, Lean has become a way of life. It’s not something we simply do at work anymore. As a team, we have adopted the mindset of getting “two percent better” every day – which over time, has added up to profound changes!

ABOUT CHARLIE General Manager Charlie Meyer joined ZQUARED as the founders’ first full-time hire in 2010. Charlie shines brightest when making investments in ZQUARED’s most valuable asset - its people. Charlie’s Corner offers a glimpse into his world, sharing his favorite Lean Improvement insights while offering a peek behind ZQUARED’s curtains.

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MAY & JUNE LEAN IMPROVEMENTS

ZQUARED LEAN In 2016, Joe Byers joined our team from General Motors Automotive facility. He and I took a tour of GM to learn from their finetuned efficiencies and productivity workflows. Around the same time, a workplace neighbor shared “2 Second Lean” with me – a book about one piece flow, fixing what bugs you, and eliminating waste.

These two events propelled our team into a new mindset, as we began to implement daily “Lean Improvements”. Making daily two-second improvements continuously add up, and over time can have exponential results.

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ONE PIECE FLOW Setting up your daily processes so that each step connects to the previous one can save time and energy.

Begin making efforts to avoid any form of backtracking, and focus on a continual workflow without interruptions.

Step 1 should seamlessly lead into step 2, which flows into step 3, and so on.

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FIX WHAT BUGS YOU A critical component of the Lean mentality is addressing the little things that irritate you and potentially slow you down. For example, at home, where do you keep your favorite coffee mug? Is it conveniently stowed in the cabinet by the coffee pot, or do you have to walk to the other side of the kitchen to find your cup? Fix what bugs you!

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ELIMINATE WASTE Are you spending your time, energy, or money on things that boil down to a waste of time in the long run? Are there things you can outsource, reconfigure, or eliminate altogether to improve your efficiency? Look for ways to “cut the fat” and eliminate the tasks and items that are wasting your resources.

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JOIN OUR TEAM

We’re looking for enthusiastic team players to help us continue building the industry’s leading investment-minded Amazon partner.

Open Positions WAREHOUSE ASSOCIATE If you’re interested in joining our fun, unique and energetic warehouse team, we are actively seeking hardworking Warehouse Associates.

Job responsibilities include preparing customer orders, receiving and counting incoming products, and inventory reallocation. Must be able to lift up to 45 lbs routinely throughout the workday.

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Reach out to Charlie Meyer for more information: charlie@zquared.com

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Follow Us! We provide solutions for managing all aspects of the Amazon platform • Multiply Your Brand’s Success

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Check the Website If you’re attending either of these upcoming events, let us know! We’d love to see you there.

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