By Alex Kassab - It is not a secret that Amazon is the biggest marketplace in the US and the world. Amazon represents a big part of eCommerce and having an Amazon strategy for your brand is important to get your product into current and future customers' hands.
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I see it as having an aquarium (your brand with your eCommerce store) and going hunting for more fish in the ocean (Amazon). Amazon is where your potential future customers are buying, therefore our duty is to make sure they discover our brand where they are currently buying.
Once they explore and buy your product, then you have a small window to try to convince them to go to your site and continue nurturing that relationship.
Some impressive Amazon Stats:
I started selling online back in 2006 when I lived in Venezuela. I used to sell stuff on MercadoLibre, a marketplace like eBay in Latin America. Later I moved to the US and started selling on Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and other marketplaces.
Let's assume you have a community and a product and you want to launch your brand to the world.
Here are some lessons I learned and what I would do if I were starting a brand today.
You need to have a website and a place where you can list all your products. This is like your house. You own the land, you can create your own rules and terms of service.
The main difference between your website and Amazon is that you get to know your customers, their phone numbers, email addresses, how often they buy from you, and what they like.
This is key to really understanding where to innovate and the pulse of the brand.
Assuming you own the trademark of your brand, the first step is to register with Amazon Brand Registry.
This allows you to use different tools Amazon offers to enhance your listing and protect your brand from potential IP infringements by your competitors.
Amazon is all about the experience and these tools allow you to add pictures, videos, enhanced content, and a better grip on your listing.
Select one or two products to launch.
If you list every single one of your SKU then you will dilute the effort. It is important to only list your best-selling product, so you can focus 100% of your attention on making that product rank on A9 (Amazon Search Algorithm).
You will still have all your portfolio on your website, but on Amazon focus on ideally one product at a time.
Many brands don't pay attention to their presence on Amazon and they either let other sellers list their products or simply do not have any presence at all. Both of these options harm your brand, especially option 1 as you are at the mercy of the person that listed the brand.
There are two options when selling on Amazon. FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) and FBM (Fulfillment by Merchant). I suggest you try FBA as Amazon will do the fulfillment for you. You can list your product to have a backup as FBM in case you go out of stock on FBA.
Amazon loves this. You are going to do a big launch through your social channels, blog, website, email list, influencers, etc, and drive tons of traffic to your listing. Since you are bringing outside traffic to Amazon and they are converting, Amazon will rank you higher than other products. Depending on the size of your community you might get into the “Amazon Hot New Releases”. That will trickle new eyeballs and therefore your community will make other potential buyers notice your product.
There are tools to help optimize your pricing and make sure you are being competitive. Pricing changes multiple times a day and tools like Profasee help you maximize sales, margins, and profits.
Once you get your initial sales since it is your community the verified purchase reviews will start trickling down and help you rank higher for the keywords in your listing.
That is why it is important to make sure your listing has the proper keywords so amazon knows what are you selling.
Try as much as you can to never go out of stock. This will make the product tank as it will not sell while you are out of stock. It is an art and a science, how many units do you need to send to avoid going out of stock, but at the same time, you don't want to send too many as Amazon will charge you per sq ft of inventory stored.
Once you rank your first product, you can plan a second launch for your second product. Many sellers try to list everything at once and end up not positioning any product as the efforts get diluted among all products.
If you use Amazon as a way to acquire new customers and your website as a way to nurture your customers, you will probably have a great brand. I used to rely too much on Amazon which is a risky game to play, as you are relying on rented land and you might get kicked out when you least expect it. Having an omnichannel brand or channel agnostic brand is the way to go in 2022.
About the author: Alex Kassab, a Serial Entrepreneur, Brand Builder, and Digital Marketer is an expert entrepreneur in the USA featured multiple times in the media as a successful history and case study for its brands Vitabox and Paletas Morelia. Check out more about Alex here!
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